Transcript of Episode 105: Hawai'i Fires Update

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by Connect to End COVID-19.

Aliah Wright:
This is Social Work Talks, and I'm your host, Aliah Wright. More than 115 people have died after wildfire struck Maui in early August, and a thousand 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 and the one-time capital of the former Kingdom, Lahaina, where the County of Maui reports more than 2,000 acres of burn. Today, Social Work Talks speaks with NASW, Hawaii Executive Director, Sonja Bigalke-Bannan, about the devastation, loss of life, and how social workers in Hawaii are coping while helping others. Sonja, thank you so much for joining us.

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
[Hawaiian language] for having me. I really appreciate you making time and space for the conversation.

Aliah Wright:
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?

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
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 in response mode since this happened. We've had members that just jumped immediately into action, helping evacuate their friends, their neighbors, their family members, and then immediately swung into social work mode as the temporary shelters were set up. And because we're in an isolated place, we're the most isolated populated area in the world, it always takes a while for other aid to arrive.

And so the efforts and response by our local community was really amazing, as people saw... There were pop-up recovery centers that local individuals were doing and local clinicians set up response centers and support centers for other providers. All of this, while Maui is a 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 we had social workers that escaped with nothing but their clothes on their backs, who were immediately turning around and helping other people in the community and saying, what can I do? What do you need from me? So the response has been amazing. Maui has done so much self rescuing and self recovery. It's been just phenomenal to watch.

Aliah Wright:
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?

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
Sure. So initially, when there's a disaster situation, you're initially in search and recovery, and that was the initial phase, is, first, just figuring out who survived, who needs rescuing, what the immediate medical needs were and are. And that's when the emergency shelters were set up at community centers and churches and just a first sense of where people were in relation to the fire. And we're starting to get into this phase now where the Department of Health and the Governor's office has 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, 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 private spaces. But then also, COVID is very real.

There's a COVID outbreak going on, so trying to make sure that people are in safe spaces for that. So that's hampered recovery efforts as well. So in this phase, our local to Maui population that was just heroic in their efforts of setting up first touch response is getting bolstered and getting support now by federal agencies like FEMA and Red Cross. There's more Red Cross staffing coming in. And then our organization 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 said, this is something that is a scale that we've never seen before and we are 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 don't have enough.

So as a chapter, we partnered with other mental health provider agencies to get volunteer lists together to help to give 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 second phase of the emergency, when we're starting to look at what the more medium term needs are for folks.

Announcer:
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.

Aliah Wright:
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.

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
Sure. So like I said, so much of the efforts have been very super local. So something that would be of great support if folks wanted to donate their monetary contributions, our Hawaii community Foodbank, 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 really rapid granting to nonprofits and organizations. So those are the two that are going to get the most direct impact to people. We've posted on our websites our statement and some other things to do to help if folks want to pitch in to help. There's a 24/7 virtual Zoom room to provide support for relief workers on Maui that we are helping to provide staffing for, that the Hawaii psychological has set up.

And we're just trying to continue to build these community relationships and see how we can just bring each other all up. And we appreciate the care and [Hawaiian language] 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 the response super, super local because it's delicate. 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 Lahaina, specifically, West Maui. But then as we expand the response that they're working with other local clinicians to Hawaii, I think a lot of people feel that Hawaii has a special place in their heart because it, for many people, was a honeymoon destination or a once in a lifetime trip or a special anniversary, so people feel very attached to Maui, and we appreciate that love and [Hawaiian language]. But we also want to really respect the cultural competency and the specific needs during this recovery.

And we're always very careful in the concept of help from outside of the state or from elsewhere. We're a state that was... it's illegally occupied and overthrown by sugar barons. So it was annexed by the US. It was not the kind of joyful becoming a state that is the thought that many people have about Hawaii joining the US. So we're really careful to look at this from not having a colonizing response or a 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 that it is being run or overrun by people who aren't from this space and of this space. So that's really important.

Aliah Wright:
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.

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
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. 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 force people out. And Lahaina is a special place, as you mentioned, had been the seed of the Hawaiian Kingdom after Kamehameha's unification of the islands before the capital move to Honolulu. And so really wanting to respect that space and place and make sure that there's not further erasure of important places to native Hawaiians and places that are important to Hawaii's history, and making sure that people aren't being preyed upon.

And there's not this predatory speculation while people are still really in deep grief and still, again, looking for friends and family members. And at this point, having to settle for the fact that those people that are missing are probably not coming back at this point in their response, at least not in one piece. So we're trying to be protective of our community and trying to also, as folks, rebuild, make sure that the resources are allocated properly. We're still helping at shelters, and making sure that folks understand what Red Cross can offer in terms of their short-term assistance, or what FEMA's offering. And again, there's a distrust for governmental services, given Hawaii's history. So it's going to be a long and delicate process. And again, there's just concern that we want to make sure that Lahaina, as it rebuilds, is really rebuilt for locals, and it's not just rebuilt as a tourist destination or is swallowed up by a corporation.

Aliah Wright:
Is there anything else you'd like for social workers or for people to know?

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
Just the amazing response from across the state has been heartwarming. I mean, we've been through this massive disaster that has been a scale that we just haven't seen before in the state. There were boat convoys coming from the closest island to Maui, which is a small island, Moloka'i boat convoys, and people standing in the ocean and making human chains to pass supplies, and all the cargo planes, all cargo companies were accepting donations. And I mean, from every single organization that I am involved with, there's been some kind of an effort to collect supplies or to collect money or 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 an hour and a half long wait to get to the docks to send things over. So the resilience of the human spirit, the generosity of the human spirit in the midst of all of this, and the deep love and care and [Hawaiian language] for each other has been really beautiful to see and be part of... Especially when we've been living in a very divisive time, so just seeing this really digging deep and grassroots efforts and community coming together to support community has been really beautiful.

Aliah Wright:
Thank you so much, Sonja, 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.

Sonja Bigalke-Bannan:
Again, thanks so much for making space for this and for letting us share a little bit about what we're going through as a state and what we're going through as a social work population. [Hawaiian language].

Announcer:
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. And 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.