An act of kindness may have saved the life of veteran Maui lawmaker Rosalyn "Roz" Baker. The former state senator offered an airport ride to a visiting couple only to later see the glow of Lāhainā town in the distance.
To her horror, the community she represented would be destroyed. All her personal belongings and mementos from a legislative career that spanned almost 30 years were lost in the fire.
"Some of the things, unfortunately, that went down in the fire can never be replaced," Baker said. "People have been very, very generous and I appreciate their aloha. I just wish that my place hadn't burned down."
Baker said she looks forward to returning to the site of her now gutted apartment.
"I would have liked to have gone back in to see if there was anything in the ashes of my condominium I could recover, but because of all of the things that burned down and the toxicity of some of that, we'll never be able to go back in until they take that soil out and begin some kind of remediation process," she told The Conversation.
"I just have to not dwell on the stuff that I don't have anymore, but be thankful for the friends, the colleagues, everybody that has come to help all of us that were negatively impacted by the fire. And even in the midst of all the destruction we still have a lot to be thankful for."
For decades, Baker championed for consumers and public education at the state Legislature. She retired from the state Senate in 2022.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Sept. 13, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
