More care providers and experts are calling for better safety measures against toxins that could be in the ash following the August wildfires on Maui.
In the two months following the fires, more people have been let back into Lāhainā, including many who have begun sifting through debris after much of the town was burned down.
Yet not everyone is wearing the proper personal protective equipment, according to Noelani Ahia from the volunteer group Mauna Medic Healers Hui.
“There are a lot of people, especially people who aren’t from here, on the ground who aren’t wearing any PPE at all,” Ahia said.
The Maui County Council held an informational briefing on Monday to discuss the importance of wearing PPE.
The state Department of Health recently reported that arsenic, cobalt and lead have been found in Kula ash — and they expect similar results in Lāhainā.
Jane Willliams, executive director for California Communities Against Toxins, was at the council meeting and noted the severity of the situation.
“It is fairly rare to burn an entire city to the ground. This usually only happens in times of war, and we evacuate civilian populations — we don’t have them go back,” Williams said.
“People here are motivated to quickly return to the burn zone for a number of different reasons. This creates exposure scenarios that are very problematic. We call this the 'disaster after the disaster,'” she said.
But even relief workers from groups like the American Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse and the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster aren’t wearing adequate PPE in Lāhainā.
“Our medics wear full head-to-toe PPE when we go in there every time, even though it's hot and uncomfortable because we want to model for people that it's important for their health,” Ahia said. “But some of these other folks who are there … just don't want to wear it when they're not digging, and so they don't even have masks on.”
Ahia said she had asked them to wear the proper PPE in part to serve as good examples for residents.
“Unfortunately, I did have someone from one of those groups tell one of our medics that they don't think they need PPE because Jesus will save them,” Ahia said.
Ahia and others at Monday’s council meeting asked for better education outreach on the need for protective gear and a re-evaluation of the opening of schools near Lāhainā.
They also want the county and state to provide more and better PPE to those in the hazardous areas.
“I'd say definitely a high concern right now is the idea that people could be let into sift through ash and rubble at their site without being provided really adequate personal protection,” said Sonya Lunder, the Sierra Club's senior toxics advisor, at the council meeting.
“That … would be really important to require and to provide to people before there's a lot of re-entry of the site," Lunder said.
Padraic Gallagher, the Red Cross of Hawaiʻi’s director of disaster services for Kauaʻi County, said in an email that the organization is not working in cleanup or debris removal operations.
When asked if there would be any changes to the Red Cross PPE protocol following the toxins found in the Kula ash, Gallagher suggested that it's not vital for the work the Red Cross does.
“American Red Cross volunteers and employees do not work near or in the burn zone in Lāhainā,” Gallagher said in an email. “That said, I’m sure that Red Cross operations is working closely with DOH, to make the proper PPE available.”
