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The historic town of Lahaina, and its legacy, is in ashes. [1]
['Shawn Hubler', 'More About Shawn Hubler']
Date: 2023-08-09
For many visitors, the town of Lahaina is a place to go for tropical beaches. But for residents of Hawaii, it is a trove of history.
Its heritage museum, in a landmark courthouse, houses artifacts from before the rest of the world knew Hawaii existed. Its oldest building, the Baldwin Home, was occupied by the 19th-century physician who saved Maui from an epidemic of smallpox. Its central feature, a sprawling 150-year-old banyan tree, was planted to commemorate the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1873.
On Wednesday, that legacy and more appeared to be in ashes, consumed by the hurricane-driven wildfires that have devastated the island of Maui, razing much of the historic district of Lahaina, once Hawaii’s royal capital, in a matter of hours.
“We had no preparation, no warning, nothing,” said Theo Morrison, the executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, which manages more than a dozen historic sites in the town. Ms. Morrison, a longtime resident and the mother of a firefighter who has kept her apprised of the damage, spoke from an East Coast airport on Wednesday. She left Maui a day before the fires had broken out on Tuesday night, bound for Europe on family business, she said.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/lahaina-maui-hawaii-fires.html?smid=url-share
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