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LAHAINA, Hawaii — Twisted, charred aluminum mixed with broken glass still lines the floor of the industrial warehouse where Victoria Martucci once ran her scuba diving business. After wildfires ripped through western Maui, only her two engines remained on the 36-foot boat, Extended Her Horizons II.
Six months ago, Martocci and her husband, Eric Stein, said the same question was on their minds as they considered whether to rebuild the business they started in 1983. “What will become of this island?” asked Martocci. “Will things ever come close to being the same?”
What started as a wildfire in early August nearly gutted the town of Lahaina, a popular tourist destination, and destroyed large swathes of West Maui, making it the worst wildfire in the country in more than 100 years and at least 100 people died.
The local economy remains in crisis.
According to some estimates, rebuilding the town will cost more than $5 billion and take several years. And there remains a tense divide over whether Lahaina, whose economy has long relied almost entirely on tourism, should consider a new path forward.
Last year’s earthquake in Morocco and wildfires in Greece sparked a debate on social media about the ethics of traveling to destroyed tourist destinations. But the situation on Maui is particularly dire.
State and federal officials scrambled to find shelter for thousands of people who lost their homes last summer, moving people into local hotels and short-term rentals where many still live, and the realities of the situation hit home. They often shared walls with vacationing families who felt far removed from them. Other evacuees are living in tents on the beach, and some restaurant owners have switched to working from kitchen trucks.
According to the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, about 600 small businesses, half of those registered in Lahaina before the fire, are still closed.
A recent report from the University of Hawai’i Institute for Economic Research projects that statewide tourist spending this year will be down about 5%, or $1 billion, from 2023. The drop in tourism is almost entirely confined to Maui, according to the report.
Carl Bonham, the group’s executive director, said the scope and speed of Maui’s recovery remains an open question. Bonham said it would depend on several factors, including “how quickly displaced people can be moved from hotels to more permanent housing, the speed of ongoing cleanup operations, and the scope and duration of support programs.” .
“People aren’t coming back.”
In the weeks after the fire, politicians, Hollywood movie stars, local activists and even state tourism officials urged travelers to avoid parts of the island that were devastated.
“Maui is not a great place to vacation right now,” Hawaii-born actor Jason Momoa wrote on Instagram. “Do not assume that your presence is necessary on an island that is suffering so deeply.”
Some believe these messages are having a lasting impact on tourism.
A month after the fire, Democratic Gov. Josh Green announced that West Maui communities around Lahaina would officially reopen in October. He said in an interview that this was an attempt to save the local economy.
“Without clarity and directness about when we will reopen, the effects of uncertainty will linger and destroy Maui’s entire economy,” Green said. “People weren’t coming back.”
Despite the declaration, the return has been delayed. Many business owners have recently received approval for restructuring loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The agency has approved about $290 million in loans so far, including about $101 million for businesses and $189 million for residential properties. States and some nonprofit organizations are also offering grants to help small business owners.
But life in Lahaina still feels like it’s in limbo.
Tanna Swanson, a close friend of Mr. Martocci and Mr. Stein, spends much of her time at the couple’s home north of Lahaina, solving 2,000-piece puzzles to kill time and distract herself. She owned her five-bedroom B&B Maui Guesthouse, which was gutted in a fire. It was also her home.
Since then, she’s stayed in hotel after hotel, couchsurfed at friends’ houses, and moved eight times. In December, Swanson, 66, received a $270,000 loan from the Small Business Administration.
She said the mountains of paperwork and the emotional burden of the process had long deterred her from receiving it without meeting in person with an SBA representative who traveled to Maui to meet with business owners. She said there was no.
She said she hopes to see more of this direct assistance to reduce bureaucratic delays.
“It looks like we are experiencing a second COVID-19 situation again.”
On a recent afternoon, Swanson used a visitor’s pass to enter the neighborhood, but local authorities sealed off the area to prevent looting of the burnt property.
All that remains of the bed and breakfast is a desolate swimming pool and a few melted steel address numbers on the concrete walls. Since 1988, she has welcomed guests from all over the world and admired the ocean views from her top deck. .
As she looked out at the charred palm trees, she thought about her former employees, who numbered five at the time of the fire and how, like her, they lost their livelihoods overnight.
“Everything about me disappeared in a split second,” she said. “It’s not just me. It’s the whole community, the whole island.”
About an hour away, along a two-lane road where several tourists still pull up to catch a glimpse of humpback whales in the waters below, Brittney Alejo Fishel owns Haku Maui.
Her store in Makawao, a rural area of Maui far from Lahaina, sells traditional Hawaiian leis and hosts lei-making workshops. Much of her business comes from celebrations among tourists who have flocked to the island in the past. Alejo-Fichel said profits fell by 80% last fall after the fire, which she said has all but dried up. She has seen a slight rise since then.
On a recent morning, before teaching a lei-making class, she discussed the challenges her family-run business has faced in recent years. She was forced to close her business for a year during the coronavirus pandemic, then just months after business began to recover to pre-pandemic levels, fires engulfed West Maui. She is living on a reduced income and is reluctant to take out a government loan.
“The phone started ringing with orders being canceled and it’s still going on,” she said. “We’ve been through COVID-19, and now it’s like a second COVID-19 situation is back.”
Alejo Fishel, a Native Hawaiian, said the wildfires affected many people he knew, including friends who lost loved ones and homes.
“They are grieving and will be grieving for some time,” she said. But, she added, “tourism is our economy and we need tourism to survive.”
“We’re in that holding pattern.”
Back in Lahaina, Martocci experiences a repeat of the August 8 tragedy. She had scheduled a scuba expedition that day, but she canceled due to high winds. She and Ms. Stein sped down the Honoapiilani Expressway to check on her warehouse. The road was congested due to downed power lines and an increase in evacuees. The couple turned around, but when they spoke to Swanson on the phone, he evacuated and said he saw thick black smoke in the direction of the warehouse, indicating a structure fire.
“I didn’t know if it was gone, but I could feel it,” Martozzi said.
In recent months, she and Stein have begun rebuilding the business. They wondered if it made sense to move, but Martocci never felt more at peace than in the crystal blue waters off Maui.
They recently worked with the SBA and received a $700,000 loan. But Stein, 64, is nervous about taking on the debt needed to rebuild, especially given how much uncertainty remains.
He needs a new permit from the state’s boating department to operate his business, but to get a permit he needs a boat. And for now, the marine facility it has used for the past 40 years remains partially closed.
“We’re in that holding pattern,” he said. “I have no idea when it will loosen up.”
Martocci said he has come to think of his community like a heartbreaking Venn diagram, where everyone knows someone who has lost a loved one, home or job. Some have lost all three.
“This place we all knew and loved has been changed forever,” she said. “We just know we have to keep moving forward and find some sense of normalcy.”
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