'They need so much help right now': UW student finds devastation back home in Hawaii

At about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Olivia Bozich looked outside her friend's home in the Ka'anapali hillside to find “a big cloud of black smoke” and much of Lahaina, Hawaii, destroyed.

As Bozich and her friend rushed to a parking lot up on a hill, she said smoke filled the air and they could hear propane tanks exploding. While panic had not fully set in yet, as much of the west coast of the island of Maui was out of power and unaware of the fire taking over, Bozich said she began seeing people come out of their homes — some in tears, some confused, others worried.

Bozich is from Napili, about 9 miles north of Lahaina. Ka'anapali is in between the two locations, about 4 miles north of Lahaina. All three areas are located on the coast.

“There was so much black smoke, buildings on fire, they closed traffic, I mean, you could just see it,” Bozich said. “I just broke down. I knew what we were dealing with, I knew that so many people had lost their houses at that point, so we literally just stood and watched it."

With winds up to 80 miles an hour due to Hurricane Dora, power lines had fallen, cutting residents' power throughout the day — and several sparked flames.

“We were trying to pinpoint what was on fire, or find certain clues like, ‘OK, that looks like Mala Harbor, it looks like the harbor's on fire,' or ‘Oh, that looks like the gas station by Front Street, like Front Street could be on fire.’”

There had been no fire or tsunami warnings, no notifications of what was happening, Bozich said. She said the only way to get news was through calling people on the continental United States or other islands to look for updates on “Maui 24/7,” or witnessing it for themselves.

Bozich is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She had just gone home for a week over summer vacation.

At about 8 or 9 p.m., Bozich said, she found out Pizza Co. on Front Street was gone, which could have meant the rest of the main road was destroyed, too. That’s the moment she realized the extent of what was happening.

Bozich's home was far enough from the fire that it was not damaged, and her family helped to host one of the families that was evacuating from Lahaina. Her alma mater, Maui Preparatory Academy in Napili, is being used as a shelter for those who lost their homes.

While school was supposed to begin on Wednesday for Maui Preparatory, the classrooms are now being used to house people.

“It’s almost like a hotel-style type of deal. We were trying to word-of-mouth tell everyone like, ‘Hey, try to get people up to campus,’” Bozich said.

She said some people were transported to the school by bus, some people walked and others fled in police cars.

Bozich said she was at Maui Preparatory until 4 a.m. Wednesday, went home for a nap, then returned to the shelter at about 7 a.m. to make sure everyone was all right.

One woman Bozich met while she was helping at the school told Bozich she was taking a nap when she woke up with flames surrounding her. The woman escaped her home through a window, and stood on the reef for about an hour trying to reach someone who could help her. She said the water was hot from the flames.

“They need so much help right now,” Bozich said. “There’s no food, there’s no water; everyone’s dehydrated. Maui is not prepared for something like this.”

Another person told Bozich he jumped into the ocean to escape the fires, and was in the water for four hours waiting for someone to pick him up. Like the woman, he said the water was hot from all the flames.

One man said he did not get any notifications on his phone, but woke up to "smoke so bad he thought he was dreaming."

Food is beginning to be delivered from other islands, but for several days, Bozich said, it was difficult to get a full meal.

“Something needs to change because it's just, it's so bad. It's so, so, so bad,” Bozich said.

With much of Maui still out of power, Bozich said people on the island aren’t aware of the full devastation until they actually go to the city or see the damage on social media.

“Everyone outside of the world saw what our town looked like before we even did,” Bozich said. "It literally looks like we got bombed, like there's nothing."

Currently, all flights to Maui are canceled, but some airlines are sending empty planes to help tourists get home.

The death toll was listed at 67 as of Friday evening, with none of the fires “100% contained right now."

"Just (Thursday) alone, they pulled out 50 bodies from the water (in Lahaina) because they jumped in and they just couldn't make it," Bozich said. "They were waiting for the Coast Guard to come get them and they just couldn't make it."

On Monday, the night before the fire, Bozich said she went out for dinner with some family and friends.

"I was at the harbor the day before, watching everyone surf, and now that entire city is gone," Bozich said. "I'm just going to miss what it was. And seeing it the way it is, it's just, oh my God, it's just the worst thing."

Contact Skyler Chun at schun@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @skylerchun_.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW-Madison student finds devastation following wildfires in Hawaii