In the aftermath of our latest natural disaster, Lalaʻs destruction of southern Hawaiʻi island, the rebuilding experience of Lahaina after their fire is as instructive as it is forewarning.

The progress in Lahaina has been like the progress in Puna after the last eruption: glacial. So this is what to expect if the status quo is allowed to repeat past examples. And given our current political apparatus, these examples will more than likely repeat.

To begin, letʻs recognize that one somewhat but not entirely true statement has done more damage to public understanding of the Lahaina recovery than any deliberate falsehood: billions have been spent. This is true in the way that many useful lies are true: it is assembled from real numbers, but written to confuse intention with achievement.

So how much money went where?

Public money moves through five distinct stages, and each one has its own verb:

• Money is appropriated by a legislature.
• It is awarded to a grantee.
• It is obligated under a contract.
• It is then spent (disbursed).
• And only then, sometimes, does it become something built.

Every stage generates a press release, but only the last bullet generates infrastructure.

As for Lahaina, the progress is considerably less impressive than the announcements.

First: there was no “$200 million Biden grant”

No federal grant of $200 million was ever made to rebuild or harden Lahaina. Twelve days after the fire, during the President’s visit to Maui, the Department of Energy announced approximately $95.3 million for Hawaiian Electric under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.¹

Hawaiian Electric was required to match it – with money from its customers – producing a combined program of roughly $190 million, which the Public Utilities Commission approved in February 2024.²

Two features of that program are routinely lost.

• First, half of it is ratepayer money, not federal money; the utility’s framing is that the grant “reduced the cost to customers by half,” which is another way of saying customers pay the other half.³
• Second, it is a five-island program for Oʻahu, Maui, Hawaiʻi Island, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, not a Lahaina-only program.

Half of it is ratepayer money

The PUC’s own bill-impact estimate makes the geography plain: a typical residential customer using 500 kilowatt-hours would pay about $0.17 more per month on Oʻahu, $0.39 in Maui County, and $0.47 on Hawaiʻi Island.⁴ Hawaiʻi Island households were assessed the largest per-bill increase of the three for a program whose headline justification was a fire on Maui.

So when the $95 million appears in a tally of “money spent on Lahaina,” it is being double-counted twice over: it is not all federal, and it is not all Lahaina.

The Lahaina Money Trail

Stream	Announced / awarded	Actually spent	Physically visible
FEMA and other federal response	FEMA said in Aug. 2024 that federal agencies were “on track” to provide roughly $3 billion, including more than $1.3 billion in mission assignments[5]	State and federal disclosures put actual federal outlays near $1.3 billion by the first anniversary; figures vary by accounting date and method	Debris removal, temporary housing, a temporary school, emergency utility work, rental assistance
HUD CDBG-DR long-term rebuilding	~$1.639 billion awarded to Maui County[6]	$20.1 million expended through March 31, 2026 – about 1.2% – against ~$1.56 billion obligated7	Contracts, environmental reviews, conditional awards; almost no completed construction
DOE grid resilience grant	~$95.3 million federal + equal ratepayer match ≈ $190 million	No public accounting cleanly shows drawdown against this specific award	Pole hardening and statewide resilience equipment; Lahaina undergrounding not built
State response	Hundreds of millions appropriated	Roughly $407-500 million reported spent by Aug. 2024, depending on accounting	Temporary housing, recovery operations, state share of response
Legal settlement	$4.037 billion[8]	First installments began flowing to the court in April 2026; victims largely unpaid as of mid-2026	Compensation, not a public reconstruction fund

The $3 billion FEMA figure and the $1.639 billion HUD award should never be added together and described as “$4.6 billion spent on Lahaina.”

• The first was an umbrella projection of federal recovery support, heavily weighted toward emergency response and temporary measures.
• The second is a separate long-term rebuilding grant Congress funded sixteen months later.

No federal or state ledger reconciles every appropriation, obligation, reimbursement and expenditure without overlap. That absence is not an oversight in the reporting. It is a condition of the reporting.

This number is the story: $20.1 million

The HUD disaster-recovery grant is the most useful instrument available, because it carries genuine quarterly accounting.

Maui County received an award of approximately $1.639 billion. Its quarterly report for the period ending March 31, 2026 showed $20.1 million expended – of which $18.1 million was spent in that quarter alone, meaning that for the first nine months the grant was essentially dormant.^7:1 Against that, roughly $1.56 billion had been obligated, with $1.17 billion of it obligated in the first three months of 2026.^7:2d

Now the machinery becomes visible. Obligation surged. Expenditure barely moved. Nearly the entire grant has been assigned to something, and almost none of it has been converted into work performed.

The conditional awards, announced in March 2026, follow the same pattern:

• Seven multifamily rental projects
  Restoring 519 affordable units in West Maui, receiving roughly $195 million. Construction on the largest, Front Street Apartments, is expected to begin in February 2027; timelines for the others were still to be determined.⁹
• Twenty-two infrastructure and mitigation projects.
  Conditionally awarded roughly $529 million, including the Honoapiʻilani Highway realignment (the Lahaina Bypass extension), water and wastewater upgrades, road and sidewalk repairs, emergency communications, and reconstruction of the West Maui Senior Center.^9:1

Conditionally awarded means selected. It does not mean designed, permitted, contracted, built, or paid for.

The housing programs show the same ratio between demand and delivery. The first-time homebuyer program had drawn 3,215 applications by May 2026; 61 had been approved and 13 households had closed.^7:3

What has actually been accomplished?

There is real physical work being performed on the ground, just not permanent public infrastructure.

The debris operation.
The unambiguous success. Roughly 400,000 tons – enough, officials said, to fill five football fields five stories high – were cleared from every residential and commercial property in Lahaina, held at a temporary site at Olowalu, and then hauled to a permanent disposal site above the Central Maui Landfill. The transfer ran ahead of schedule and was marked with a closing pule in February 2026; restoration of the Olowalu site was completed the previous month.¹⁰ Whatever else is true of this recovery, that was executed.

FEMA’s Kilohana site.
Placed 167 modular homes on 34 acres of state land where no housing had existed, complete with roads, water, sewer and utilities. The first families moved in during November 2024 and the final unit was installed in early February 2025 – thirteen months from start.¹¹ The units meet the International Building Code and are built to last thirty years or more. They remain, categorically, temporary disaster housing.

The temporary King Kamehameha III Elementary School.
The single clearest case in the entire recovery where a federal dollar figure maps onto a finished asset: FEMA provided nearly $78 million through mission assignments, and the Army Corps delivered a campus with 30 air-conditioned classrooms for up to 650 students in 95 days.^5:1 It is also, again, temporary.

Ka Laʻi Ola.
The state’s interim housing development of up to 450 units, sits adjacent to Kilohana.^11:1 It was a state-led effort drawing on multiple funding sources and should not be attributed to federal grid money or to the DOE grant.

Front Street reopened to vehicles on August 1, 2026.
Following seawall and sidewalk repairs, removal of offshore pilings, new railings, tree planting, fencing, paving and striping. The Front Street railings and walkway project alone covered roughly 1,450 feet of sidewalk and 700 feet of railing.¹² The reopening is genuine and it matters. It is also partial: Market Street, Papelekane Street and Mokuhinia Place remain closed while state dredging at Lahaina Harbor continues, and Banyan Court Park is still shut.^12:1 Lahaina’s sewer system was restored by April 2025 and the final unsafe-water advisory lifted the previous August.

Permanent homes: what does “Complete” mean?

As of August 7, 2026, county figures showed nearly 600 homes rebuilt and occupied, roughly 400 more under construction, and 2,248 of the 2,746 lost housing units on some path toward rebuilding.¹³ The County used a narrower measure, more than 456 residential and multifamily units fully constructed in Lahaina Town, which is a reminder that the counts differ by geography and by what “complete” means.¹⁴

None of these are federally built houses. They are a blend of insurance proceeds, private savings, mortgage debt, nonprofit assistance and government programs.

The Grid

The figures have multiplied confusingly, so here is the reconciliation.

• The 2024 DOE-plus-match program is roughly $190 million over five years, statewide.
• Separately, Hawaiian Electric’s 2025-2027 Wildfire Safety Strategy carries a total cost of about $480 million, roughly a third of which the utility says was already funded through existing programs including the 2024 federal grid grant.^[15] 
• Of that, the PUC approved a Wildfire Mitigation Plan on December 31, 2025 with costs of $350 million through 2027 – $270 million capital, $80 million operations and maintenance, with $240.5 million going to grid hardening.^[16] 
• Counting grid modernization pursued in a separate docket, the parent company projects roughly $483 million net through 2027 after anticipated grants.^[17]
• Against that, the operational record. Cumulatively through the end of 2025, Hawaiian Electric reported replacing or upgrading 4,409 wood poles, replacing 41 miles of overhead copper conductor, installing 12,158 fire-safe fuses, and deploying 101 weather stations and 135 AI-assisted camera stations.^[18] By June 2026 the camera count stood at 144, with vegetation work along more than 2,300 miles of circuits; in 2025 specifically the utility replaced 1,650 poles and upgraded 850 more.^[19]

This is substantial work. It is also statewide work, and none of it should be represented as having been done in Lahaina or paid for exclusively out of the $95.3 million federal award.

In Lahaina itself, targeted pole hardening began in mid-2026. Nineteen wooden poles are being replaced with composite fiberglass along Honoapiʻilani Highway.²⁰

Nineteen poles, three years after the fire.

The consequential project, burying roughly 2.5 miles of line along Lahainaluna Road, at an estimated $11 million per mile, has not been built. Design is underway; the utility has described the timeline as several years.²¹

Meanwhile the utility’s own liability came due. The $4.037 billion global settlement was finally unlocked in April 2026 when the last insurer withdrew its appeal, triggering the first of four equal annual $479 million installments from Hawaiian Electric Industries.^8:1 

More than 20,000 plaintiffs filed some 94,000 claims; as of mid-2026 the administrators were still determining allocations, and survivors had not been paid.²²

What still exists is mostly on paper

Three years after the deadliest American wildfire in a century, the major permanent public infrastructure for Lahaina remains in planning, design, environmental review, contracting or early construction.

That means no actual construction has been realized on expanded water storage, new wells, upsized sewer capacity, recycled-water systems, new evacuation connectors, the bypass extension, underground electrical distribution, and a long list of public facilities.

What has been completed is real and should not be minimized. The town is cleared. The debris is gone and its temporary site restored. Temporary housing and a temporary school were built at speed. Utilities and main street are online, and hundreds of homes are built.

But major recovery is not measured in announcements. Real recovery is measured in meaningful and enduring progress. Meaningful to the people who live there. It is already profitable enough for the politicians, lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, developers, consultants, and experts

What happened to the money?

No agency in Hawaiʻi publishes a ledger. Until one exists, the safest assumption about any large number attached to Lahaina is that it describes an intention.

Notes on verification

Several figures in circulation could not be independently confirmed and are flagged here rather than asserted:

• The DOE grant is widely reported as approximately $95.3 million federal against an equal match. Figures stated to the dollar derive from Hawaiian Electric’s own filings.
• Project-level dollar amounts within the 22 conditionally awarded CDBG-DR infrastructure projects (individual well, tank, sewer and roadway line items) come from county program documents and were not independently verified. The verified aggregate is roughly $529 million across all 22.
• Specific prime contract values reported for the single-family reconstruction program and for program administration could not be confirmed from primary sources. In any case, an executed contract is an obligation, not an expenditure.
• No public accounting was located that shows drawdown specifically against the DOE grid grant. Given documented federal delays – including a period in which the Department of Energy stalled or cancelled large tranches of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law awards – the status of that award warrants direct inquiry rather than inference.
• A newer CDBG-DR quarterly report covering April-June 2026 was posted in August; its expenditure figure was not verifiable at the time of writing. The $20.1 million figure is current through March 31, 2026.

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1. Hawaiian Electric, “Newsroom,” August 30, 2023: DOE approval of $95 million in federal funds following the Maui windstorm and wildfires. https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/about-us/newsroom
2. Hawaiian Electric, “Regulators approve 5-year grid resilience plan,” February 2024 (PUC Docket No. 2022-0135). https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/regulators-approve-5-year-grid-resilience-plan 
3. Ibid. 
4. Ibid. Bill-impact estimates as stated in the PUC decision. 
5. “One Year Later, Maui Wildfire Recovery Continues with Nearly $3 Billion in Federal Support,” FEMA, August 6, 2024. https://www.mauirecovers.org/news/one-year-later-maui-wildfire-recovery-continues-with-nearly-3-billion-in-federal-support 
6. County of Maui, “County of Maui, HUD sign $1.6B grant agreement for disaster relief,” June 20, 2025. https://www.mauicounty.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/17525 
7. “Lahaina fire survivors urged to apply for housing rebuild programs as August deadline approaches,” Maui Now, May 16, 2026, reporting the County’s quarterly CDBG-DR report for the period ending March 31, 2026. https://mauinow.com/2026/05/16/lahaina-fire-survivors-urged-to-apply-for-housing-rebuild-programs-as-august-deadline-approaches/ 
8. Maui Fires Class Settlement, court-authorized website (Global Settlement total of $4.037 billion), https://www.mauifiresclasssettlement.com/; and Hawaiian Electric Industries, Form 8-K, April 10, 2026 (first of four equal annual $479 million installments). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/354707/000035470726000026/he-20260410.htm 
9. County of Maui, “Major housing and infrastructure investments for wildfire recovery move forward,” March 6, 2026. https://www.mauicounty.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/18309 
10. “Closing pule marks completion of Lahaina wildfire debris transfer to permanent site,” Maui Now, February 22, 2026, https://mauinow.com/2026/02/22/closing-pule-marks-completion-of-lahaina-wildfire-debris-transfer-to-permanent-site/; and County of Maui, “Restoration completed at temporary wildfire debris storage site at Olowalu,” January 2026. https://www.mauicounty.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/18111 
11. FEMA, “FEMA Completes 167 Temporary Homes in Lahaina for Wildfire Survivors,” February 4, 2025. https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20250204/fema-completes-167-temporary-homes-lahaina-wildfire-survivors 
12. County of Maui, “Lahaina’s Front Street scheduled to reopen on Aug. 1, 2026,” July 17, 2026, https://www.mauicounty.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/19055; and County of Maui news flash on the Front Street Railing and Walkway Project blessing, July 1, 2026. 
13. “County releases recovery update ahead of 2023 Maui Wildfires anniversary,” Maui Now, August 7, 2026. https://mauinow.com/2026/08/07/county-releases-recovery-update-ahead-of-2023-maui-wildfires-anniversary/ 
14. County of Maui, 2026 State of the County Address. https://www.mauicounty.gov/2954/2026-State-of-the-County-Address ↩︎
15. Hawaiian Electric, “Regulators approve 3-year Hawaiian Electric Wildfire Safety Strategy” (PUC Docket 2025-0156). https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/regulators-approve-3-year-hawaiian-electric-wildfire-safety-strategy 
16. Hawaiʻi Public Utilities Commission, “PUC Approves Hawaiian Electric Wildfire Mitigation Plan and Completes Wildfire Recovery Fund Study,” December 31, 2025 (Decision and Order No. 42228), https://puc.hawaii.gov/news-release/puc-approves-hawaiian-electric-wildfire-mitigation-plan-and-completes-wildfire-recovery-fund-study/; cost breakdown from Hawaiian Electric Industries Q2 2026 investor presentation, August 7, 2026. 
17. “Hawaiian Electric projects nearly $500M in wildfire mitigation costs through 2027,” Aloha State Daily, January 2, 2026. https://alohastatedaily.com/2026/01/02/hawaiian-electric-projects-nearly-500m-in-wildfire-mitigation-costs-through-2027/ 
18. Hawaiian Electric Industries, FY 2025 investor presentation, February 2026. 
19. “HECO urges residents to prepare for wildfire season,” Hawaii News Now, June 11, 2026. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/06/11/heco-urges-residents-prepare-wildfire-season/ 
20. “Hawaiian Electric encourages customers to prepare for wildfire conditions in coming months,” Maui Now, June 10, 2026. https://mauinow.com/2026/06/10/hawaiian-electric-encourages-customers-to-prepare-for-wildfire-conditions-in-coming-months/ 
21. “Burying power lines along Lahainaluna Road part of Hawaiian Electric’s grid hardening plan,” Maui Now, September 6, 2025. https://mauinow.com/2025/09/06/burying-power-lines-along-lahainaluna-road-part-of-hawaiian-electrics-grid-hardening-plan/ 
22. “$4 Billion Could Soon Begin Flowing To Maui Fire Victims,” Honolulu Civil Beat, June 12, 2026. https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/06/4-billion-could-soon-begin-flowing-to-maui-fire-victims/