Lahaina wildfire survivor speaks about her harrowing experience
(NBC, KYMA/KECY) - Seven hours in the water, clinging to a wall as cars explode around her. On Monday, one woman shared her harrowing fight to survive a fast moving inferno in Lahaina.
Annelise Cochran says it was the sound of dozens of personal home smoke alarms going off that alerted her to the intense flames headed toward her Lahaina apartment.
"There were embers, the size of small boulders, flying through the air," Cochran detailed.
She grabbed a few belongings and her pet Minah bird Chickadee, and jumped in her car.
"It was pitch black. I couldn't see where I was going. I couldn't even see one inch in front of the windshield," Cochran further detailed.
Other survivors
But Cochran didnt get far. She hit gridlock as people abandoned their cars and tried to outrun the flames.
"I grabbed my things...I left my bird behind in the car, which will forever break my heart, and I jumped off the seawall," Cochran shared.
For hours, Cochran and dozens of other survivors clung to a rock wall or waded in the ocean, including 19-year-old Noah Thompkinson, his 13-year-old brother Milo and their mom.
"Both sides to the left, and right of us, [were] on fire," Thompkinson said.
"I was just trying to survive. I was in survival mode. That's it," Milo remarked.
Barely breathing
Cochran, who has asthma, says she could barely breathe in the thick black smoke, and then things got worse.
"When the cars started exploding, they went off one by one. It was incredibly scary, and I could feel the ground shake," Cochran explained.
Sadly, her elderly neighbor did not survive, with Cochran saying, "He passed away in the fire."
After several hours in the cold water, the Thompkinsons and Cochran were finally rescued. Now, she's living in a shelter, taking on a new fight: To improve the emergency alert system.
"We should've gotten an alert or a text to evacuate. People were dying in front of me, and that was horrifying," Cochran stated.
Cochran said, at one point, a frantic tourist jumped in her car, but later panicked and jumped out and ran. She still doesn't know if he survived the fire.
