Aloha, Lahaina & Helping the People of Maui
Thinking of Friends and Front Street
"It has been six weeks since I touched a pen. In explanation and excuse I offer the fact that I spent that time (with the exception of one week) on the island of Maui. I only got back yesterday. I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place good-bye so regretfully." - Mark Twain, Letters from the Sandwich Islands
Posted on Facebook Aug 7, 2023.
Two days before the Maui inferno, a friend who lives in Lahaina posted an image of Front Street from 1979 on Facebook that she tagged with: “Not much has changed except the cars parked on the street are newer!”
And, really, not much had changed since before there were cars.
I had to double-check the time of Laurie’s post. It went up the morning of August 7th, less than two days before those streets and my friend’s home town were gone.
When I heard about the fires in Lahaina, my heart broke.
For about six years - from 2008 to 2014 - I was lucky enough to call Maui home. I mostly lived in Haiku - about an hour’s drive from Lahaina - and visited the old town often.
There aren’t many streets anywhere that I can completely conjure in my mind. Front Street is one of them. I can walk through most of downtown Lahaina in my memories.
In disaster movies aliens, earthquakes, explosions and assorted supervillains tend to decimate landmarks in the world’s most famous cities. That’s what the images of Lahaina remind me of.
When I first saw the news that Lahaina was burning I couldn’t stop staring at the photos and footage of what used to be the harbour, the museums, the Inn where Mark Twain stayed, favourite restaurants like Cheeseburger in Paradise, shave ice shops, galleries… so many galleries, the Banyan tree… the biggest tree I’ve ever seen… planted in 1873 when Hawaii was a kingdom.
I can’t stop staring at the images of people staring at the fire - watching a community, a town and so much history of Hawaii and the world devoured by flames.
And more than fifty people dead.
Social media has become so vile that I’d forgotten that it has moments when it’s magic and I was relieved that most of my Maui friends, or in many cases their friends and family, had confirmed they were safe - even if some were safe without power at their homes or had lost their homes or, possibly, their livelihoods.
Old Lahaina town is gone... wiped off the map
My friend Greg posted: “Old Lahaina town is gone... wiped off the map. Seems like everything between Wahikuli and Puamana is gone...” as he warned that fires were out of control across the island.” In another post he added: “I am gutted. Maui was already at the breaking point with housing and overnight thousands of people lost their homes. I feel so helpless.”
I was born in Vancouver — which burnt down in a few hours back in 1886 when all the buildings were made of wood. I know that most of the buildings in old Lahaina went up around the same time. But fires destroying entire towns… that isn’t supposed to happen anymore. Except, thanks to climate change, it does. In 2021, Lytton BC - a town I passed through and stopped in many times - burned off the map. A few weeks ago I talked about that on the Skaana podcast, with my friend, Sean Holman who runs the Climate Disaster Project - which is dedicated to sharing the stories of people impacted by… events like this. I never imagined that a few weeks after our talk one of my favourite places on earth would be hit be a climate disaster.
Just like my friend never could have imagined how quickly her beautiful memory of vintage Maui would become a haunting postcard from the past…
If you’d like to help people on Maui, friends there have steered me to the Hawai’i Community Foundation - Maui Strong Fund As I write this the website is down - likely crashed from too many clicks, but I’m sure it will be up again soon: https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong
Here’s a list provided by a friend from the island
https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong
Maui Food Bank
https://mauifoodbank.org/donate/
Maui United Way
https://mauiunitedway.org/disasterrelief
Maui Humane Society
https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/donate-olx/
Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement
https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/cnhamembers/kakoomaui
World Central Kitchen
Maui Fire, Flood, and Disaster Relief Group
(Join this Facebook group if you have specific resources you can offer, like housing, transportation, services, or anything that doesn’t fit the usual monetary or supplies donation format. Local people are helping coordinate.)
https://m.facebook.com/groups/2140737539293259/?ref=share&mibextid=S66gvF
Mark, thanks for sharing these resources. It just looks so devastating. And small world - I lived on Oahu from 2007 to 2009. I will always be grateful to the people of Hawai'i for all their aloha and kokua. it's such a special place.