Days after fleeing in his open-top truck in smoke so thick he could only follow the red taillights of the vehicle ahead, and pray they were heading the right way, the retired hotel worker from the Philippines returned to his destroyed house with his son to look for the safe. Tomas, 65, said it contained passports, naturalization documents and other important papers, as well as $35,000.
Digging through the ashes, father and son found the box, but it had been opened in the fire driven by hurricane-force winds, and its contents had burned.
For immigrants like Tomas, Lahaina was an oasis with nearly twice the foreign-born population of the American mainland. Now these workers are trying to rebuild their lives after the fire that devastated the town on August 8.
Maui County and county police confirmed the identities of five other victims of the fires Sunday, according to the county’s website. The confirmed death toll stood at 114 as investigators continued to search the area.
“An army of search and rescue teams” with 41 dogs has covered 85% of the search area, Gov. Josh Green said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said on social media Sunday that 27 victims have been identified and 11 families have been informed of the losses. The FBI and the Maui County Coroner’s Office were working together to identify the recovered remains.
“Right now there are 850 names on the missing persons list,” Bissen said. The number was an improvement from the initial more than 2,000 names.
“Some 1,285 people have been found safe. We are both saddened and relieved by these numbers as we continue the recovery process. The number of identified will go up, and the number of missing could go down,” Bissen said. Daily variations were expected, said the mayor, who planned to update the data every day.
There was a lot of work in Lahaina, where restaurants and shops lined Front Street, overlooking the blue waters of the Pacific. Foreign workers from all over the world had come to Lahaina, drawn by its beautiful scenery and laid-back lifestyle.
And they contributed significantly to both the population and the economy.
The presence of migrant workers in Lahaina raised its proportion of foreign-born residents to 32%, nearly double the 13.5% in the United States as a whole, the US Census estimated in July 2022.
Still, the staff shortage associated with COVID-19 took a toll in Hawaii just as it did on the mainland. In February, nearly three years after the pandemic began, employers were trying to fill 14,000 jobs in Hawaii, nearly double the number of unfilled positions before the pandemic, Hawaii News Now reported, citing state economists. Restaurants in Lahaina literally hired people passing by on the street.
Many foreign-born workers lost everything in the flames. Some neighbors died.
The Mexican consulate in San Francisco said the deaths of two men had been confirmed and that it was working to arrange for the delivery of their remains to their families in Mexico.. Among the more than 100 dead and many more missing was also a Costa Rican man.
The consulate said some 3,000 Mexican citizens were believed to be living on Maui, many in pineapple farms, hotels and restaurants, as well as other establishments associated with tourism.
The Mexican Consul General in San Francisco, Remedios Gómez Arnau, sent three members of her team to Maui to help Mexican citizens deal with the tragedy. The Mexican government has been in contact with at least 250 of its citizens on Maui, he said, and has issued new passports and birth certificates lost in the fire.
“Many of them lost everything because their houses burned down, and they lost their documents,” he explained in an interview on Friday.
After businesses went up in flames, many of the survivors now find themselves jobless. Many also have nowhere to live, as the fire destroyed accommodation for many workers in local hotels and spas. And others are not clear how to move forward.
Kevin Block, an immigration attorney, noted that some migrants have permanent residency or temporary protection, while others are in the United States illegally.
“Many of these people are nervous about asking for any kind of help,” he said. “When (Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA) comes to town, or when there are government agencies out there or even medical assistance, they are afraid to get it because they are afraid they will be deported.”
A document provided by FEMA indicates that anyone affected by a major disaster can receive help, including non-citizens whose deportation proceedings are stalled for at least a year, as well as non-citizens who have been granted asylum. . That help can include crisis counseling, legal assistance, medical care, food and shelter, among other services.
However, callers to the FEMA assistance number hear a recording telling them to provide a social security number and warning them that lying on the assistance application is a federal crime.
For migrants who came to Maui as children, the island is the only home they know.
“They are working as first responders, serving food, handing out supplies,” Block said. “They are with everyone else checking who needs help. It has become clearer than ever how vital they are to the community.”
Chuy Madrigal fled the fire with nine members of his family, originally from Mexico.
Hawaii fires August 13, 2023 – AP
AP/Rick Bowmer
They lost the house their mother had bought after 30 years of working and saving, and the food truck they had started running just three months earlier, said Madrigal, who is protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. for its acronym in English) for immigrants who came to the country as children but do not have a residence permit.
Madrigal said he and other members of the migrant community have been knocking on doors to gather supplies for people in need and offering to translate. They have tried to console those who, like him, have lost everything.
“There is a lot of fear,” he said. “But once you talk to people and say ‘When we got here we started from zero, this is zero again, we just have to get back to it and carry on,’ many say, ‘He’s right.'”
The family plans to rebuild their life again on Maui.
