It has been 9 days since the fire broke out in Maui, Hawaii, USA. The Maui County Government stated on the 17th that search and rescue personnel have completed the search for 45% of the affected area, and there are still several fires that have not been fully controlled.
Local residents: the initial evacuation situation was completely chaotic
A fire broke out on Maui, Hawaii, causing many local residents to panic. The local government’s misjudgment of the fire situation and the “loss of sound” of the alarm system made the escape chaotic.
Mike is a local resident of Maui. Since the fire broke out, his stepfather is still missing, but he is still desperately looking for it.
Mike, a resident of Maui, Hawaii: He should be dead, I just want to find his remains. I met a lot of people, they were very tired, I was also very tired, I have not closed my eyes for 6 days, I just want to find his body and let him rest in peace as soon as possible.
Compared with Mike, Chiakona was lucky. He rushed to grandma’s house at the critical moment when the fire spread and rescued grandma. Recalling this experience, he still has lingering fears.
Paere Chiakona, a resident of Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii: (When the fire broke out) I was stuck on the road and couldn’t get to my grandma’s house (in time). I knew there was no power and I couldn’t reach her, luckily a friend of mine just escaped from the fire so I borrowed his bike and rode the 3 miles into town which saved grandma and helped She packed her things and left her home. The initial evacuation situation was complete chaos.
According to a report by the National Broadcasting Corporation of the United States, the reason for this confusion may be related to the misjudgment of the fire by the local government. At 6:37 a.m. on the 8th, a middle school in Lahaina reported a bush fire, and the evacuation of relevant personnel was arranged at that time. But at 9 a.m., the local government announced that the fire was completely under control, giving local residents a false sense of “safety”. A few hours later, the local government said the fire had returned under the influence of strong winds, and the entire town was in an out-of-control fire.
Residents of Maui, Hawaii: Our point of view is, who cares about us, do they really care about us.
Pollutants after the fire threaten the health of local residents
Next, Maui residents need to face the long-term health threat posed by the fire. Experts say local air, water and debris from buildings may be polluting. Chemicals such as asbestos and lead are not destroyed in the combustion, but suspended in ash and dust. Once inhaled, these particles can enter the lungs of the human body. and into the bloodstream, increasing the risk of various diseases.
Residents of Maui, Hawaii: I don’t know if people can still live here, I don’t know, I mean, it looks like it’s still burning faintly, it’s poisonous and dangerous.
Old power company delays reinforcement of power infrastructure
Currently, the investigation into the cause of the Hawaii fire is still ongoing. However, the picture of the electric pole being blown down by the wind and igniting the grass was reprinted by major media. The US media also noticed that the current power infrastructure in Hawaii is very old, and the government has repeatedly neglected to upgrade local power facilities, which may be the cause of the fire.
Hawaiian Electric Company is one of the major electricity suppliers in Hawaii, serving 95% of the entire state of Hawaii. Hawaii is a tourist destination in the United States. Although the tourism industry is prosperous, the local infrastructure is very dilapidated. Hawaii’s power grid has been complained about for many years. Many utility poles are still wooden and very old. Local residents and energy experts have been calling on the power company to strengthen the grid and bury more wires underground. Jennifer Porter, who used to work for the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, said the state of power poles in Hawaii has been bad for years.
CNN reported that in 2018, the fire in Paradise Township, California that killed more than 80 people was related to the fire caused by the fall of a utility pole managed by the local power company in California. With the lessons learned from California, Hawaiian Electric Company is well aware of the risk of infrastructure problems that may cause fires. In a funding application last year, Hawaiian Electric Company cited the California Fire Event and asked the State Public Utilities Commission to allow it to operate in the next five years. It spends $189 million a year on work such as strengthening utility poles to prevent collapse. Although the application was approved, Hawaiian Electric did not act.
NBC quoted Watts, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric, as saying that Hawaiian Electric was not ordinary negligence, but serious negligence, consciously delaying grid modernization work, which could have prevented this tragedy from happening.
The “Washington Post” stated that before the fire broke out, weather forecasters issued a warning to the local government of Hawaii that Hurricane “Dora” was coming, which was likely to cause a fire. But the local government did nothing about it, and Hawaiian Electric didn’t even cut off power. Afterwards, Maui County Mayor Richard Beeson admitted that the hurricane knocked down at least 30 power poles that were energized.
News Observation丨Rescue is not active, party struggle is the most vigorous
Hundreds of people were killed, thousands were missing, and thousands of houses were destroyed. As of now, the fire on the island of Maui, Hawaii, is still not fully under control. The well-developed alarm system failed, the rescue team arrived late, and the huge US military did nothing… Behind the low disaster relief capabilities of the United States, it reflects that politicians are indifferent to the suffering of the people. What is more well-known than the indifference of politicians is the American-style partisan farce that is staged every time a disaster occurs.
Last weekend, as the Maui fire continued to rage, US President Biden refused to comment on issues related to the fire. This negative response gave the Republicans a rare handle.
Former U.S. President Republican Trump: It is a shame that Biden refused to help or comment on the tragedy in Maui, just like he refused to help or comment on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio for a long time .
In this regard, the White House had to come forward one after another to “extinguish the fire” urgently.
White House Press Secretary Karina Jean-Pierre: The president is very concerned about the local residents of Maui. He (Biden) takes his job very seriously.
So far, the fire on Maui has not been fully controlled, but the prospect of post-disaster reconstruction has long been submerged in partisanship. According to a recent report by the local media in Hawaii, the Honolulu News Agency, the main reconstruction funder that can be counted on in the disaster-stricken area is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but the agency is currently facing a serious shortage of funds. The U.S. government has asked Congress to approve additional funding. Among them, each affected family in Hawaii can receive an average of 700 U.S. dollars in subsidies, while the U.S. government has asked Congress to approve financial support for Ukraine as high as 24.1 billion U.S. dollars.
Why are American politicians so concerned about Ukraine, but indifferent to the suffering of the people of Maui? Some netizens said that it is because American politicians are more able to profit from the Russia-Ukraine conflict than Maui.
In addition, some netizens pointed out that the indifference of American politicians to the disaster in Maui is rooted in the competitive party politics in the United States, and the hard currency of this kind of politics is votes. Some netizens uploaded pictures showing that in the past 60 years, the Republican Party has only won the state of Hawaii twice in the general election, and the Democrats have won all 4 electoral votes in the state of Hawaii in the rest. In other words, Hawaii is a traditional vote for the Democratic Party. Some netizens believe that this kind of election game that revolves around votes has further magnified the selfishness of American politicians, and eventually led to natural disasters turning into human disasters. “Hawaii is going to vote Democrat anyway, so the White House doesn’t care, it’s as simple as that.”
As CNN once commented after the derailment of the “poisonous train” in the small city of East Jerusalem, “Whenever disaster befalls a divided America, toxic politics follow. Whether it’s a hurricane, an industrial accident or Derailed trains are used as a ‘political scorecard’ for attacking opponents.”
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2023-08-19 03:48:43
