HAWAII, USA — A California woman has been identified as one of the victims in the Maui wildfires that have claimed the lives of at least 115 people with more than 1,000 still missing.
Maui County confirmed Tuesday that 72-year-old Theresa Cook and seven others who died in the devastating fires have been identified.
8 people killed in Maui wildfires identified
- Clyde Wakida (74) of Lahaina
- Todd Yamafuji (68) of Lahaina
- Antonia Molina (64) of Lahaina
- Freeman Tam Lung (59) of Lahaina
- Theresa Cook (72) of California
- Joseph Schilling (67) of Lahaina
- Narciso Baylosis Jr. (67) of Lahaina
- Vanessa Baylosis (67) of Lahaina
So far, 21 people have been identified and the family has been notified. However, there are 22 people who have been identified but the family has not been located or notified.
There have been 115 confirmed dead, according to Maui police. All single-story, residential properties in the disaster area had been searched, and teams were transitioning to searching multi-story residential and commercial properties, Maui County officials said in an update late Monday.
Some 1,000 to 1,100 names remain on the FBI's tentative, unconfirmed list of people unaccounted for after wildfires destroyed the historic seaside community of Lahaina on Maui. But the family assistance center so far has collected DNA from just 104 families, said Julie French, who is helping lead efforts to identify remains by DNA analysis.
Hawaii officials have expressed concern that by releasing a list of the missing, they would also be identifying some people who have died. In an email Tuesday, the State Joint Information Center called it "a standard held by all law enforcement and first responders here in Hawaii, out of compassion and courtesy for the families, to withhold the names until the families can be contacted.”
Police Chief John Pelletier said Tuesday that his team faces difficulties in coming up with a solid list of the missing. In some cases, people only provided partial names, and in other cases, names might be duplicated. There was “no secrecy, no hiding things,” he added.
“We want to get a verified list. The 1,100 names right now, we know that there’s a margin of that that some of them have first names only and there’s no contact number back. So there was a ‘John’s missing,’ and when we try to call back who said that, no one is answering,” he said. “And so we’re trying to scrub this to make it as accurate as we can.”
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