Posted on 08/23/2023 11:42:59 AM PDT by george76
A state agency delayed a water management company’s request to make more water available to fight the devastating wildfires on Maui earlier this month, according to letters obtained by CNN.
Glenn Tremble of the West Maui Land Company, which manages water supply companies, complained in a letter to the deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management that the agency failed to quickly approve his company’s request to divert stream water to nearby reservoirs.
...
Hours went by, Tremble wrote in his August 10 letter, before his request was approved. Tremble told CNN by that time, his company’s water system manager left the area to evacuate his family and other staff couldn’t be reached.
Tremble said he made his initial request on August 8, when the fire ripped through Lahaina.
He and his colleagues watched the fire spread “without the ability to help,” Tremble wrote.
“We anxiously awaited the morning knowing that we could have made more water available to (the fire department) if our request had been immediately approved,” he wrote. … We know that we need to act faster during an emergency.”
...
This isn’t the first time West Maui Land Company and the state’s water commission have been at odds.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
That would require marine fire pumps that can handle salt/sea water. Running gray water through the systems will not corrode the equipment.
If they had done so without approval, the GOV would have held them liable for the equipment and the EPA could have slammed them with fines because the salt is an alkaline that can harm native plants, etc.
The threat of death by a thousand cuts ultimately resulted in an estimated 1,000 deaths.
A “Who is John Galt?” moment if ever there was one.
>> Why did he not divert the water first and ask for permission later? <<
I’m guessing he didn’t have the physical controls to make the diversion.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
My first thought was why not use seawater? I lived very rural and every fire used three pumper trucks to pump lake water and relay it to the fire scene. Any air drops of seawater from aircraft? Any flame retardants? None of this makes sense or smells genuine.
Wish someone would have explained the water cycle to him. My 7th grade science classes could even have drawn him a picture illustrating it.
Button pushers will kill us all.
“We’re here from the Road Dept. and we’re closing the road for your safety”
“We’re here from Water Dept. and we’re shutting off the water for equity”.
“We’re here from the Fed. Govt. and we sympathize because we had a kitchen fire once”.
Not sure but I believe it would be corrosive to the metal in the truck. No excuses for not using it given the dire conditions they were facing, but might explain resasoning.
“Any air drops of seawater from aircraft?”
The problem was that ALL aircraft were grounded because helicopters and small aircraft do not fly well in 60-80 mph winds.
A lot of the firefighters had been moved to fight the fire in up country Maui.
i am no expert but IIRC it is not possible to pump water using a pump at an arbitrarily high location above the water to be pumped— the pump needs to be located at the bottom.
as for salt water, dunno but three questions—
1. is it generally ok policy to use salt water to put out fires over dry land? especially if alternatives are possible, given potential harm to crops, etc.?
2. would salt water corrode fire hydrants and hydrant pipes?
3. what is the salt water policy of other beachfront communities?
Great question.
I grew up in New England on an island where the northern half did not have city provided water. Yes, if a house close to the beach caught fire, the volunteer FD would use a pump truck to take water out of Narragansett Bay and pump it up to a portable holding container and other engines would pump out of that. They would rinse out all of the trucks downtown with hydrant water when all was said and done.
IMHO he was using that as an excuse to implement his real motive: get even with those evil colonizing non-Hawaiians.
I lived in VT and they would pump water from a mile away from a stream or pond, that is why those trucks are called pumpers. This is not rocket science here.
Also ship to ship.
For the same reason you don’t put salt water in the radiator of your car.
Salt destroys metal, and it does it rather quickly.
Your fire fighting apparatus would become junk before you were done using it.
Wondering why the water guy, siren guy and electric guy have not been indicted for manslaughter. Their actions represented gross negligence and incompetence; however if they are Democratic big whigs - never mind.
Where did you learn this?
Impeller pumps can be powered by any rotating motive source.
A diesel or gas engine, an electric motor, jet turbine through a gear box, steam engine, compressed air motor, horse treadmill, wind turbine, you name it, depending on the size of pump, pressure, head and distance (pipe friction).
Then there are piston pumps, requiring a crankshaft to convert rotary power or a linear motor, human power, etc.
Then air driven diaphragm pumps.
Most fire trucks have diesel power pumps running off a power takeoff.
There are more, I'm just mentioning the more common ones.
That he was so concerned about possibly violating protocol under emergency conditions and in an effort to save lives speaks volumes. What the hell is wrong with people?
So government stopped the water and the police blocked anyone from escaping except for people strong enough to circumvent the police.
Guess what that means? Murders occurred.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.