NASW Social Work Talks - EP105: Hawai'i Fires Update

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

In Maui, more than 115 people have died after wildfires struck in early August. Some 1,000 people remain missing, and the death toll is expected to rise as recovery and identification efforts continue. The fires are especially heartbreaking for Hawaiians; more than 2,000 acres have burned in Lahaina, the historic town and the onetime capital of the former kingdom. We speak with NASW Hawaii chapter Executive Director Sonja Bigalke-Bannan, MSW, LCSW, about the devastation, loss of life, and how social workers in Hawai'i are coping while helping others.

This episode is sponsored by Connect to End COVID-19. This is Social Work Talks, and I'm your host, Aaliyah Wright. More than 115 people have died after a wildfire struck Maui in early August, and 1,000 people remain missing. The death toll is expected to rise as recovery and identification efforts continue. As the Associated Press reports, the fires are especially heartbreaking for Hawaiians because it struck one of its most historic towns in the one-time capital of the former kingdom, Lahaina, where the county of Maui records more than 2,000 acres of burn.

Today, Social Work Talks speaks with NASW Hawaii Executive Director Sonia Begalki-Bannon about the devastation, loss of life, and how social workers in Hawaii are coping while helping others. Sonia, thank you so much for joining us. Mahalo for having me. I really appreciate you making time and space for the conversation. First, let's discuss how you and your members are faring. Can you explain to us what happened and what it has been like since the fire struck? Well, the fire hit really quickly. We had a hurricane that passed south of the islands, and while much of the weather didn't hit us directly, extremely high winds did.

so our members have been you know in kind of response mode since since this happened we've had members that you know just jumped immediately into action helping evacuate their friends their neighbors their family members and then immediately swung into kind of social work mode as the temporary shelters were set up and because we're in an isolated place where the kind of most isolated populated area in the world it always takes a while for other aid to arrive and so um the efforts and and response by our local community was really amazing as people saw they're kind of pop-up uh pop-up recovery centers that you know local individuals were doing and local clinicians set up um you know response centers and support centers for other providers

all of this while you know Maui is a is a you know fairly small island by population size all of this while people were still recovering themselves or looking for their own family members who were missing or you know we had social workers that escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs who were immediately turning around and and helping other people in the community and saying you know what can I do what do you need from me so the response has been amazing. Maui has done so much kind of self-rescuing and self-recovery. It's been just phenomenal to watch. When we spoke earlier, you talked about phase one and phase two, which is what you're in now. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Sure. So initially when there's a disaster situation, you're initially in kind of search recovery um and that was the initial phase is first just figuring out you know you know who survived who you know who needs rescuing um what you know what the immediate uh medical needs um were and are and that's when the kind of emergency shelters were were set up at at community centers and churches and just kind of a first sense of kind of where people were um in relation to the fire and we're starting to get into this phase now where the um department of health has been working with and the governor's office have been working with the red cross and really got people from these group shelters into hotels very quickly much more quickly than usually happens in an

emergency situation um partly because of just the scale of the devastation and the trauma that people have faced and needing to get people into safe and secure kind of private spaces. But then also COVID is, is very real. There's a, you know, a COVID outbreak going on. So I'm trying to make sure that, you know, people are in, in safe spaces for that. So that's, you know, hampered recovery efforts as well. So in this phase, you know, our, our local local to Maui population, that was just, you know, heroic in their efforts of um you know setting up kind of first first touch response um is is

getting bolstered and getting support now by you know federal agencies like fema and and red cross they're you know more kind of red cross staffing coming in um and then our organization um did something that we don't usually do we really pivoted we reached out to the foundation and said hey this is our nasw foundation so this is something that is a scale that we've never seen before, and we were being asked to help. We had a request directly from the Red Cross, someone who was staffing the Red Cross and their community liaison person for this fire, who said, we need help with mental health providers. We can't, we don't have enough. So as a chapter, we partnered with other mental health provider agencies to get, you know, volunteer lists together to, you know,

to help to give to to the Red Cross and to the state but then we also started working to send people directly over so we got funding from the foundation so we could pay for hotel flights and cars to get providers they wanted LCSWs over to help staff the Red Cross shelters and as people were transitioning from the shelters to the hotels for longer term so we're in this kind of second second phase of the emergency when, you know, we're starting to look at kind of what the more medium-term needs are for folks. Engage in NASW's National Connect to End COVID-19 Campaign today. It's a CDC-funded initiative to support social workers and their clients in informed vaccine decision-making. NASW and the NASW Foundation are partnering with the

University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work to provide national webinars, chapter trainings, tools, and information that promote vaccine confidence among social workers and equip them to support clients in informed vaccine decision making. Visit NASW's website to learn more and join the campaign. So since you mentioned the NASW Foundation and they do have a disaster relief fund. I want to speak briefly about, and we know that you and other helping professionals in Hawaii have been inundated with requests for offering help. What would you like people to know and what kinds of assistance makes sense for people there right now? And I wanted to specifically talk about the other foundations and the other efforts.

Sure. Yeah. So like I said, so much of the efforts have been, you know, very super local. So, something that's very, that would be of great support if folks wanted to donate their monetary contributions, our Hawaii Community Food Bank, sorry, the Maui Food Bank is taking donations and is handling things very, very well. and then we have a hawaii community foundation and there's specifically a maui strong option for that and the hawaii community foundation has been doing you know really rapid granting to non-profits and organizations so those are the two that are going to get the most kind of direct impact to people and and then there's there's also we've posted on our websites kind of our statement and some other things to do to help if you know folks want to know pitch in to help um there's a 24 7 virtual zoom room to provide support for relief workers

on maui um that we um are helping to provide staffing for that um the hawaii psychological has set up and we're just trying to you know continue to build these community relationships and and see how we can um we can just kind of bring each other all up and we you know we We appreciate the care in Kokua from across the country. We appreciate that so many people are reaching out to ask how they can help. And right now we're trying to keep our, the response, you know, super, super local

because, you know, it's delicate, right? We really want to respect folks on Maui and make sure that they're dealing first with clinicians from their very direct community of Maui, of, you know, of Lahaina, of specifically West Maui. But then as we kind of expand the response that they're working with other local clinicians to Hawaii, I think a lot of people feel that they have a, you know, Hawaii has a special place in their heart because it for many people was a kind of a honeymoon destination or a kind of once in a lifetime trip or a special anniversary. So people feel very attached to Maui and we appreciate that love and aloha. But we also want to really respect the cultural competency and the specific needs during this recovery. And we're always very careful about the kind of concept of help from outside of the state or from elsewhere.

um we're a state that was you know it's illegally occupied and overthrown um by sugar barons um so this it was annexed by the U.S. it was not a you know the the kind of you know joyful becoming a state that is you know kind of uh the thought that many people have about the about Hawaii joining the U.S. um so we're you know really careful to look at this from a you know not having a kind of colonizing response or a kind of colonial response trying to really again focus and work and uplift local and grassroots and native organizations in this recovery effort and not have it feel like you know that it is being kind of run or overrun by by people who aren't from from the space and of the space so that's really important

So I wanted you to speak about how you're trying to balance the local efforts, the efforts of the disaster assistance agencies, as well as safeguarding the residents from being further victimized since you brought that up. Can you speak a little bit about that? And I know we talked about the land grabs and people trying to maybe take advantage of the situation that's going on down there. Absolutely. And that's something that the governor is trying to find a way to block, at least temporarily, the transfer of lands in the disaster area. There's been speculation and outreach by folks to try to reach out to the people who've lost their homes and to buy the lands immediately. You know, this is something that happens often in disasters across the country is that developers decide this is a great time to get land at a really cheap price and, you know, kind of force people out. And, you know, Lahaina is a special place, as you mentioned, had been the seat of the Hawaiian kingdom after Kamehameha's unification of the islands before the kingdom, before the capital moved to Honolulu. And so, you know, really wanting to respect that space and place and make sure that, you know, there's not further erasure of important places to Native Hawaiians and places that are important to Hawaii's history. And, you know, making sure that people aren't being, you know, preyed upon and there's not this kind of predatory speculation while people are still, you know, really in deep grief and still, again, looking for friends and family members.

and at this point having to kind of settle for the the the fact that you know those people that are missing are probably not coming back at this point in their response right that um at least you know not in one piece so we're um you know trying to trying to you know be protective of um our community and trying to also um you know as as you know folks rebuild you know make sure that the the resources are are allocated properly um you know we're working helping you know at the shelters continue still helping at shelters um and making sure that folk understand kind of what you know what red cross can offer in terms of their short-term assistance or what fema's offering and you know again there's just this there's a distrust for government governmental services

um kind of given hawaii's history so um it's going to be a long and delicate process and um again Again, there's a lot of just concern that we want to make sure that, you know, Lahaina, as it rebuilds, is really rebuilt for locals. And it's not just kind of rebuilt as a tourist destination or, you know, is swallowed up by a corporation. Is there anything else you'd like for social workers or for people to know? I think just the amazing response from across the state has been just, has been heartwarming. I mean, we've, you know, been through this massive disaster that has been, you know, a scale that we just haven't seen before in the state. And to see, you know, there were boat convoys coming from the closest island to Maui, which

as a small island Molokai you know boat convoys and people standing in the ocean and making human chains to like pass supplies and all the cargo planes all the cargo companies were accepting donations and I mean every from every single organization that I you know am involved with there's been some kind of an effort to collect supplies or to collect money or you know volunteers to go to Maui so the outpouring of support from the local community from the community here in Hawaii has been amazing. There was a traffic jam the other day because the stevedores down at the docks were accepting donations. And so there was like an hour and a half long wait to get to the docks to send things over. So the, you know, the resilience of the human spirit, the generosity of

the human spirit in the midst of all of this, and the deep kind of love and care and kukua for each other has been just has been really beautiful to see and be part of, especially, you know, when we've been living in a very kind of divisive time. So just seeing this, you know, really digging deep and grassroots efforts and community coming together to support community has been really beautiful. Thank you so much, Sonia, for taking the time out to speak to us during these trying times. Listeners, you can find additional information and links to the resources mentioned in the show notes of our website. Again, thanks so much for making space for this

and for letting us share a little bit about, you know, what we're going through as a state and what we're going through as a social work population. Mahalo nui loa. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts

to enhance the professional growth and development of our members to create and maintain professional standards and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us.

We look forward to seeing you next episode.