Old Lahaina Town Utterly Destroyed - Recovery & Relief Efforts

[MarkP]

The gold standard would be each house having its own water and power but having those utilities broken up so that individual neighborhoods could be isolated would help. While doing so each neighborhood block could be served by a large tank and battery station. We don't know what happened yet but some reports suggest an unfortunate linkage between water and power where shutting off the power to prevent starting fires would also have cut off the water pressure. I don't know if that is true. Another issue was, ironically, that burst water pipes ruined the system water pressure. Crazy to imagine houses burning down as one corner of the foundation was soaking wet but that goes hand in hand with how effective sprinkler systems are when properly designed and provided with adequate water supply.

One thing that the power company could do (in addition to installing strong enough power poles) would be to establish greenways, irrigated and mown if necessary, under elevated transmission lines.