Hawaii’s governor has ordered a comprehensive review of the state’s actions in the hours after devastating wildfires broke out on the islands earlier this week, including why warning sirens were not used to alert residents on Maui.
“I authorized a comprehensive review this morning, to make sure that we know exactly what happened — and when,” Gov. Josh Green told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Green said emergency officials were particularly challenged by the fact that the flames burning near Lahaina — which ultimately built into a firestorm that razed nearly all of the historic town — had died down for a period of time before suddenly reigniting, and firefighters had shifted their focus to other areas on the island.
“The telecommunications were destroyed very rapidly” at that point, Green said, meaning that the tight-knit community was unable to alert one another by phone, as they typically do when there is an emergency. “That communication was cut off,” the governor said.
Green said he isn’t going to “make any excuse for anyone,” but that multiple fires burning at once had created a “very fluid situation across the islands.”
Despite those challenges, “we will do all that we can to find out how to protect our people more going forward,” Green said.
Some context: Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said Friday that Maui’s warning sirens were not activated.
The statewide public safety warning system has about 400 sirens to alert residents to tsunamis and other natural disasters, according to an agency spokesperson, but “nobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those sirens based on our records,” he said.
Other layers of the emergency warning system were triggered, however, including mobile phone alerts and messages on televisions and radio stations.
A CNN review of state and local emergency planning documents has also revealed that Hawaii officials had underestimated the deadly threat of wildfires, as recent reports warned officials that funding and preparation for the natural disaster was insufficient.
