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© 2024 J. Matt
Napili Market Shopping Center in Lahaina is now an aid and resource distribution point. Volunteer groups, the Red Cross, and local firefighters are working the site to provide help to those affected by the blaze. There are containers of goods on site and more being filled—the generosity of donations is stunning. The organization of donations is ad hoc at best and actual need on the ground isn’t always met. In the absence of a coordinated effort of request, people are sending everything to Maui without understanding of need. For example, toilet paper supplies are running high but baby wipes are not as available as some people require. Fuel, especially propane, is lacking while diapers proliferate. Hawaii has not seen a disaster of this magnitude in living memory of most people and as such, lacks the structures of response and distribution necessary in these conditions such as California has developed by hard experience. People’s goodwill and aloha is nowhere in doubt; the response’s efficacy is, especially as one moves further from those whose lives were previously lived in the epicenter of the burn areas, with complaints about response growing the further toward Honolulu one listens. Lahaina USA