A lot of the survivors are furious and troubled, thinking that even a brief notice could’ve prevented numerous lives from being lost.
According to Baird, in his vicinity near Lahainaluna Road, there were many kids who were alone at home when the fire approached.
“We needed like 10 more minutes, and we could have saved a lot of kids,” he said, choking back tears. “If we’d just had like a 10- or 15-minute warning.”
In the aftermath of the calamity, the family went to a mall in Kahului recently. They were seeking a glimpse of normalcy. During this outing, they unexpectedly bumped into a friend of their son.
“The kids just don’t have a filter. So their son ran up and was just telling our son, you know, ‘This kid is dead. This kid is dead.’ And it’s like, all my son’s friends that they come to our house every day,” he said. “And their parents were at work, and they were home alone. And nobody had a warning. Nobody, nobody, nobody knew.”