Geezus - 53 dead and counting in Hawaii fires
- Thread starter Loyal Coug1
- Start date
yeah, but it only took two full days and 36 deaths to get sleepy joe to declare an emergency.
maybe someone will go on national tv and declare "Joe Biden hates Poly people"
maybe someone will go on national tv and declare "Joe Biden hates Poly people"
In all seriousness, its a damn tragedy and it happened the same way people die needlessly on the east coast every hurricane season: old and poor people have no resources or place to go so they stay put until its too late.
Oh c'mon. Was he going to load fire trucks onto those big military planes? Gawd what are they called? What do you do?
Lahaina was destroyed yesterday and was on its way the day previous. Hawaiian officials had been asking since yesterday. And yes, he mobilizes the military to use their resources ASAP instead of after everything is burnt to a crisp. Not sure if you've ever been to the islands, but the infrastructure is generally lacking to combat a natural disaster like this, so yes all hand on deck would have helped.
Rachel Maddow already claimed Russian operatives set the fires
of course she did. Can't miss a golden opportunity to politicize a tragedy.
Isn’t that what you sorta just did in this thread?
You're right.
However, pointing out the slow federal response and making wild conspiracy theory allegations are apples and oranges imho. That being said, I should have probably led with sympathies and left it at that. I just saw the Hawaiians were asking for help yesterday and thought it'd get done yesterday, over night or this AM, not late this afternoon.
edit - the federal order was this AM, whatever headline I read was dated 5pm so I thought it was this evening. So I'm an asshole and I apologize.
A good friend of ours for years, Victoria, lost her Jewelry store on Front Street and her Lahaina home. Victoria is one of those amazing individuals, but she lost everything. Both her business and her home. We were just there in June of 2021 for over two weeks, and would visit her business, art galleries, restaurants, the Banyan Tree, and of course Warren and Annabelle's Magic show. All destroyed.
It puts everything into perspective, including Cougar Football.
It puts everything into perspective, including Cougar Football.
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My wife flew home from Hawaii Tuesday evening. She was concerned a bit about not getting out cause some high winds were expected but she was fine. There were no fires at the time of her departure. She wakes up and sees the news and it was a bit surreal for her. She was at an elementary school in Lahaina last Thursday which was just off the beach and I assume is gone.
If you hover your cursor over the like button...it does give you other options. The whole situation is sad without a doubt.
It is one thing for a town buried in a pine forest to go up during a wild fire, dry pine goes up like a roman candle, you assume the risk and take your chances, like building on a cliff. But this one is like the fire of London or Chicago, in the modern age. You assume that building codes and the fire response are up to snuff, when clearly they are not. Hopefully, good will come from the tragedy, with building code and fire responses plans getting a serious rethink.
Totally agree. Problem is, the developers and builders will build cheap facades and shells of modern crap. The new build will have all the fire codes, but most likely it will be modern shells that have no character or charm.
You could put up a fake and phony facades like Winthrop, WA, or build it the right way....like the Vail Village in Vail, CO....but the cost of building a village and town like Vail, would be crazy.
Unfortunalty, I'm afraid it will be cheap mixed-use modern shells with no character. Four levels of residential apartments or condos on top, and retail and services below.
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My daughter's boyfriend's family lives on Kauai and she asked my wife and I on Monday if it was weird that his parents don't carry home insurance. I told her that it's not required but they are taking a risk. A couple days later this goes down. Hope there aren't a lot of people in Maui that were thinking the same way.
Many of the small business owners didn't have insurance, and lost everything. Homeowners, with mortgages do require insurance to satisfy the lender. But with tenants, it's an option, and unfortunately, many didn't have insurance.
Hopefully the feds will digitally create and print the money, (no this doesn't come out of your IRS taxes), and give the victims lump sum relief. I'm certain that will happen.
Hawaiian Airlines is offering one way tickets from the Kahului Airport for $19 one way into the states, for those who lost their home, income or both. Alaska has stepped up their flights to help bring people back to the mainland. Not sure if they're also offering $19 tickets, but good for Hawaiian Airlines!
The Salvation Army is there, with all hands on deck. Actually, The Salvation Army has or had a facility in Lahaina. It was their main Maui facility. Unclear if it burnt down, but I'm sure it's gone.
BTW, unlike the Red Cross, .93 cents of every $1.00 goes to the cause when you donate to The Salvation Army. Only .07 cents goes to their overhead. I know, because I serve on their board. Truly is a remarkable organization when it comes to helping people in need, and your money doesn't go to any executive, or excessive overhead. A true non-profit gem.
Also, thankful there is Zelle.
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Read an article on CNN that had pictures. Geezus the whole town is just wiped out. Death toll likely to go way up. What a catastrophe.
Death toll will certainly go up, they were saying this morning that the 55 so far are the ones found outside or in cars. They haven't even gone into buildings yet. There will be hundreds in the end, and from the descriptions of the speed and lack of warning, hundreds may be conservative.
Someone mentioned building codes, but those aren't the answer. Building codes require flame resistance, and a lot of these structures may have met the requirements. Two problems there - flame resistance means stuff is harder to ignite - it doesn't mean it won't burn. Often, once it lights it burns faster and hotter than plain old wood used to.
A house down the street from mine burned about 10-12 years ago. It was a small fire when it was first spotted - just starting to come up to the bottom of windows. But within 4-5 minutes, the siding and drywall lit, and it tore through the entire house. The burning siding sounded like a freight train. When the FD rolled up, all they could do was protect the adjoining houses. I had built a dog house from scrap siding, and reproduced that fire after my dog died. It took some effort to get going, but once you start melting the glue out of the common particle siding, you get a ton of dry wood surface area that just wants to burn.
That touches the second problem too - the glue and the materials that make a lot of modern furniture and carpet flame resistant create a hell of a lot of smoke and toxic gas once they get going. So if you're inside when the place goes up, you can't see a damn thing and breathing is a bad idea. On the plus side, there's a fair chance you'll be dead before the flames get to you.
