Came across this just now, hoping everyone is ok, and safe! One of the last times I was there, there were fires on the island, it was surreal then, I can only imagine now. https://www.aol.com/news/hawaii-wildfires-burn-homes-force-120809461.html Let us know if we can help! S
Photos on the news look grim. They have opened the convention center for shelter here on Oahu, but so far a very few have made it from Maui to the shelter. It was not clear on the news tonight why that was so. I suspect tomorrow we will see many more tourists, and perhaps even residents, leaving Maui.
Very sad. So much of that area had history going a long way back. Lahaina was one of my favorite places on the islands. Hoping the list of missing are just missing and safe.
Brings back bad memories of the cities in Nor Cal that the forest fires took out completely a few years ago, Paradise and Greenville
We just came back from a week on Maui; every vendor, business, local thanked us for making the 25 minute flight from Oahu. At first we balked at going after seeing local gov't and celebrities knee jerk reaction to stay away from Maui. Locals say it's Covid 2.0 but with guilt, 95% of the island outside of Lahaina is suffering. Our hotel was empty, road to Hana was easy to navigate, no buses. Our catamaran was at 2/3 occupancy after cancelling the 2nd cat. Hundreds and hundreds of cars are parked on the fields outside the airport. Maui helicopters usually fly 25-30 sorties per day, they were down to one or two and have cancellations through December. There's no PPP money available. We tried our best to spend local, stay away from big-box stuff. Our closest encounter to Lahaina was the flight to and from Maui. We stayed away from west Maui altogether. Maui is open.
Good for you. Without tourisim they will be in pretty dire shape. Tourist money is the best we can do for them.
Update: 18,000 rental cars sit idle near the airport; Maui is losing $13 million per day in tourist dollars. Shoots, it's worse than I thought. When I tell my Mainland friends that we spent a week there, they are surprised, saying, 'I thought we were told to stay away?' The Maui tourist board, if there is such a thing, needs to promote tourism like never before because most businesses cannot last through December under these current conditions.
There were 2,000 residents of Lahaina that had their house vaporize because of the fires. These poor people have lost everything, jobs, their home, clothing, pictures and mementoes, cars, and currently are living at friends homes, hotel rooms, , basically where ever they can, to be safe. So on December 9th and 10th, I, along with the Spirit of Liberty Foundation and partnering up with the Lahaina Salvation Army are giving to all 2000 residents who lost their homes, along with their families, toys for the kids, pillows, blankets, clothes, house hold goods, small Christmas trees, etc. This is a major undertaking and expense to ship all these thousands of presents items to Maui. If so inclined, donations can be given to the Spirit of Liberty Foundation, which are desperately needed, all donations are tax deductible. Gary Bobileff Bobileff Motorcar Company in San Diego
I forgot to include the web site for the Spirit of Liberty Foundation: https://spiritoflibertyfoundation.org/ Gary Bobileff
Thanks! It looks like a worthy organization. I was unable to donate to the Spirit of Liberty Foundation online, but I was able to make a donation online to the Lahaina Salvation Army directly. This is a great effort. Thank you for your support of our friends in Lahaina.
