The Hawaiian county of Maui sued cellular carriers Wednesday over their alleged failure to alert officials of cellular outages that allegedly prevented officials from receiving vital information, a county press release announced.
Maui alleged that the companies failed to inform the government promptly about outages from Aug. 8 to 9 that impacted emergency response to the deadly wildfire sweeping the county, the press release claimed. (RELATED: We Are Dealing With Global Warming’: Hawaii Gov Once Again Blames Deadly Wildfire On Climate Change)
The lawsuit claimed that governmental officials sent 14 alerts to the public about evacuation information that were never received by the public due to the “widespread cellular service outages,” the press statement read.
“A timely and complete report is critical to the County’s ability to mitigate the impacts of a service outage during emergencies,” Victoria Takayesu, County of Maui Corporation counsel, said, according to the press release.
The wildfire was responsible for the deaths of at least 97 people, according to ABC News. The wildfire has been labeled to be one of the most deadly in history and Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green called it “the largest natural disaster we’ve ever experienced,” AccuWeather reported.
T-Mobile, one of the plaintiffs, rejected Maui’s claims that the cellular companies failed to quickly alert the government about the outages. “We continue to stand with the Maui community as it heals from the tragic fires, but these claims are baseless,” T-Mobile said in a press release, The Associated Press reported. “T-Mobile broadcasted wireless emergency alerts to customers while sites remained operational, promptly sent required outage notifications, and quickly contacted state and local emergency agencies and services.”
Maui sues cell carriers over wildfire warning alerts that were never received during service outages https://t.co/OkmEFF186N
— Ilan Hulkower (@IHulkower) May 3, 2024
Maui itself has been subject to many lawsuits over its behavior during the wildfires, the county’s press release noted.