Donald Trump Jr. recently took to his Twitter account and posted the following in reference to an article noting the only road out of Lahaina was barricaded. He wrote:
“Seems like we keep getting recurring lessons from the total capitulation expected of us by our government.”
Seems like we keep getting recurring lessons from the total capitulation expected of us by our government. https://t.co/JrpHmCuYtY
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 27, 2023
As flames tore through a West Maui neighborhood, car after car of fleeing residents headed for the only paved road out of town in a desperate race for safety via AP News. It has been noted that car after car was turned back toward the rapidly spreading wildfire by a barricade blocking access to Highway 30.
The outlet noted that a family swerved around the barricade and was safe in a nearby town 48 minutes later, another drove their four-wheel-drive car down a dirt road to escape. One man took a dirt road uphill, climbing above the fire and watching as Lahaina burned. He later picked his way through the flames, smoke and rubble to pull survivors to safety.
But dozens of others found themselves caught in a hellscape, their cars jammed together on a narrow road, surrounded by flames on three sides and the rocky ocean waves on the fourth. Some died in their cars, while others tried to run for safety.
“I could see from the bypass that people were stuck on the balconies, so I went down and checked it out,” said Kekoa Lansford, who made several trips into town to look for survivors. What he found was horrible, Lansford said, with dead bodies and flames like a hellish movie scene. “And I could see that people were on fire, that the fire was just being stoked by the wind, and being pushed toward the homes.”
The road closures — some because of the fire, some because of downed power lines — contributed to making historic Lahaina the site of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. But there were many problems that day, and in some ways the disaster began long before the fires started.
