How a Paradise Became a Death Trap

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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, have been reduced to rubble. Husks of incinerated cars line the historic Front Street in Lahaina, while search crews nearby make their way painstakingly from house to house, looking for human remains.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily.
0:14.3	On Monday, we heard the story of WIOLLA Church and what was lost in the wildfires on Maui.
0:21.7	What we didn't know then was the sheer scale of the catastrophe, what it felt like to experience
0:27.6	it, and how it could be that so many people died, 111 in the latest count.
0:37.0	Today, the miraculous story of one man who survived, and my colleague in Hawaii, Mike Baker,
0:45.0	on how an extraordinary set of circumstances came together to turn Lhina into a death trap.
0:58.6	It's Friday, August 18th.
1:10.6	Hello.
1:11.6	Hi, is this Idris?
1:13.6	Yes, it is.
1:15.6	Hi.
1:16.6	Idris, thank you for taking the time to talk to us, and I wonder, Idris, if you could introduce yourself for me.
1:24.6	Tell me your name, your age, where you live, and what your profession is.
1:29.6	My name is Idris Nora, 32 years old.
1:33.6	I lived on prison street in Maui, Lhina, and I was the manager, a health and property of the beach and pool, working sales.
1:46.6	I wonder if you could start by telling us just from the beginning, how your day started?
1:54.6	Actually, it was my first true day off in the long time.
2:00.6	I woke up in the middle of the night, which was Monday night Tuesday morning, around 3-4 am when we lost power.
2:08.6	It got pretty hot, so I opened up the windows, and by the time I woke up around 6-7 am,
2:15.6	I noticed we didn't have service neither.
2:18.6	Sell service?
2:19.6	Yeah, no more front service, no power.
	...

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