LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Public schools on Maui have started the process of reopening in a sign of recovery a week after wildfires demolished a historic town and killed over 100 people, even as additional cadaver dogs arrived Wednesday to help teams search for more remains on Hawaii’s second-largest island.
At least three schools untouched by flames in Lahaina, where entire neighborhoods were reduced to ash, were still being assessed after sustaining wind damage, said Hawaii Department of Education superintendent Keith Hayashi. The campuses will open when they’re deemed safe.
“There’s still a lot of work to do, but overall the campuses and classrooms are in good condition structurally, which is encouraging,” Hayashi said in a video update. “We know the recovery effort is still in the early stages, and we continue to grieve the many lives lost.”
Elsewhere on Maui, crews cleaned up ash and debris at schools, and tested air and water quality for toxins. Displaced students who enroll at those campuses can access services such as meals, socialization and counseling, Hayashi said. The education department is also offering counseling for kids, family members and staff.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency opened its first disaster recovery center on Maui, “an important first step” toward helping residents get information about assistance, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said Wednesday. They also can go there for updates on their aid applications.
Criswell said she would accompany President Joe Biden on Monday when he visits Maui to survey the damage and “bring hope.”
With the death toll already at 106, a mobile morgue unit with additional coroners arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday to help with the grim task of sorting through remains.
Search and recovery crews using cadaver dogs had scoured approximately 30% of the burn area by Tuesday, officials said. The number of canine teams was increasing to 49 because of the difficulty and scope of the operation, FEMA said. The dogs need to rest frequently because of the terrain and heat.
Searchers combing through the ashes found some of Lahaina’s most vulnerable residents, including children, among the victims. Gov. Josh Green said this week that teams found a family of four killed in a charred car, and the remains of seven family members inside a burned-down house.
“Some of the sights are too much to share, or see, just from a human perspective,” Green told Hawaii News Now on Tuesday.
Just over a quarter of Lahaina’s 13,000 residents are under age 18, according to Census Reporter, an organization that analyzes U.S. Census data. Another 10% are ages 71 or older.
Sacred Hearts School in Lahaina was destroyed and Principal Tonata Lolesio said lessons would resume in the coming weeks at another Catholic school. She said it was important for the students to be with their friends, teachers and books, and not constantly thinking about the tragedy.
“I’m hoping to at least try to get some normalcy or get them in a room where they can continue to learn or just be in another environment where they can take their minds off of that,” she said.
None of the roughly 3,000 public school students in Lahaina were in classes last Tuesday when the fires started. The education department had closed several West Maui campuses because of dangerously high winds and many students stayed home while their parents worked, according to survivors’ accounts.
Communication on Maui remained difficult Wednesday. Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls. Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to find water and supplies.
Thousands of displaced residents were staying in shelters, hotel rooms and Airbnb units, or with friends. The power company restored supply to over 10,000 customers but around 2,000 homes and businesses still had no electricity Tuesday night, Maui County wrote.
The fire also contaminated water supplies in many areas.
On Tuesday, the county released the names of two victims: Lahaina residents Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79. They are the first of five who have been identified so far. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier renewed an appeal for families missing relatives to provide DNA samples.
The cause of the wildfires, already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century, was under investigation. Green has warned that scores more bodies could be found.
“Many of the fatalities were on the road, down by the sea,” Green told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “So the numbers will increase, but they will not increase — we hope — to … catastrophic proportions. We just don’t know yet.”
The governor warned Tuesday that a new storm approaching the islands could complicate the search and recovery, and that officials might cut off power as a precaution during the erratic weather.
The local power utility faced criticism for leaving power on as strong winds from a passing hurricane buffeted a parched area last week, and one video shows a cable dangling in a charred patch of grass, surrounded by flames, in the early moments of the wildfire. The cause of the wildfires, some of which still burned, remained under investigation.
The Lahaina fire caused about $3.2 billion in insured property losses, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company. It said more than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed by flames, with about 3,000 damaged by fire, smoke or both.
John Allen and his daughter surveyed an ash-gray landscape once festooned with colorful orchids and plumerias from a hill above the Lahaina fire zone. His daughter wept as she pointed to the coffee shop where she used to work, and the places they used to live.
Allen moved to Maui two years ago after leaving Oakland, California, where he witnessed a destructive wildfire race up hillsides in 1991.
“No one realizes how quickly fires move,” Allen said.
Kelleher reported from Honolulu and Weber from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Bobby Caina Calvan in Kihei, Hawaii; Haven Daley in Kalapua, Hawaii; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri; and Darlene Superville and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed.