Maui wildfire survivors have decried the lack of warnings from the government as death toll from the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century ticks towards 100, Al Jazeera reports.
The residents blame the government inaction as a contributing factor to the heavy loss of life.
Officials have confirmed 96 deaths and warned that the figure was likely to rise as recovery crews with cadaver dogs worked their way through hundreds of homes and burned-out vehicles in Lahaina.
The historic coastal town was almost completely destroyed by the fast-moving inferno on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, and survivors say there had been no warnings.
When asked on Sunday why none of the island’s sirens had been activated, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono said she would wait for the results of an investigation announced by the state’s attorney general.
“I’m not going to make any excuses for this tragedy,” Hirono, a Democrat, told CNN.
READ ALSO: Dozens Killed As Wildfire Ravages Hawaii’s Maui Island
“We are really focused, as far as I’m concerned, on the need for rescue, and, sadly, the location of more bodies.”
More than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed as the fire tore through Lahaina, according to official estimates, wreaking damage estimated at $5.5bn and leaving thousands of people homeless.
The wildfire is the deadliest in the United States since 1918, when 453 people died in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the nonprofit research group National Fire Protection Association.
Questions are being asked about how prepared authorities were for the catastrophe, despite the islands’ exposure to natural hazards such as tsunamis, earthquakes and violent storms.
In its emergency management plan last year, the state of Hawaii described the risk wildfires posed to people as being “low”.
Yet the layers of warning that are intended to buffer a citizenry if disaster strikes appear not to have operated.
Maui suffered numerous power outages during the crisis, preventing many residents from receiving emergency alerts on their mobile phones.
READ ALSO: Hawaii: Death Toll From Deadliest Wildfire In Over 100 Years Reaches 93
No emergency sirens sounded and many Lahaina residents said they learned about the blaze from neighbours running down the street or seeing it for themselves.
“The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack,” resident Vilma Reed, 63, told the AFP news agency.
“You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us.”
Reed, whose house was destroyed by the blaze, said she was dependent on handouts and the kindness of strangers and was sleeping in a car with her daughter, grandson and two cats.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that firefighters sent to tackle the flames found some hydrants had run dry.
“There was just no water in the hydrants,” the newspaper quoted firefighter Keahi Ho as saying.
Noelani Ahia, a Maui community leader in western Lahaina, told Al Jazeera that residents are coming together to take care of each other “as we have always done in Hawaii”.
“We have been removed constantly – by the tourist industry, plantations, over development – and now we have this disaster and all this open land,” said Ahia, referring to the parts of the historic town that have been burned down to the ground.