Water systems buckled under heat of Maui blazes, leaving no way to battle flames
The water systems in West Maui failed under the extreme heat of the island’s deadly wildfires, leaving many residents and firefighters unable to combat the flames, it surfaced Monday.
The infrastructure of the destroyed city of Lahaina and nearby communities is under scrutiny after reports that hydrants and water pumps were knocked out during the Hawaiian island’s biggest crisis, with the wildfires taking out the power needed to operate them and even melting the water pipes, the New York Times reported.
Ross and Gayle Hart, Upcountry homeowners, were among the local residents trying to salvage their homes who fought alongside firefighters for hours last Tuesday until their hoses gave out.
“It just disappeared — like we just ran out of water,” Gayle told NBC News. “My husband, I give him credit, he fought the battle until the end.”
Hawaiian Electric is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly ignoring warning signs to shut off power lines during hurricane-force winds.
The company has noted that West Maui’s water system relies on electrical power to deliver water to hydrants.
Turning off the power would have left firefighters without water — but the decison to leave it on seemed to be in vain anyway because the wildfires eventually took out power stations and damaged water valves.
“Then the fire just grew,” Ross told the Times about the moment the water shut off. “The sparks started blowing over, and we couldn’t keep up with our buckets to put out the little spot fires.
“It just beat us in the end. We had to get out,” he added. “You can’t fight fire when you don’t have water.”
The situation proved to be especially dangerous for firefighters, who found themselves without water in the heat of battle and were forced to move to precarious locations in hopes of finding working hydrants.
Keahi Ho, a firefighter who was on duty in Lahaina, told the Times that every time his crew thought they had extinguished one fire, another popped up in an area where the hydrants ran dry.
“There was just no water in the hydrants,” he said, echoing similar complaints from other firefighters.
But Ho stopped short of blaming officials, saying the destruction was ultimately a result of aging infrastructure and an unprecedented natural disaster.
Without the proper means to combat the raging flames, residents helplessly watched as the wildfires only stopped after they consumed the resort city of Lahaina, leaving at least 96 people dead in their wake.
Officials have yet to determine the actual cause of the fire, claiming the investigation could take weeks or months to conclude as emergency workers comb the destroyed city for victims.
Questions also linger about Maui’s emergency siren system, which failed to activate during the fires, with the state’s Emergency Services Administration instead sending out alerts through mobile devices, radio and television.
But many likely failed to see the alerts due to widespread power and cellular outages across Maui.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said it wasn’t clear why the sirens weren’t activated but that the fire destroyed much of the equipment.
Green has said there will be a full review on all the factors that played a role in the island’s devastation.
