Maui Emergency Chief Defends Decision Not To Activate Warning SirensThe leader of the Maui Emergency Management Agency is defending his department’s decision not to activate a siren network to warn people last week that a fast-moving fire was descending upon Lahaina.
Called an “all-hazard” system, the sirens are intended to be used for a variety of natural and human-caused events, including fires, Maui’s own website states. The four sirens in the Lahaina area are part of what Hawaii calls the “largest single integrated outdoor siren warning system for public safety in the world.”
But in practice, the system is used mainly for tsunami warnings, MEMA Administrator Herman Andaya said, and the Maui Emergency Management Agency didn’t consider them, as Civil Beat reported.
Andaya elaborated on that decision in a Tuesday interview. “We would not use sirens in a case like this,” he said. “That’s not what we normally would do. We just don’t use sirens for fires.”
Officials instead opted to activate warnings through people’s cell phones, Andaya said. At least some residents received cellphone notifications to evacuate after 4 p.m., according to the New York Times, but many did not. Electrical power and cell service was down in much of the area last Tuesday when the fires sparked and spread.
The sirens are solar-powered and can sound even when electricity is down through a satellite data signal.
In the end, many residents and visitors said they fled Lahaina after seeing or smelling smoke coming their way. But with traffic backups and multiple road closures caused by downed power lines, some died in their cars as they tried to escape. Others pushed through smoke and flames to jump over a sea wall and into the ocean. There, they endured hours of punishing winds and smoke and watched the town burn until the Coast Guard came to rescue them. ...................
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/maui-emergency-chief-defends-decision-not-to-activate-warning-sirens/