The Daily - How A Paradise Became A Death Trap: An Update

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since.Warning: This episode contains descriptions of death.When fires swept West Maui, Hawaii, many residents fled for their lives — but soon discovered they had nowhere to go. Thousands of structures, mostly homes, had been reduced to rubble. Husks of incinerated cars lined the historic Front Street in Lahaina, while search crews nearby made their way painstakingly from house to house, looking for human remains.Ydriss Nouara, a resident of Lahaina, recounts his experience fleeing the inferno, and Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The Times, explains how an extraordinary set of circumstances turned the city into a death trap.Guest: Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: Listen to the original version of the episode here.Nearly a week after the fires started, relatives received little information as search and identification efforts moved slowly.How the fires turned Lahaina into a death trap.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Hey, it's Sabrina. This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year, listening back, and then hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran. Today, the fire that devastated Lahaina, Hawaii in August, and one man's story of surviving it. It's Tuesday, December 26th. Hi. Idris, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. And I wonder, Idris, if you could introduce yourself for me. Tell me your name, your age, where you live, and what your profession is.

My name is Idris Noara. I'm 32 years old. I lived on Prison Street in Maui, Lahaina. And I was the manager at a Hilton property of the Beech and Pool working sales. Got it. And I wonder if you could start by telling us just kind of from the beginning how your day started. So actually it was my first true day off in a long time. And I woke up in the middle of the night,

which was Monday night, Tuesday morning, around 3 or 4 a.m. when we lost power. So it got pretty hot. So I opened up the windows, and by the time I woke up around 6, 7 a.m., I noticed we didn't have service neither. Self-service. Yeah.

And honestly, I was just annoyed. I was like, I've been waiting for this day off forever and no power. You know, we didn't even know it was a hurricane. We just thought it was windy. And were you aware of the fire at that point? Absolutely not. There was no fire in the morning that I was aware of. We had no warnings at all.

And so I think it was around noon or one, one of my neighbors came and knocked on my door and he said, Hey, you need to come out and see this. So I came out and in front of my house, you know, I have a little cottage behind my house. I could see a lot of smoke. So I called my cat as an outdoor cat and I called her and I couldn't find her all day and then I just gave up and I closed my door and then my neighbor came back maybe an hour later and he said

there's another fire and it was closer it was actually the street behind us and I have a scooter so I actually went to go check out how close the fire was and I got on front street which is a street that goes along you know the ocean and I see there's this restaurant up in flame and I saw people running and straight in front of me there's a medical center

and I remember actually seeing a lot of people trying to get in the medical center. Then behind me, there's a whole business on fire. It's like, holy, like, everything was on fire. Like, I didn't understand how things started to catch on fire. It didn't make sense. And now I started to panic, so I went back to the neighbors but the neighbors were all gone and I felt kind of lost and and the wind you know there was wind and it was trees falling down and I screamed for my cat and I saw her run under the house and she

didn't want to come out you know so I so I was panicking. You know, reality started to set in. And so I said, okay, maybe, you know, the safest place to be right now is here. Because I wouldn't even know where to go. And so I'm closing the door. And about five minutes, everything turned black outside. And a medical center across the street was up in flame to the sky and I couldn't understand how like I just felt people like it wasn't there was nothing like five ten minutes ago and it really looked like someone put gasoline all

over the building and he's like took up and saying it should didn't extend how like a stone building could burn so fast. And so I opened the door, still calling my cat and I felt something burning on my shoulder and it was debris like amber. And I look up in the sky and there's literally fire coming down the sky. It was raining fire.

And now I said, I have to get out of here. And so, you know, I got everything I could, you know, all the necessities, clothes, and wallet, and, you know, pictures, or whatever, and put everything in two big bags, and I ran out of the house, and as I ran out of the house, there was smoke everywhere, and I saw one of my neighbors coughing. He's right in front of the house, and he was just coughing. And I said, what are you doing here? He's like, oh, I went to the store. And I said, okay, let's get on my scooter.

So he came behind me on my scooter, and the fire came from uphill. It was coming down. So to me, the safest place if this fire is water. And so, you know, in the panic, I said, we have to go to the harbor. And then we got on Front Street. And on Front Street, I was just chaos. I could hear, you know, screams. And I can see people, but I could hear them scream.

Scary screams. Screams of pain I've never heard before. There were clearly people burning alive. Like, it was a deep pain, you know. And people throwing up, and it was just it was horrifying. It was horrifying to hear that.

I'm so glad I can see. It was black, because there was so much smoke, but we could clearly hear them all around us. All around us. It felt like we were in hell. We'll be right back. The wind itself, the wind was the scariest thing. The wind was so

hot it was burning our skin. It was so strong because everything was on fire. And I told Damon, you got to tell me when to turn to the harbor because I can't see nothing. And so we finally got to the harbor. And I left my scooter there. And at the edge of the water on the harbor, there's a little house. It's called the Harbor Master's Hut. So we had our back against the wall and we were facing the harbor. There's a little house, it's called the Harbor Masters Hut. So we had our back against the wall and we were facing

the ocean and we're just waiting. We just didn't know what to do. Did you say anything to him? No, we were not talking. We didn't know. I mean, in my mind, I'm like, okay, we're going to wait here at least like we're not going to burn. That's what I was thinking. But a couple minutes waiting there, I saw a shadow just run and jump in the water on the side of the house. And I said, Damon, do you see this? And we look in the water. The big pit bull is just drowning in front of us.

You know, he had the big head and yellow eyes. And I didn't know. I wanted to help him, but I didn't know if he was going to bite me or pull him with him in the water. You know, so I kept calling him and calling him, but he couldn't do it. He tried his best to do it, but he couldn't do it. And I'll never forget the look he gave me in his eyes. He just gave up and his head went underwater. And I told Damon to hold my feet and I took my shirt off and I somehow managed to grab him by the collar and pulled him out. And we tried to calm him down. He was just walking in circles.

He was in panic mode. And then I called the police. And I said, hey, we're on the harbor. We're stuck. You guys have to come get us. And the lady was just, she didn't know what to say. She said, I'm sorry. We can't come get you.

Everything was in flames and they were overwhelmed. I hung up. And I just remember seeing debris falling from the sky and our bags kept catching on fire. Miraculously, I saw on my phone I had one bar of service. So I tried to call my best friend, Yasin, and I told my best friend, hey, I love you. Tell everybody I love them. It's going to be okay.

Here's my mom's number. Don't call her now. Wait, you know, let her sleep. Were you preparing because you thought you might not make it? Oh, yeah. We didn't think we were going to make it. And after I hung up with him, I called the police again, and she gave me the same answer.

She said, I'm so sorry. And, you know, I could feel the frustration in her voice. She was just helpless. She didn't know. And I felt so bad for her because she probably had so many calls like this. And so I hung up again and I was just frustrated. So at this point, I thought maybe I could get in

the harbor master's house, the little house. Damon had a knife with him and he cut the screen off and I started punching the window with all my strength, all my strength. And so I fractured my hand. The window was so thick, it wouldn't even do anything. And so I called the police a third time. And I said, if you guys don't come right now, we're going to die. And she said, you guys have to jump in the water. And I said, no way. You want us to jump in a hurricane at night, like with all this smoke?

Like, there's no way we can jump. The water was crazy. And she said, you have no choice. You have to jump in the water. And I hung up and I looked at Damon. I was like, we have to jump. And Damon said, there's no way I'm jumping. I'm not jumping.

And I told him, listen, either we burn or we drown. And, you know, I waited a couple more minutes. I tried to convince him. And I said, you know, I'm jumping. There were rocks maybe 100 feet away or 150 feet. And I finally made it. And I looked back and I screamed at Damon. He was just terrified.

He was not, you know, he was just terrified he was not you know he was next to the dog and I told him jump and I kept screaming and he just didn't want to and I could see him hanging on to the harbor with half his body in the water and I kept screaming you need to let go you need to let go and he screamed my shoes are too heavy. And so I just made the decision to jump and go get him. So I got back in the water, and I got back next to him. I tried to go and take his shoes off, but I couldn't even find his feet. The ocean was just pushing me against the wall.

And I told him, you have to follow me I see and the way he was swimming I said there's no way he's going to make it he was just struggling just swallowing water and coughing and somehow he managed to get very close to the rock and I pulled him up you know he's overweight and he's you know older it was a miracle and you know we still had debris falling on us and we had waves just coming over us we were holding on to the rocks to not like get pulled or sucked in by the ocean it was just a nightmare and then I heard a dog screaming so I was like I have to go back and I jumped back in the water you know I tried to get back on the harbor. He was laying against the wall, his eyes closed, and just screaming.

There's no way I could carry him. It was a big pit bull, and I had one, you know, my hand was fractured or broken. So I thought, if I try to grab him in the water, he's already freaked out. We're both going to drown. You know, he's going to die for sure. And I'm probably not going to make it. So one of my bags, I had a blanket and I dipped it in the ocean

five or six times and I put it on top of the dog. That's all I could do. And I took one of my bags and I jumped back in the ocean. And then I almost drowned. I was just so exhausted and I pan almost drowned. I was just so exhausted, and I panicked halfway, and I was praying to God, please help me,

and I thank God I made it to the jetty, and I went back on the other side, and I talked to Damon. He was not answering, and I grabbed his hand, and he just held my hand. He was just in shock. And then maybe an hour after that, I saw light far away. And I told Damon, I said, hey, I think there's a boat over there.

And we were screaming. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. And they were coming towards us, like, thank God. And it was the Coast Guard. And they were like, we us, like, thank God. And it was the Coast Guard. And they were like, we can't get close. You guys have to jump in the water, you know, because it was so rough.

They were crashing the rocks. And I jumped first. And they got me in. I just laid down on my back. And I could just see amber just falling on us. Like the sky had no stars the amber was the stars

red stars in the sky that's what it looked like just a black sky with red stars just falling down I was floating on the ocean but I felt like I was floating in space I was thanking God I was like thank you ocean, but I felt like I was floating in space. I was thanking God.

I was like, thank you, thank you, thank you. I don't deserve this. It was just unbelievable that we made it. And Damon, man, he managed to make it. And I was like, thank God we made it. And I said, oh, how did you guys find us? And they said, we got a call that someone might be on the harbor. So I think that lady, you know, she relayed the call and finally got to us.

And I said, thank God we made it. And he said, oh, no, not yet. We still have to go through the storm. And I said, where are we going? And he said, we don't know. Everything's on fire. And I looked behind me, and it was just, it was just, it looked like war. It was just flames up to the sky. The whole, I mean, the whole town.

And the darkness. in the darkness. So we got to Maui High School. They made a shelter there. And then when we arrived, of course, we were like covering suit and all black. So everyone was looking at us and I was barefoot.

The people kept staring at my feet. Everybody knew, you know, we're the ones who survived. You know, everybody that was in the shelter or the lucky ones. After the break, senior producer Lindsay Garrison shares an update on Idris, a survivor of Lahaina's fire. It's still very fresh. Really, honestly, to this day, it feels like it was yesterday. You know, I'm at a hotel, and no one knows what's next, actually. I called Idris back in late November.

He talked to me from a hotel. He said he'd been living in hotels for more than three months, waiting for FEMA to secure him an apartment. Have you been moved from hotel to hotel since we talked? Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness. How many hotels? Two, and I actually ended up, because they made a mistake, and I ended up homeless for a night.

So, yeah, it's been hard for everyone. And I'm not blaming FEMA or, you know, I know they don't know, but it is very hard for us. And it's really hard to live in a hotel room for that long. You know, eating McDonald's every day. Not the most, not the best lifestyle. And also, like, if you leave your hotel room for more than two or three days, then you lose that room, you know, so you can't even go and visit family. You can't do anything. It really feels like we're in jail. Do you do anything to give yourself some relief from just feeling stuck?

Oh, I actually don't want to know. Absolutely nothing. I'm just in my room every day. You know, everyone's displaced. Some of my friends are on the other side, and you're like, you know, you don't have the car. And, you know, it's kind of hard to go to the beach by yourself. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a weird feeling. You know, I have multiple friends that move, love their job, love their home. I personally love my job as well because I'm in this place. And, you know, a lot of us are still mourning and, you know, they're still in shock. And they reopen for tourists. But it's kind of like attending a funeral and you're having a party next door. Like you're walking and everyone's happy and everyone's drinking and, you know, and music and you're there and you feel like a ghost. Like not really in the mood.

So it's a weird feeling. Yeah. It's going to be a long time before the hyena gets back to how it was it's never gonna be how it was did you ever find anything out about the pit bull that you tried to save no so my cat is still missing and then the pit bull is still missing. I still have a little hope. I know my friend, they just found her cat like a week ago. Really? Yeah, they're still finding a lot of pets. So I don't know if my cat was as fortunate, but people are telling me not to lose hope. I hope they both turn up. Me too. Me too. I really hope so. Yeah. I hope they both turn up. Me too. Me too. I really hope so.

Yeah. Can you sort of envision what your ideal future or your ideal life would look like there in the coming months? It's hard because I was living my dream before all this happened. So it's hard for me to think of a better situation that I had before, you know. But I think my hope would be, you know, to get my place and then hopefully find my cat and then start moving on from there. It's just, it's kind of hard right now to imagine about anything. Yeah. And that's the hardest part. The hardest thing is not to know. Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison and Sydney Harper. It was edited by Liz O'Balin and Michael Benoit, with help from Lexi Diao.

Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Rowan Nemisto, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.