As her state reels from the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century, Sen. Mazie Hirono says she’s "asking for, and I expect to see, bipartisan support for additional funds that will enable us to recover."
The death toll for the fires that leveled a historic Maui town climbed to 93, Maui County confirmed Saturday, but that total is expected to grow. Hirono said officials are calling on people with missing relatives to provide DNA samples so the bodies can be identified.
"Recovery is going to take time. It is not going to be overnight by any means. It will take years. This is an entire town that has burned to the ground," Hirono said on CNN’s "State of the Union" on Sunday. "We are doing a lot in order to provide the kind of support we need to be providing, but there will always be a call for more. And my hope and expectation is that all of that will come.”
Last week, President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Hawaii, which expedites federal aid for recovery efforts, including grants for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans for uninsured property losses.
"I’ve ordered all available federal assets on the island, including the U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy Third Fleet and the U.S. Army, to assist local emergency response crews from the — along with the Hawaiian National Guard,” Biden said in Salt Lake City on Thursday.
On Sunday, he said the White House is "looking at" a trip to Hawaii, according to a pool report, though presidents typically don’t travel to the sites of natural disasters immediately to avoid drawing resources from rescue and recovery operations.
Maui’s police chief, John Pelletier, said on Saturday that crews with cadaver dogs covered just 3% of the search area, which so far spans at least five square miles. Homes are being marked with a bright orange "HR" when human remains are found.
Hirono said Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called her this week to pledge their support.
"We are in a period of mourning and loss as we search for more people who are still unaccounted for. Some of them have been found in the shelters," Hirono said. "I visited one with some 400 residents sleeping on cots and we are going to need to provide them with short-term and long-term housing."
The senator said she supported reviews, including one by Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, into state and local officials’ efforts to warn residents to evacuate ahead of the fire. There have been reports some residents did not receive wireless emergency alerts and a spokesperson for the state’s Emergency Management Agency told the Los Angeles Times that a network of outdoor sirens was not activated when the fire began to blaze on Tuesday.
"I’m not going to make any excuses for this tragedy," Hirono said. "There will be time enough, I would say, for those kinds of reviews and investigations to occur, but we are really focused as far as I’m concerned on the need for rescue."
An assessment of Hawaii’s emergency management plans released last year by the state listed wildfire as having a "low" level of risk to human lives. It was the only mention of wildfire in the 34-page report.
"There is not enough recognition that we are going to need to combat these kinds of wildfires," Hirono said. "We need to be assessing our ability to contend with these kinds of natural occurring disasters, which we are seeing more of the frequency and the damage that is done, clearly. This is happening all across the world."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.