LAHAINA, Hawaii — One week into the wildfires in Lahaina, thousands are without a home, and a place that Lockport native Melissa Devine and her boyfriend would frequent since moving to Maui two years ago is devastated.
Devine has witnessed the tragedy firsthand. Last Tuesday, she said she was leaving work at a yoga studio in Kihei — about a 40-minute drive from Lahaina — when she started to notice smoke rising from the mountains and received a notice on her cell phone telling her to evacuate.
“I was driving down the Maui Veterans Highway and the right side of me just like it looked like Armageddon,” she said. “There were flames everywhere. People were panicking. It just really felt like doomsday.”
She says she considers herself one of the lucky ones. All of her friends and family are accounted for and her house is still standing.
But for so many, rubble is now all that is left, as the search for their loved ones continues.
“We didn't hear anything,” she said. “Nothing went off. Nobody knew nobody was prepared for this. A lot of kids were home that day because school was canceled. So all those kids in Lahaina they’re home alone. They don't know how to leave.”
Like so many in Maui right now, Devine feels they were failed, as officials initially said they had the flames under control before strong winds cause the fire to rage on just hours later.
But even in what is now the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, Melissa says there is a silver lining. So many volunteered to help that there are now calls on social media to pause their efforts
“Everybody wants to help,” Devine said. “And that's really what the Aloha spirit is — when you're suffering, you're still helping.”
That spirit, she says, makes her feel close to home, even from over 4,000 miles away.