Monday, August 28, 2023

Missing Children and More Unanswered Questions In Maui

Over 2,400 kids are missing in Maui

Lance D Johnson


When massive fires began to ravage the island of Maui, emergency management teams were nowhere to be found. As the fires raged, at least 74 emergency management officials were attending an annual FEMA disaster meeting just a quick hour and half flight away, on the island of Oahu. Top officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security were preoccupied at the Pacific Partnership Meeting, as one of the most devastating wildfires in U.S. history burned its way into the town of Lahaina.

Why are federal and state officials not talking about the 2,400 missing children in Lahaina?

The firestorm, fueled by tropical storm force winds, was not taken seriously; no emergency alarms were sounded, evacuation routes were blocked. Local Maui residents said that a police blockade actually prevented the people from leaving Front Street in Lahaina, as the wildfire came in.

On that horrid day, vehicles burned in the streets, boats burned 50 yards out to sea, and people barely survived choking and burning in the Pacific Ocean’s treacherous waters. In the aftermath, one could see that droves of residents were backed up on roads that must have been blocked by billows of smoke and other barricades of fire and devastation. The fires took out more than 2,200 homes and displaced an estimated 4,500 people.

As of August 21, 2023, Maui County and the Maui Police Department have reported a death toll of 115 people. “The death toll from the wildfires has risen to 115 people,” Maui authorities reported on Monday the 21st. But these official reports are a sham. The FBI, the Red Cross and the Maui police have a missing persons list that contains approximately 1,000 people who are still unaccounted for. Even this official missing person’s list falls short of the harsh reality that over 2,400 kids are missing in Maui. The mayor of Maui, Richard Bissen, has yet to report on this grave reality. Multiple hundreds of kids were left to burn in Lahaina, and the corporate press has yet to address this chilling reality and the failure of the government’s emergency response.

Hawaii officials have been encouraging families from Lahaina to enroll their children in schools outside of the burn zone. The four schools in Lahaina served more than 3,000 students. Shocking, only about 400 students from the burn area have reportedly enrolled in other public schools. Only around 200 more have signed up for distance learning. At least 2,400 students are left unaccounted for in the public school system. These figures do not even account for children who are home-schooled in Lahaina, many of which could be missing as well.

It’s not clear how many children burned to ash in those horrid fires. Some parents may be waiting to decide where they will send their kids to school, but it’s hard to tell how many families burned up together in the historic fires. In these cases, there could be no family members left to enroll or account for the missing schoolchildren.

Why are officials hiding the true death toll in Lahaina? Why are Hawaii officials claiming that an abstract concept “climate change” is to blame for the fires, without any investigation into real-life causes for the fires? Just looking at the devastation, the fires appear to have burned some structures from the inside out, while leaving nearby trees largely intact. Why is there no investigation into potential arson or terrorist attacks on the town of Lahaina? What are the real motivations behind the state’s desire to confiscate the land there? Why aren’t the missing children being discussed on every news network, and why isn’t the government discussing the administrative failures and questioning why and how this happened?



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