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Today, the County of Maui filed a lawsuit against Maui Electric Company, Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaiʻi Electric Light Company and Hawaiian Electric Industries for civil damages allegedly caused to the County’s public property and resources as a result of recent Maui fires, including fires in Lahaina and Kula.The lawsuit was filed in the Second Circuit Court and the case number is 2CCV-23-0000238.The lawsuit alleges that the electric companies acted negligently by failing to power down its electrical equipment despite a Red Flag Warning issued by the National Weather Service on Aug. 7. The lawsuit further alleges Hawaiʻi Electric Light Company...

Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff famously declared: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” His point has become a cynical tactic of the left ever since. Any time there is a tragedy — capitalize on people’s suffering and despair to advance your political agenda. It’s in keeping with this doctrine that we hear the rant that climate change was the match that lit the fires. ... Four years ago, the utility company said it needed to do more to prevent its power lines from emitting sparks. It made little progress, focusing on a shift...

About two-thirds of the 3,001 children who once attended Lahaina’s four public schools still have not enrolled in other Hawaii public schools or the state’s distance learning program. And state officials cannot tell yet exactly how many have left the system for private schools or the mainland, are pausing schooling, or are among the roughly 1,000 West Maui residents reportedly still missing in the wildfires disaster. As of Monday only 538 of the Lahaina students had reenrolled in other Hawaii public schools, and 438 students had signed up for the State Distance Learning Program, according to a “Maui Wildfire Impacts”...

An unsubstantiated online conspiracy theory is blaming Oprah Winfrey for the devastating wildfires in Maui, where the TV host owns a property. Wildfires began sweeping through the Hawaiian island last week, fueled by Hurricane Dora. The number of fatalities stands at 111 so far, with over 1,000 people still missing. West Maui in particular was ravaged by blazes, including the seaside town of Lahaina, an hour away from where the 69-year-old Winfrey owns a ranch. The media mogul was spotted supporting survivors at an emergency shelter at Wailuku's War Memorial Complex, where a CBS News crew filmed her handing out...

Firefighters from across Europe have arrived in Greece to help tackle around 350 wildfires spreading across the country, as investigations begin into what authorities suspect may have been organized arson. Crews from Germany, Sweden, Romania, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Cyprus have come to the country's aid, offering water-dropping aircraft, water tanks and firefighters. Hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes Tuesday and Wednesday, while the bodies of 18 migrants were discovered burned to death close to the border with Turkey. The fires have come close to the capital, Athens, with over 200 firefighters battling a blaze around...

As more details emerge about what really happened in Maui, one thing is unmistakable: the government has completely surrendered its delegated charge as the guarantor of unalienable rights, and in its current form, it is wholly unsuited to have any sort of authoritative role. A report out yesterday at The Hill detailed that Maui residents fleeing the blaze were barricaded in by several road closures, established by local authorities; those who heeded the orders died, and those who didn’t, escaped the flames. From the article:Those who disobeyed the barricaded road closures during the Maui fires survived the disaster, while many...

It took Joe Biden nearly two weeks to visit Hawaii to offer in-person condolences and support to the survivors of the horrific Maui wildfire. He evidently felt his time was better spent avoiding questions about the Maui wildfire during a beach vacation. It seems almost as an afterthought, Biden committed federal support to helping Maui recover, telling Hawaii’s governor, that the state would “have everything it needs from the federal government.” [SNIP] On August 13, Green said that Maui’s destruction was due to climate change.“That level of destruction, and a fire hurricane, something new to us in this age of...

Trust the experts they say.The government has your best interests at heart.Don’t think for yourself, we keep being told.Yeah, well, the AP says what those of us who have been following the Lahaina wildfire already knew: the people who obeyed the authorities died, and those who said “Screw that!” survived.https://t.co/ydyZUqV9gl— Dr. Benjamin Braddock (@GraduatedBen) August 23, 2023This story confirms what I have been writing for a few days. Not because I am a particularly astute journalist–everything I have reported has been publicly available, either through various news stories, blog posts, or videos on Twitter.I just have no faith left in...

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...

Those who disobeyed the barricaded road closures during the Maui fires survived the disaster, while many of those who heeded orders to turn around perished in their cars and homes with no way out... At least 114 people were killed in the fires earlier this month, and the FBI is estimating that up to 1,100 more are unaccounted for. Officials are facing increased scrutiny for the emergency response, including why the emergency sirens were not set off and whether closing the roads prevented people from getting to safety. ... Officials closed Lahaina Bypass Road due to the fires, blocking the...

Following the Maui fire disaster, there have been concerns of mishandling and a lack of transparency, with claims of media restrictions on the island. The current media landscape seems determined to maintain a positive image of Joe Biden, especially evident in the coverage of the Hawaii incident. Two significant aspects underscore this narrative. Firstly, there’s President Biden’s perceived aloofness, marked by his repeated “no comment” replies to early queries and frequent vacations during this crisis. His recent visit to Maui only magnified his public relations challenges. Secondly, there are concerns about the local administration’s measures, or lack thereof, which may...

If you didn't know any better, you might assume that White House PR flacks were composing the gushy copy in the local paper after his belated brief visit to Maui on Monday. Instead this adoration of Biden came from reporter Dan Nakaso in Tuesday's Honolulu Star Advertiser. The kisses to Biden start with this story title, "President Biden sends message of support, hope after touring Lahaina."In fact despite the wide resentment of Biden by Maui residents reported by many other sources, the only hint of negativity in Nakaso's Biden love note came in just one sentence which portrayed those protesting...

More than 1,000 people are reported missing in Maui three weeks after catastrophic wildfires destroyed the town of Lahaina. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said that law enforcement plans to release a verified list of people who are unaccounted for in the coming days. Law enforcement has located 1,400 people so far out of an initial number of 2,500 people reported missing. The police chief said he cannot guarantee the remains of everyone who perished will be recovered.

The media and other Democrats colluded to destroy President Bush in the same way they have continually colluded for years to destroy President Trump. Now they are comparing their politically motivated criticism of Bush's response to Biden's obvious incompetence in Maui: MSNBC’s Jansing: Biden’s Lack of Response to Hawaii Is Reminiscent of Bush with KatrinaOn Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” host Chris Jansing noted that President Joe Biden went days without mentioning the fires in Hawaii even as the response has been criticized for being slow and compared Biden’s response to then-President George W. Bush praising then-FEMA Director...

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - As the wildfire in Lahaina spread, the Pacific’s top disaster management leaders were together with many of Hawaii’s emergency officials at a meeting on Oahu educating them about how to respond in crisis situations, FEMA confirms to HNN. The revelation is the latest twist in the ongoing effort to determine how Maui emergency management officials responded to the wildfires, as thousands were in the crosshairs of an inferno that claimed the town of Lahaina and more than 100 lives. HNN Investigates has learned that on Aug. 8, the day of the wildfire, several of the nation’s top...

President Joe Biden was greeted by angry protesters Monday when he finally visited Maui to tour the catastrophic damage caused by the devastating Hawaiian wildfires that killed at least 114 people, with 1,000 people missing. Several dozen residents heckled the octogenarian’s motorcade when he departed the Kapalua Airport en route to Lahaina, which went up in flames on Aug. 8. “As he drove toward downtown Lahaina, Biden passed signs that said ‘NO COMMENT,’ ‘REALLY $7?,’ ‘ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS,’ and ‘FJB,’ as well as at least two flags promoting the 2024 candidacy of former President Donald Trump,” the New...

As part of what a local religious leader describes as a “miracle,” a Catholic Church in Maui still stands after wildfires ravaged its surroundings. Photographs taken in recent days reveal that Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, remains standing after a wildfire tore through the Maui County community and left several trees in the vicinity of the property scorched. The Rev. Terrence Watanabe, the vicar of Maui and Lanai, expressed gratitude for the preservation of the historic site in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Saturday. “For us, it’s like a miracle,” he said. “When we...

Democrat President Joe Biden has provoked a severe backlash from Hawaii’s residents after he cracked jokes and talked about himself while visiting Maui on Monday. Biden did not get a warm welcome when he visited Hawaii to look at the damage from the Maui wildfires. At least 114 people died but the true total will be many more when all the dead are counted. Almost 1000 people are still unaccounted for, according to authorities. Biden gave a speech during his visit where he cracked jokes and told rambling stories about himself. At one point, he compared the devastating wildfires to...

President Biden is facing brutal backlash for a quip about a Maui cadaver dog that went viral just hours into his disastrous visit to the site of the deadly wildfires — with critics blasting his ill-timed attempts at comic relief as “poor taste.” “You guys catch the boots out here? That’s a hot ground, man,” Biden, 80, joked while petting a cadaver dog, Dexter, and chatting with first responders in Lahaina in a video shared by self-proclaimed “news breaker” Greg Price on Monday evening. The president, who owns two German shepherds, turned to the media and gestured at the small...

Joe Biden on Monday made a shambolic tour of Hawaii - in keeping with his tone-deaf and error-ridden first response to the wildfires. Two weeks after the worst U.S. wildfires in a century, the president and his wife Jill landed on Maui to be met with screams of '**** you!' as his motorcade passed. Some were seen waving Trump 2024 flags. The 80-year-old only compounded the anger by delivering a garbled speech at a charred sacred Banyan tree to speak in meandering terms about his own loss - that of his wife and baby daughter in 1972 - and then...