ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Thursday marks six months since the start of the deadly wildfires on Maui. They killed at least 100 people, displaced nearly 10,000 people and destroyed nearly 4,000 properties, resulting in more than $5.5 billion in damage. Devastated parts of Maui include the historic district of Lāhainā, once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as well as a national historical landmark.
So do locals want visitors to return?
Yes, according to Micah Kāne. He is president and CEO of the Hawai’i Community Foundation, one of the main non-profit organizations supporting recovery efforts in Maui County.
“It's clearly one of the most complex, deep and broad disasters that I think Hawai'i has ever faced,” Kāne told ABC10 this week. “We're at a critical juncture right now in the recovery process.”
Maui’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism, he said, so it needs visitors to return.
“We're open for business and we want to welcome the people back. We really appreciate them coming in and supporting our economy,” he said.
ABC10 asked him the best way to be a responsible tourist on Maui.
“I really appreciate the question about how to come to Hawai’i, and it really is just about respecting people's situation,” he said. “You know, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to physically try to go into the burn zone area, but Kāʻanapali is open. We are welcoming visitors there, and we want them to come. We want them to be respectful of the people that have been affected.”
Communities are still struggling, he said, and they need help in the form of tourism as well as continued financial donations. Some 1,800 families remain displaced, Kāne said, living in hotels as his foundation works to connect them soon with short-term rentals.
“This is going to be a really long haul, and so I would really encourage people to continue to give to the various organizations that are engaged,” Kāne said.
Financial donations fund everything from housing and childcare to healthcare and food, Kāne said, as Maui’s tourism-reliant economy slowly comes back.
Respect and love were the goals of Gina Mertz of Roseville, when she and her husband recently visited Maui.
“There's a lot of devastation there and a lot of need,” she said.
Mertz hosted a Hawaiian-inspired meal for friends this past weekend, where she encouraged people to donate to the continued recovery efforts or even help the island’s economy by vacationing there.
“Go to Maui, spend as much money as you can afford to. Go to all the local places, restaurants, anything locally owned. And then I also encourage people to tip as generously as possible,” she said.
She heard this over and over from the people living on Maui: “They basically say, ‘Come. Please, come back. Come back and visit us here in Maui and especially on the west side.’ They have this whole thing like, ‘Maui is open!’ You know, so it is open for tourism.”
She encourages any tourist to keep respect top-of-mind, “knowing that this is still a very tender, painful, traumatic experience they went through,” Mertz said.
People can donate to the Hawai’i Community Foundation’s Maui Strong fund HERE.
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