Honolulu — During the peak of last summer's devastating Maui wildfires, county officials claim that if emergency responders had been aware of the widespread cellphone outages, they would have utilized alternative methods to warn residents about the disaster.
The lawsuit alleges that the alerts sent by the county to cellphones instructing people to evacuate immediately were never received due to the unknown outages.
Furthermore, Maui officials did not activate sirens that could have alerted the entire population about the approaching fires, leading to concerns about the effectiveness of public warnings in a state equipped with an extensive emergency alert system for various threats like wars, volcanoes, hurricanes, and wildfires.
The county officials accused major cellular carriers of negligence for failing to communicate the extent of the service outages to Maui police. The lawsuit, filed against Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Spectrum Mobile, and AT&T, aims to hold these companies accountable.
"While we support the Maui community in recovering from the tragic wildfires, we believe these allegations are unfounded," stated T-Mobile in response. "We issued wireless emergency alerts to customers despite operational challenges, promptly notified about outages, and liaised with state and local emergency services."
A Spectrum representative declined to comment, and the other carriers didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
A surge of lawsuits has emerged following the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century that swept through the historic town of Lahaina and claimed the lives of 101 individuals.
Maui County faces multiple lawsuits regarding its emergency response during the fires. The county has also filed a lawsuit against the Hawaiian Electric Company, alleging that the utility negligently failed to cut off power despite extremely high winds and dry weather conditions.
In the most recent legal action in Maui, the county's lawyers argue that if the county is held responsible for damages, then the actions of the cell carriers "significantly contributed to the damages" against the county.
"On August 8 and August 9, 2023, while the County's brave first responders were combating fires across the island and working to offer first aid and evacuate individuals to safety, the County issued numerous alerts and warnings to those in the vicinity of danger, including direct text messages to individual cell phones," stated the lawsuit.
The county sent out a minimum of 14 alert messages to cellphones, urging residents to evacuate, as per the lawsuit. Subsequently, the county discovered that all 21 cell towers serving West Maui, including those in Lahaina, had completely failed.
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