(CN) — One year and one day after a wind-driven wildfire razed the town of Lahaina to the ground, Hawaii Governor Josh Green provided a one-year update on the recovery to this point and what will come next in a press conference Friday.
After spending the day with families affected on the one-year anniversary Thursday, Green thanked first responders, federal and state organizations and community members who helped in the aftermath of the fire, which killed over 100 people, destroyed more than 2,200 structures and caused $5.5 billion of damages.
“It did look like a nuclear weapon had been detonated on our land here,” Green said.
Green said that 99% of residential unit lots and 50% of commercial lots are clear of debris. Now, work to begin housing people and reviving commercial businesses in Lahaina can be accelerated.
“Now, in year two, which begins today, you will see the mayor take action to get permits out,” Green said. "You’re already seeing us begin to construct what amounts to 810 new permanent housing units.”
Those 810 new units, combined with the over 1,000 transitional housing units that were already built to help Lahaina residents, will come online over the course of the next year, Green said.
On Wednesday, Green said in a separate announcement the La‘ikū temporary housing project will provide 16 two-bedroom, one-bath units at 560 sq. ft. each. The homes are being built on approximately two acres of land that was previously acquired by the Hawaii Department of Transportation as part of the Lahaina Bypass project.
The first two families began moving into La‘ikū on July 23 and two families are in the process of moving in. Four additional units will be completed on Aug. 9, and the remaining eight units will be delivered by September, Green said on Wednesday.
Aside from housing, Green announced the creation of what he called an “aloha grant” for teachers at local schools.
“People will receive up to $5,000 if they work at the schools as teachers or support those schools, because we know that they're buying backpacks and laptops and iPads for the children that were otherwise displaced. So everyone who's worked in those schools is going to receive a grant because of what they have done and what they will need to do this coming year,” Green said, promising that more details would be unveiled next week.
Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen spoke after Green and lauded the infrastructure team in Maui County, which he said restored 100% of the drinking water last week.
“We also have our sewer infrastructure that will be restored by the end of this year,” Bissen said.
Bissen said the fire department has added more positions and newer technology to help detect and fight fires in the future.
“We’re utilizing newer technology such as a thermal drone that we used in a recent fire at Crater Road to help us detect underground hotspots,” Bissen said.
Dimitri Kusnezov, undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said that after the fire, the department came up with the idea to use artificial intelligence sensors that could analyze the air and help prevent fires by notifying first responders.
He said 80 of the sensors are currently in Hawaii, with 20 on Maui.
“Maui is leading the way in this next generation of technologies, which we expect to be more broadly deployed across the nation and probably globally,” Kusnezov said.
The sensors could be key, as emergency sirens reportedly did not sound the day of the fire and emergency alerts weren't pushed through as communication lines were compromised by the blaze.
While no official reason for the origin of the fires has been determined, Hawaiian Electric has weathered a majority of the blame, with many of the approximately 450 Maui wildfire lawsuits in state and federal courts filed by individuals, businesses and insurance companies attributing the blaze to the electric utility's downed powerlines.
The $4 billion settlement announced last week to resolve those lawsuits filed in the wake of the wildfires will also help build hundreds of more homes, Green said.
“I hope that when we stand here again in a year and tell the story of the second year, we’ll talk about how the settlement brought people to a place where they could build their houses again," he said.
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