A local resident who has led grassroots relief efforts in Maui told Breitbart News in a recent exclusive interview the Maui police chief’s claim that officers tried to evacuate people is a “total lie.”
“Lie. Total lie. Total lie. That is false. No loudspeaker, nothing,” said Dale Hermo-Fernandez in a phone interview from Maui on Friday evening. He said there was “no warning, no sirens. Nobody knew.”
During a news conference last Tuesday, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier claimed that police officers drove up and down streets, knocking on doors and using loudspeakers to tell people to leave, according to the Associated Press. He did not say exactly where and when officers did that.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier speaks during a press conference about the destruction of historic Lahaina and the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui in Wailuku, Hawaii, on August 12, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty)
According to a report by Honolulu Civil Beat, Maui Fire Chief Bradford Ventura said firefighters called for the evacuation of the area around Lahainaluna Road around 3:00 p.m., but no other areas were ordered to evacuate.
In fact, as late as 4:45 p.m. local time, Maui County officials encouraged residents to “shelter in place unless evacuations are ordered,” according to an archive of the county’s website. According to Civil Beat, people were jumping into the ocean “less an hour later, around 5:30 p.m.”
Honolulu Emergency Management Director Hiro Toiya told the outlet that when communication systems are down, emergency managers “have the option to deploy first responders and volunteers to drive through the area in vehicles equipped with lights, sirens and a PA system.”
“We can send personnel out into the field to do those announcements, going neighborhood by neighborhood or going door to door as necessary,” he said.
However, then-Maui Emergency Management Agency Chief Herman Andaya admitted that his agency was not even aware the power was out.
One resident did say police were out trying to evacuate people that morning, after the fire first started in Lahaina around 6:30 a.m.
Burnt areas in Lahaina on Maui, Friday, Aug. 11, 2023 (Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP)
According to the Washington Post, bank teller Lisa Vorpahl said not long after that fire started that morning, police were “circulating in her neighborhood, calling out on megaphones for people to evacuate.”
However, Maui County posted an update on Facebook at 9:55 a.m. stating that the fire was “100% contained,” and there is no evidence yet that police tried to evacuate people when fire flared up again later that afternoon in Lahaina.
Another resident, Ingrid Lynch, told the Civil Beat that officers were at her house in the morning to take a report about a fallen tree, but did not mention that a fire had already ignited.
“At that point, they never said anything to us about evacuating,” she said.
Hermo-Fernandez said police had actually inadvertently worsened the situation during the fires by creating traffic bottlenecks.
“In fact, the police made a mistake. They forced people down the Front Street thinking it was safe, which at the time I could see what — you know, if I’m a police officer in the middle of that, I can see where he was coming from, because Hanoapiilani Highway had had the [power] lines down on the ground, so nobody could really pass it. So I could see why he would tell him go around on Front Street. But that also created a gridlock in Front Street. And when the gridlock locked up, nobody, nobody could move,” he said.
Maui Police are now facing mounting criticism over setting up barricades that may have prevented residents from escaping. According to the Associated Press, “car after car was turned back toward the rapidly spreading wildfire by a barricade blocking access to Highway 30.”
Workers wearing “Morgue Operations” shirts move a body bag into a refrigerated storage container adjacent to the Maui Police Forensic Facility where human remains are stored in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires in Wailuku, Hawaii on August 17, 2023. (YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
Pelletier told Hawaii News Now (HNN) that barricades were set up due to “downed power lines, which would kill you if you drove over them — or a fire that’s engulfed the area.”
He claims that police never impeded people from “exiting the area,” but declined to offer specifics.
Myrna and Abraham Ah Hee stand in front of an evacuation center at the War Memorial Gymnasium, Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Wailuku, Hawaii. The Ah Hees were there because they were looking for Abraham’s brother. Their own home in Lahaina was spared, but the homes of many of their relatives were destroyed by wildfires. They haven’t been able to get in touch with Abraham’s brother. (Rick Bowmer/AP)
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