Tourist killed in Maui wildfires saved up for ‘healing’ trip, died one day before her flight back home
A grandmother from California is the first tourist to have been identified as among the 115 confirmed victims in the Maui wildfires — dying just a day before she was due to fly home.
Theresa Cook, 72, of Pollock Pines in El Dorado County was among eight victims whom island officials identified on Tuesday.
She was staying at the Best Western Pioneer Inn and was last seen near the island’s famous banyan tree at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 8, around the time the massive blaze overwhelmed the historic downtown area of Lahaina.
Cook was scheduled to fly home to Sacramento just a day later.
Neighbors told ABC 10 she had recently shared how she saved up money for the big trip to get “some solitude and rest for herself.”
“She had messaged us and said she was having a wonderful time and the island was so healing,” Cook’s daughter, Melissa Kornweibel, told KCRA.
“It was so beautiful,” the dead woman’s son, Adam Cook, added. “She loved it there.”
The siblings had held out hope for weeks that their mother might have miraculously survived the blaze, as they scrambled to find out any information about Cook’s whereabouts.
Kornweibel said she reached out to the hotel’s property manager and another guest to ask if people had been evacuated.
She found out that guests had been evacuated, but her mother was missing.
For nine days, the siblings sought answers from the Red Cross and the Coast Guard, and reached out to people on Facebook.
“They received little guidance as to where their mother had gone but they remained hopeful,” a GoFundMe set up for the family says.
They finally received the devastating news about their mother on Sunday.
“It’s a lot to process,” Adam said. “It’s still hard to even admit.”
Still, Kornweibel said: “I don’t blame anybody.
“Things happen. Natural disasters happen. We’re human, we make mistakes. We do the best with the information we’re given.”
Locals have told The Post how the fire started early in the morning of Aug. 8 when a transformer blew and ignited dry grass on Maui County-owned land, about a mile from Lahaina’s historic waterfront.
By 9 a.m., county officials reported that the morning fire was “100% contained” — even though hurricane-force gusts were still blowing in the area.
They then left the scene, with county officials later saying the first responders were needed in other locations. But within an hour, the brush fire reignited and roared down the hillside toward the ocean, destroying nearly everything in its path.
Meanwhile, the heads of the Maui and Hawaii emergency management agencies were at an annual conference on Oahu on Aug. 8, the day the fires started leveling Lahaina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) confirmed to HawaiiNewsNow (HNN).
Key federal officials were also at FEMA’s annual disaster meeting when one of the worst disasters in recent US history started occurring on the other island, the outlet said.
The officials gathering in Waikiki only became part of a “coordinating call about 11 a.m.,” a state emergency management spokesperson told the local outlet of what would have been nearly five hours after the blazes started.
The death toll from the fire has reached 115 people, as the number of missing has increased to 1,100.
What we know about the Maui wildfires
At least 114 people have died in the Maui wildfires that started last Tuesday.
The wildfires, fanned by strong winds, burned multiple buildings, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities.
The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora was partly to blame for the strong winds that knocked out power as night came. About 13,000 residents in Maui were without power, according to reports.
People rushed into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames fanned by Hurricane Dora.
Fire crews battled multiple fires in the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland mountainous region. Firefighters struggled to reach some areas that were cut off by downed trees and power lines.
“We know we’re not alone,” Kornweibel said. “There’s so many people missing and so many people have lost their lives, and we’ve never done this before.
“We would just love any advice and encouraging words and support.”
