The Maui County Sheriff’s Office: “Lahaina is looking for closure. Authorities plea for patience” [Npr.org/2023/1195693743]
It’s the electric company’s fault. It’s the county’s fault. It is Joe Biden’s fault. It’s everybody’s fault. He says that they want an easy answer. “The thing is, I saw it from the beginning to the end and it was so fast that it felt like a blowtorch.”
Only a small percentage of deaths have been identified. At least 95% of the burned area around Lahaina has been searched – but teams are still working through some of the bigger buildings.
Commander Frank Sebastian leads a federal team of more than two dozen pathologists, forensic dentists and coroners who have been sent to assist the overwhelmed Maui County coroner’s office.
Source: Lahaina wants closure. Authorities plead for patience
LAHAINA: Search and Recovery During the Aug. 8 Fires on Maui – It’s a Pain, but a Problem for the Public
Hurricane force winds whipped the flames from tinder-dry brushland on Maui into whole neighborhoods that now infamous day of Aug. 8. It’s a huge challenge trying to make IDs when the fire incinerated so much evidence.
Sebastian says that it’s a pretty tough task because of the state of the remains. “When you’re dealing with burns you have a lot of destruction of tissue. It requires a lot of work to reassemble that.
On Maui, authorities are pleading with the public to be patient as forensics teams like Sebastian’s have been working around the clock now for close to two weeks trying to find bodies in the rubble from the deadly wildfire.
Sgt. The U.S Army search and extraction team has been working for more than fourteen days now. They’re clearing some debris in front of the K9 units, and then the dogs are trained to go in and search for bodies.
Soco is grateful that his teams have a lot of help with their mental health. But it’s still stressful and they’re often in dangerous and precarious situations in a place many of them call home.
Source: Lahaina wants closure. Authorities plead for patience
A New Number of Misused People in the Lahaina Wildfire: Curt Hanthorn, the Maui Fire Chief, and the Validated List
He tells NPR that they are here to support the people of Lahaina. We can help bring closure to them by identifying their victims as many of them as we can.
That wasn’t surprising to Curt Hanthorn, a Lahaina resident who was standing in a long line at the post office picking up his mail for the first time in two weeks. Seven of his friends died in the fire and he’s sure that number will go up as the search for remains continues.
The number of people listed as “unaccounted for” after the Aug. 8 wildfire in Lahaina now has 388 names on it — a sharp drop from earlier this week, when the number topped 1,000 — according to Maui County officials.
In another change, the county for the first time published what it calls a “validated list,” sharing the names of people it says have not been accounted for.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier acknowledged that it would probably cause distress, but he said that the names were being released because they would help the investigation.
“We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed,” he added. It is not an easy task, but we are doing everything we can to make this investigation complete and thorough.
Some of the names on the list have previously been published, appearing in an online spreadsheet that grew out of the Maui community’s grassroots effort to locate loved ones. But in some cases, the names do not overlap.
The revised number emerged late Thursday, after Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the FBI was working to “un-duplicate people” who were reported missing. By checking formal names and taking other steps, Green predicted, the number would “decrease very significantly.”
Merrill said that the effort was complicated by lack of detail in reports and a wide variety of lists of people who are not accounted for.
The Maui Firefighter’s Rescue Team: Requesting a Sample of S saliva from the Ladder for Human Remainders
In the wake of the fires that have killed 115 people, the death toll has remained steady for much of the week.
The remains of 46 people have been identified according to the Maui Police Department. 35 of those cases have families located and notified of their loss.
To help analysts identify human remains that have been recovered, officials have repeatedly urged parents, siblings and children of people who haven’t been heard from in a while to give a sample of their saliva.
People can go to the family assistance center at the Hyatt Regency in Kaanapali if they need to give a saliva sample. If you need guidance on providing a sample, contact the FBI at (808) 566-4300 or Email [email protected].