How A Paradise Became A Death Trap: An Update

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since. Warning: This episode contains descriptions of death. When fires swept West Maui, Hawaii, many residents fled for their lives — but soon discovered they had nowhere to go. Thousands of structures, mostly homes, had been reduced to rubble. Husks of incinerated cars lined the historic Front Street in Lahaina, while search crews nearby made their way painstakingly from house to house, looking for human remains. Ydriss Nouara, a resident of Lahaina, recounts his experience fleeing the inferno, and Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The Times, explains how an extraordinary set of circumstances turned the city into a death trap. Guest: Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Sabrina. This week the Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year,
0:07.0	listening back, and then hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran.
0:12.0	Today, the Fire, devastated Lahaina Hawaii in August,
0:17.4	and one man's story of surviving it.
0:20.0	It's Tuesday, December 26th. Hello?
0:35.0	Hi, is this Idris?
0:38.0	Yes, it is.
0:40.0	Hi.
0:41.0	Idris, thank you for taking the time to talk to us and I wonder Idris if you could introduce
0:47.5	yourself for me.
0:48.5	Tell me your name, your age, where you live and what your profession is? My name is I'm
0:54.3	My name is Idris-Noara. I'm 32 years old. I lived on
0:59.6	prison street in Maui, Lahaina, and I was the manager, a health and property of the beach and pool
1:08.8	working sales.
1:09.8	Got it.
1:11.5	And I wonder if you could start by telling us just kind of from the beginning how your day started?
1:18.0	So actually was my first true day off in a long time and I woke up in the middle of the night, which was Monday night, Tuesday morning, around three or four a.m. when we lost power. So it got pretty hot so I opened up the windows and by the time I
1:37.2	woke up around 6, 7 a.m. I noticed we didn't have service neither.
1:43.0	Self-service.
1:43.8	Yeah.
1:44.8	And honestly, I was just annoyed.
1:47.8	I was like, I've been waiting for this day off forever.
	...

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