Paintings on the wall rattled from heavy gusts whipping through my apartment.
That’s what woke me.
I got up and opened my west facing windows as I do every morning and looked out over the ocean. I lived just off the north side of Front street in a second story loft apartment. Pristine water, lazy sail boats warmed by the morning light and Molokai; the standard of my view. I had only moved a month and half prior from up north and a morning didn’t go by without my appreciation of where I lived and this view.
The strength of the winds slowly registered as I stood on my deck. Iniki winds had a similar strength, it felt like 60 to 65 miles per hour by my memory. These didn’t have the rain though. That’s what made it spooky.
There was also no electricity so I couldn’t make coffee. I had things to do. The mail I needed to send out was on the counter. I needed to go to the bank and do laundry and get a few groceries. I had already finished the paintings needed for my art show I had coming up on Friday so at least that was done.
Lilu, my eight year old granddaughter called a little while later. It would have been her first day back to school. She was freaking out which was also out of the norm. She said "the trees have the faces of nightmares". I had no idea how prophetic that would be.
I talked to my daughter, Erin a couple of times as the day progressed. She lived on the South side of Lahaina just a couple of miles from me. We knew there was a fire further to the south and we kept a wary eye on the smoke.
I was supposed to meet my friends to go see the Barbie movie but without electricity we knew that wasn't going to happen. Instead they stopped by for a few minutes and we chatted. The smoke plume got bigger and decided they'd better get home to batten down the hatches and secure their many animals.
Cell phones started to really glitch. I texted with a couple of friends that lived close but even texting started to fail. I closed all the south facing windows and swept my floors because of all the soot that had come in. I found myself pacing, the day seemed to be progressing in slow motion.
Erin called and asked if she should come swoop me up since I didn't have a car. Our call was dropped at that point. I didn't know how much she heard but I was telling her that the traffic was getting congested. The line of cars on Front street were barely moving and my worry began to mount. A few minutes later she called back and told me both the upper and lower roads were blocked because now the fire was in between us.
That’s when the phones died completely.
I went down to the street and looked south. Most of my neighbors were outside, looking to the sky. The smoke was oppressive, black and billowing and filled almost the entire southern view. The filtered sunlight cast everything in a sickly sepia tone. Police sirens were everywhere and explosions punctuated the ominous feeling. It was a convection oven wind now, changing directions from one moment to the next. My eyes started to burn.
It slowly dawned on me that I should start walking out of the area.
That’s right about the time that Bob, my landlord, showed up on his beat up dirt bike/motorcycle (?). “I’m going up to Nancy’s” he said. (She’s a mutual friend that lives up in Napili which is further north). “Do you want to hop on the back?”
“Yes” was my answer without hesitation.
“You’ve got a minute, I just stopped to get something out of my workshop”.
I ran upstairs and grabbed my backpack. I figured I might be gone a day or two so I threw in a change of clothes and two pairs of underwear. I had just gotten back from a visit in Canada so my toiletry bag was on my bathroom counter as was my passport so they both went in. I ran back downstairs where Bob was just getting back on his bike.
(For DAYS after this I would berate myself about the things I didn’t take. SO many things would have made the aftermath easier. I am a drill Sargent’s daughter so I’ve always had a “go bag” ready; just not that day. I had JUST taken it apart because I put my important papers into a safe deposit box the day before. Side note; that bank also burnt down.)
So Bob and I pulled into the slowly moving traffic on Front Street.
The cars were stopped, then moved like four car lengths ahead and then stopped again. Somebody let us into the the line. I was thankful for that. I was also thankful that Bob didn’t jump over to the other side of the road like I’ve seen other people in motor bikes do. Instead, we inched our way forward until we got to the intersection where Front Street meets the upper highway.
The cop directing traffic had to wait until there was movement ahead on the road before he could let more cars through.
Over the rise, just past our civic center utility poles lay across the road. The traffic had to merge to the far left to get around them and the result was a bottleneck.
Once I got off the bike at Nancy’s I noticed my shaking hands. I don’t know why. I wasn’t feeling anxious. Actually I was curiously without any feeling at all. The sounds of sirens and explosions continued to ring in my head though. Nancy, Bob and I talked a little about what might be going on. More people were streaming to Napili. There was news that the civic center (which was being used to shelter people) had to be evacuated also because the fire was dangerously close.
Still no electricity. Still no cell phone or internet. We were literally in the dark as to what was going on. The next day passed with no news. Napili market parking lot looked like a town center. People trying to buy groceries stood in line for upwards of three hours. Some people were sleeping in their cars. Rumors about the whole town being gone started as whispers but gained volume. That was hard to fathom. How could that possibly be true? We hoped our place was still standing despite someone telling us it was gone. Still we hoped. Craving an exaggeration.
The second day I walked up the hill behind Napili looking for some kind of cell service. There was a horde of us up there. Over worked police and county workers were patiently answering questions. There was a man there that only spoke Korean and everyone tried to find him an interpreter. Men wore worried lines on their foreheads and I heard crying from different pockets of the group.
I mostly worried about Erin and the kids. I knew they would have gotten out safely but I also knew she’d be worried sick about me. No luck with the cell phone and still the sounds of sirens and explosions rang in my head.
Finally, the next day, up on the hill I got a signal and got through to each of my kids. Their relief palpable through tears. I heard buses would be leaving from Ka’anapali in the morning taking people to the airport, I planned on being on one of them.
The next morning I found myself standing in a line that had grown to eighteen hundred people.
While waiting, I heard my name called out. I turned to see a friend of mine rush towards me with a hug. She said she’d been looking for me for the last two days. The relief on her face touched my heart so deeply that I cried for the first time. Her worry and care for me was the key that opened the floodgate of emotions I had unwittingly been holding in. I told her I was heading to the other side to be with my family.
That ride passed by Lahaina and I saw the devastation for the first time. The sight of ashes where my house used to be suddenly pierced my chest. Reality buckled my knees and I sobbed. Even now, as I write this the tears are falling.
The next few days we moved from Erin’s office, where they were nice enough to let us camp, to a posh hotel room gifted to us for a week. Erin had to find longer term housing for her family and I took the trip to Mexico that had already been planned.
That’s where I am now. There are so many emotions and feelings of guilt and also LOTS of gratitude. I don’t know what will come next but I’ll figure it out.
