Residents rebuild and heal as Maui tourism struggles

A year after wildfires tore through Lahaina, Hawaii, restauranteur Qiana Di Bari is still packing up trash bags, each filled with smoke-damaged belongings, and carrying them out of her home one at a time in a painstaking effort to rebuild.
It’s a ritual that continues to play out across west Maui after the Aug. 8 fires killed at least 102 people and destroyed the former capital of the kingdom of Hawaii.
The home Di Bari shares with her husband, Italian-born Michele, and their daughter, 13, was one of only four on their street to survive the inferno, she said.
Di Bari is one of thousands of residents attempting to rebuild her home and business amid a flurry of instability.
NBC News spoke with a dozen people affected by the fire and each described experiencing an unrelenting cycle of housing and job insecurity that has compounded their trauma.
Two families said they have bounced from hotel to hotel, their stays extended through FEMA until next year. Others have moved in with relatives to save money. One person left Maui after being priced out of rental units.
The impact of the fire, one of three that erupted on that windy day last summer, has reached beyond the shores of Maui, devastating Hawaii’s tourism economy and costing the state more than $1 billion in lost revenue.
The road to recovery from a massive fire like the one that leveled Lahaina is never quick. Rubble has to be cleared, remains identified and soil and water tested long before any construction can start. Then there are insurance and legal questions.
After a 2018 fire killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, California, it took more than four years for some survivors to receive their insurance payouts. Homes and businesses continue to be rebuilt and new foundations laid.
Michele and Qiana Di Bari in their restaurant, Sale Pepe. Courtesy Qiana and Michele Di Bari
Today, many Lahaina residents who lost their homes are still displaced as they scramble from one temporary shelter to another.
“Even a year later, people are still in the unknown,” said Jamie Nahoo’ikaika, a host at Di Bari’s popular restaurant near Front Street, Sale Pepe, which burned to the ground. “Everybody is still waiting, and you wonder why it’s taking so long.”
She is counting the days until Sale Pepe reopens so she can go back to work. In the meantime, she and her husband, Jaret-Levi, a Lahaina native and head custodian at King Kamehameha III Elementary, transformed her mother’s garage into a studio for themselves, their 3-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter.
Sale Pepe will reopen in a new location sometime in the fall, Di Bari said, and she intends to rehire a handful of employees, including Nahoo’ikaika.
The Di Baris have stitched together financing for the restaurant through insurance claims, small business loans and a GoFundMe campaign started by their New York-based creative director.
The Di Baris’ popular restaurant near Front Street, Sale Pepe. Courtesy Qiana and Michele Di Bari