She has gone searching from one hostel to another, hoping that strangers will recognize the faces on the flyers she brings with her. Baclig, 30, has been running up and down Lahaina, desperately searching for something that might lead him to her wife, Angelica, and her parents, Joel and Adela Villegas. Six other relatives who lived in the house next door have yet to be found.
“I’m not going to give up until I see them,” he said. “Of course I hope to find them alive… What else can I do?”
Even when she tries to sound optimistic, her voice is soft.
“I’ve been searching and searching — in Lahaina, everywhere,” Baclig said, speaking Ilocano, a northern Philippine dialect.
The fire claimed dozens of lives and destroyed hundreds of homes, including the home Baclig’s family bought three years ago on Kopili Street, about a 15-minute walk from historic Front Street, once a bustling tourist center but now it is a bleak avenue of collapsed buildings lined with charred vehicles.
Crews have found the remains of 114 people, most of them yet to be identified. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green has said the death toll will likely rise in the coming days as a painstaking search for remains continues among piles of rubble and ash in Lahaina, a coastal community of 12,000 and a point of departure. tourist access in Maui.
The authorities acknowledge that they do not have a specific number of disappeared. Many people initially listed as missing have been located in recent days.
Earlier this week, Police Chief John Pelletier said authorities will do everything possible to locate the missing. “But I can’t promise we’ll find them all,” he said.
One day before the fire, Po’omaika’i Estores-Losano, a 28-year-old father of two, wished his ohana, the Hawaiian word for family, aloha. “Another beautiful day in Hawaii,” he wrote on Facebook, ending the post of him urging his circle to “have fun, enjoy” and never be “unhappy and grumpy.”
On Saturday, he is on the missing persons list. His family has traveled the island looking for him in hospitals and shelters. Since he did not have a car, Estores-Losano would have had to navigate the fire and smoke on foot.
“We don’t want him to think that we stopped looking for him,” said Ku’ulei Barut, who last spoke to his brother the day before he went missing.
Ace Yabes is also waiting for news about his relatives: Nine in total are missing, including Angelica Baclig, whose family lived next door to an aunt and her family, five of whom have yet to be found.
Kevin Baclig was working as a nurse at a specialized care facility when the fire moved rapidly down the hills toward the city, burning down almost everything in its path.
“I have been looking at all the shelters, hotels and other possible places they could have gone to, I have gone to all of them. I have gone to their friends’ houses,” he said. “I reported her missing to MPD (Maui Police Department) and the FBI. I’ve been showing the pictures of him.”
Staying with friends in Kahalui on the island’s northern flank, Baclig remains hopeful as he searches.
Since the flames consumed much of Lahaina, locals fear that the rebuilt city could be geared even more to wealthy visitors.
A coalition of activists, grouped under a broader group called “Na Ohana o Lele: Lahaina,” said it was particularly concerned about the impact of development on the environment, noting how the mismanagement of resources — especially land and water — contributed to the rapid spread of the fire.
The decision not to activate the emergency warning sirens, together with the water shortage that hampered the work of the firefighters and the traffic jam on a highway where flames consumed the cars of those fleeing the fire, has provoked intense criticism.
The absence of the sirens has been revealed as a possible error and part of a series of communication problems that have aggravated the chaos, according to a report by The Associated Press.
Hawaii has what has been hailed as the world’s largest outdoor emergency siren system, created after a tsunami that killed more than 150 on the so-called Big Island in 1946 and, according to its website, can be used to warn of fires.
The cause of the wildfires is under investigation. But the risk of catastrophes is increasing in Hawaii, with wildfires rising the most, according to an AP analysis of records from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
