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| Cars on the road suddenly destroyed by a fast moving wildfire in Maui (Daily Mail) |
The wildfire moved so quickly through the Hawaiian city of Lahaina that it was nearly impossible to escape its flames without taking quick action. People driving on a main road had to all of a sudden stop, abandon their cars and jump into the nearby ocean – or be burned to death. Not all of whom were able to do so quickly enough - and were indeed burned to death!
Identifying corpses has been near impossible because they were burnt to ashes.
Of those that managed to survive many lost loved ones. As well as their homes and all their possessions. One survivor that I saw interviewed said he was driving his car at the time and by the time he realized there was a fire, the flames were moving so fast he had to jump out of his car, run the few feet to the ocean, jump in or get burned alive! Many of his fellow travelers on that road didn’t make it. Without his quick reaction he too would have been gone. Some survivors stayed in the ocean for hours until they were rescued.
All of this taking place in a flash without warning. In short in what must have seemed like an instant to the survivors, their ‘paradise’ turned into the fires of ‘hell’.
The images that keep coming out of there make me think about what the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust might look like. There have been more deadly disasters than this. So far about a 100 victims have been discovered. More are expected. But what makes this one unique is the sudden nature of its onset catching everyone off guard. And that so many of the victims were unidentifiable. Having been burned to ashes!
There was apparently no warning to evacuate. That and the speed by which so many lives were suddenly lost (not to mention property); the quick and sudden action required to survive an imminent and horrific death... surely added to the total number of victims.
There will be an investigation as to why there were no alarm messages sent. But the preliminary thinking - based on what I heard Hawaii Governor Dr. Josh Green say - is that it was nobody’s fault. The infrastructure designed to generate those warnings were destroyed by the rapidly moving wildfire (pushed along by sixty mile an hour winds) before they had a chance to warn anybody -
One minute people in Lahaina were living in paradise and the next minute they were in a living hell!
The images that keep coming out of Lahaina are like nothing I have ever seen. When the first images of the fire were broadcast on the news, I thought, OK. Another wildfire. Hope no one was hurt. Let’s move on to more important news. But with every succeeding newscast, the magnitude of this disaster became more apparent. And so has my shock at how suddenly a city can go from paradise to hell in literally an instant.
As we are now approaching the month of Ellul, start thinking about the consequences of sin and doing Teshuva, this event ought to give us some pause.