“Forego journey plans to West Maui” says Hawaii Tourism Authority

The loss from the Maui wildfires are staggering — lives, houses, companies, jobs — it’s overwhelming. Whereas Maui remains to be within the means of firefighting, little or no has been achieved to completely assess the harm. It would nonetheless take a while to stabilize from this catastrophe.

On Sunday, August 13, we acquired an replace from the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) and Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) advising guests to forego journey plans to West Maui for the close to function. The newest recommendation is as follows [emphasis added]:

“Within the weeks forward, the collective assets and a spotlight of the federal, state and county authorities, the West Maui neighborhood, and the journey trade should be targeted on the restoration of residents who had been pressured to evacuate their houses and companies.

“Guests with plans to remain in West Maui within the coming weeks and months are urged to contemplate rescheduling their journey plans for a later time when the general state of affairs has improved for space residents.

“Inns in West Maui have briefly stopped accepting bookings of future reservations. Right now, many motels are housing their staff and households till the fires in West Maui are absolutely contained and journey on the roadways is protected. These similar motels are making ready to deal with evacuees and first responders engaged on catastrophe restoration.”

From that HTA assertion, you possibly can see that there’s nonetheless a number of uncertainty. At this level nobody is bound when will probably be deemed acceptable for guests to plan to remain in West Maui.

The HTA additionally famous that “Journey to the opposite Hawaiian Islands, like Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Lānaʻi, and Hawaiʻi Island, will not be affected at the moment.”

Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at their assertion.

The place is West Maui?

Once we first began visiting Maui, we actually didn’t perceive the native descriptions of the geography. To us, it wasn’t intuitive. See the next map we created to indicate the place the foremost resort areas are.

Let’s zoom in to the West Maui aspect to spotlight the resort areas – Kapalua, Napili, Kaanapali and Lahaina. West Maui contains all these particular cities/areas and all factors in between.

The wildfires basically consumed Lahaina. Fortunately, Kaanapali, Napaili and Kapalua had been principally untouched by the wildfires.

From the above map, discover that there’s just one, essential street that goes out and in of Lahaina from the remainder of the island. That’s Freeway 30, Honoapi’ilani Freeway. It’s solely a two-lane street. Emergency autos and different vital autos should be prioritized for that restricted roadway entry

What about South Maui? Is it open?

The most important omission within the HTA assertion is recommendation on planning an upcoming keep at South Maui motels. That space of Maui was principally unaffected by the wildfires. South Maui motels are open and operational.

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Do you could have upcoming journey plans to Maui? Do you could have questions on your plans and what you need to do?