‘They are in shock. Their houses just burned down.’
Posted: August 10, 2023
Teachers from Lahainaluna High compared notes Wednesday afternoon and reached a grim assessment as Maui wildfires continued burning on the island: At least 15 of their coworkers at their school alone had homes destroyed by the flames.
Five Lahainaluna teachers who live in an affordable workforce housing complex with other county and state employees near their school took in colleagues who evacuated or had homes destroyed Tuesday as wildfires raged out of control in the Lāhainā area.
“HSTA members support one another, and we’re trying to support our neighbors,” said Lahainaluna teacher Ashley Olson after hosting colleagues overnight who were forced to evacuate with just a moment’s notice.
Olson said she took in “a teacher, her husband, and three of the four cats they were able to collect while the Maui Police Department was pounding on their door saying, ʻYou gotta get out! You gotta get out!’”
Without electricity, internet or cell phone service, Olson said they were cut off from family and friends and unable to gather information about what was happening.
“I had cell service until 5 p.m. yesterday, and there was no notification from the state or county,” said Olson, who is a Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association board member.
“My best source of information was Maui 24/7 on Facebook. And at 5 o’clock, that disappeared when her internet, Wi-Fi and cell service went down,” she said.
“We were able to find a Weber grill this morning and fired it up and I took the bacon out of my freezer and eggs out of the fridge, and we started cooking for people because nobody has electricity. We expect to feed more people as the day goes on before the food goes bad,” Olson said.
The HSTA is receiving reports from other members on Maui who haven’t been able to return to their neighborhoods but have seen aerial footage and photos that show their homes were destroyed by wildfires. It’s unclear just how many teachers on the island had homes damaged or destroyed by the fires.
Olson’s neighbor, Jarrett Chapin, another teacher at Lahainaluna, helped cook breakfast for colleagues and neighbors at their complex.
“We just picked up a couple of teachers. They are in shock. Their houses just burned down,” Chapin said Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m hoping that my classroom didn’t burn down, but that’s nothing compared to some of our teachers who have lost their homes,” added Chapin, who served as a delegate representing Maui teachers at the National Education Association’s annual Representative Assembly in Orlando last month.
Chapin and his partner, Victoria Zupancic, an academic coordinator at Lahainaluna High, Maui Chapter vice president, and chair of HSTA’s Supporting Hawaiʻi’s New Educators (SHiNE) Committee, hosted three teacher colleagues at their home overnight, two of whom had homes destroyed by the wildfires.
“This morning, we emptied our fridge. We are just making sure everyone’s fed,” Chapin said.
“I’m the cook. I enjoy it, I grew up in a restaurant,” he said, referring to Charo’s Restaurant in Hanalei on Kauaʻi, where his mother was a manager. “I used to work in the kitchen when the road flooded out.”
He’s been through a similar difficult situation before as a child.
“I was on the north shore of Kauaʻi during Hurricane Iniki,” which struck the islands in 1992, when Chapin was 12. “We had no power and no groceries for a long time.”
Chapin spoke to HSTA by phone — “I just got my first bar on my phone today” — as he traveled to neighbors’ homes to pick up refrigerated and frozen food donations before they went bad in the outage.
“We have people who are like, ‘I have a rack of lamb in my fridge.’ People are going to eat really well this week. People are just pulling the stops out. They brought us some ribs and all kinds of stuff,” he said.
He said he wasn’t surprised that his teaching colleagues were taking in friends and coworkers.
“Teachers naturally organize. Teachers naturally have big hearts. It’s just natural for teachers. It didn’t throw me at all that the people who were central to organizing our little community were teachers,” Chapin said.
“The only way we’re getting through this is by pooling resources. We have someone who can get a generator. We have another person who can get some kiawe wood,” Chapin said.
“The property manager was asking, ‘Is there an engineer here?’ And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, I think you have the entire English department here, but not a single science teacher that could fix the solar panels, which would be a great help. But I can quote some Shakespeare,” Chapin joked.
Olson said she and other HSTA leaders sprang into action to care for colleagues and their community.
“It’s not just HSTA and contract and job actions and grievances. As a community, we’re stronger together and we’re educators. Our whole being is to help others and to improve lives for others,” Olson added.
HSTA officers and staff, along with Maui Chapter leaders and staff from the National Education Association and NEA Member Benefits, held an emergency meeting Wednesday morning to plan response efforts. The HSTA will provide more relief options for members from the NEA as information becomes available.
A Maui Chapter event scheduled for Saturday in Lāhainā that was previously intended as an HSTA school-level leader training will now shift to a crisis response meeting to determine how best to support Maui members in need. The HSTA will announce event specifics and initiatives in the coming days.