By Jonathan Allen and Brendan O'Brien
LAHAINA, Hawaii (Reuters) -President Joe Biden vowed on Thursday that the U.S. government would remain committed to the people of Maui as they recover, rebuild and grieve in the wake of wildfires that destroyed the town of Lahaina and killed at least 111 people.
In a brief video aired on ABC's "Good Morning America," Biden said the federal government has already taken immediate action, sending hundreds of emergency personnel, thousands of meals and supplies to the devastated resort town where some 2,200 buildings were destroyed.
"We will be with you for as long as it takes, I promise you," the president said. "Already from the darkness and the smoke and the ash, we see the light of hope and strength."
During his remarks, Biden highlighted the efforts of first responders - many of whom have been personally affected by the wildfires. Local first responders have worked around the clock searching for the missing, while volunteers deliver aid by fishing boats and local chefs prepare meals for displaced families, he noted.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Hawaii on Monday to survey the devastation and meet with first responders, survivors and federal, state and local officials.
"I want the people of Hawaii to know that your country is with you as long as it takes," he said.
In other developments:
-- Hundreds of volunteers are coming to the aid of displaced Lahaina residents, many of whom are now sleeping in Maui County-run shelters, at the homes of friends and relatives, or in donated hotel rooms and vacation rentals.
Volunteers are donating supplies, handing out food and water and providing emotional support to many of their fellow Maui residents who lost their homes and all of their belongings.
"We're all one big family in Maui, we call it 'ohana,'" said Louis Romero, a 55-year-old retired battalion chief for the island's fire department, who is helping run a crisis-relief hub. "You don't have to be blood relatives to consider you family. That's the Hawaiian way. We help each other."
-- Maui County Emergency Management Agency administrator Herman Andaya defended the department's decision not to sound sirens during last week's deadly wildfires as questions intensify regarding how residents were alerted to the growing threat early last week.
Andaya said using sirens that typically alert people to tsunamis might have led people to evacuate toward the danger, he told reporters on Wednesday.
"The public is trained to seek higher ground in the event that the siren is sounded," Andaya said during a press conference.
"Had we sounded the siren that night, we're afraid that people would have gone mauka (to the mountainside) and if that was the case, then they would have gone into the fire," he added.
-- On Wednesday, officials opened the main road through town for the first time in several days, responding to frustration from residents. Officials initially closed the highway, which bypasses the charred waterfront and town center, to all but residents, first responders and employees of local businesses.
-- Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for as the death toll rose to 111. Teams, led by 20 cadaver dogs, have conducted a block-by-block search that had covered 38% of the disaster area as of Wednesday. The number of dogs would soon double to 40, Governor Josh Green said on Wednesday.
-- Identification of human remains that have been found has been slow, partly because of the fire's intensity. Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79, were the first two people killed in the wildfires to be identified. Early this morning, Maui officials identified three more victims as Melva Benjamin, 71; Virginia Dofa, 90; and Alfredo Galinato, 79. All of the identified victims thus far were Lahaina residents.
-- As officials work to identify the deceased, harrowing stories about those injured or killed in the wildfires have emerged from relatives and friends. Among them is Laurie Allen, who was burned over 70% of her body when the car she was escaping in was blocked by a downed tree, forcing her to flee across a burning field, her family said in a GoFundMe post.
She is burned to the bone in some places, but doctors at a burn center in Oahu hope she will regain partial use of her arms, the post said.
"The Burn Team has expressed more than once that she shouldn't be alive!" a relative wrote on the page.
-- Residents have been outraged by the tourists enjoying Maui's tropical beaches while search-and-rescue teams trawl ruins and ocean waters for victims of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in Maui; additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Julia Harte in New York, Eric Beech in Washington and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; editing by Frank McGurty, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)
