Returning Lahaina residents struggle with housing issues after deadliest US wildfire in over a century

Editor’s Note: Find Monday’s Maui wildfires story here and live coverage here. “Airbnb is going to offer us hundreds of typically short-term rentals in a longer term capacity, so we can put people into a place for months.” At the checkpoint on the two-lane road around the northern shoreline to Lahaina, Maui police officers working 12-hour shifts were checking IDs to make sure only residents and people with a hotel reservation could continue down the road. “We are in a period of mourning and loss as we search for more people who are still unaccounted for,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat who toured the devastation, told CNN Sunday, adding Hawaii is in a state of “shock.” While the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier on Saturday said it was premature to assign even an approximate dollar amount to the damage done on Maui, the governor estimated that “the losses approach $6 billion.” “The devastation is so complete, that you see metals twisted in ways that you can’t imagine,” Green said. “We are going to need to provide them with short-term and long-term housing.” Meanwhile, tourism authorities are focused on helping visitors get off Maui, alleviating the pressure on residents and traffic, so that “attention and resources” can be focused on the island’s recovery, Hawaii Tourism Authority spokesperson Ilihia Gionson said Saturday. Gionson, who is a native Hawaiian, said residents will draw strength from the deep history of Lahaina – a former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom – and “the very powerful spirits of Maui.” “It’s really in the families and in the hearts of the Kama’aina, the residents of those places, that those kinds of stories, those kinds of histories live,” he told CNN.