Global Empowerment Mission President and founder Michael Capponi says the biggest need for displaced Hawaiians is getting them out of shelters and into stabilized housing.that devastated the town of Lahaina and left catastrophic damage in their wake delivered a multibillion-dollar hit to the island’s economy according to a new economic analysis.
An initial estimate by Moody’s Analytics of the damage caused by the wildfires puts the economic toll in a range of $3.5 billion to $7 billion. Of the total, about $3 billion to $6 billion is derived from property damage, while up to $1 billion of the total reflects lost output. Kamins said it represents a "very significant economic shock locally" to Maui’s roughly $10 billion economy.
Kamins explained that for part of the lost output figures, Moody’s Analytics looked at the total output associated with a region and different industries based on assumptions about businesses being shuttered or forced to operate without power or things like"The other part, in this case, was specifically looking at tourism because that is the lifeblood of the economy in Maui," Kamins said.