Maui Mayor responds to AGʻs wildfires report

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said they acted accordingly with the information they had at hand— and rejects the idea that there was a delay in the emergency response.

A nearly 400 page document has been released outlining communication and actions taken by Maui County emergency officials and mayor Richard Bissen as the August wildfires raged.

The report raised questions on how quickly did county officials activate all emergency protocols given the destruction that took place.

“As far as I can recall, everything we asked for we received and we didn’t reject any offers of assistance,” said Mayor Bissen.

“It seemed like there was a delay in accepting additional aid when asked,” asked KHON2’s Max Rodriguez. “The former MEMA Director Andaya says that you and other officials said that you guys had it covered earlier that day. What’s your response to that looking back? “

“I don’t think we delayed in requesting any assistance at all ever during this, we didn’t delay then we are not delaying now, we’re getting lots of assistance obviously the coast guard immediately responded to the needs we had,“ continued Mayor Bissen.

The Coast Guard saved more than a dozen people who jumped into the harbor as Lahaina’s Front St. burned.

Mayor Bissen said he was following recommendations from fire and police and requesting any assistance they requested.

“We had about 29 firefighters up in Kula fighting that fire and I constantly checked with the fire department if we were in need of more,“ he said.

“The police were the ones who asked for the National Guard to come out with checkpoints and we immediately accepted that help and these are people already on island by the way.”

Bissen added the strong winds that day prevent assets on the island from being deployed.

“We had helicopters here on Maui on the ground they just couldn’t get in the air because of the winds, we knew that the helicopters that they had they offered to us on Oahu, they also were not able to go up in the air.”

Max Rodriguez asked Mayor Bissen if looking back, he would he do anything different.

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He said he isn’t sure, but at this time his focus is the recovery and rebuilding of Lahaina.