At least 110 people dead, 66 still missing
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Maui Fire - Aug 2023
The death toll in the Maui wildfires is now 110, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said at a Wednesday news conference where officials faced often heated questions about the county’s actions as wildfire swept across the island last week, sending people scrambling for safety.
With so many deaths and many more people unaccounted for, the governor has commissioned the state attorney general to investigate the response. But survivors, some of who were forced to seek refuge in the ocean, have demanded answers for issues like why no warning sirens sounded.
Hawaii has one of the largest siren warning systems in the world, but the 80 alarms on Maui, stayed silent. Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Herman Andaya told reporters Wednesday afternoon he has no regrets about not using sirens as the fires started spreading wildly August 8 and that doing so wouldn’t have affected the death toll.
Many missing: Current estimates are that more than 1,000 people are unaccounted for a week after the fires devastated historic portions of Lahaina in western Maui, the governor told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
Hospital is full: Hilton Raethel, CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said Maui Medical Center is “very full” because of numerous burn victims. About 60 patients are ready to be discharged but need some other type of care or some type of support for daily living activities and officials are having trouble placing them.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/16/us/hawaii-maui-wildfires-death-toll-wednesday/index.html