Maui County plans to hold big name cell carriers accountable for August wildfires

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Maui County said it wants to hold cell carriers responsible for not reporting outages during the August 8 wildfires.

In a release sent to KHON2 Wednesday afternoon, the county announced it filed a complaint in circuit court today against Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Spectrum Mobile and AT&T.

The lawsuit alleges that the cell carriers did not properly inform the Maui Police Department in a timely manner of widespread cellular service outages on August 8 and 9.

The county said at least 14-alerts were sent out with evacuation information.

The county added it later learned many people did not receive the messages because of the outages.

“As everybody looks to blame the county along with other parties, right,” said Maui County Special Counsel David Minkin. “Who else should be in this litigation and we believe on behalf of the county that these cell carriers have an obligation to notify us.”

The county’s special counsel added they are working towards serving the cell companies.

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KHON2 reached out to the carriers for comment but have not heard back.