Submitted to 2024 Hawaii High School Journalism Awards Writing Division
What started out as scattered brush fires on Aug. 8 in Maui turned into a tragedy affecting masses of people in the town of Lahaina and beyond. Almost 2,000 structures were destroyed and almost 100 people died. Staff members at McKinley High School, including their families and loved ones on Maui, suffered from loss and devastation due to the fires.
Math teacher Justin Collado was born and raised in Maui before he moved to Oahu.
“Pretty much everybody from Maui, if you have ties to Maui, you’re affected, if you’re from Maui, you’re affected, if you have family on Maui, you’re affected. I can not stress how dire the situation is over there,” he said. Collado has flown back to Maui every weekend since the fire.
“I don’t know how to explain it, except it’s just like an apocalyptic zone,” Collado said. “Every time I go back home to Maui, it’s like time has stopped.”
Collado described how supplies were limited on Maui.
“Everything was just insane over there. Nothing was in the stores,” he said. “People literally just escaped with whatever clothes they had on their back.”
Collado thinks that the people and Lahaina are going to come back from this tragedy.
“The people of Lahaina are very, very, very resilient,” he said. “They are very proud of where they come from and they want to stay in Lahaina as long as possible.”
Principal Ron Okamura lived in Lahaina for 18 years before coming to Oahu. By the time he moved, he was the supervisor of Lahaina Schools. After he found out about the fire, Okamura called up his friends to make sure they were okay.
“I met a lot of people, a lot of teachers, a lot of students in Lahaina. A lot of my friends lost their homes,” he said. Okamura eventually found out that someone he knew was one of the dead.
Okamura recalled the memories of the places they used to hang out and the activities they used to partake in when he lived there.
“Everything’s gone. All the historical places, the buildings, the businesses, and restaurants, everything is gone in just a blink of an eye,” he said.
Educational Assistant Kalai Makilan was sent to Maui to live with her aunt when she was younger. She remembers a time when Maui had a lot of sugarcane and no fires.
“But once the sugar cane disappeared, that’s when Maui got all these fires going on,” she said.
During Makilan’s residency in Maui she attended Kamehameha III Elementary School. The school was destroyed in the fire. She also remembers the historic Lahina banyan tree.
“The banyan tree was my playground,” she said.
The banyan tree is charred after the fire but showing signs of life, which many see as a symbol of hope. However, Makilan does not feel as positively about the tree. She said she thinks people are focusing too much on the tree and not on the people.
“The banyan tree you can always replace,” she said. “You cannot replace life.”
Makilan couldn’t find her brother, a Lahaina resident, for a couple days due to the fire and the havoc caused by it.
“My brother was finally found on Friday,” she said. “During those days, I was so frantic.”
Makilan has a lot of other concerns and frustrations, including how access out of Lahaina was blocked and about how the government failed to help the people.
“They were running for their lives,” Makilan said. “If they sounded the siren, if they sent notifications to everybody, there would be a lot of lives saved because people wouldn’t have stayed back.”
The McKinley community has done a lot for the victims of the Maui fire simply by donating and should continue to donate and visit Maui.
“That’s what Lahiana is all about, people helping people…. I just want you guys to keep the story going. Keep it alive because they cannot be forgotten,” Makilan said.
