Hawaiian life on Maui goes on as though there was no horrendous fire in Lahaina in August. Tourists are back, although not snorkeling with dead bodies floating in the ocean; the state is doing a land grab around Lahaina, under the guise of land being donated; islanders have stopped talking about the fire.

No one is now mentioning that the most elaborate alarm system in the U.S. failed to warn residents of the fire, or that water was not released for five hours until permission was given by farmers who control the use of 61% of the reservoir water in the state.

Fingers are also pointed at the Maui Police Department for many of the deaths. They blocked the roads of Lahaina, claiming there were downed power wires that were dangerous to drivers. But at 4:11 p.m. Hawaii Electric has a recording telling the police that the electricity was shut off. One officer said: “We need to go down (to Lahaina) because they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing.”

We have all seen the rows of burned-out cars of people trying to escape the fire. Oddly, none of their car doors were open. Families were cremated together.

King Kamehameha III Elementary School burned to the ground. On August 8, the day after the fire, Governor Joshua Green announced that there were 650 students registered there. The Maui News recently announced that 200 children from there were sharing the campus of another school.

What happened to the other 450 children? Their school was closed on the day of the fire because there was no electricity. It had been shut off by Maui Electric because of another nearby fire. The kids were home alone or with grandparents. 

In a news story last month, 2,746 students of the 3,001 total enrollment of Lahaina students were accounted for. In a published list of the dead, only three children are named. Where are the other 252 children?

Green keeps telling the media that there were 99 deaths. That is a lie. A Maui resident told me that the number is much higher based on all the trucks he saw transporting bodies. Green doesn’t want anyone to know that there could still be as many as 1,000 people missing.

Maui mayor Richard Bissen said that during the cleanup only non-hazardous fire debris will stay on the island. He said: “We understand that there may be remains that is (sic) contained within those areas.” 

All the children registered at King Kamehameha III would have lived near the school. All those residences were some of the more than 2,700 structures destroyed in the fire. How many children were cremated in their homes and unaccounted for? 

On Nov. 7, The Army Corps of Engineers was awarded a $53.7 million base contract to build a temporary elementary school (emphasis added) for students displaced from King Kamehameha III Elementary School. Why so much money and what will the permanent one cost?) Notice the word "base," which allows for add-ons.

A $150 million fund recently was established that will help those affected by the fire but there is also a provision to “…address impacts of climate change….” I guess we know where most of that money will go.

Susan Daniels is an OH licensed private investigator and author of The Rubbish Hauler’s Wife versus Barack Obama: A True Story, available on Amazon.com.

Image U.S. Forest Service