Coast Guard helps rescue fishermen after boat fire ADVERTISING Coast Guard helps rescue fishermen after boat fire HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard has helped rescued 42 people who abandoned their fishing vessel after it caught fire. No injuries
Coast Guard helps rescue fishermen after boat fire
HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard has helped rescued 42 people who abandoned their fishing vessel after it caught fire.
No injuries were reported after fire broke out on the U.S.-flagged vessel about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii Wednesday.
The fishing crew boarded two life rafts, three work boats and one skiff as they left the 258-foot American Eagle. A Coast Guard airplane arrived Wednesday evening and dropped a pump, flashlights and flares.
The captain and eight crew members were able to get back aboard the vessel after the fire died down and snuff out the flames. They got power back on, while the 33 others were rescued by an oil tanker that had been traveling nearby.
American Eagle’s sister ship, American Victory, is en route and expected to arrive in three days to relieve the tanker.
First set of sugar plantation workers to lose jobs in March
WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — Hawaii’s last sugar plantation, which will be shutting down operations at the end of the year, has announced its first round of layoffs.
Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. officials said 95 workers will those their jobs March 7. The layoffs announced Tuesday were slightly less than anticipated. The plantation’s parent company, Alexander & Baldwin, said last month that about 100 to 120 workers would be let go in March.
“The employees have been notified and will be working with our team of transition coordinators who will assist them with finding alternative employment opportunities,” HC&S General Manager Rick Volner said in an email Monday.
The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has previously said it would establish a “rapid response service” to help employees applying for unemployment benefits and job training. The department could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Both county and state officials have said they would help the hundreds of affected workers since the layoffs were announced in January. Gov. David Ige and House Speaker Joe Souki of Maui called for aid for the sugar workers in their opening addresses to the Legislature last month.
Mayor Alan Arakawa has joined in the efforts by setting up the Sugar Operators Work Assistance Task Force. The goal of the task force is to help connect HC&S workers with job and educational opportunities, training programs, financial and employment counseling and placement services.
It is unclear when the next set of layoffs will be revealed. The company has said it would reduce its workforce from 675 to 15 when the harvest season comes to a close at the end of 2016.
