It will be difficult for her community to rebuild: After Lahaina’s historic sugar cane mill shuttered in 1999, the hospitality industry quickly took over as the main economic engine of the community. Her family home burned to the ground, and much of the neighborhood she grew up in is now in ashes. She was in Lahaina visiting family when the fire broke out and is among the lucky ones who survived. Her family immigrated to Maui from Okinawa, Japan, as part of the influx of laborers that were brought in to work on the island’s sugar cane plantations. My mother was born and raised in Lahaina. Her grandparents passed away before the 2023 fires, but the home they lived in and gardens they planted are destroyed. Still, Avila emphasized that Lahaina is a strong and tight-knit community, and the people will find a way to rebuild from the ground up.ĬNN Business Writer Catherine Thorbecke (center) with her late grandparents in Lahaina, Hawaii, circa 2013. “A lot of them are going to Kihei and Wailuku and Kahului – and then a lot of them are leaving the island completely,” Avila said of his friends and neighbors in the days since the blaze, and referring to three cities on the other side of Maui. He and his wife have found temporary shelter at a friend’s vacation rental condo, but many others now “feel like they have to leave the community,” he told CNN. Rick Avila, 65, a longtime Lahaina resident who lost his house to the blaze said one of the biggest immediate concerns for the community is finding long-term affordable housing for those who lost their homes. The agony wrought by the deadliest US wildfire in a century is only beginning in Lahaina, Hawaii, where the inferno virtually wiped the town off the map.įear, anger and despair are setting in for some locals, who are now imploring that repair efforts should focus on not just clearing the way for tourists, but meeting the needs of the people who call Lahaina home.
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