Video footage has become key evidence pointing to the possible cause of the downed power line.
After waking up to strong winds whipping through his Maui, Hawaii neighborhood, Shane Treu stepped out at dawn to see a wooden utility pole suddenly sn art with a flash, and its sparkling wire fell to the dry grass below and quickly ignited a line of flames.
The man called the 911 emergency number and then opened Facebook to broadcast live. his attempt to put out the Lahaina fireHawaii, including watering down your property with a hose.
“I heard a noise,” the 49-year-old tourist worker told The Associated Press. “It was almost like someone had set off fireworks. This just went up the hill to a bigger clump of grass and with that strong wind, the fire was already burning.”
Video by Treu and others ctured the first moments of what would become the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century. Now, the images have become a key piece of evidence that points to the possible cause of the power line failure.
critics
Hawaiian Electric Co. faces criticism for don’t cut off the electricity before the warnings of strong winds and to maintain it even when dozens of poles began to fall.
A class action lawsuit has already been filed to hold the company responsible for the death of at least 99 people. The lawsuit points to documents from the company itself that show it knew that preemptive power shutoffs, like those used in California, were an effective strategy to prevent wildfires, but never adopted them.
“No one likes to shut off the power, it’s inconvenient, but any utility that is at significant risk of wildfire, especially wind-driven wildfire, needs to do it and needs to have a plan in place,” said Michael Wara. , an expert on wildfires and director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University.
“In this case, the utility company did not do it”.
“It may turn out that there are other causes of this fire, and that the power line is not the main cause,” Wara said. “But if it is, well, This didn’t have to hpen.”
Necessary
Hawaiian Electric declined to comment on the lawsuit’s allegations or whether it had ever shut off power due to high winds.
But President and CEO Shelee Kimura said at a news conference Monday that many factors enter into that decision, including the possible effect on people who rely on specialized medical equipment and firefighters who need power to pump water.
“Even where this measure has been used, it is controversial and not universally accepted,” he said.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier also expressed his frustration at the news conference that people were complaining both about the power not going out sooner and about too many people missing due to lack of mobile phone service and internet.
“Do you want notifications or do you want the power to go out?”, said. “You can’t do both.”
Source: AP
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Source: Clarin
