HONOLULU — An officer sprinted from house to house in the historic town of Lahaina, Maui, alerting people to the approaching inferno. Another coughed and swore as he drove through thick smoke past burning buildings with people he rescued crammed in the back seat. With no ambulance available, one officer offered to bring a severely burned man to a hospital.
While police frantically tried to save people from what would be the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, they also faced another challenge: keeping people from heading back toward the flames, newly released video from body cameras shows.
“No more waiting! Too much people have died already!” one frustrated officer shouted at a line of stopped cars. “Turn around and get out of Lahaina! Stop being stubborn and get out of Lahaina now!”
The roughly 20 hours of video depict the actions of Maui police officers on Aug. 8, when strong winds from a hurricane passing far to the south drove flames that quickly leveled Lahaina and killed at least 99 people. Authorities initially released 16 minutes of clips during a news conference Monday, before providing the rest to The Associated Press in response to a public records request.
The video helps provide a fuller picture of how the disaster unfolded and officers’ efforts to react. Earlier this month Maui County provided AP with 911 call recordings in response to an open records request.
It includes chaotic footage of officers north and south of town trying to block people — residents desperate to learn the fates of their homes or relatives, or tourists just looking for a place to sleep — from entering the burning area.
A man on a motorcycle tried to skirt police cars blocking the road into town. Stuck in traffic, a dozen people got out to ask what they should do or if they could abandon their vehicles and walk into town. “Absolutely not,” an officer responded.
One officer sat in a patrol vehicle and watched as his own home burned.
At another point, late at night, two officers decided that one of them should go back to the police station to gather additional ammunition — not because the bullets might be dangerous in a fire, as the station has thick concrete walls, but because they feared what the coming days might bring.
“I don’t know if we’re going to be dealing with civil unrest,” one said.
Another clip showed an officer’s arrival at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop at a supermarket on Front Street, an area that was devastated by the fire. He found 15 people inside.
“Come out! Come out!” he shouted. “Come with me!”
Some got in their own cars, while others climbed into the back of his patrol vehicle. Saying “Get in, uncle!” — a term of respect in Hawaii — he shoved one last person inside before driving off toward refuge at the Lahaina Civic Center.
Another officer found a badly burned man at a shopping center and put him in the back seat of his patrol car. “I’ll just take you straight to the hospital. That sound good?” the officer asked.