Maui burns and Maui floods. The roads wash out, the beaches wash away, and the water gets fought over. The 2023 fire took more than 100 lives; the 2026 storms dumped two trillion gallons in days. Here's what we know about the physical dangers we live with, and how ready we actually are.
A USGS-led national assessment of shoreline change, conducted with the UH Coastal Geology Group, found 85% of Maui's beaches are eroding, against 71% on Kauaʻi and 60% on Oʻahu. Civil Beat's 2024 reporting puts roughly $19 billion in structures in the projected path of 3.2 feet of sea-level rise, with the hottest spots along South Kīhei Road, Honoapiʻilani Highway, and Front Street.
Source: UH Mānoa / USGS National Assessment of Shoreline Change; Civil Beat, 2024.
Lahaina burned in a day.
Two and a half years later,
we are still waiting.
Invasive grasses (guinea, buffel, molasses) and the loss of grazing turned Maui's leeward slopes into tinder. The wet 2025-2026 winter grew an enormous fuel load that dries out by summer. The conditions that produced 2023 have not gone away.
HPR: managing Maui's fire-prone vegetation →The questions raised by the Lahaina fire (the silent sirens, the single evacuation road, the power lines, the water pressure) are partly addressed and partly not. Hawaiian Electric is hardening the grid. The warning system and the roads are still works in progress.
Civil Beat: a cascade of breakdowns →Two back-to-back Kona lows in March 2026 dumped roughly two trillion gallons on the islands. Kahului broke its all-time daily rainfall record. Kula Hospital was evacuated. Retention basins overtopped above design, threatening Lahaina recovery housing.
UH News: the Mesonet flooding data →Our culverts, bridges, and storm drains were engineered for a rainfall regime that no longer exists. The 2026 storms didn't just exceed capacity, they exposed how far behind the infrastructure has fallen.
Engineering News-Record: roads collapse, bridges fail →When a fire or a flood closes Honoapiʻilani Highway at the Lahaina pali, all of West Maui is cut off. There is no second route, and the state has only just selected a final realignment route. In a disaster, that single road is the whole ballgame.
Maui Now: Honoapiʻilani Highway realignment →Sirens, cell alerts, Firewise communities, evacuation planning, defensible space. We track what the county and state are doing to warn residents and harden neighborhoods, and where the gaps remain.
HWMO: Firewise USA Hawaiʻi →In September 2025 the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court reaffirmed advocates' rights to challenge stream water diversions on East Maui. Water here is a public trust, not private property, and the fight over who gets it, for farms, homes, and fire response, is far from settled.
HPR: Hawaiʻi Supreme Court on water rights →Maui has the highest beach erosion rate of any Hawaiian island; 85% of beaches are eroding. Civil Beat estimates roughly $19 billion in structures sit in the projected path of 3.2 feet of sea-level rise, with hot spots at South Kīhei Road, Honoapiʻilani Highway, and Front Street.
Civil Beat: Maui's sea-level-rise response →New developments we are following, with the source for each. Newest first.
Almost three years after the fire, only 220 Lahaina homes have been rebuilt, and not a single destroyed business, the Washington Post reports. The holdup is not money but a maze of permitting, zoning, and historic-review rules that pile months onto every rebuild. After Hurricane Iniki in 1992, Kauaʻi waived similar rules and rebuilt fast. Clearing the red tape, not more spending, is what lets families come home.
With the summer dry season ramping up, Hawaii News Now reports that fire officials are urging residents across the state to prepare now instead of after the next spark. The core advice is simple: keep the first five feet around our homes lean, clean, and green, with nothing flammable touching the structure. On Oʻahu, the Honolulu Fire Department is adding staff and brush trucks, and can fine owners up to $1,000 for letting brush grow unchecked.
Almost three years after the 2023 fire, not one business has been rebuilt on Front Street, Lahaina’s commercial heart. A clip from Grassroot Hawaii argues the holdup is process, not money: permit fees, shoreline rules, historic reviews, and flood maps the state and Maui County could streamline. Its case is that none of it requires new spending, only the political will to clear the path.
The fires, the floods, the road. None of them happened without a government response. See how the promises hold up against the record.
Read The Response →