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Maui Hawaii Fires

  • Web Diva
    Leader
    August 15, 2023 7:11 PM CDT
    Devastating fires have ravaged Maui, with catastrophic property damage and fires also on the Big Island of Hawaii too. The news and stories from these fires are horrific. Praying for these Hawaii people in so much suffering and displaced from their homes, and the lives lost. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/14/us/maui-wildfires-what-we-know/index.html

    As the death toll rises, officials are facing questions about their preparation for a disaster of this scale and their response to it:

    • While the deadly fires spread rapidly into neighborhoods, the largest siren system in the world was silent. Emergency communications with residents were largely limited to mobile phones and broadcasters at a time when most power and cell service was already knocked out.

    • The state’s main electric provider, Hawaiian Electric, is facing a lawsuit claiming power lines blown over by high winds helped to cause the destructive Lahaina wildfire, though an official cause of the wildfire has not yet been determined.

    • Hawaii’s emergency management agency reported last year the risk posed by wildfires to human life was low. Officials underestimated the deadly threat of wildfires even as they acknowledged a lack of necessary resources to mitigate them, records show.

    I've also read that hurricane Dora that passed 500 miles south of Hawaii caused high winds that caused some of these fires where it's very dry. Very sad to lose so much.

  • Web Diva
    Leader
    August 18, 2023 9:47 AM CDT
    Some of you weather nerds may already know that Hawaii generally doesn't have direct hit hurricanes. Hawaii will have hurricanes more around them and it's rare for a direct hit hurricane. That's why it's curious that hurricane Dora that was 500 miles south of Hawaii was passing at the time the fires started in Maui. Some claim the high winds from the hurricane fanned the flames since Hawaii was already in a red zone warning for fire danger.

    Here's a short read on Hawaii hurricanes.

    https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2022-07-12-hawaii-hurricanes-tropical-storms-history />

    From 1950 through 2021, around 30 hurricanes have passed within 200 nautical miles of the Big Island, Maui, Honolulu or Kauai, according to NOAA's historical hurricane database.

    The last one to do so was Category 4 Hurricane Douglas in July 2020, whose center came just 30 miles north of Oahu on July 26. Douglas' wind gusts downed some trees and produced bands of locally flooding rain in parts of the islands.