Hawaii officials released a report last year describing the risk of wildfires to human life with a single word: low. A year and a half later, the catastrophic fires that engulfed Maui and the historic town of Lahaina this week have already become the state’s deadliest natural disaster in more than six decades.
Hawaii officials underestimated the deadly threat of wildfires even as they acknowledged a lack of necessary resources to mitigate them, according to a CNN review of years of state and local emergency planning documents that show how ill-prepared the state was for the disaster.
Since 1990, rainfall at selected monitoring sites has been 31% lower in the wet season and 6% lower in the dry season, according to work published in 2015 by researchers at the University of Hawaii and the University of Colorado.
Hawaii underestimated the deadly threat of wildfire, records show mercurynews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mercurynews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Hawaii underestimated the deadly threat of wildfire, records show cbsnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cbsnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.