County files lawsuit against major cell carriers alleging they didn’t report outages during wildfires
Managing Editor
The County of Maui has filed a third-party lawsuit on Wednesday in the Second Circuit Court in Wailuku, against Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile US, Spectrum Mobile, and AT&T related to the August 2023 Maui fires, according to a press release from the county.
According to the county, the lawsuit is an attempt to hold cell carriers liable for allegedly failing to properly inform the Maui Police Department in a timely manner of widespread cellular service outages on August 8-9, 2023, during the height of emergency response to the fires.
The county purports that federal law requires cell carriers to immediately report service outages to the county’s 911-service operators, including the nature and geographic extent of the outage and the approximate length of the outage.
“A timely and complete report is critical to the county’s ability to mitigate the impacts of a service outage during emergencies,” said the County of Maui’s corporation lawyer, Victoria Takayesu.
As part of its emergency response on August 8 to 9, 2023, the County utilized direct text messaging to disseminate important evacuation information. At least 14 such alerts were sent, according to the county.
Maui County stated they “later discovered that many of these alerts were not received by citizens, residents and visitors because cell towers across the island—including all 21 cell towers servicing Lahaina—were experiencing widespread cellular service outages.”
The lawsuit brought forth by the county states that despite federally-mandated obligations to report outages, the cell carriers allegedly failed to report service outages to the county, and Maui County is claiming this impacted their emergency response on August 8-9, 2024.
“The County is currently defending multiple lawsuits criticizing its emergency response during the August 2023 Maui Fires,” the county said of the latest suit.
The County of Maui is currently a defendant in several lawsuits over management of emergency responses during the wildfires. The county is also currently suing the Hawaiian Electric Company, alleging they failed to shut off power to the electrical grid in red flag conditions.
The lawsuit alleges, “As of the date of this filing, the cell carriers still have not reported to the County the true extent and reach of the cell service outages on August 8 and August 9, 2023, as they are mandated to do under federal law. Had the Cell Carriers accurately reported to the County the complete and widespread failure of dozens of cell sites across the island as they were mandated to do by law, the county would have utilized different methods in its disaster and warning response.”