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You must have your oceans confused

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Nah, it would be one hell of a voyage, but pay Galveston.

Prayers sent

aggie93 said:

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aggiedata said:

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I spent a lot of time on this street in the past. Crazy

#mauifire Wildfire has engulfed businesses on Front Street in downtown Lahaina in West Maui, home to 12,000 people. The Coast Guard is responding to people who were forced to go into the ocean due to the flames. Video credit to Alan Dickar, a local resident of Lahaina. pic.twitter.com/AHbhNSHmEP

— Suepin (@yzimng2) August 9, 2023

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Me as well, really cool little town and sad to see. These fires happen there for a variety of reasons and always have unfortunately. Summer time things dry up and you have so much vegetation so it can get bad quickly.

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This is the question I had: what's the historic ecological norm.

Having grown up on Smokey the Bear and the virtuization of wildfire suppression - it has taken me decades to come around to "some areas are meant to burn and we should try to work with those tendencies rather than against them."

Wow that's crazy - I had an almost identical experience. Went to one of the "local" beaches off of 30 south from Lahaina with my now wife's family and another family we were on vacation with a few years back.

We had some locals deliberately start stuff with our group. Cussed at my wife and her little sister (14 at the time) for being in what they referred to as their kids swimming area (little tidal pool shielded from the surf behind some rocks). Then they told my father in law and the other husband/dad of the other family that we needed to leave and we shouldnt be there and got into a verbal altercation with them.

Their description is almost exactly like the one you gave. Older tatted up dudes. After that I realized that the locals f***ing suck and aren't intelligent enough to realize without tourist dollars from the evil whites they would still be living a third world existence.

I might be there in 2 weeks. So bummed.

Watching this map:

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-155.1,26.1,4z

To see if my area will be burned.

It Aint Easy Being Brown said:

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Man this sucks

Lahaina was our Hawaii spot

It'll take years to build back

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Lahaina is one of the coolest places on the planet.

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FireAg said:

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It does not look like the banyan tree faired well at all

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Dang that is a bummer. That was the coolest part of Lahaina imo. I had some damned good times in that town.

FireAg said:

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It does not look like the banyan tree faired well at all

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Neither did the buildings in that town. Ouch.


and of course......user name checks out.

FireAg said:

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It does not look like the banyan tree faired well at all

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That was the pioneer inn on left of picture. An Episcopal school on the right. An Aggie used to own the bar in the Pioneer Inn.

Terrible. We've spent many trips there including our honeymoon.

It must also be a disaster for those stuck there on trips either in Kaanapali or at the airport with no hotel.

I think this starts by Cheeseburger in Paradise.

It ends by the banyan tree. Unreal

Front Street Lahaina from the ground. Everything is gone #lahainafire pic.twitter.com/zzEkbvPa31

— Nohead (@nohea_d) August 9, 2023

They'll have to make some new T-shirts that say "I survived the fire of Lahaina."

Several big issues now:
- no clear path for the west coast hotels to get out of that area unless they take the treacherous road on the north side

- huge swamping of restaurants and food supplies for the Kaanapali area

- rebuilding an area that size on a remote Hawaiian island

- literally no housing to take in Lahaina refugees

Phat32 said:

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Several big issues now:
- no clear path for the west coast hotels to get out of that area unless they take the treacherous road on the north side

- huge swamping of restaurants and food supplies for the Kaanapali area

- rebuilding an area that size on a remote Hawaiian island

- literally no housing to take in Lahaina refugees

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Not familiar with the island... can they fly people out to other Honolulu or Hilo and hopefully find more room or does everyone have to take the road to the north? An old HS friend that recently passed used to run the Maui Brewing Company and I saw how close it was to it all.

So what is making these fires so bad is very high winds, up to 70mph, being caused by Cat. 4 hurricane Dora passing to the south, and a strong high pressure sitting to the north.

This is the same thing which happened in Texas in 2011 when Tropical Storm Lee came ashore to our east, and there was a high pressure to the west. The result was very strong winds resulting in a large number of fires including the Bastrop County Complex Fire.

Rapier108 said:

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So what is making these fires so bad is very high winds, up to 70mph, being caused by Cat. 4 hurricane Dora passing to the south, and a strong high pressure sitting to the north.

This is the same thing which happened in Texas in 2011 when Tropical Storm Lee came ashore to our east, and there was a high pressure to the west. The result was very strong winds resulting in a large number of fires including the Bastrop County Complex Fire.

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Hey at least Friendswood got some rain.

LegalDrugPusher said:

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Ellis Wyatt said:

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Honestly, most Hawaiians are like that, especially toward outsiders, white outsiders in particular. They like your tourist dollars, but that's where it stops.

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Yep. Maybe the most condescending and racist place I have been in the world, and I have visited many places.

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If it wasn't for white people Hawaii would be controlled by the Japanese

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Or Russian, or British. But it definitely wouldn't be controlled by the Polynesians

techno-ag said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Me as well, really cool little town and sad to see. These fires happen there for a variety of reasons and always have unfortunately. Summer time things dry up and you have so much vegetation so it can get bad quickly.

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When we there in 2009, visited a fire station. The Hubs being a retired firgihter likes to drop in and meet other firefighters when we are on trips. First off, it was a small substation that didn't really have a lot of equipment, just two trucks in the bay, maybe six guys on duty. All were pretty young and spent a lot of time working out and working on their tans. Then did have a nice workout room.

The Hubs was cross trained during his career, high rise fires, water and dive rescue and aircraft fire rescue etc. Those guys didn't believe him as none of them were. After about 30 minutes of talking shop about how many fires and the type of fires they had made, we left.

Basically, those guys were all a-holes. As we were driving away I asked The Hubs if he would go into a fire with any of them and he said no he wouldn't. That he had probies who were better trained than they were.

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Honestly, most Hawaiians are like that, especially toward outsiders, white outsiders in particular. They like your tourist dollars, but that's where it stops.

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I did a lot of work in Hawaii during the last few years of my engineering career and experienced this first hand. It's a beautiful place, but the people soured me on it.

Damn, Hawaii's a ****hole.

Anyone have a damage report from Comeoniwannalayya?

ddub96 said:

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This is wild. We ate in Lahaina Saturday night. We had a family vacation staying in Kapalua (probably 6-7 miles north of Lahaina). Flew from Maui to Oahu Sunday and then out of Oahu last night arriving in Houston today. Just unbelievable to see it in that condition having just left.

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Aah, the old red-eye flights. Want to get the most time in Hawaii so fly out at night. I cannot sleep on flights much at all. Get back and I'm completely wrecked for a few days.But totally worth it.

My preference was to go to Maui in February for the whale watching. Our last trip, we could watch them breeching from our bungalow on the beach at the Royal Lahaina.



We had the entire top floor. 180 degree view.

Awful. We have friends that live near there. They happen to be here right now so they avoided all of that. Their place is ok so far.

YouBet said:

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Awful. We have friends that live near there. They happen to be here right now so they avoided all of that. Their place is ok so far.

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Good thoughts and prayers for them. Glad they are safe but shudder to think what they will come back to.

After Hawaii's draconian reaction to covid, the tourism business was finally coming back and now this?

OT but Mama's Fish House in Paia on Maui is the absolutely f***in' best seafood I have ever eaten, anywhere.



Go there, if you can get in. We went midafternoon and only had a small wait. Mahi-mahi stuffed with lobster, crab in a macadamia nut crust is to die for. For appetizers, the macadamia nut crab cakes are almost a religious experience, if you are a foodie.

Didn't realize there was that much to burn in the area. The wife and I got engaged just south of Lahaina a year and a half back. Hope the banyan tree makes it.

We were planning on going back for our honeymoon last month but didn't like the vibe most of the locals put off (especially on the east side) and so chose Aruba instead. Aruba was definitely the polar opposite of east Maui, never felt unwanted or like we were in danger.

aggiehawg said:

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YouBet said:

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Awful. We have friends that live near there. They happen to be here right now so they avoided all of that. Their place is ok so far.

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Good thoughts and prayers for them. Glad they are safe but shudder to think what they will come back to.

After Hawaii's draconian reaction to covid, the tourism business was finally coming back and now this?

OT but Mama's Fish House in Paia on Maui is the absolutely f***in' best seafood I have ever eaten, anywhere.



Go there, if you can get in. We went midafternoon and only had a small wait. Mahi-mahi stuffed with lobster, crab in a macadamia nut crust is to die for. For appetizers, the macadamia nut crab cakes are almost a religious experience, if you are a foodie.

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Yes, this place is badass.

This is an understatement if anything. By far the best seafood I've ever had.

Mama's is on a whole other level.

Banyan tree is still standing but badly damaged.

Tx-Ag2010 said:

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This is an understatement if anything. By far the best seafood I've ever had.

Mama's is on a whole other level.

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Didn't discover this until the last day we were on Maui. Went to Willie Nelson's bar on Maui nearby to Paia for a few drinks (had to check out of the hotel but plane didn't leave for nearly ten more hours) and the bartender was a gal from Texas. She was a hoot and we were having a great conversation and fun. She told us about Mama's Fish House and gave us directions to get there.

I don't think people have to take the north road out. The road didn't burn and they can clear debris pretty quickly so cars can get out past Lahaina on the bypass and on 30.