Desperate residents are looting businesses and robbing people at gunpoint, Maui locals say
Desperate survivors of the Lahaina, Hawaii fires are looting and robbing people at gunpoint as they wait for food and shelter in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires, Hawaiian locals said.
"There's some police presence. There's some small military presence, but at night people are being robbed at gunpoint," co-owner of a Lāhainā bar called The Dirty Monkey, Matt Robb, told Business Insider.
Robb added: "People are raped and pillaged. I mean, they're going through houses — and then by day it's hunky-dory. So where is the support? I don't think our government and our leaders, at this point, know how to handle this or what to do."
Media outlets reached out to the County of Maui for information about the alleged looting but did not hear back by time of publication.
Residents spoke to local news outlets as they await rescue crews to deliver food, water, diapers, and other necessities, many who lost everything are growing desperate.
Owner of restaurant Coconut Caboose Jeremy Aganos, one of the businesses that survived the fires, told KITV it is "utter chaos" for those seeking aid. His business was attacked by looters, he said.
Aganos set up a GoFundMe for the restaurant's losses.