Inside a temporary morgue near the Maui County coroner’s office, a team of specialists – including forensic pathologists, X-ray technicians, fingerprint experts and forensic dentists – labor 12 hours a day to identify the charred remains of the victims of this month’s cataclysmic wildfire.

They are members of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team program, or DMORT, deployed when a mass fatality incident overwhelms local authorities.

The team’s breadth of experience underscores the difficulty of the task it faces. The number of victims is unknown, hundreds remain on lists of those missing, and in some cases the inferno has consumed all but the barest remnants of the bodies.

The work is vitally important, with families desperate to know the fate of their relatives – and to have a chance to say goodbye. The death toll in the devastated town of Lahaina has surpassed 100, but only a handful have been officially identified, emphasizing the long road ahead.

“It’s so important for families to get their loved ones back – that’s our mission, and when we make that happen, it’s a great day,” said Frank Sebastian, 68, the commander of the Maui DMORT and a retired medical examiner from the Seattle area.

There are 10 regional DMORTs around the United States, comprised of more than 600 civilian members, that spring into action for disasters as varied as airplane crashes, hurricanes and mass attacks such as the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.

While the work can be emotionally taxing, DMORT members already confront death in their day jobs as funeral directors, medical examiners and coroners. They are better equipped than most to compartmentalize their feelings and concentrate on the mission at hand.

“I deal with things that most people don’t understand or couldn’t process on a daily basis,” said Kathryn Pinneri, a long-time DMORT member and pathologist who runs the forensic services department in Montgomery County, Texas.

Maui challenges

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees DMORTs, has deployed three dozen members to Maui, including logistics staff and mental health specialists.

The agency also transported one of three Disaster Portable Morgue Units – some 22.5 tons of supplies and equipment to set up a fully functioning mortuary, including examination tables, x-ray machines and fingerprinting equipment.

Work is divided into two buckets: “postmortem” – analyzing remains – and “antemortem” – gathering information from surviving relatives. 

Each day, search-and-rescue teams combing Lahaina bring suspected remains to the temporary morgue. Remains are typically assigned a “tracker” to stay with them through the entire process, according to Pinneri.

The remains then move from station to station, depending on their form. A human body, for instance, would be fingerprinted and have features such as hair color, height, weight and tattoos recorded. An X-ray might pinpoint useful details such as a hip implant; a dental examination can be compared to dental records. 

Skeletal remains would be examined by forensic pathologists and anthropologists for clues. DNA samples have become a crucial tool; Sebastian said the Maui team has partnered with a company that can process DNA in just hours.

A separate group, known as a “Victim Identification Center” team, is helping to collect details from surviving relatives for possible matches: DNA swabs, the names of victims’ dentists and whether fingerprint records might exist.

Fires present particular challenges. For instance, intensely burned bone fragments may no longer have usable DNA strands, according to Paul Sledzik, a forensic anthropologist and former DMORT commander. Dental records may have been destroyed in the blaze.

The Maui wildfire is what experts call an “open” disaster, in which the number of victims, and their identities, is uncertain and potentially unknowable, he said. In a “closed” disaster, those factors are known, such as a plane crash in which the airline has a list of passengers and crew.

“That’s going to be a challenge in Hawaii, resolving the list of missing people,” Sledzik said.

Overwhelming

The federal DMORT program was established in 1992, after USAir Flight 405 crashed on New York’s Long Island, killing 27.

For years, teams responded to major transportation accidents, cemetery floods and natural disasters. But the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks represented a pivot point, when DMORT teams helped city authorities sift through thousands of remains.

“I think it was September 11 when people really began to realize how important this function was,” said Dawn O’Connell, assistant U.S. secretary for preparedness and response for HHS. “We had hundreds of team members deployed for months.”

In the wake of the attacks, cities and states began implementing mass fatality management plans, with some creating their own versions of DMORTs, Sledzik said. But federal teams remain essential for disasters in remote locations or those with fewer resources.

David Hunt, a funeral director in Indiana who commands two regional DMORTs, had to negotiate with the Haitian military following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, when his mission was to identify and repatriate American victims.

“When I look back on it, I’m just a small-town funeral director, and just to be involved in some of these historical events…sometimes it’s overwhelming,” said Hunt, recalling how it felt to stand on the grounds of the World Trade Center in 2001.

Wildfires represent a relatively new response area for DMORTs; teams responded to the 2018 Camp fire that killed 85 in California and the 2020 Oregon wildfires.

But climate change, which scientists say will exacerbate wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters, may increase the frequency of mass fatality incidents. 
…

Kim Cuevas-Reyes, a 38-year-old cellphone store owner, snuck into Lahaina last Friday to see the remnants of her home with her own eyes. She took backroads and walked. What she saw stunned her.

“When you step into the house, it’s like an inch or two of ash. There is nothing,” she said, adding that she hopes to stay and rebuild her home and destroyed business and is in touch with the insurance company.

More than 3,000 buildings in Lahaina were damaged by fire, smoke or both. Insured property losses alone already total some $3.2 billion, according to Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling firm.

With a housing crisis that has priced out many Native Hawaiians as well as families that have been there for decades, concerns are rising that the state could become the latest example of “climate gentrification,” when it becomes harder for local people to afford housing in safer areas after a climate-amped disaster.

It’s a term Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of sustainable real estate and urban planning at Tulane University School of Architecture, first started lecturing about in 2013 after he noticed changes in housing markets following extreme weather events.

Jennifer Gray Thompson is CEO of After the Fire USA, a wildfire recovery and resiliency organization in the western U.S., and worked for Sonoma County during the destructive Tubbs Fire in October 2017. Thompson said Maui is one of the “scariest opportunities for gentrification” that she’s seen because of “the very high land values and the intense level of trauma and the people who are unscrupulous who will come in to try to take advantage of that.”

Thompson predicted potential developers and investors will research who has mortgages and said Maui residents should expect cold calls. “You won’t be able to go to a grocery store without a flyer attached to your car,” she said.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Wednesday his state attorney general will draft a moratorium on the sale of damaged properties in Lahaina, to protect local landowners from being “victimized” by opportunistic buyers as Maui rebuilds.

Thompson said she supports that “wholeheartedly.” But she acknowledged some people won’t be able to afford to rebuild and will want to sell their land.

While one extreme weather event cannot be entirely blamed on climate change, experts say storms, fires and floods, which are becoming more damaging in a warming world, help make Hawaii one of the riskiest states in the country. Earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, which are not related to climate change, also add to this risk.

According to an analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency records by The Associated Press, there were as many federally declared disaster wildfires this month as in the 50 years between 1953 and 2003. Additionally, burned area in Hawaii increased more than fivefold since the 1980s, according to figures from the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Justin Tyndall, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, explained that Hawaii is the most expensive state to rent or own a home in the U.S. “by a considerable margin” with a median price single family home on Maui exceeding $1 million. “Even in the condominium market on Maui, the median price is close to $900,000, so there’s really no affordable options throughout all out of the state,” he explained.

Until now, when homeowners in Hawaii have considered climate change, Tyndall said, it’s been coastal erosion, sea level rise and hurricanes, mainly. “Wildfire was something that was on people’s radars. … But obviously the extensive damage, most people didn’t predict,” he said. Fire needs to be taken more seriously now, he said.

Maui has stringent affordable housing requirements for new multifamily construction, Tyndall said. But the practical effect has been that very little housing gets built. So new supply is low, both for affordable housing and rentals at market rate, “which just makes housing more expensive for everyone,” he said.

Tyndall said the Native Hawaiian community has been hit the hardest by the housing crisis and there has been a “huge exodus” due to this lack of affordable housing.

On Wednesday, the Indigenous-led NDN Collective issued a statement supporting community-led rebuilding for Lahaina, “in ways that center the values, ancestral connections to land and water, and Indigenous knowledge systems of the kānaka ʻōiwi, Native Hawaiian people.”

After using the term in lectures, Keenan went on to popularize the concept of climate gentrification as a lecturer at Harvard University in 2018 and published a study that focused on Miami, where Black communities have historically lived at higher elevations because the wealthy wanted to live close to the beach. Now that seas are rising and higher ground is becoming more valuable, that’s leading to disruption and displacement, Keenan said.

As with any gentrification, some people do see benefits.

“If you own a home, it’s great — the value of your home goes up. But if you’re a renter or a small business, your rent may go up to the extent that you become displaced over time,” Keenan said.

With wildfires, areas that don’t burn become more desirable, changing cost of living considerably. The 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, was an example of this as people moved down into the Central Valley to Chico where there is far less risk of wildfire, Keenan added.

“It led to massive displacement; rental costs increased significantly, a really huge shift. Everything from the school district to their transit system,” he said.

Other examples are New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and various cities in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, where many people could not afford to come back.

“The rebuilding of these spaces look very different from the types of communities that were living there before and what made them unique and special to begin with,” said Santina Contreras, assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

With respect to Maui, Contreras said there are many reasons to be concerned about climate gentrification, given the island’s natural beauty, history of development, high tourism demand and opportunity to build new hotels.

Not everyone finds the concept useful, though.

Katharine Mach, professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, cautioned against immediately labelling a situation climate gentrification, because that makes it difficult to tease out the other factors such as decades of discrimination, racism and land use changes.

Climate change is overlaid on top of inequities in how we manage flooding or rebuild after fire, she said. “You can call that climate gentrification, but you could also say it’s inequity in how we manage disasters in the United States.”
…

Hurricane Hilary roared toward Mexico’s Baja California peninsula late Saturday as a downgraded but still dangerous Category 2 hurricane that bringing heavy rain likely to mean “catastrophic” flooding to the region and cross into the Southwest U.S. as a tropical storm.

Meteorologists warned that despite the hurricane’s weakening, the storm’s speed had accelerated Saturday, and they urged people to finish their preparations by sundown. By Sunday, one expert said, it would be too late.

Forecasters said the storm is still expected to enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, and bring along flash floods, mudslides, isolated tornadoes, high winds and widespread power outages.

The hurricane is the latest major climate disaster to wreak havoc across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Hawaii’s island of Maui is still reeling from last week’s blaze that killed more than 100 people and scorched the historic town of Lahaina, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. In Canada, firefighters on Saturday continued to battle blazes during the nation’s worst fire season on record.

Meanwhile, Hilary brought heavy rainfall and flooding to Mexico and the southwestern U.S. on Saturday, ahead of the storm’s expected Sunday border crossing. It’s expected to dump up to 25 centimeters — a year’s worth of rain for some areas — in southern California and southern Nevada.

“This does not lessen the threat, especially the flood threat,” said Jamie Rhome, the U.S. National Hurricane Center’s deputy director, during a Saturday briefing to announce the storm’s downgraded status. “Don’t let the weakening trend and the intensity lower your guard.”

Meteorologists also expect the storm to churn up life-threatening surf conditions and rip currents — including towering waves up to 12 meters high — along Mexico’s Pacific coast. Dozens sought refuge at storm shelters in the twin resorts of Los Cabos, at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula, and firefighters used an inflatable boat to rescue a family in San Jose del Cabo after the resort was hit by driving rain and wind.

In Tijuana, Rafael Carrillo voiced the fear in the back of everyone’s mind in the border city of 1.9 million, particularly residents who live in homes that cling precariously to steep hillsides.

“If you hear noises, or the ground cracking, it is important for you to check it and get out as fast as possible, because the ground can weaken and your home could collapse,” said Carrillo, head of the Tijuana fire department.

That city ordered all beaches closed Saturday and set up a half-dozen storm shelters at sports complexes and government offices.

Mexico’s navy evacuated 850 people from islands off the Baja coast and deployed almost 3,000 troops for emergency operations. In La Paz, the picturesque capital of Baja California Sur state on the Sea of Cortez, police patrolled closed beaches to keep swimmers out of the whipped-up surf.

In the U.S., the Miami-based hurricane center issued tropical storm and potential flood warnings for Southern California from the Pacific Coast to interior mountains and deserts. The San Bernardino County sheriff on Saturday issued evacuation warnings for several mountain and foothill communities ahead of the storm.

And an evacuation advisory for the tourist destination of Santa Catalina Island, 37 kilometers off the Southern California coast, urged residents and beachgoers to leave, while authorities in Los Angeles scrambled to get the homeless off the streets and into shelters.

The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the latest preparedness plans ahead of the hurricane’s turn to the U.S. “I urge everyone, everyone in the path of this storm, to take precautions and listen to the guidance of state and local officials,” he said.
…

Business has vanished at Kingsley Odafe’s clothing shop in Nigeria’s capital, forcing him to lay off three employees. 

One culprit for his troubles stands out: The U.S. dollar’s strength against the Nigerian currency, the naira, has pushed the price of garments and other foreign goods beyond the reach of local consumers. A bag of imported clothes costs three times what it did two years ago. The price these days is running around 350,000 naira, or $450. 

“There are no sales anymore because people have to eat first before thinking of buying clothes,” Odafe said. 

Across the developing world, many countries are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system — especially the power of the dollar. They will air their grievances next week as the BRICS bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa meet with other emerging market countries in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

But complaining about the dollar is easier than deposing the de facto world currency. 

The dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has shrugged off past challenges to its preeminence. 

Despite repeated talk of the BRICS countries rolling out their own currency, no concrete proposals have emerged in the run-up to the summit starting Tuesday. Emerging economies have, however, discussed expanding trade in their own currencies to reduce their reliance on the buck. 

At a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in June, South Africa’s Naledi Pandor said the bloc’s New Development Bank will seek alternatives “to the current internationally traded currencies” — a euphemism for the dollar. Pandor was sitting alongside Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Ma Zhaoxu — representatives of two countries that are especially eager to weaken America’s international financial clout. 

BRICS dates to 2009 and the four rising economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2010, adding the “S” to the name. More than 20 countries — including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela — have expressed interest in joining BRICS. 

In 2015, the BRICS countries launched the New Development Bank — an alternative to the U.S. and European-dominated International Monetary Fund and World Bank. 

Critics in the developing world are especially uneasy about America’s willingness to use the dollar’s global influence to impose financial sanctions against adversaries — as it did to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine last year. 

They also complain that fluctuations in the dollar can destabilize their economies. A rising dollar, for instance, can cause chaos abroad by drawing investment out of other countries. It also increases the cost of repaying loans denominated in dollars and buying imported products, which are often priced in dollars. 

Kenyan President William Ruto has grumbled this year about Africa’s dependence on the dollar and the economic fallout from its ups and downs, while the Kenyan shilling plunges in value. He’s urged African leaders to join a fledgling pan-African payments system that uses local currencies in a push to encourage more trade. 

“How is U.S. dollars part of the trade between Djibouti and Kenya? Why?” he asked at a meeting, to applause. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has supported a common currency for commerce within the South American bloc Mercosur and for trade among BRICS nations. 

But if the dollar’s drawbacks are easily apparent, the alternatives to it are not. 

“At the end of the day, if you want to keep your reserve safe, you’ve got to put it in the dollar,” said Daniel Bradlow, a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria and a lawyer specializing in international finance. “You’re going to need to borrow in dollars.  

As it stands, 96% of trade in the Americas from 1999 to 2019 was invoiced in dollars, 74% of trade in Asia and 79% everywhere else, outside of Europe, which has the euro, according to calculations by U.S. Federal Reserve researchers. 

Still, the dollar’s hold on global commerce has loosened somewhat in recent years as banks, businesses and investors have turned to the euro and China’s yuan. 

But 24 years after the euro was introduced, the world’s No. 2 currency does not rival the dollar for international gravitas: The dollar is used in three times as many foreign-exchange transactions as the euro, Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel said in a study last month. 

And the yuan is limited by Beijing’s refusal to let the currency trade freely in world markets. 

The dollar still has its supporters. In Argentina, Javier Milei, who emerged from primary voting Monday as the front-running presidential candidate in October’s general election, is calling for the dollar to replace the country’s embattled peso. 

In Zimbabwe, Lovemore Mutenha’s liquor store collapsed when hyperinflation hit in 2008. He only managed to resuscitate the business when the country abandoned the local currency for a basket of currencies dominated by the dollar. 

“The U.S. dollar has given us our life back. We can’t do without it,” Mutenha, 49, said in the working-class suburb of Warren Park near the capital, Harare. 

In 2019, the government reintroduced the Zimbabwean currency and banned foreign currencies in local transactions. 

But the revamped Zimbabwe dollar floundered. U.S. dollars kept trading in the black market, and the government lifted the ban. Now, 80% of transactions in the country are in U.S. dollars. 

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube often pleads with people to embrace the local currency. 

But even government workers clamor to be paid in U.S. dollars, arguing that almost all service providers accept only the greenback. 

Prosper Chitambara, an economic analyst in Harare, said the U.S. dollar “has always had a stabilizing effect.” But Zimbabwe’s economy, which has little industry, low investment, few exports and high debts, can’t attract enough dollars to meet the needs of everyday commerce. 

It has led to a niche business on the streets of the capital: Vendors mend worn out or shredded $1 notes for a small fee. 
…

As unrelenting heat set in across Texas this summer, opponents of a sweeping new law targeting local regulations took to the airwaves and internet with an alarming message: outdoor workers would be banned from taking water breaks. 

Workers would die, experts and advocates said, with high temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and staying there for much of the past two months. 

But a closer look at the law, and the local ordinances requiring water breaks, reveals a more complicated picture. 

At least one political analyst said the dispute is less about worker protection and more about politics, as conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats battle for control of local governments. 

House Bill 2127, passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature in April and set to take effect Sept. 1, blocks local governments from enforcing legislation clashing with existing state law. Cities and counties would be required to demonstrate that their policies are in compliance. 

Proponents say it will help Texas to live up to its pro-business reputation by eliminating red tape created by a slew of ordinances that may differ city-by-city. 

“This legislation will streamline regulations so Texas job creators can have certainty,” said Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton, a co-sponsor of the bill. 

Democrats, in contrast, have nicknamed the bill the “Death Star” for the breadth of its potential impact on a wide array of ordinances regulating natural resources, agriculture and labor. Houston and San Antonio are suing to block it. 

The law’s opponents have particularly homed in on the fact it does not expressly mandate water breaks for outside workers. That has struck a chord during a summer when the state and other areas of the U.S. are baking under historically high temperatures. 

“The water break narrative is … especially compelling as Texas experiences a heat wave,” said Mark Jones, of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. 

But, he added, there is no evidence that most employers don’t already provide water breaks, and it’s not clear cities with such regulations even enforce them. 

“The narrative that somehow the Republican Legislature is going to prohibit workers from being able to take water breaks is not accurate,” he said. 

David Chincanchan begs to differ. The policy director of the Workers Defense Project, a nonprofit statewide organization advocating for migrant workers’ rights, said Austin and Dallas have “clear enforcement mechanisms” and penalties for failing to meet water break requirements. 

Republican legislators intended specifically to eliminate water breaks, adding language to that effect to later versions of their bill, he said. 

“It can’t be called an unintentional consequence when they knew exactly what would happen and refused every opportunity to prevent it from happening,” Chincanchan said. 

Jones said the bill is more about politics than policies. He noted the loudest opposition has come from cities where progressive Democrats are in control and said the bill is designed to take autonomy from those cities. 

“This is part of the growing tension between the blue cities and counties in the major urban areas and the Republican-controlled state government,” he said. 

Leaders of the Texas AFL-CIO, a labor federation of 240,000 union members in the state, acknowledge most employers already provide more water breaks than what is required by ordinances in Dallas and Austin, according to spokesperson Ed Sills. He has not seen local enforcement of water breaks. 

But minimal standards are still important on “an issue of life or death,” Sills said. 

“If a law is on the books, it still influences behavior,” he said, adding that some of the other targeted ordinances deal with tenant rights, predatory lending and excessive noise. 

Workers Defense Project spokesperson Christine Bolaños agrees. She said employers in Texas cities with water break requirements often provide more breaks than those in cities without them. 

Bolaños, who has spoken with workers about their heat illnesses, added that Spanish-speaking and migrant construction workers can be especially vulnerable because language barriers may prevent them from fighting for their rights or joining a union that could protect them. As a result, she said, their experiences with heat illness are more likely to go undocumented. 

The absence of a specific regulation mandating rehydration work pauses wouldn’t mean all supervisors give fewer breaks, Bolaños said. 

“But it will be on a case-by-case basis and that floor of protection will no longer be in place,” Bolaños said. “Construction workers are now going to be left at the mercy of the level of morality of their employers.” 

Statistics show heat can kill. There have been at least 436 work-related deaths from environmental heat exposure in the U.S. from 2011-2021, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. 

With legal challenges pending, the full effect of the bill is untested for now. 

That could take years, said Ryan Marquez, a clinical associate professor at the University of House Law Center. 

“This bill is broad,” Marquez said. “It’s hard to say exactly how far it will go.” 
…

Hurricane Hilary headed for Mexico’s Baja California on Saturday as the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” for the peninsula and for the southwestern United States, where it was forecast to cross the border as a tropical storm on Sunday.

Officials as far north as Los Angeles scrambled to get the homeless off the streets, set up shelters and prepare for evacuations.

Hilary is expected to plow into Mexico’s Baja Peninsula on Saturday night and then surge northward and enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center issued tropical storm and potential flood warnings for a wide swath of Southern California from the Pacific coast to interior mountains and deserts. Officials talked of evacuation plans for California’s Catalina Island.

“I don’t think any of us — I know me particularly — ever thought I’d be standing here talking about a hurricane or a tropical storm,” said Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

After rapidly gaining power early Friday, Hilary slowed some later in the day but remained a major Category 3 hurricane early Saturday with maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per mile (127 miles per hour), down from 230 kph (143 mph).

Early on Saturday, the storm was centered about 375 kilometers (233 miles) west of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving north-northwest at 26 kph (4 mph) and was expected to turn more toward the north and pick up speed.

The latest forecast track pointed to Hilary making landfall along a sparsely populated area of the Baja peninsula at a point about 330 kilometers (205 miles) south of the Pacific port city of Ensenada.

It is then expected to continue northward up the peninsula, raising fears that its heavy rains could cause dangerous flooding in the border city of Tijuana, where many homes in the city of 1.9 million cling precariously to steep hillsides.

Mayor Montserrat Caballero Ramirez said the city was setting up four shelters in high-risk zones and warning people in risky zones.

“We are a vulnerable city being on one of the most visited borders in the world and because of our landscape,” she said.

Concern was rising in the United States, too.

The National Park Service closed Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve to keep people from becoming stranded amid flooding. Cities across the region, including in Arizona, were offering sandbags to safeguard properties against floodwaters. Major League Baseball rescheduled three Sunday games in Southern California, moving them to Saturday as part of split-doubleheaders.

Deputies with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department took to the road to urge homeless people living in riverbeds to seek shelter. Authorities in the city were arranging food, cots and shelters for people who needed them.

SpaceX delayed the launch of a satellite-carrying rocket from a base on California’s central coast until at least Monday. The company said conditions in the Pacific could make it difficult for a ship to recover the rocket booster.

President Joe Biden said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had pre-positioned staff and supplies in the region.

“I urge everyone, everyone in the path of this storm, to take precautions and listen to the guidance of state and local officials,” Biden told reporters Friday at Camp David, where he was meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea.

Officials in Southern California were reinforcing sand berms, built to protect low-lying coastal communities against winter surf, like in Huntington Beach, which dubs itself as “Surf City USA.”

In nearby Newport Beach, Tanner Atkinson waited in a line of vehicles for free sandbags at a city distribution point.

“I mean a lot of people here are excited because the waves are gonna get pretty heavy,” Atkinson said. “But I mean, it’s gonna be some rain, so usually there’s some flooding and the landslides and things like that.”

Some schools in Cabo San Lucas were being prepared as temporary shelters, and in La Paz, the picturesque capital of Baja California Sur state on the Sea of Cortez, police patrolled closed beaches to keep swimmers out of the whipped-up surf. Schools were shut down in five municipalities.

It was increasingly likely that Hilary would reach California on Sunday while still at tropical storm strength, although widespread rain was expected to begin as early as Saturday, the National Weather Service’s San Diego office said.

Hurricane officials said the storm could bring heavy rainfall to the southwestern United States, dumping 8 to 15 centimeters (3 to 6 inches) in places, with isolated amounts of up to 25 centimeters (10 inches) in portions of southern California and southern Nevada.

“Two to three inches [5 to 7.6 centimeters] of rainfall in Southern California is unheard of” for this time of year, said Kristen Corbosiero, a University at Albany atmospheric scientist who specializes in Pacific hurricanes. “That’s a whole summer and fall amount of rain coming in probably six to 12 hours.”

The region could face once-in-a-century rains, and there is a good chance Nevada will break its rainfall record, said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections and a former government in-flight hurricane meteorologist.
…

This year’s World Humanitarian Day is being commemorated at a time of increased risk for the thousands of aid workers who put their lives on the line every day to help millions of people affected by conflict and natural and human-made disasters.

The United Nations says humanitarian workers are in far greater danger today than 20 years ago, when the U.N.’s headquarters in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, was bombed. The attack killed 22 staffers, including Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injuring some 150 others.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, says so far this year, 62 humanitarian workers have been killed in crises around the world, a 40% increase from the same period in 2022. Another 84 aid workers have been wounded and 34 kidnapped.

“The statistics are grim,” said Ramesh Rajasingham, head of OCHA’s office in Geneva. “Every year, nearly six times more aid workers are killed in the line of duty than were killed in Baghdad on that dark day.”

“International law is clear,” he said. “Aid workers are not targets. Perpetrators must be held to account. Impunity for these crimes is a scar on our collective conscience.”

OCHA says the highest number of attacks against aid workers is in South Sudan, followed closely by Sudan. Aid worker casualties also have been recorded in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and Ukraine.

World Humanitarian Day was established in response to the attack in Iraq 20 years ago on Aug. 19, 2003. Survivors and family members of victims, as well as U.N. senior officials, diplomats and members of the public, attended a ceremony Friday at U.N. headquarters in Geneva to pay tribute to the workers who have lost their lives in humanitarian service.

“Far from the spotlight and out of the headlines, humanitarians work around the clock to make our world a better place,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Against incredible odds, often at great personal risk, they ease suffering in some of the most dangerous circumstances imaginable.”

Personal stories

Ahmad Fawzi, who acted as master of ceremonies at the event, was spokesman for Sergio Vieiro di Mello when the terrorist attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad occurred. He escaped death because he was away on mission. However, the scars remain to this day.

“It has been said time heals all wounds. I do not agree,” said Fawzi.

Quoting Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, who lost two of her children to assassins’ bullets, he said that while “the pain lessens, it is never gone.”

With his voice breaking, Fawzi shared a painful memory of accompanying the remains of his lifelong friend Nadia Younus, who was killed in the Baghdad terrorist attack, to her final resting place in Cairo.

“It seems like only yesterday that Nadia and I shared our last dinner together in Baghdad,” he said.

Another emotion-filled memory was conveyed by Mujahed Mohammed Hasan, a survivor of the Canal Hotel bombing. He said he was happily planning his wedding on the day he was injured. He recounted years of painful treatment, of shattered dreams, of fighting for survival.

He told the room full of dignitaries that the support of his family gave him the strength and empowered him “to stand before you now, proudly reflecting on a 20-year journey of my life that has changed me into an ambitious, happy, proud individual determined to make a difference in the lives of those in need.”

“My journey is ongoing, and I continue to heal and grow every single day as I choose not to be a victim,” he said.

The United Nations says 362 million people in the world need humanitarian assistance.

In the face of skyrocketing humanitarian needs and despite security and other challenges, OCHA has vowed that “the U.N. and its partners aim to help almost 250 million people in crises around the world — 10 times more than in 2003.”
…

Native Hawaiians and others from a Maui community devastated by ferocious fire said Friday they worry Hawaii’s governor is moving too quickly to rebuild what was lost while the grief is still raw. 

“The fire occurred only 10 days ago, and many people are still in shock and mourning,” said Tiare Lawrence, who grew up in Lahaina. She spoke during an emotional news conference organized by community activists who called on Governor Josh Green to give residents time to grieve, provide community leaders with recovery decision-making roles, and comply with open-records laws amid distrust in the government response to the disaster. 

The governor and his wife were scheduled to give a livestreamed address from Honolulu on Friday evening with updates on the response to the Maui wildfires that killed at least 111 people. Earlier this week, he said he would announce details of a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina to prevent people from falling victim to land grabs. 

Since the flames consumed much of Lahaina, locals have feared a rebuilt town could become even more oriented toward wealthy visitors. 

Green has said Lahaina’s future will be determined by its people but didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the group’s concerns. 

“The governor should not rush to rebuild the community without first giving people time to heal, especially without including the community itself in the planning,” she said. “Fast-track development cannot come at the cost of community control.” 

More than a dozen of Lawrence’s uncles and cousins fled the fast-moving fire last week and went east to her Pukalani home. 

The coalition of activists, under the umbrella of a group calling itself “Na Ohana o Lele: Lahaina,” were especially concerned about the impact of development to the environment and noted how mismanagement of resources — particularly land and water — contributed to the quick spread of the fire. 

Normal life resumes elsewhere

While crews sifted through ashes and rubble in Lahaina, scenes of normalcy continued in other parts of Maui, even if the tragedy hung heavy over the island. 

Off the coast of Kihei Friday morning, a holiday marking Hawaii’s statehood, paddlers in outrigger canoes glided through Maalaea Bay about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Lahaina. Fishermen cast their lines from knee-deep water. And beachgoers strolled along the sand. 

The search for the missing moved beyond Lahaina to other communities that were destroyed. Teams had covered about 58% of the Lahaina area and the fire was 90% contained as of Thursday night, Maui County officials said. 

Six forensic anthropologists with the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency are assisting in gathering and identifying human remains, the Pentagon said in a statement Friday. The group is experienced in verifying DNA from long-lost service members, many of whom died as long ago as World War II. 

There was no word Friday on who would replace the Maui Emergency Management Agency administrator who abruptly resigned Thursday after defending a decision not to sound outdoor sirens during the fire. 

Herman Andaya had said this week that he had no regrets about not deploying the system because he feared it could have caused people to go toward the mountains or inland. 

“If that was the case, then they would have gone into the fire,” Andaya explained. He stepped down a day later. 

The decision to not use the sirens, coupled with water shortages that hampered firefighters and an escape route clogged with vehicles overrun by flames, has brought intense criticism from many residents following the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century. 

The lack of sirens has emerged as a potential misstep, part of a series of communication issues that added to the chaos, according to reporting by The Associated Press. 

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez said Thursday that an outside organization will conduct “an impartial, independent” review of the government’s response. 

Hotels will house evacuees

Corrine Hussey Nobriga said it was hard to lay blame for a tragedy that took everyone by surprise, even if some of her neighbors raised questions about the absence of sirens and inadequate evacuation routes. 

The fire moved quickly through her neighborhood, though her home was spared. 

“One minute we saw the fire over there,” she said, pointing toward faraway hills, “and the next minute it’s consuming all these houses.” 

Authorities hope to empty crowded, uncomfortable group shelters by early next week, said Brad Kieserman, vice president for disaster operations with the American Red Cross. Hotels also are available for eligible evacuees who have spent the last eight days sleeping in cars or camping in parking lots, he said. 

Contracts with the hotels will last for at least seven months but could easily be extended, he said. Service providers at the properties will offer meals, counseling, financial assistance and other disaster aid. 

The governor has said at least 1,000 hotel rooms will be set aside. In addition, Airbnb said its nonprofit wing will provide properties for 1,000 people. 
…