Lahaina, Maui Fire August 8th, 2023

Background

Maui, a small island in the South Pacific, is part of the Hawaiian Island Chain. An invasive, non-native species of grass has invaded the dry areas of the eastern side of the island. These 4-6 feet high patches cover many acres. In the summar they turn brown and easily catch fire. On August 8th four wildfires started in Eastern Maui. There are about 30 fireman total on Maui. They responded to one north of Lahaina, and put it out, then left to put out the others. Later that day high speed winds traveling 50-70 miles per hour fanned the embers of this first fire north of the town of Lahaina, and it raced across the wild grasses towards the sea, consuming everything in its path. One of those things consumed was the 300 plus year old town of Lahaina. The fire burned 90-95% of the town of Lahaina to the ground.

The aftermath: arrival of FEMA snd the Red Cross

Four days after this fire struck our Federal Government agencies arrived to help. So for 4 days the people of Maui took care of their own.

Centralization and Control

The word on the street is that both organizations are all about centralization and control.
Centralized operations in one place.
Centralized distribution of money, food, clothing and other supplies, even centralized provision of healthcare.
Centralized control over every aspect of the relief effort.
This centralization has as its priority only giving aide to people who can prove they are displaced by the fire, provide identification and an address, and only give them enough for one person.
Their priority is to prevent fraud and abuse, not to alleviate suffering.

Please don’t get me wrong, one of their goals is to relieve suffering, cloth the unclothed, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, provide medical care to the injured. They have good hearts, I think. But they are not focused on relief, they are focused on control of everything to prevent fraud and abuse. This mindset causes them to deprive the needy, in order to stop the greedy.

This mindset of centralization and control also ignores certain important factors. Because they are centralizing distribution and seeking to control everything, the needy people need to come to them. They have made little effort to go to the people.
They seem to be unable to grasp that peoples cars and trucks burned up in the fire. These people have no transportation, and those with trucks have very little gas. Finally them seem oblivious to the trauma. Many people don’t want to go back into Lahaina yet. They were traumatized by this horrific event and they are not emotionally prepared to see their town, and its destruction, yet.

Decentralization and Distribution
In the four days after the disaster local people organized the relief effort.

The relief supplies were divided up and given to various groups who took supplies to the widely scattered survivors.

Many tent cities sprung up outside Lahaina, where residents, now homeless went to live and wait for help.

Locals organized into mobile distribution units going to where the people were and the same thing applied to medical care.

Boats and trucks took volunteer healthcare providers to the camps, where they walked amongst the people starting up casual conversations to break the ice and establish a friendly relationship.
Why boats? Reason number one it is an island, and reason number two Police blockades made traveling on the single open two lane highway take hours.

Once you’re in the camp, many people are covered in dirt, soot, blood. Some are still wearing the clothes they were wearing when they escaped the fire.

Then you asked to look at their wounds and provided basic wound care and listened to people tell their stories of the horror that they had experienced. These people were in shock. They needed to be handled gently and slowly, asking permission to remove their dirty bandages and permission to wash their wounds, apply antibacterial ointment and new bandages.

These were simple acts of human caring, which seemed to restore their smiles and perhaps reminded them that they were worthy of care. Because many felt deserted and abandoned.

Summary: centralization and control are hampering relief efforts on the island of Maui.

The initial efforts, led by local residents was the model of decentralization and distributed networks. All goods, water, clothing and supplies were given to various groups to take back to their tent city and camps to distribute. There was very little documentation and decentralized control. The priority was to distribute whatever came in, and prioritize the needy and ignore the greedy, except the most egregious or extreme ones.
This lasted four days.

But then the Red Cross and FEMA arrived. They took over the donations and supplied. Centralized the stockpiling of relief supplies, and centralized distribution. They took control, and control seemed to be their priority. The Red Cross is a non-governmental agency, who doesn’t follow the orders of FEMA, nor work well with the government agency FEMA. In fact they publicly argue about strategy and control.

Both organizations want to centralize, instead of distribute supplies. Both seem oblivious to the reality that the residents of Lahaina are scattered all over the island living in hotels, with friends and relatives, and many lost their identification ( drivers licenses and state ID cards, their communication (phones) and transportation (cars and trucks burned up).

I understand their focus on eliminating abuse of the disaster aide and fraudulent receipt if aide. But I think their focus on the greedy, is hindering their real purpose, helping the needy. And their centralized models fail in a decentralized, distributed situation.

While I have faith, that the smart and educated people who work for the Red Cross and FEMA will eventually figure these things out. I am disappointed that they didn’t come equipped with this knowledge.

Well, as we say in Hawaii; It is what it is.

We will work with them, and around them, to care for our own. So the citizen boat trips continue.
The unofficial mobile medical units continue.
The unofficial delivery of food, water, clothes and hope continue.
These are our people, we will care for them.

TLDR:

Article summary:

Centralized and control focused disaster aid systems fail in distributed disaster scenarios, and require decentralized distribution systems, which focus on the goal, not control.