Fires in Hawaii: when jumping into the sea is the only way to survive

Eight hours watching, when the smoke allowed her to open her eyes, how her life turned to ashes, sheltered in the sea, protected by some rocks. This is how Annelise Cochran managed to survive the hell lived in Lahaina (Maui, Hawaii, USA), instinctively jumping into the sea after not receiving any warning message.

“I am angry because we have lost important pillars of our community, leading voices. Their lives are valuable and it seems to me that they have been treated as if they had no value.”it states.

Despite the relief and gratitude for being alive, she is very upset by how the events happened, by how the authorities did not know how to react to the wave of fires that has devastated several cities on the island of Maui and that have already left 96 people dead, according to the latest official data.

Some fires that have become the most serious fires of the last century in the United States and that the inhabitants did not see coming.

In the hours before the sky turned black, no one told them what was coming or what they had to do, explains Cochran, a Washington, DC native, who has lived in Hawaii for nearly eight years.

The audible alarm system, the largest in the world, did not work, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Neither is the alert system through text messages, damaged since 2018 after giving a false notice of the arrival of a missile.

“It is almost negligence because there was no evacuation notice and there was no help. I also heard that they ran out of water in the process of trying to put out the fire. It seems like there are a lot of things that went catastrophically wrong.”Cochran denounces.

On Saturday, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez announced that she will conduct a “extensive investigation” on the response of the authorities.

Annelise’s house was “in the heart of all that was destroyed” in Lahaina, a historic city that was devastated. “My building stands, but everything inside has been destroyed.” Explain.

Although she had some respiratory problems and many injuries and burns all over her body, five days after the horror she is strong enough to tell her story to journalists who are interested in her.

The story of a young woman who came to Maui “chasing dolphins”, wanting to be a coach. She came for half a year and has been almost eight. Today she is a boat supervisor at the company PacWhale Eco-Adventures.

Or rather it was, until last Tuesday, when he woke up to find out that there had been a fire on the mountain, like so many there usually are in the area, but it had already been extinguished.

Around 3:00 p.m. local time it started to smell a bit smoky but he put it down to ash from the previous fire.

But around 16:00 local time “the sky turned black”. “The smoke was moving so fast in our direction that this beautiful blue sky that we had got very dark and it looked like it was almost night.” recounts.

That is when the feeling of bewilderment began to reign among the neighbors. “We were not clear about what we should do because we did not receive evacuation alerts or hear sirens (…) We did not know if we were in imminent danger or if it was just a consequence of the air and we had to stay inside the building to avoid breathing toxic gases.”

In the end they decided to evacuate and, after a failed attempt to go by land, instinct led her, seeing the flames approaching, to jump into the sea along with other residents. Some went out to sea on rafts and were rescued hours later, others stayed there, next to some rocks.

There were eight hours in which she was submerged at times, at times trying to climb on the rocks and others approaching the fire to warm up and avoid hypothermia.

Seeing how his house and all his things disappeared, how the buildings were sinking by the minute, how the boats of the company where he works burned and how one of his neighbors, an 86-year-old man, could not resist and died next to him.

After a rescue that also “it was scary”the 40 neighbors who were with her were transferred to a shelter.

From there, Annelise tries to recover from her injuries without having a single clue as to what will happen next.

“It is very difficult to know what is going to happen because there are thousands of people displaced from their homes and we are on a very small island, with a very limited number of places where people can go,” Explain.

He does have a request, that the inhabitants of the island be put ahead of the tourists, to his “ohana” (family) Hawaiian: “We need our people to survive and have a place to live here.”

Source: EFE