The death of 110 people has already been confirmed, more than a thousand are missing
Photo: REUTERS
The fire that swept through an entire city on the Hawaiian island of Maui on August 9 became a black spot in Biden’s political career: the current US president and his administration are accused of almost failing to react to a large-scale tragedy. scale. And it is this fire that can burn all the hopes of the current American head of state for a second term in the White House.
Historic city burned to the ground
The fire destroyed Lahaina, the historic capital of Hawaii. State Governor John Green said more than 2,700 buildings burned to the ground. And the cause of the disaster was the flame that appeared in one of the forests. A hurricane wind, whose gusts reached an unprecedented speed of 130 km/h, drove the fire towards the city. It spread rapidly from house to house, in a minute entire neighborhoods one and a half kilometers long were burned down, and people practically did not have time to escape.
Already 110 people have been confirmed dead and more than a thousand are missing. It was possible to examine less than a third of the burned territory. Specially trained dogs find almost completely charred remains of people so often and so often that the size of such canine units had to be doubled.
“So far, none of us can assess the scale of this disaster. – said the island’s police chief, John Pelletier. “We find the remains of the dead, and they crumble in our hands. Lahaina was converted into a crematorium. These people died in a fire that melted metal. DNA testing will be necessary to identify the dead.”
And yet, the authorities hope that the number of victims will not increase exponentially, since some of the victims of the fire are in other parts of the island, unable to contact family and friends.
From aliens to billionaires
There is no official version of the causes of the deadliest fire in the United States in the last hundred years: the federal government continues to investigate. So far, the head of the Hawaii Office of Emergency Management, who has since resigned, has taken all the blame. He was charged with failing to operate warning sirens on Maui. But now the former boss claims they were not included intentionally, as they were intended to signal an approaching tsunami. “Hearing the sound of the sirens, people ran towards the depths of the island, that is, towards the very epicenter of the flames,” he said.
Maui residents and Internet users drew attention to the fact that the fire burned everything in its path, moving along an unusual elliptical path. The ashes on Maui, when viewed from a height, have a distinct oval shape. Experts, however, explain this by weather conditions: this is how, according to them, the hurricane wind moves, which “moved” the fire. But that is why intact trees and bushes remained on their way, they cannot explain.
All this caused a flood of the most diverse theories about the causes of the fiery cataclysm, even fantastic and conspiracy theories. There are even those who claim that the cause of the fire was… the operation of the engines of the spaceship in which the aliens flew to Hawaii. He was supposedly seen shortly before the start of the cataclysm.
It is also recalled that in May, Maui firefighters complained about a series of natural fires started by careless tourists, as well as arsonists whose motives were not established. And here many hint at the possible participation of the rich, who have long chosen the Hawaiian archipelago as a place to build their properties. Media mogul, TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, actors Jim Carrey and Clint Eastwood, former US President Barack Obama have real estate in Hawaii. And Oracle’s owner, billionaire Larry Ellison, usually bought up most of the island of Lanai and made his own rules. But there are only 24 islands and atolls in Hawaii, and real estate prices here are among the highest in America, so some of the wealthy suspect the fire on Maui is an attempt to intimidate the islanders into forcing to abandon her to later take possession of the territory of the entire city at a low price.
local realities
But there is another reason that the American media is reluctant to talk about, avoiding a sensitive point: the main leadership positions in the state of Hawaii are traditionally distributed among representatives of the indigenous population (which, by the way, are only 10% of the population). almost 1.5 million inhabitants). “Our government is full of incompetent nepotism. The fire chief is the son of a former fire chief,” Hawaiians write on social media.
A Hawaii resident, attorney Mikhail Gilevich, who is running for state governor in 2022, also weighed in on the matter:
– The Biden administration insists that climate change is to blame. And system errors are to blame for everything. The state has been run by Democrats for sixty years. Everything here now is corrupt, everything is under the Democrats and there is no alternative. A few years ago in Hawaii there was an incident that was highly publicized around the world: a young man walked into the radio room of the emergency services and announced that nuclear missiles were flying towards Hawaii. Panic started. And how did it all end? Nothing! This official continues to work at his workplace. All over the world there are bomb shelters in cities, there are some safe places, but in Lahaina there was none of that, and the Biden administration is silent about it. In Hawaii, the construction of bomb shelters was once canceled entirely! And the mermaids? For pro forma, the first of every month at a set time they are checked, but on Maui they didn’t work at the right time.
So far, the governor has only stated that an investigation is underway into the operation of the sirens. “We’ll know soon enough if enough has been done for them to join,” Greene said.
What does Biden know?
Biden has literally been ignoring questions about the Maui fire all these days. The criticism against him began to snowball. Last Thursday, journalists again asked the head of the White House: how will he comment on the tragedy? “Not now,” was all the US president said at the end of his rare press conference.
“Biden seems unaware of his upcoming trip to Maui. Either he wasn’t warned, or he thinks he and his wife are going on vacation there. Leave Biden alone now!” journalist Kate Hyde ironically commented on the behavior of the head of state.
In fact, Joe and Jill Biden will be heading to Hawaii next Monday. As the White House press service announced, they will visit there to support local residents and determine the amount of assistance needed with local authorities.
Too many leaders, too few warriors
Everything else is still hidden by a veil of secrecy or by the federal government’s complete ignorance of the true state of affairs on Maui. Yes, and ordinary Americans still do not understand what to do: in the media there are calls to go to Hawaii to help local businesses focused primarily on receiving tourists, then TV channels beg everyone to stay at home and not fly to Maui, because there supposedly are no vacant hotel rooms because all the rooms are given to fire victims. They also scare everyone with the fact that a large-scale fire has already caused contamination of the Maui ecosystem with toxic combustion products, both the air and drinking water are full of them. And even volunteers are not allowed to enter burned Lahaina, but only those who can confirm that they lived in this city. The last restriction was introduced mainly due to the fact that there were cases of looting.
Regarding aid to the victims, Brada Young, one of the residents of Lahaina that burned, defined its volume and speed as follows: “There are too many leaders, but not enough warriors. Everyone commands, but nothing moves ”.
