Authorities in Hawaii are pleading with relatives of those missing after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century to come forward and give DNA samples.
Hawaii officials have expressed concern that by releasing a list of the missing, they would also be identifying some people who have died. In an email Tuesday, the State Joint Information Center called it “a standard held by all law enforcement and first responders here in Hawaii, out of compassion and courtesy for the families, to withhold the names until the families can be contacted.”
“We want to get a verified list. The 1,100 names right now, we know that there’s a margin of that that some of them have first names only and there’s no contact number back. So there was a, ‘John’s missing,’ and when we try to call back who said that, no one is answering,” he said. “And so we’re trying to scrub this to make it as accurate as we can.”
One whose name was on the list was Roseanna Samartano, a resident of Lahaina, who didn’t know anyone was looking for her until an FBI agent phoned her a few days ago. Clifford Abihai came to Maui from California after getting nowhere finding answers about his grandmother, Louise Abihai, 98, by phone. He has been just as frustrated on the ground in Maui.
Confirming whether those who are unaccounted for are deceased can be difficult. Fire experts say it’s possible some bodies were cremated by the intense heat, potentially leaving no bones left to identify through DNA tests. Three-quarters of the remains tested for DNA so far have yielded usable results, French said.
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