When Anthony La Puente returned to the place he had called home for the last 16 years, almost nothing remained. Her house, like most of the houses in Lahaina, had been leveled by the wildfire that ravaged this piece of Hawaiian paradise.
“All I can say is that it hurts. It takes a toll on you emotionally,” the man said, 44 years old. “It sucks not being able to find the things you grew up with, or the things you remember,” she lamented.
La Puente was one of dozens of people allowed back into what used to be Lahaina on Friday. This town of 12,000 inhabitantsSituated on the island of Maui for hundreds of years, it was the proud home of the Hawaiian Royal Family.
Thousands of tourists visit it every year to enjoy its atmosphere, stroll along the picturesque boardwalk or lie down under a majestic banyan tree, considered the oldest in the United States.
An AFP team that toured the city on Friday found blackened carcasses of cats, birds and other animals trapped by the flames that, so far, have left 80 people dead.