Maui authorities say more than 800 people remain unaccounted for two weeks after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century destroyed the community of Lahaina
“I probably had, at any given time, 10 to 15 detectives who were assigned to nothing but trying to account for people who were unaccounted for,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said in a phone interview. “At one point the local editor of our newspaper … said, ‘Hey, if you give me the names, I will print them.’ And at that point it was like, ‘Absolutely. Anything that we can do to help out.
So far the American Red Cross has successfully completed roughly 2,400 requests seeking reunification or welfare updates, out of the more than 3,000 it has received, Parra said. A completed request means the organization was able to locate a missing person or verify someone’s status in a medical facility, for example, among other things.
“Those are easy when destruction is modest,” said Vyto Babrauskas, president of fire safety research consulting firm Fire Science and Technology Inc. “If you go to the extreme of things — if turned to ash — you’re not going to be able to identify anything.” Honea, the Butte County sheriff, said it took weeks to complete the search for remains in Paradise and his detectives worked 16-hour days to narrow the list of the missing. Today there is only one person who still remains unaccounted for, and Honea said he has reason to believe that person was not in town the day of the fire.
He thought it would be good if authorities published a list of the missing the way Paradise did but said that might be of limited use now because cell service is still spotty in Lahaina. Everyone uses their cellphone to communicate, he said.
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