Lahaina resident recounts family’s escape from fires down deadly highway
MAALAEA, Hawaii — After an exhausting day battling to protect his family’s home in Lahaina against hurricane-like wind — it felled trees, tore apart roofs and knocked down power lines — Bryce Baraoidan figured things couldn’t get much worse. Then he saw dense black smoke blowing his way. Like so many others in Lahaina, who had lost electricity and internet hours before the flames arrived last ...
MAALAEA, Hawaii — After an exhausting day battling to protect his family’s home in Lahaina against hurricane-like wind — it felled trees, tore apart roofs and knocked down power lines — Bryce Baraoidan figured things couldn’t get much worse.
Then he saw dense black smoke blowing his way.
Like so many others in Lahaina, who had lost electricity and internet hours before the flames arrived last Tuesday, Baraoidan and his family were completely cut-off from 21st century information sources.
They had nothing to rely on but their five senses and what he called the “coconut telegraph”: friends and neighbors running up and down the street warning, “the fire’s a mile away,” “half a mile,” “a few blocks.”
When they finally made the decision to
