{"id":2021524,"date":"2023-09-04T15:41:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T19:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-maui-fires-defying-police-road-blockades-proved-life-saving\/"},"modified":"2023-09-04T15:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T19:44:32","slug":"in-maui-fires-defying-police-road-blockades-proved-life-saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-maui-fires-defying-police-road-blockades-proved-life-saving\/","title":{"rendered":"Defying Police Road Blockades in Maui Fires Saved Lives."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-maui-fires-defying-police-road-blockades-proved-life-saving%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2021524&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Surviving the Lahaina Wildfire:\u2063 A Story \u200dof Courage and Chaos<\/h2>\n<p>Christy Albinson still has nightmares. \u2063The nightmares of children are the worst,\u200c she says, nearly a\u200d month after the tragic Lahaina wildfire \u200din West Maui.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been traumatized. My\u2063 dreams have been pretty whacko. They&#8217;re horrible\u2014children buried\u200d in the sand. I&#8217;m spooked,&#8221; Ms.\u200b Albinson, 47, said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And \u2062when the \u200cpanic attacks strike without warning,\u200b it&#8217;s all she can do to remain calm.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, the question\u200c crosses her mind: Why did she survive when so many others died?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not \u200dso much survivor&#8217;s guilt as it is a simmering anger\u2014a\u200b feeling that the outcome could have been different for so many \u2064if emergency\u200d management officials had responded differently.<\/p>\n<p>All Ms. Albinson knows is that people who stayed in their vehicles in traffic perished\u200c in the smoke and flames.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width:600px\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>Christy Albinson (L), with her daughter Shelby Thomson, barely escaped with her \u2063life during the tragic Lahaina wildfire on Aug. 8, 2023.\u2063 (Courtesy Shelby Thomson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;They were \u2062driving to their \u200cdeaths, \u2064basically. I acknowledged I was in\u200b control of my\u2064 choices and needed to not listen to the police,&#8221; Ms. Albinson told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I recognized I would have to go around the barriers and do what it \u200dtook because this was my life. I have grandchildren; I needed to get to my family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several other Lahaina \u200bresidents and \u200dworkers told The Epoch Times that they survived only by driving \u200daround or through the police \u2062roadblocks, acknowledging the police were just &#8220;following orders.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Common sense,&#8221; said Grale, a\u2064 West\u200b Maui resident who\u200d was working at a gated community in \u2062Lahaina on the \u200cday of \u2063the fire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Me? I&#8217;m in panic mode. I&#8217;m getting the\u200d heck out \u200cof here. Survival mode. Honestly, I couldn&#8217;t believe how \u200cmany \u200ccars on Front Street just burned.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The \u200dLahaina fire burned 2,170 acres and more \u200dthan 2,000 homes and buildings in this historic coastal community with a population of\u2064 13,120.<\/p>\n<p>The scenic \u200coceanside Front\u2064 Street serves as the town&#8217;s main street and connector to the Lahaina highway bypass to and from the community.<\/p>\n<h3>Multiple Fires<\/h3>\n<p>Officials\u200b believe the first fire began in the brush \u2062around Lahaina after midnight on Aug. 8,\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/defying-police-blockades-proved-life-saving-in-maui-fires\/\" title=\"Defying police saved lives in Maui fires.\">causing sporadic power outages<\/a> and two other large fires inland.<\/p>\n<p>By 10 a.m., officials had\u200b announced the Lahaina fire was 100 percent contained despite limited capacity to pump water. The fire soon reignited in\u200c the uplands\u2063 overlooking the town in \u2062the early afternoon, driven by 80 mph winds that forced hot embers into Lahaina&#8217;s more densely populated areas.<\/p>\n<p>In response, local police set up roadblocks along the northbound highway that residents say \u200c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-maui-fires-defying-police-road-blockades-proved-life-saving\/\" title=\"Defying Police Road Blockades in Maui Fires Saved Lives.\">created \u200cmassive choke points<\/a> for \u2062people trying to escape.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width:600px\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>Search and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lahaina-residents-say-police-barricades-prevented-people-from-fleeing-raging-fires\/\" title=\"Lahaina locals claim barricades hindered escape from wildfires.\">recovery team members check burned buildings<\/a> and \u2064cars in the aftermath of the wildfire in \u200bLahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 18, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura\/AFP\u200d via \u200dGetty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Officials reported \u200c100 people or \u200cmore ran into the ocean as the air grew thick with black\u2064 smoke and swirling ash. Many stayed in the \u200dwater for hours until help\u200b arrived.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 24, Maui County officials filed a lawsuit accusing the power company, Hawaiian Electric, of &#8220;gross negligence&#8221; by failing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/consumer-watchdog-launches-campaign-exposing-duke-energy-esg-priorities-over-reliable-power-grid\/\" title=\"Consumer Watchdog exposes Duke Energy's ESG priorities over reliable power grid in new campaign.\">de-energize power lines<\/a> that would have prevented the wildfire, and $5.5 billion in physical damage and\u200b catastrophic loss\u200c of life.<\/p>\n<p>The power company claimed in rebuttal that it cut the electricity to the lines for approximately six hours when the second deadly fire erupted in Lahaina.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Eerie&#8217; Premonition<\/h2>\n<p>Ms. Albinson\u2064 said she\u200c awoke the morning of Aug.\u2062 8 with a\u200c peculiar sense that\u2063 something was wrong that day\u2014but what, exactly, she couldn&#8217;t say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just had an eerie feeling that something was off before I went to\u2064 work. I filled \u200dmy car with gas and got extra food. I \u2063just wasn&#8217;t sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Albinson had been working the same job \u2062for 10 \u200dyears, cleaning condominiums and bed-and-breakfasts in the old Lahaina surfing community of Puamana.<\/p>\n<p>She called her boss at 7:30 a.m., who told her the power was off\u200c and that driving\u200d to\u200d work would take longer than usual \u2064due to the smaller fire\u2063 and traffic on\u200d Front Street, a \u2064main road through the town.<\/p>\n<p>Ninety minutes later, Ms. Albinson arrived at work, having negotiated \u200ba &#8220;crazy line of traffic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width:600px\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>Burned cars sit\u200b in front of a home that was destroyed by the Aug.\u2064 8 wildfire in Lahaina, \u2064Hawaii, on Aug. 16, 2023. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She remembered how the wind seemed to cascade down the mountainside from the north as Hurricane Dora passed hundreds of miles off the southern coastline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was almost like\u200b a swirling wind. It was just crazy\u2014like nothing I&#8217;d ever\u2064 seen,&#8221; Ms.\u200d Albinson said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That wind was so nuts. You had to protect your head if you got out of your car.\u200b Things were flying \u2064in our eyes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Around 3:30 p.m., the situation worsened. \u200cMs. \u200cAlbinson \u2064and a coworker left\u200c work together and followed each other home in separate vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We hoped to get to the highway and jaunt to the next bypass. Instead, we were blocked off \u200dby\u2064 police and [traffic] cones.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Albinson recalled \u200btelling a friend on\u2064 the phone as she sat in heavy traffic on Front Street: &#8220;I think\u2062 I&#8217;m in the apocalypse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She wondered why police were\u2064 blocking the exits and stopping cars, \u2064turning them \u200dback, yet allowing other vehicles \u200binto the town as things were in &#8220;such chaos.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Albinson said she then pulled off the road at the corner of \u2062Lahainaluna and Front Street\u200c and \u200dbegan waving \u2063at a\u2063 police officer sitting in his cruiser to ask for instructions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He would not look at me. He would not turn his head. He just kept facing his computer and would\u2064 not acknowledge me asking for assistance,&#8221; Ms. Albinson said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t quite understand why the \u2063cops \u2064would\u200b block everybody in\u2063 unless it were for our safety.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All around, the debris flew past her car in the gale-force winds. A large tree branch struck her windshield at one point, but luckily, the glass didn&#8217;t break.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was \u200bno question in my mind people would be stuck [in traffic]. I didn&#8217;t know what it meant\u200d at \u200cthe time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Albinson said she watched her friend turn left to head south as she veered \u200cright\u2063 to find the exit blocked by police. Quickly, she made a &#8220;20-point \u200dturn&#8221; and headed back to Puamana.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, she saw her boss sitting in her car near an old banyan tree.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going home,&#8221; her boss said.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Albinson said she began \u2062to plead with her employer not to \u2064go back to the house, sensing it wasn&#8217;t safe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She drove off anyway. I didn&#8217;t hear anything from\u2063 her for 24 hours. She spent the night [seeking safety] in the ocean.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With powerful\u200c winds buffeting her \u2064vehicle, Ms. Albinson\u200d knew she had to get out of Lahaina \u200d&#8221;at all costs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll break the [police] barrier if I have to,&#8221; said\u200d Ms. \u2062Albinson, who managed \u200bto \u200cfind\u200b an unguarded exit to Route 30 away from Lahaina\u2014and home.<\/p>\n<p>That night she\u200b told her daughter, Shelby Thomson, 27, &#8220;There&#8217;s going to be \u2062thousands of dead people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mom, don&#8217;t say that,&#8221; her daughter said.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width:600px\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>Search and recovery team members check burned buildings and cars in the\u2064 aftermath of the\u200b wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 18, \u20642023. \u2064(Yuki\u2063 Iwamura\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But\u2064 Ms. Albinson said she knew there were too many people still trapped\u200c in the town\u200c for it to be otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Maui County officials announced at the end of August that 100 percent of\u2064 the town had been searched for\u2064 human remains. \u2064They put the \u200ddeath toll at 115, with hundreds still\u200c missing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Call\u200d it\u200c divine intervention. We&#8217;ve been unpacking it,&#8221; \u200csaid Ms. Thomson, realizing how close \u2063her mom had come to &#8220;not \u2064getting out&#8221; alive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Another half hour and she \u2063would&#8217;ve been blocked in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Lot of Confusion&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re \u2063just grateful to be alive,&#8221; said Michelle, whose husband, Ed, lost all his tools for his contracting business \u2062in the Lahaina fire.<\/p>\n<p>Although the couple&#8217;s home burned in the fire, they were able to\u200b save their dogs and 30 chickens.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width:600px\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>(Left) The \u200dWaiola Church is engulfed in \u2062flames in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 8, 2023. (Right) A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/number-of-missing-in-maui-expected-to-drop-below-100\/\" title=\"Maui's missing count to decrease below 100.\">volunteer makes damage assessment<\/a>\u200b of burned buildings in the aftermath of the wildfire on Aug. 12, 2023. (Matthew Thayer\/The Maui News via A, Yuki Iwamura\/AFP \u2062via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Michelle attributes the deadly fire to bad decisions by local officials and \u200c&#8221;a\u200c lot of miscommunication. A \u200clot of\u200d confusion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her husband recalled how bad the situation was on Front Street as panic-stricken motorists\u2064 jammed the roadway.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All of a sudden, flames and big embers were coming \u200cover the buildings right \u200bnext\u2063 to us,&#8221; Ed told The Epoch Times. &#8220;It was\u2063 raining\u2014snowing\u2063 embers. It was pretty thick. It was landing on the grass, starting tiny fires, and going \u2063out. That freaked everybody out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ed said he was astonished\u200b at how one lane of northbound traffic on Front Street quickly swelled into six lanes of mayhem, all moving in \u200dthe same direction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They were on the sidewalks\u2014they were\u200c everywhere. You couldn&#8217;t even \u200dget out of your vehicle. They were beside you, so \u2064close to you. You couldn&#8217;t \u200ceven open your doors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/09\/03\/id5485590-Artboard-2-copy-5.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My wife kept saying [over the phone], &#8216;You&#8217;ve got to get out of there, \u200beven if you have to run away from the\u200c vehicle.\u200c Just go.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ed then\u200d noticed\u200c two friends were in vehicles behind him who would later jump into the ocean to save their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Ed&#8217;s \u2062chance to escape came \u200bwhen a vehicle opened a space to his right on Front \u200cStreet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I \u2063just\u2064 hit the gas and filled his spot,&#8221; Ed\u200c said, throwing caution aside as he drove \u200bonto the sidewalk and grass in front of homes, edging his way further\u200d to\u200d the right to \u200bget \u2063out of traffic.<\/p>\n<p>Ed said he just kept moving forward until he\u2064 finally reached a\u2064 blocked \u200dside street and drove around the police barricade.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t go that\u2062 way!&#8221; an officer shouted, but Ed simply\u200c responded, &#8220;Well, I&#8217;m going anyway.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said getting\u200b onto the highway was &#8220;completely \u2064doable,&#8221; and feels, in retrospect, that defying the authorities probably saved\u2064 his\u2062 life.<\/p>\n<p>Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier and Mayor Richard Bissen have \u200dyet to return a phone call and email from The Epoch Times seeking comment for this article.<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times could not immediately reach interim Maui County \u200cEmergency Management\u2064 (MEMA) Administrator Darryl Oliveira for comment.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 28, Mr. Oliveira replaced former MEMA\u200d administrator Herman Andaya, who\u200c resigned\u2063 earlier this month, \u2064citing &#8220;health reasons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Andaya became embroiled\u2062 in controversy over his decision not to sound Maui County&#8217;s all-hazard warning sirens that would have alerted \u200cresidents to \u2063the wildfires.<\/p>\n<p>While MEMA routinely tests the sirens on \u200bthe first day of each month, the agency said it canceled \u2064the scheduled Sept. 1 system check out of sympathy and respect for\u200c the fire victims.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Survival \u200dMode&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Grale, a Lahaina resident, said \u2064she was getting ready to\u2063 go to work in Lahaina when her grandson called her \u200cat 5:30 a.m. \u2064on Aug. 8, \u200dasking if she was OK due to the first fire.<\/p>\n<p>Everything is fine, she told him. &#8220;But when I went down\u200b to Lahaina, as soon as\u2062 I got \u200cto the pull-off\u2064 to Puamana, it was all blocked off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Grale found another\u2063 route but the fire\u200c had spread onto Lahainaluna \u2063Road. Her cell phone had also stopped working.<\/p>\n<p>She eventually made it to work by doubling back onto Front \u200bStreet navigating the high winds and fallen \u2063trees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christy Albinson, 47, remains haunted by nightmares a month after the devastating Lahaina wildfire in West Maui. She describes her dreams as disturbing, with images of children buried in the sand. The trauma has left her feeling spooked and vulnerable, experiencing sudden panic attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":2021525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2021524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}