Six months after Maui wildfire, 5,000 survivors still stranded: ‘We’re tired of broken promises’
Every afternoon Diana Tevaga rushes back from work to her hotel room to feed her pitbull, Pe’a, and tabby cat, Kenzie, bracing herself for another dispiriting evening searching online for an affordable apartment in Maui.
Tevaga, 41, has been living in a hotel since losing her home – a rentcontrolled apartment she’d shared with her mother and pets – in the catastrophic Lahaina wildfire on 8 August. Before the fire, she spent evenings with her nephews and nieces, who lived in the same neighborhood. Now, Tevaga watches reality TV and eats Red Cross meals with other survivors who have no place else to go.
“As soon as I wake up, there’s a physical tightness in my chest. I worry about where we will go when the help runs out. I am grateful, but this hotel is not a home, it’s a shelter. It’s not right that so many of us are still here. How can we dream about rebuilding when we don’t have a stable home?” said Tevaga, wiping away tears.
Six months after the deadliest
American fire in more than a century, almost 5,000 people are still in emergency hotel accommodation in West Maui, struggling to grieve and navigate the labyrinth of post-disaster bureaucracy amid throngs of tourists.
According to figures from the American Red Cross, the non-profit contracted to manage the hotel program, only a third of the households who sought emergency shelter in the immediate aftermath of the unprecedented fire have so far moved into homes – places where they can once again cook, invite friends over and begin to recover.
Anger and despondency is growing as survivors in the hotels feel pressured to move off island or accept apartments far from work and school – even though West Maui has thousands of short term vacation rentals. The Red Cross shelter program is scheduled to expire in April.
Hawaii’s Democratic governor, Josh Green, reopened Maui to tourists at the end of October, spending millions in marketing campaigns urging visitors to return and save the island – despite residents’ pleas to wait until fire survivors had been rehoused. Since then Green has pledged – but failed – to issue a temporary moratorium converting some of the island’s 27,000 short-term ren
tals into long-term housing for fire survivors.
Tevaga said she had been stunned when an agent with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had asked her about relocating off the island – a question displaced survivors are regularly confronted with by the Red Cross and Fema. She was furious when asked to consider apartments where pets are not allowed.
“Maui is my home, and these fur babies are my family. It is so traumatizing, having to repeat my story over and over again. I’ve worked with tourists my entire adult life, but I’m so angry that it’s hard to be around them now. We’re tired of broken promises … it’s not easy staying hopeful,” said Tevaga, who was born and raised in Lahaina.
As tourists started to return to West Maui in early November, a group of young local residents erected a protest camp on Kaanapali Beach, a long stretch of golden sand and crystalline ocean where several high-end resorts are located.
“We set up in the tourism mecca of Maui, to push back and educate tourists that drinking mai tais will not save our economy, that tourism is stripping us of our land and water resources,” said Jordan Ruidas, co-founder of Lahaina Strong.
The sprawling encampment is impossible to ignore, and tourists must walk past a yellow and red sign listing the groups’ demands: house the people; restore the wai [water]; heal the ‘āina [land]. Activists are pushing Green to at least issue a moratorium on the 2,200 or so unpermitted short-term rentals in West Maui, which would house most of the fire survivors and enable them to remain close to work, school, healthcare and each other.
“The housing crisis is not an inventory issue, it’s a tourism issue … we’ll be here until the governor stops putting profits over the people and drops the hammer on short-term rentals,” said Ruidas. ***
Six months on and the historic town of Lahaina is still a mess of scorched rubble, with efforts to remove the toxic debris only just getting under way. There is only one main road in and out of West Maui, so survivors must drive past the charred remnants of their lives. Traffic jams, high winds and sirens continue to trigger flashbacks and anxiety, as many continue struggling to process what they witnessed and lost.
The firestorm killed 100 people and razed more than 2,200 structures, mostly working-class family homes, with the estimated cost of the damage around $5.6bn, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
While survivors are grateful for the help they’ve received, dealing with the bureaucracy – insurance companies, Fema, Red Cross, state and county agencies and health and safety experts, is extremely stressful and time consuming.
For some, it proved too much, and they opted out or moved away.
In a park a few miles north of Kaanapali Beach, brothers Glen and Ray Delatori are camped out waiting for the insurance company and health authorities to greenlight their return home – which was among a handful left standing in one razed neighborhood. “I’d rather sleep in my car and be free, not like in the hotels,” said Glen, 68.
Anecdotal reports suggest that a small but growing number are being kicked off Fema’s housing support list and the Red Cross shelter program with nowhere to go, but they no longer appear in the official numbers.
One morning in late January, Robert Elliott found a typed note from the Red Cross taped to the hotel room door, that said he was no longer eligible for housing assistance and had 48 hours to vacate the hotel – or start paying for the room himself. This was, the note said, because Elliott, 35, was not engaging in his recovery planning and had “refused all solutions”. A second letter listed possible reasons for ineligibility, including failure to provide documents proving he had been renting in the now uninhabitable burn zone.
“I lost all my documents in the fire; I’m screwed. I have no plan,” said Elliott, who moved to Maui a decade ago and would be willing to return to the mainland, if he qualified for help. After leaving the hotel, Elliott procured some donated camping equipment and headed to Kihei, a coastal town south-east of Lahaina, with his dog, Biscuit.
A spokesperson for the Red Cross said the scale of the Maui shelter program was “unprecedented”, and that people could be discharged due to placement in an interim property, voluntary exit, breaking hotel rules or failure to maintain contact with the Red Cross and Fema, but most were given a week’s notice. “While nearly all survivors will be able to remain on Maui if they choose, we know that options are limited, and survivors are faced with difficult decisions. We recognize these are not easy conversations.”
“There seems to be a race to get to zero in the hotels, declare victory and transition into the recovery phase – even while the emergency for many survivors is still ongoing,” said Angus McKelvey, a state senator and fire survivor staying at the same beachfront hotel as Elliott.
“It could have been so different if we’d streamlined the bureaucracy, given people direct forgivable loans like in Covid, and dropped the hammer on the short term rentals … instead the community is being run out by voluntary relocation and the Fema gold rush.”
Dozens of tents are pitched along the shoreline. Some belong to people who were unsheltered before the fire; others include those deemed ineligible for housing assistance.
A series of well-intended state and county incentives, including tax breaks for vacation rentals and above-marketvalue rents for landlords housing fire survivors, have failed to solve the crisis.
Instead, Maui’s already inflated rents have ballooned, and studio apartments in West Maui now cost as much as $5,000 a month on vacation websites. Social media sites are full of stories about landlords not renewing leases for long-term residents in order to cash in on Fema paying up to 175% above fair market rate rents – despite a ban on rent hikes while the emergency proclamation period remains in effect.
Fema said it would not knowingly enter into an agreement with a landlord who engages in this practice.
A spokesperson said: “We know the importance of empathy during such challenging times, and we’re committed to continuously improving our communication and support processes… [relocating to another island or the mainland] are options, however bothersome, we have to ask survivors along the way to offer a housing solution.”
According to Governor Green’s office, 2,345 of 3,000 (78%) of the housing units needed to rehouse displaced survivors have been secured for Maui wildfire survivors. “We should see survivors continuing to leave hotels and moving into safe, stable, and secure housing over the next 30, 60, and 90 days,” Green said.
A spokesperson for the state department of business, economic development and tourism said: “Visitor expenditures continue to support Maui’s economy – not just hotels, but locally owned restaurants, retail stores and visitor-geared businesses, many of them mom-and-pop operators. These small businesses employ Maui residents, many of them displaced by the fires and in need of continued employment to feed their families.”
***
The climate crisis is a risk multiplier. Extreme weather disasters like wildfires and floods tend to expose and exacerbate existing structural problems such as access to housing, land and water inequalities and gaps in insurance.
Last August’s fire turbocharged Maui’s affordable housing crisis – which dates back well over a decade, as investors converted residential properties into lucrative short term rentals for tourists drawn to the island’s breathtaking beaches, tropical landscapes and ho’okipa – the Hawaiian word for warm hospitality.
Nancy Goode, a retired boat captain who lost her condo in the fire, is renting an apartment almost an hour away – the only place she could afford. Goode, 69, didn’t qualify for assistance from Fema since she had homeowner’s insurance, and she is living off the insurance lump sum and a stipend from the charitable fund set up for survivors by Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.
But the condo was significantly underinsured, and rebuilding will be tough at her age. “I’ll need to remortgage or get a loan, but at 70 I don’t even know if I can,” said Goode.
Hundreds of families have mortgages on homes razed by the fire and must negotiate deferments and forbearance deals with lenders individually. Many lack adequate insurance to cover the rebuild and face dipping into the money to cover the mortgage payments – or risk foreclosure.
Anastasia Arao-Tagayuna has received more than a dozen calls and letters from property companies offering to buy the family property that burned down. The property, which belonged to her deceased parents, was underinsured, and a large balloon payment is due on 1 March – unless she can negotiate another mortgage forbearance with the bank.
Arao-Tagayuna, 52, is tired of being asked if she will consider relocating, and desperate for some stability after six months in a hotel with her husband and four children.
“A proper home would give us a sense of stability, a place to put my printer and air fryer, somewhere with a stove so I can cook for my children. I know there are short term rentals out there – if only the governor would be firm and pull the trigger. But it feels like they are pushing us out.”
dinator for BirdLife International.
“Like other hummingbirds, it feeds on nectar from a range of flowering plants and plays an important ecological role as a pollinator, so its decline is doubly concerning,” he says.
Smallest insect: Dicopomorpha echmepterygis, a parasitic wasp, US
The world’s smallest insect is so tiny that it is smaller than some singlecelled organisms. As little as 0.139mm long, the US parasitic wasp spends most of its life inside its host, the bark louse.
“A species of ‘fairyfly’, these are tiny wasps which develop as parasitoids, with eggs laid inside the eggs of bark lice, which are not too large themselves,” says Dr Gavin Broad, the principal curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum.
“One female wasp develops in the host egg, eating most of the contents, accompanied by one to three males, which lack wings, have rudimentary heads and are generally simplified as they never leave the egg; they are just there to fertilise females,” Broad says.
Smallest amphibian: Paedophryne amauensisfrog, Papua New Guinea
This tiny frog is so small it does not have tadpoles. Described in 2012, the frog lives in rainforest leaf litter, feeding on ticks and mites.
“Unlike many other frogs, its life cycle does not include an aquatic tadpole stage. Instead, tiny froglets hatch directly from eggs that are laid in moist leaf litter on the forest floor,” says Dr Jeff Streicher, the principal curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum. “Adults feed on small invertebrates found in the same leaf litter. This lifestyle is common in other small frog species, which highlights the essential role that leaf litter microhabitats play in the survival of these tiny amphibians.”
Smallest mammals: Etruscan shrew and the bumblebee bat
For mammals, it is hard to separate two tiny contenders. The Etruscan shrew, found across parts of Eurasia and north Africa, weighs between 1.2g and 2.7g on average. It is solitary and active mainly at night while feeding on invertebrates. The tiny shrew lives a short life, rarely surviving its second winter, says Paula Jenkins, the senior curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum.
The other miniature mammal considered the world’s smallest is the bumblebee bat, also called the hognosed bat, which is found in two isolated populations in Thailand and Myanmar. It also weighs about 2g, with a wingspan of up to 145mm and a body length between 29mm and 33mm.
“It roosts in extensive caves in limestone outcrops near rivers,” says Jenkins. “Individuals roost separately at some distance from each other. They hunt for invertebrates in the upper canopy of the forest using echolocation to detect their prey in flight, and may also pick prey from foliage.”
Smallest flowering plant: Wolffia globosa, native to Asia but found around the world
Sometimes known as duckweed, Wolffia globosa has the fastest known growth rate of all plants and can quickly cover entire bodies of water. Despite lacking common plant organs such as leaves, roots and stems, it produces the smallest known fruit and is highly nutritious.
Tom Pickering, the senior manager of display glasshouses at Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens, saysthe plant is weedlike in appearance and nature. “This vigorous, free-floating aquatic plant is grown in tanks in the tropical nursery at Kew, and is globally used for animal food, medicine and food. Despite its size, Wolffia is in the same plant family as the titan arum, a flowering plant with the largest inflorescence in the world,” he says.
Smallest fish: it depends who you ask …
The title of the world’s smallest fish is hotly contested. According to Guinness World Records, it is the 6.2mm male Photocorynus spiniceps,a species of deep-sea anglerfish found in the Philippine Sea that is sexually parasitic. It attaches itself to the much larger female – a trait common in anglerfish – in effect turning her into a hermaphrodite. She feeds, swims and ensures their survival – he just worries about reproduction.
But given the female Photocorynus spiniceps is several times larger than the male, other researchers say the title belongs to the Paedocypris progenetica from Sumatra, which swims around in peat bogs, growing up to 7.9mm as adults. The tiny Indonesian fish was scientifically described in 2006 and proclaimed the smallest – a claim quickly disputed by researchers who studied the anglerfish.
Smallest cactus: Blossfeldia liliputana, Argentina and Bolivia
The Blossfeldia liliputana’s epithet comes from the word ‘lilliput,’ meaning tiny person or being, explains Paul Rees, a nursery manager at Kew Gardens. “It also refers to the imaginary country inhabited by tiny people in Gulliver’s Travels,” he notes.
Found growing on rock faces and in cracks at high altitude in Bolivia and Argentina, it can withstand extreme drought, losing up to 80% of its moisture content. Despite their versatility, the world’s smallest cactus is increasingly threatened by collectors.
“Over the years this species has been desired by collectors, and due to its very slow growth rate, a number of plants have been poached from the wild. Though its wide distribution means it’s listed as ‘least concern’, poaching remains the major threat to this species.”
Smallest fungi: waiting to be
discovered
After the tiny Mycena subcyanocephala was photographed in Taiwan last year and went viral on social media, some incorrectly said it was the world’s smallest. However, with an estimated 2m species of fungi waiting to be discovered, there are likely many microscopic organisms waiting to be found, says Ester Gaya, the senior research leader in mycology at Kew Gardens.
“Mycena subcyanocephala is one of the smallest species of fungi in the world. Regardless of their minute size and ethereal looks, this species of fungus plays its role in the complex recycling system of nature. Mycena species are saprobes, meaning they live on decaying organisms, helping clear our woods of unwanted ‘litter’.”
With important roles ranging from nutrient recycling to carbon sequestration, she says: “As in all things small, it is often the coordinated work of multiple small fungi that has a large impact in our ecosystems.”
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features
• This article was amended on 8 February 2024 to remove an erroneous reference to 20mm being the size of a matchstick head.
Today he is able to respond emphatically to the criticism, but at the time, Salgado felt the blow keenly and withdrew. “It was a moment of deep disillusionment with my own kind, and I wanted something else,” he says.
“I didn’t want to be a photographer any more. That’s when I [joined] the Instituto Terra.”
It was a moment of profound transition: nature replaced people as his central interest. The Instituto Terra, an environmental organisation founded in 1998, was was an initiative of Wanick’s which came about when the couple realised how the environment in Minas Gerais had been devastated by human activity. They set out to recreate the forest that had once existed, restoring the degraded landscape.
Wanick and Salgado began collecting seeds, trained rural technicians and planted millions of trees. “We started with a nursery of 25,000 trees, then expanded to 125,000. Today, our nursery has [space] for 550,000 trees a year, and next year, we will increase it to 2 million,” he says enthusiastically. “It’s fantastic!”
Connecting with nature made Salgado rediscover his passion for photography, leading to two of his most significant projects: Genesis (2013) and Amazônia (2021).
“There was this transition from man to nature at a time when everyone was heading towards nature,” he says. So they came up with the idea of visiting and documenting untouched places, representing the 46% of the planet that has remained pristine.
The change of direction extended Salgado’s career by another two decades and has made his work a touchstone for environmental and humanitarian issues.
“My outlook is pessimistic regarding my species, the human being, which has not evolved at all. Our species has isolated itself,” he says, lamenting the blindness of global decision-makers who are not only failing to tackle emissions but also ignoring two other structural problems he considers crucial: the increasing scarcity of water and the catastrophic loss of biodiversity.
“To restore 2,000 water sources in Brazil, we must have spent €25m in these 25 years. It’s a lot of money,” he says, but notes that some governments are ready “to provide a handful of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and each one, equipped, costs €150m”.
The world, Salgado is convinced, is heading towards a global conflict, with “blocs that are already taking shape” based on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, while efforts to protect the environmental stall. “There is money,” he notes. “Money is not a problem.”
For Salgado, human blindness leads to self-destruction, which is a cause for great pessimism. But nature, he says, continues on its own course and keeps evolving. This lesson he learned in Galápagos, where he spent 90 days – almost twice as long as Darwin, who spent 47 days on the archipelago – and throughout his eight decades of life.
“I am pessimistic about humankind,” he admits, “but optimistic about the planet. The planet will recover. It is becoming increasingly easier for the planet to eliminate us.”
An exhibition of Sebastião Salgado’s work can be seen at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London, 16 March to 15 April
The flaw my critics have, I don’t. It’s the feeling of guilt