“We are going to be here for you. We know this won’t be something that gets solved just overnight. We want to do it right. We want to make sure that we find out what went wrong. That it never happens again,” McCarthy said in a news conference Saturday afternoon at the Kalana O Maui county building in Wailuku following his visit. 

McCarthy said he was fortunate to come to Maui “many times before” with his family, recalling eating at restaurants near the banyan tree. Similar to the president, who visited the Valley Isle on Aug. 21, McCarthy, a Republican from California, said the goal is to help and rebuild “in the right manner” and do so with community input.

“We want to work with the community. We want to be respectful for the history behind this area. We want to be respectful for the lives that were lost there. We want to get the resources to individuals to rebuild their lives,” said McCarthy, describing what he saw as “sheer devastation.”  

The wildfires on Aug. 8 have claimed at least 115 lives and destroyed much of Lahaina town. Gov. Josh Green estimated damages at about $5 billion to $6 billion. On Sunday, the county said the Lahaina fire is now 100 percent contained with an estimated 2,170 acres burned. Crews have also been working to put out fires Upcountry that burned down 19 homes – as of Sunday, the Olinda fire had reached 90 percent containment with an estimated 1,081 acres burned, and the Kula fire had reached 95 percent containment with an estimated 202 acres burned. 

Hawaii U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda speaks about the importance of federal help in the recovery of Lahaina while appearing in a press conference Saturday afternoon in Wailuku with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy, along with U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, a Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District that includes Maui; U.S. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio); U.S Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho); and U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) toured Lahaina Saturday and met with Gov. Josh Green and Mayor Richard Bissen. U.S. Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii contracted COVID-19 and was not able to attend, according to a news release from his office. 

McCarthy’s visit came days after the House Oversight and Accountability Committee announced it would launch an investigation into the federal government’s response to the wildfires. U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement that federal, state and local response to the fires “raises serious questions and Americans, especially those impacted by this tragedy, deserve answers.” 

Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also announced last week that the committee would be investigating the cause of the fires and sent a letter to Hawaiian Electric requesting more information.  

Tokuda and U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said at a news conference on Maui on Wednesday that it is critical that disaster relief funds are replenished when Congress gets back into session. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said last week that the $12 billion in supplemental funding originally requested by the White House would get the agency through the end of the fiscal year, but if there are more storms “we’re going to continuously monitor very closely the health of the disaster relief fund to determine what more may be needed.” The White House later increased its request to $16 billion, which Congress will soon consider as the Senate returns Tuesday and the House gets back in session Sept. 12. 

“I can pledge you one thing, when we go back, the speaker has told us to make sure we can find the resources to bring Maui back,” Joyce, who is also chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, said on Saturday. “It may not come back perfectly, it may not come back the way it was before the fire, but it can come back. We are going to make sure we target the resources to meet the needs of the people of this island.”

Joyce’s subcommittee has the oversight and funding responsibility for FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to Case’s office. Case is also a member of the subcommittee and invited Joyce. 

“We may run with a red jersey on or a blue jersey on but when we are in Congress we put on red, white and blue jerseys and do what is right for our country, and these are the times when we all have to gather together and do what’s right for our country,” Joyce added.

McCarthy also said that when the House gets back into session on Sept. 12, the disaster relief funds “will be replenished.” Currently funding runs through Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal government’s fiscal year. 

“And what we’ll look at too, is not just Hawaii, we have floods in Vermont, we just had a hurricane in Florida, we had a hurricane in California, we got fires in Florida. We’ll be able to work through, look at the accounting of what people need, and make sure the assessments are there and make sure the money is spent wisely,” McCarthy said. 

When asked at the news conference about climate change and whether or not he believes it is real, McCarthy said, “I’m saying climate change is there, but if you are going to blame climate change on this, I think you ought to wait until the study comes because a lot of people lost their lives and probably wouldn’t have to if we had a different mitigation on how we treated a lot of different areas.” 

McCarthy discussed possible mitigation for fires that could include looking at what fueled the fires, such as the grasses, and understanding why some buildings survived and others did not. He also spoke to the possible need for more fire crews, as they were stretched thin on Aug. 8 while there was another fire Upcountry, and said putting power lines underground could be something else to consider.

“What was interesting that on that day you had a number of fires on the island,” McCarthy said. “You had a fire that started in Lahaina even earlier in the day that was put out. We do not know the cause of this. There is some people that thought it was a power line. Well, a power line isn’t about a temperature change. The power line that has trees and brushes around it and in a dry year is something different.”

Bissen said Sunday that when he met McCarthy at the banyan tree along with other top county and state officials, McCarthy asked him about how many fire crews there were in West Maui along with what Bissen had learned about the fire and how it started. Bissen said he also relayed to McCarthy how the county needs help from Congress and needs relief and recovery aid. 

“I think that was really the main purpose of the meeting, was to ask him personally, on behalf of the people of the County of Maui,” Bissen said. “I think him seeing the devastation himself (is) important for our federal partners and agencies and of course Congress to see firsthand so they know this is obviously not an exaggeration in any way. That is probably the best indicator for anyone, is to see it themselves. So they don’t have to accept hearsay.” 

As for the investigations coming out of Congress, Bissen said that may be normal with an incident of this magnitude. 

Other members of Congress have also stopped on Maui to see the devastation, including the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, which visited Lahaina on its way back from Micronesia. On Saturday at the news conference with McCarthy and other elected officials, Tokuda expressed thanks for the House members’ visit. 

“You know I’ve said it from the first day – this is a national tragedy, this is a national disaster that deserves a national response,” she said. “What you see here beside me is that national response that we do desperately need.” 

Tokuda said the urgency to help Maui cannot stop. 

“I truly appreciate on behalf of my constituency that now we can truly call you part of our ohana, our family,” said Tokuda, “because we know what after you have seen, what you have smelt, what you have felt, what you have heard, today from our community, being right there in Lahaina, being amongst our people, amongst the very first responders that have been heroes from day one, we know you are part of our ohana that is going to fight like hell every single day to make sure Maui knows we will not leave you behind, that we are here for the long haul and that we know it’s not going to take days, or weeks or months. This is not just years, I have talked about this in terms of generational support.” 

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.