“We’re happy everyone’s alive,” said Dave Hovis of San Francisco after he and his friends escaped the deadly Maui fires.
Dave Hovis and his friends hardly noticed the advisories for strong wind gusts from Hurricane Dora passing far off shore earlier this week as they enjoyed a relaxing vacation in a friend’s waterfront home at Baby Beach in Maui. The next day, they were ramming through a gate to escape the deadly wildfire that destroyed the nearby resort town of Lahaina.
On Monday, Hovis, vacationing with four others this week at a friend’s home on the island, said they secured the inflatable pool floats and other loose items and didn’t think much more about it. But by morning, electrical power and cellular service were out. On Tuesday, Hurricane Dora passing hundreds of miles south of the Hawaiian Islands was blamed for wind gusts of 60-80 mph that knocked out power that evening and grounded firefighting helicopters as fire crews battled multiple blazes around Lahaina and inland in the island upcountry.
Still, they didn’t realize how much danger they were in. They got an evacuation notice late Tuesday afternoon, packed their bags in their car and began spraying water on their friend’s house to protect it from the encroaching flames. When the blaze reached the end of their road they joined others helping neighbors hose down their houses to protect them.They got to their car but with the power out, a gate at the driveway wouldn’t open to let them out, and they couldn’t move it by hand.
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