<\/strong>Five families, a club employee, two of her tenants, and two Pomeranians are now living in an event space under the restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThey have little information to help them make plans for what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know who\u2019s missing. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s found,\u201d said Lisa deAquino, who had worked in banquets at the Sheraton Maui Resort and Spa and fled the fire with her husband and two young children. \u201cI\u2019ve been cut off from all social media and news outlets being up here. I have no service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whaler\u2019s General Store in Kahana, and its Shell gas station, has been another lifeline for those adrift after the fire. The shelves of the freezer are empty, most of the beer is gone, and the homes of three of its employees burned to the ground, but the store is open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow are you holding up, Mikey?\u201d a customer asked Michael Nishikuni, who has managed the store for 17 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m tired,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nishikuni\u2019s job has been made harder by the government roadblocks that have kept out all but local residents and those who have managed to get their names on the proper lists. Nishikuni lives in Wailuku \u2014 outside the government cordon \u2014 and some days police let the gas truck pass but won\u2019t let him through. The store doesn\u2019t open without him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNobody wanted to take my word for it we have a gas station out here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He keeps greeting people who don\u2019t know if relatives are alive, and with each passing day he knows it\u2019s more likely they\u2019re not. He doesn\u2019t like the way the shelves of liquor are thinning out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hate to see people just drown themselves in that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Hanakao\u02bbo Park, Maui County lifeguards convene by the beach. Firefighters pass through, and there are people living out of cars. Reardon trades information with those who come by his tarp. He has learned that, since the fire, three people he knew may have taken their own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI guess they just figured it was a good time to get off, right?\u201d he said. \u201cThe pandemic, you know. And now this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reardon owned West Maui Gold and Loan, a pawnshop with a row of surfboards out front. Friedgen worked there and lived upstairs. He\u2019s a musician, too, and when the smoke came pouring into the store he left with just the shorts he was wearing and one guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just got to where I couldn\u2019t breathe,\u201d Friedgen said. \u201cI was choking. I almost passed out. That would have been it for me, but luckily my friend came along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reardon drove them out in his Suzuki, but they didn\u2019t go far, just a few blocks away, afraid that looters might steal things from the shop. When it became clear that the fire would wipe out the store, they evacuated to the police station, then to Kapalua Airport, where they spent the first night in the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After that, they made their way to the park and have been there since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A couple times, they have returned to the site of the pawnshop, having to sneak past the National Guard at the burn site. They had $2,000 of gold in there. They recovered some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was melted,\u201d Friedgen said. \u201cBut still gold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their spot is under one of Maui\u2019s kiawe trees, a type of mesquite. Known as Canoe Beach, it\u2019s where the storied Maui Canoe Club launches its outriggers into the ocean. The boats remain lined up on the sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past week, people have stopped by several times to give the two men food and water. The park has bathrooms. But on Tuesday, Friedgen said he\u2019d walked a mile up the coast and could not find any store that was open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reardon has had a lot of time to think about the island and his place on it. As someone who owned a pawnshop, he was often around homeless people. He never expected the same for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In college, he had played strong safety at Washington State University. He has swum in the ocean every day for 25 years, he said, including this week. He\u2019s not worried about contamination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the ocean\u2019s more beautiful now than it was,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the ocean will save this place. I really do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the empty hours, he has felt regrets. He should have spent more time with his son, but he was too consumed in his own life. Now his son is a single father himself, and one of Reardon\u2019s favorite things was to walk with his grandson down Front Street, Lahaina\u2019s seaside boulevard. It made him feel as though he got a second chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He will not make that walk, on that same street, ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matt McClain contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Joshua Partlow, August 17, 2023 Many who lost homes and businesses in the blazes are camping on the beach. They are living, hour by hour, unsure of what the future holds.\u00a0 LAHAINA, Hawaii \u2014 Every day, they swim in the ocean. Every night, they sleep on the beach. In between, Peter Friedgen and Dan Reardon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14747,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14746\/revisions\/14747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}