Mass. family awaits news on relative missing in Maui fire
Beth McLeod is hopeful that a close relative she has not heard from since Wednesday will be located among those who sought shelter as fires began to ravage Maui last week.
Linda Vaikeli and her husband, Sione Vaikeli, are longtime residents of Lahaina, said McLeod, of Rochester, Mass. The oceanfront community was hit with a devastating blaze that began last Tuesday and still had not been fully contained as of Saturday morning.
“She was alone at the time because her husband had to leave for a doctor’s appointment, and this was before everything started,” McLeod said in an interview.
Sione Vaikeli tried to return home to his wife but public safety officials wouldn’t allow him to re-enter the neighborhood as the fire raged, McLeod said. Residents were being allowed back into the area on Friday with a curfew in place from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
McLeod said Sione Vaikeli was searching shelters for his wife on Friday but she had not heard from him since then.
At least 80 people have died in the Maui fire, and officials warned the death toll would likely rise as search and rescue operations continue. Cadaversniffing dogs were deployed to search for the dead, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said.
Lahaina is a town of about 13,000 people, and Maui county officials said about 4,500 people are in need of shelter. The fire destroyed nearly 1,700 structures, almost all residential homes, officials said.
The Vaikelis are the grandparents of McLeod’s two children and have been frequent visitors to her Rochester home over the years.
McLeod said she texted Linda Vaikeli with a recipe around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday — Hawaii is six hours behind Boston — and got a thank you text in response.
No one has heard from Linda Vaikeli since, she said. She is 69 years old and her husband is two years younger, McLeod said.
Sione Vaikeli, who has family on the other side of the island, has been checking shelters for his wife, an effort he completed Thursday night without locating her, McLeod said.
McLeod has been using the Internet and the American Red Cross to share information about Linda Vaikeli, who often uses a cane when she walks and has other health issues requiring regular medication.
McLeod has agreed to interviews with the Globe and other outlets in an effort to get information — and photographs — circulating among rescuers and officials helping people affected by the massive fire.
McLeod, who lived on Maui in the mid-1990s, has also been poring over images of Lahaina and located what she knows was the spot where the Vaikelis were living in an apartment building.
“I’m pretty positive their whole apartment complex and everything around is completely burned to the ground,” McLeod said.
She said he hopes that as frantic evacuations were underway in Lahaina someone was able to help Linda Vaikeli escape the flames.
“I’m hoping that somebody comes across her,” she said.