Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised the house would investigate what went wrong with the response to the Maui wildfires, which left 115 and more than 1,100 people missing.
“I am very concerned about the response,” the speaker said Wednesday at a performance in New York state.
He continued: “Hundreds of individuals are still missing. I think there should be a congressional inquiry into what happened. How can we lose so many Americans in this day and age? And the federal response seems very delayed.”
The California Republican then slapped the president for initially not commenting and taking more than a week to visit the devastation.
The president’s response: no comment? That is unacceptable. That’s why I’m also going to work with committees to investigate what happened, so that it never happens again.’
Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy pledged a congressional inquiry into the response to the Maui wildfires, which left 115 dead and more than 1,000 missing.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet first responders as they tour the areas devastated by the Maui wildfires, Monday, August 21
No single cause for the fires has yet been determined, but experts suggest that despite the high winds, the power lines were left unplugged and may have caught fire as they fell.
The Republican Party-led House has launched surveillance investigations into nearly everything within Democratic President Biden’s purview — from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to the transactions of the Biden family businesses and a wide variety of federal agencies.
The number of missing people in Maui rose to 1,110 on Wednesday, two weeks after the deadly inferno swept through the island. The fire is already the deadliest since the 19th century, as the death toll is expected to rise.
The tourist town of Lahaina, home to 12,000 people, was virtually wiped off the map, with more than 3,000 buildings burned to the ground and an estimated $5 billion worth of damage.
The FBI is working to release a list of the missing later this week — and is calling on relatives of the missing to submit DNA samples to help identify the charred bodies discovered.
A new Associated Press report describes how the only paved road from a neighborhood in West Maui to the highway was closed. Those who drove around the barricade were safe. Many of those involved in a collision just behind the blockade were killed in their cars, while others tried to flee for safety.
Meanwhile, Maui’s top emergency management officer resigned last week after getting into trouble for failing to sound the island’s alarm system as the fire closed in.
Herman Andaya, the administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, had defended his decision not to raise the alarm, saying he feared coastal residents would think the ringing meant a tsunami and flee inland toward the flames.
“The public is trained to seek higher ground when the siren sounds,” he said.
In slow signs of recovery, Maui public schools have begun the process of reopening and highways have reopened traffic as of Wednesday. Additional cadaver dogs arrived that day to help teams search for the remains of the dead.
But cell service and access to electricity have been lacking at best, and survivors say they have struggled to find housing, medical attention and daily necessities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has pledged one-time payments of $700 for necessities to most households affected by the fires — and more than 6,000 people have applied so far.
DailyMail.com revealed Wednesday that FEMA responders sent to Maui have been staying in luxury in $1,000-a-night hotels a 45-minute drive from the fire-ravaged town of Lahaina.
FEMA has sent 1,000 agents to the Hawaiian island to help with the response, and teams have checked into three five-star hotels: the Fairmont Kea Lani, Four Seasons, and the Grand Wailea Astoria, whose former guests include members of the Hollywood elite.
And amid growing criticism of the perceived lack of federal support, Biden and First Lady Jill visited Maui on Monday — and received mixed reactions.
A member of FEMA’s search and rescue team works in a residential area destroyed by a wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii
The visit would always remain controversial, and the president’s motorcade was driven past both boos and jeers, with some raising their middle fingers and waving Trump 2024 flags.
The president’s speech promised Maui that the support of the federal government would be “with you as long as it is needed.”
“The country mourns with you, stands beside you, and we will do everything possible to help you recover, rebuild and respect the culture and traditions when the reconstruction takes place.”
But beyond that, Biden did little to endear himself to the traumatized islanders. He gave an extended speech referring to the deaths of his wife and infant daughter in 1972, and later related an anecdote about a 2004 kitchen fire at his Delaware home.