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Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

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Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#81

Post by Pxtl »

massysett wrote: post #77
Pxtl wrote: post #74

> The workers were motioning for everyone to turn back toward Lahaina. They literally sent people to die, under the color of authority as working under county government. Will anybody face accountability? edit: I'm rate-limited but to provide an a historical analog: In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed over a hundred young women working in the garment industry. The building's doors were locked by the o…

Accountability for what - doing their jobs in good faith with the best information they had?

This is not an unforeseeable occurrence. Hawaii is a tiny island state that is often hit by hurricanes, tsunami, and volcanic freaking eruptions. Any organization that is empowered to close roads needs to have good policies to decide what to do in emergency evacuations so they don't accidentally social-murder anyone.

Somebody decided that preparing for this fully-predictable event wasn't a priority.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#82

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #72

> Hawaiian Electric had no procedure in place for turning off the grid I find this hard to believe. Substations have remote control. Even if they are so old that they do not, send out a lineman crew and open the cutouts. You have to be able to do this to do maintenance and repair, it's not believable that they cannot "turn off" power in an emergency.

[deleted]

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#83

Post by russdill »

SoftTalker wrote: post #72

> Hawaiian Electric had no procedure in place for turning off the grid I find this hard to believe. Substations have remote control. Even if they are so old that they do not, send out a lineman crew and open the cutouts. You have to be able to do this to do maintenance and repair, it's not believable that they cannot "turn off" power in an emergency.

I think they didn't envision turning off the grid, especially if fire risk is high. My understanding is that without power, water pumps used to provide the water needed to fight fires have to rely on generators which have limited run time.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#84

Post by AlbertCory »

massysett wrote: post #77
Pxtl wrote: post #74

> The workers were motioning for everyone to turn back toward Lahaina. They literally sent people to die, under the color of authority as working under county government. Will anybody face accountability? edit: I'm rate-limited but to provide an a historical analog: In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed over a hundred young women working in the garment industry. The building's doors were locked by the o…

Accountability for what - doing their jobs in good faith with the best information they had?

Yes, if "doing their jobs" means disregarding common sense and basic humanity. You don't need a written regulation to justify not doing that.

If you're more worried about being dinged on your next performance review than saving people's lives, then yes, you should face accountability.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#85

Post by mvdtnz »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #79
simlevesque wrote: post #65

What I get from this is: make your own rules

I find it weird that the title of the article focuses on them so much, but it seems like the barricades there were due to the downed electrical wire or to keep people away from other areas that were on fire. Timed differently driving around the barricade one could have ended up in a worse situation than they already were. Hindsight is of little value to those who were making decisions in the moment, but really, "make…

A worse situation than burning alive in your car?

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#86

Post by mvdtnz »

seafoam wrote: post #75
yellow_lead wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in emergencies - information is potentially bad, and going with the crowd can leave you dead. That said, preparation is key.

Yes, reading this article reminded me of Steward Brand, who drives around with earthquake tools in the trunk of his car.

What are earthquake tools?

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#87

Post by marcosdumay »

simlevesque wrote: post #65

What I get from this is: make your own rules

I imagine on most emergencies that fails spectacularly.

There has to be some rule for spotting the inefficacy of the responders. But it's quite hard to make something that works. Even "know about the emergency and how things work around it" tends to fail often. Also, the next "obvious" one of "past performance is damn highly correlated with future performance" is so full of problems that it's completely counterproductive.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#88

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Pxtl wrote: post #81
massysett wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accountability for what - doing their jobs in good faith with the best information they had?

This is not an unforeseeable occurrence. Hawaii is a tiny island state that is often hit by hurricanes, tsunami, and volcanic freaking eruptions. Any organization that is empowered to close roads needs to have good policies to decide what to do in emergency evacuations so they don't accidentally social-murder anyone. Somebody decided that preparing for this fully-predictable event wasn't a priority.

> Any organization that is empowered to close roads needs to have good policies to decide what to do in emergency evacuations so they don't accidentally social-murder anyone

So every time the utility needs to do line maintenance, it has to draw up contingency plans for a nuclear strike?

The problem wasn't overzealous road closures. It was a general lack of a fire plan.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#89

Post by littlestymaar »

massysett wrote: post #77
Pxtl wrote: post #74

> The workers were motioning for everyone to turn back toward Lahaina. They literally sent people to die, under the color of authority as working under county government. Will anybody face accountability? edit: I'm rate-limited but to provide an a historical analog: In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed over a hundred young women working in the garment industry. The building's doors were locked by the o…

Accountability for what - doing their jobs in good faith with the best information they had?

It literally killed people, so determining if there's been no criminal negligence should happen in front of a court.

That's what accountability means. If the person in charge did nothing wrong, then the court will tell that. But you can't say “everything went fine, nothing to see here” when people died.

Re: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

#90

Post by croes »

mvdtnz wrote: post #85
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird that the title of the article focuses on them so much, but it seems like the barricades there were due to the downed electrical wire or to keep people away from other areas that were on fire. Timed differently driving around the barricade one could have ended up in a worse situation than they already were. Hindsight is of little value to those who were making decisions in the moment, but really, "make…

A worse situation than burning alive in your car?

You might die precisely because you dodged the barricade and would otherwise have survived.
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