'Like a war zone': New Market family was in Maui during wildfires

Aug. 19—On Monday, Aug. 7, the Sims family arrived in Lahaina for a normal day of their vacation. The family had arrived in Maui a few days earlier for the second week of their vacation in Hawaii.

Jason Sims, Brooke Sims and their daughters, Mia, Cali, Bri and Drew, had a fun day filled with good food and shopping. The family had breakfast at one of their favorite restaurants, Down the Hatch, took pictures with parrots and visited several stores.

The next day was a sharp contrast. On Tuesday, Aug. 8, wildfires began consuming Lahaina.

"We were lucky enough to spend the morning in downtown Lahaina [on] Monday," Jason Sims said. "The very next day, it was gone."

Wildfires have devastated parts of Maui and destroyed Lahaina. More than 100 people have been confirmed dead — making the fires the deadliest in U.S. history — and about 1,000 people are missing.

Brooke Sims said Monday was the family's "last good night" in Maui. The next day, the family woke up without power in their hotel in Kaanapali Beach. There was also no cell service.

At first, Brooke Sims said they assumed the power was out due to the high winds they noticed the day before, but they'd started hearing from other people that there were brush fires up the street.

From Tuesday to Thursday, the family had to stay in their hotel, where resources were becoming increasingly scarce.

During those few days, Jason Sims said there was one water station available for the entire hotel to use, and he said the family was only given one meal a day. The lines for water and food were hours long.

At one point, on Wednesday night, the family tried to leave the hotel to find food nearby, but they turned back inside when they overheard that people who left wouldn't be let back into the hotel.

Outside, Jason Sims said "it was like a war zone."

"There was police everywhere, power lines everywhere, downed trees, fire, smoke, debris, completely dark," he said.

Brooke Sims said there were cars still on fire and smoldering trees. She woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday and could see fire from their balcony.

Brooke said she tried to not let her fear show, but she was extremely worried about how to make sure her kids had enough food and water.

"Irrational thoughts kept going through my mind that we were gonna get trapped," she said.

Jason Sims said it was difficult to see the hotel employees' faces, who continued working. Some of the workers who the family spoke to told them their homes burned down or they couldn't find their loved ones.

On Thursday morning, the hotel's general manager told guests they'd be picked up by buses in front of the hotel and be evacuated to Oahu.

Later that morning, when the buses didn't arrive, the general manager said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had canceled them, and people would have to go to a nearby mall to get picked up.

Rather than going to get picked up, the Sims family decided to drive to an airport themselves. They got to the airport at 11 a.m. and bought tickets for an 8 p.m. flight to Oahu.

"Had we been a couple minutes later, we wouldn't have been able to fly out that day because we had gotten ... the last seats on that flight," Brooke Sims said.

Once the family had cell service again, Mia Sims said they discovered how bad the wildfires were when text messages came flooding in and they looked at the news.

Jason Sims, who works for Marriott International, said he reached out to a colleague who was able to get the family two rooms to stay in at the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu. The family stayed there for the rest of their intended vacation time before flying out on Wednesday, Aug. 16.

There were no available direct flights back to Maryland until September, so Jason Sims said he pieced together the family's route home.

They took three flights in total — one from Honolulu to Los Angeles, another from Los Angeles to Chicago and a third flight from Chicago to Baltimore — and got home at 8 a.m. on Thursday.

Since coming home, the family has donated money to fundraisers related to the wildfires. Jason Sims said he told his employer that if they send staff out to Maui to volunteer to help, he would go.

Brooke Sims said she experienced some guilt coming back to Maryland after seeing so many people's livelihoods ruined by the fires.

"Just seeing those images, you just don't forget that ... the devastation that truly happened there," she said. "I only experienced that for a short stint, and I come home to my dogs and my standing house."