Do Maui fire lawyers offer flexible payment plans for their services?
Maui fire lawyers
After the California wildfires of 2017 and 2018, big out-of-town law firms flooded Sonoma, Napa and Butte counties, signing up fire victims by the thousands to sue their power utility. Now, some of those same lawyers have landed in Maui to investigate and sue the local power supplier in the aftermath of last month’s deadly Lahaina inferno.
The Maui fire lawyers have displaced thousands of residents, including some who lost their homes. Finding permanent housing will be one of the biggest lifts for the island, Gov. Josh Green said Thursday. Many of the people displaced have been living in family homes built decades ago or inherited from relatives. Some families have 12 members bunking together in two or three bedrooms, real estate agents say.
For those who were able to stay, the challenge will be resuming life in a community that was built around agriculture and tourism and has been overrun by weeds, shrubs and non-native trees. “The reality is that Maui is a very unhealthy place to live, with incredibly dense development and the kind of over-extraction of natural resources that is really pushing us into the edge of disaster,” says Kaniela Ing, who heads the Green New Deal Network, which seeks a climate-conscious reconfiguration of government programs.
Do Maui fire lawyers offer flexible payment plans for their services?
In addition to addressing the health crisis, she says, Maui needs to make a change in how it treats its land and water. The island’s seclusion and natural beauty have long drawn celebrities, including Steven Tyler, Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, as well as a cadre of tech executives, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel. It also attracts working families seeking an escape from crowded cities, where wages are high but housing options are limited.
Those factors have also attracted retirees, as evidenced by the booming rental market for the town of Lahaina and other communities. The island is also growing in popularity among millennials, who are drawn by its natural beauty and low taxes.
In lawsuits filed against Hawaiian Electric, homeowners claim the company knew about the potential for wildfire in its West Maui service area, which is drier than other areas of the state and overrun by flammable non-native vegetation. They also allege that the utility failed to properly maintain its equipment, and that its failures allowed the fires to become devastating.
The suits allege that when winds whipped up sparks from downed lines, they ignited dry brush and grass, causing them to spread, and that the company failed to shut off its system as the fires got out of control. They demand unspecified damages for the loss of homes and businesses, and other losses.
A class action lawsuit filed by a pair of Maui residents claims that the utility’s failure to cut its power line during Hurricane Lane set the stage for the Lahaina fire, which destroyed much of the historic town of Lahaina. Its filing alleges that witnesses saw snapped lines dangling and transferring thousands of volts of electricity into the ground and dry plant matter, igniting the fire.