HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii's congressional representatives on Wednesday said the nation’s disaster relief fund needs to be replenished so the U.S. government can continue to help survivors of Maui’s deadly wildfires and other disasters around the country.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Ed Case called on Congress to appropriate $20.9 billion to the fund. Case, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, said he hopes Congress will allocate the funding by the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency uses the fund to help communities after hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. Congress most recently added to the disaster relief fund when it appropriated $16 billion last September.
“We’ve had a lot of disasters, not just Maui — across the country. We’ve had a lot of draws on that," Case said at a field hearing of a House congressional oversight and accountability subcommittee.
The fund was “now exhausted and we’re down to the last limits of it,” Case said, noting the depleted balance prompted FEMA on Aug. 7 to began using the fund to address immediate needs only.
Bob Fenton, the administrator for the FEMA region that includes Hawaii, said that means the agency was prioritizing life saving and life-sustaining disaster response and was not putting money toward longer-term work.
“It delays long-term recovery. It delays building, rebuilding of infrastructure,” Fenton told the field hearing, which was held in Lahaina and livestreamed online.
The agency currently has funds to help people with housing and other immediate needs, but Fenton said: “That, too, is starting to be threatened.”
The hearing was held more than a year after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century killed at least 102 people and displaced 12,000 people on Aug. 8, 2023.
FEMA has so far spent more than $3 billion on Lahaina recovery, Fenton said.
Separately, a new report on the fire detailed steps communities can take to reduce the likelihood that grassland wildfires will turn into urban conflagrations like the one that engulfed Lahaina.
The report by a nonprofit scientific research group backed by insurance companies found steps like establishing fuel breaks, using fire-resistant building materials and reducing flammable connections between homes such as wooden fences can help prevent the spread of flames.
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety released the executive summary of the report Wednesday.
“We can start by hardening homes on the edge of the community,” said Faraz Hedayati, the institute’s lead researcher and report author. That will help ensure that a fast-moving grass fire never gets the opportunity to become an ember-driven fire, as happened in Lahaina, Hedayati said.
Grass fires grow quickly but typically only send embers a few feet in the air and a short distance along the ground, Hedayati said. Burning buildings, however, create large embers with a lot of buoyancy that can travel long distances, he said.
It was building embers, combined with high winds that were buffeting Maui the day of the fire, that allowed the flames in Lahaina to spread in all directions, according to the report. The embers started new spot fires throughout the town. The winds lengthened the flames — allowing them to extend more than 20 feet (6.1 meters) at times — and bent them toward the ground, where they could ignite vehicles, landscaping and other flammable material.
More than 2,100 structures were destroyed in Lahaina, with reconstruction costs estimated at about $5.5 billion according to the report. Still, some homes were left mostly or partly unburned in the midst of the devastation. The researchers used those homes as case studies, examining factors that helped to protect the structures.
Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.
FILE - Damaged property lies scattered in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii, Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) — Alex Palou easily drove to his third IndyCar championship in four years when challenger Will Power's seatbelt came loose minutes into the season-deciding finale Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway.
Colton Herta, who earlier this year moved to Nashville, won the Music City Grand Prix for his first career victory on an oval and second win of the season for Andretti Global. Herta topped Pato O’Ward in a wheel-to-wheel battle in the closing laps.
“I couldn’t ask for a better ending to the year,” Herta said.
But all attention was on the championship race as Palou, a Spaniard who won his first title in 2021 in his first season driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, won back-to-back IndyCar titles.
“He never broke a sweat,” said team owner Ganassi, who celebrated his 16th IndyCar title in 29 years.
“I don't know too many guys who have three championships, not that many, but he's in pretty rarified air right now,” Ganassi continued. “His name has certainly got to be in the conversation of great drivers.”
Palou became just the 13th driver in IndyCar history to win at least three championships. He's just the seventh to win three titles in four years with Dario Franchitti — also for Ganassi — the last to do so from 2009 through 2011.
“I had no idea it would be this much fun or he would be this successful,” Ganassi said about signing Palou before the 2021 season.
At 27 years, 5 months, 14 days, Palou became the second-youngest driver to win three championships. Only Sam Hornish Jr. was younger at 27 years, 2 months, 8 days when he won his third title in 2006.
The competition for the crown was only between Palou and Power, the two-time champion from Australia who won his last title in 2022 sandwiched between Palou's run.
Power had two chances in the last two races to reclaim the crown but failed to capitalize both times. Palou had an engine issue two weeks ago at the Milwaukee Mile and Power was briefly in position to win the race until the Australian spun on his own and finished a disappointing 10th.
That allowed Palou to take a 33-point lead into Nashville, where the downtown street race had been shifted 35 miles away to the existing concrete oval because of construction on the Tennessee Titans' new stadium. Palou had never before raced on a concrete oval, while Power finished 11th in his only career race at the superspeedway, IndyCar's final visit in 2008.
But things began looking up for Power when Palou had a disastrous qualifying effort at 15th, and also had a nine-place penalty on the starting grid for an unapproved engine change. That dropped Palou to 24th for the start and Power, who qualified fourth, had erased Palou's lead to a meager seven points when the race began based on their current running positions.
It was still going to take a lot of work for Power to give Team Penske the title as Palou only needed to rally to a ninth-place finish to win the title no matter where Power finished. He wound up 11th in the race.
It had long been a moot point because on the 14th lap, Power's lap belt came undone.
“My belt, my belt has come off!” he shouted on his radio.
Power had to pit under green so his crew could get him safely buckled back correctly, and Power had dropped five laps off the pace by the time he got back on track.
By then, Palou's lead was back up to 46 points as he sliced his way through the field. He drove from 24th to 12th in about 30 laps, while Power had plummeted to last.
He said after the race the belt came loose a second time in the closing laps and it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer for inspection.
“I've never had that before,” Power said. “I want to give a big congrats to Alex, a tough guy to beat ever since he joined Ganassi. Happy with the season, we did well, but we want to win that championship and we'll come back next year.”
Power ultimately finished 24th in the 27 car field and dropped to fourth in the final standings. Herta jumped up to second and was followed by Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the standings and ended the season as the highest-ranked Team Penske driver for the second consecutive year.
O'Ward finished second in the race and fifth in the overall standings, while Nashville native and two-time reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden was third in the race but a distant eighth in the standings.
Scott Dixon finished 17th in the race, which dropped him to sixth in the overall standings. The six-time IndyCar champion had not finished lower than fifth in the standings since 2016.
Santino Ferrucci finished sixth in the race to and end up ninth in the final standings — the highest an AJ Foyt Racing car has ranked since 2002. But it wasn't an overall banner day for the team as Sting Ray Robb's 20th-place finish eliminated that car from IndyCar's leaders circle program.
The leaders circle program pays a monetary bonus to the top 22 teams in the final standings and many organizations depend on that cash to fund their season budgets. Robb's car — which will be driven next year by David Malukas — fell one point short of the leaders circle bonus.
The drivers who squeezed out the final spots were Pietro Fittipaldi for Rahal Letterman Lanigan and Christian Rasmussen, who at the last minute was given the final three races of the season at Ed Carpenter Racing in an effort to keep the car inside the money.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Pato O'Ward (5) and Colton Herta (26) drive during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Drives pass under the green flag as they start an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Alex Palou drives during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou stands with his team before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Will Power, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
