At dawn, he would accompany his grandmother to a reef at low tide, where she plucked black snails, spiny lobsters and spiky sea urchins from the craggy rock. In Hawaiian, she would instruct him to break off a branch of kiawe, a type of mesquite, to tease out an octopus hiding in a hole.

It taught Rodrigues, 71, the value of ahupuaa, a Native Hawaiian system for dividing land from the mountains down to the ocean, with the residents of each section living off the land and waters within it.

But now the section where he lives and where his ancestors have always lived — the Olowalu ahupuaa — is also home to a temporary landfill being used to store debris from the deadly wildfire that decimated the historic nearby town of Lahaina last summer, destroying thousands of buildings and killing 102 people. It’s enough refuse to cover five football fields five stories high, including soil contaminated with lead and arsenic.

A controversy over whether that site is truly temporary — and over where the debris might finally wind up — has sparked a fierce legal fight with tens of millions of dollars at stake, not to mention a priceless ecosystem rich with coral, manta rays and other sea life just offshore.

“Why would you go put opala like this in a place that’s clean?” Rodrigues asked, using a Hawaiian word for trash.

Handling debris after large wildfires is always a logistical challenge. After the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and burned down most of the town of Paradise, California, more than 300,000 truck loads were required to transport the debris to three different landfills, said Cole Glenwright, the deputy incident commander of the debris removal operation. The whole process took about a year.

It’s taking much longer on Maui, given environmental concerns, how long it has taken to clear destroyed lots, worries about Native Hawaiian cultural sites, and tussling over the ownership of a potential permanent site for the debris.

The temporary landfill in Olowalu is a former quarry on state-owned land and close to Lahaina, which made it a convenient choice for quickly storing the debris being cleared away so the town can rebuild. Officials believe its arid climate will reduce the risk of contamination spreading, and they say they’ve taken many precautions, including using thick liner and stormwater controls to contain runoff.

Officials have analyzed samples of soil, groundwater and surface water and found no traces of contamination being released, according to a quarterly report released in July.

But the site is just uphill from a coral reef, and some locals fear an ecological catastrophe if pollution does reach the water.

The operation of the site also threatens sacred Hawaiian shrines and altars and desecrates ancient Hawaiian burial sites, according to a lawsuit filed by two people who don’t want the debris in Olowalu. One of the plaintiffs is Manoa Ka’io Martin, whose ancestors are among those buried nearby. The other is farmer Eddy Garcia, who worries about contamination of the food he grows, including taro, bananas, pineapples and starfruit.

Amid demands to remove the debris from Olowalu, Maui County is seeking to seize a privately owned former quarry near the Central Maui Landfill across the island to use as a permanent dump site.

That’s prompted another legal fight. The company that owns the land, Komar Maui Properties, doesn’t want to give it up.

Komar bought the land in 2015 with plans to build a private landfill, but it says permitting issues have stalled development. It is contesting the county’s effort to take the property by eminent domain — a process by which governments can seize private land for public use, with fair compensation for the owner. A federal judge has prevented the county from taking immediate possession while the lawsuit plays out.

Andy Naden, general counsel and executive vice president of Komar Investments, the parent company of Komar Maui Properties, says the county moved to seize its land only after learning the Federal Emergency Management Agency would pay “tipping fees” associated with disposing of the Lahaina debris — fees typically paid by weight to landfill owners. Maui County charges a tipping fee of nearly $110 per ton for municipal solid waste.

“FEMA is going to dump 400,000 tons into this hole,” Naden said. “That equates to $44 million that the federal government is going to give to whoever has the hole.”

Shayne Agawa, director of Maui’s Department of Environmental Management, disputed that. He said his department has long been interested in acquiring the land as part of plans to expand the adjacent public landfill.

Agawa, who lives in Olowalu, said the county doesn’t want the debris to remain at the temporary site. But it has yet to come up with a backup plan in case the court blocks the county from seizing Komar’s land. Officials are looking at other nearby parcels, he said.

To respond to cultural concerns, Maui officials consulted with the county’s archaeologist, Janet Six, and FEMA had one of its historic advisors assess the site. Six told The Associated Press she could not rule out the presence of ancient cultural sites or burial grounds, but noted that the area was previously disturbed by mining. FEMA found that no historic properties would be affected.

The lawsuit filed by Garcia and Martin asserted that the construction and operation of the temporary dump has in fact damaged or desecrated such sites by exposing them to toxic material, in violation of Martin’s spiritual practices.

Garcia said he feels uneasy as rumbling trucks haul debris up the road next to his farm. He worries one heavy bout of rain will cause toxins from the debris to contaminate the food he grows.

The pair dropped their lawsuit after the county announced plans for the permanent site in central Maui, but their lawyer is considering their next legal steps while the debris sits in Olowalu.

“I have a feeling they’re going to try to make it permanent and just say, ‘Sorry, we can’t move it to the other site,’” Garcia said.

Further complicating the issue is that the ashes or bones of some fire victims might be mingled in the debris. Raenelle Stewart’s 97-year-old grandmother died in the fire. Stewart often wonders if the ashes the family received contained all her remains. The fire debris should be kept nearby, she said.

“I think they should designate a spot in Lahaina for it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s so toxic that the earth can’t handle.”

Randy Awo, a retired administrator in the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, is a Native Hawaiian resident of Maui. He’d prefer to have the debris shipped out of state — an option officials rejected as too expensive.

Awo called the concerns about remains “a sacred topic” and said he does not want to be insensitive to families who lost loved ones. But, he added, the community must also protect Maui’s finite amount of land.

“When our environment is subjected to toxins that threaten life itself,” Awo said, “we have to start making decisions that weigh both.”

Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him.

Brown provided screen shots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before gunfire is believed to have erupted.

Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.

Colt Gray, 14, has been charged with murder over the killing of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, outside Atlanta, on Wednesday. His father, Colin Gray, is accused of second-degree murder for providing his son with a semiautomatic AR 15-style rifle.

Their attorneys declined to immediately seek bail during their first court appearance on Friday.

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Investigators previously interviewed the suspects

The Georgia teenager had struggled with his parents’ separation and taunting by classmates, his father told a sheriff’s investigator last year when asked whether his son posted an online threat.

“I don’t know anything about him saying (expletive) like that,” Gray told Jackson County sheriff’s investigator Daniel Miller, according to a transcript of their interview obtained by the AP. “I’m going to be mad as hell if he did, and then all the guns will go away.”

Jackson County authorities ended their inquiry into Colt Gray a year ago, concluding that there wasn’t clear evidence to link him to a threat posted on Discord, a social media site popular with video gamers. The records from that investigation provide at least a narrow glimpse into a boy who struggled with his parents’ breakup and at the middle school he attended at the time, where his father said others frequently taunted him.

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Father says his son was bullied at school

“He gets flustered and under pressure. He doesn’t really think straight,” Colin Gray told the investigator on May 21, 2023, recalling a discussion he’d had with the boy’s principal.

Middle school had also been rough for Colt Gray. He had just finished the seventh grade when Miller interviewed the father and son. Colin Gray said the boy had just a few friends and frequently got picked on. Some students “just ridiculed him day after day after day.”

“I don’t want him to fight anybody, but they just keep like pinching him and touching him,” Gray said. “Words are one thing, but you start touching him and that’s a whole different deal. And it’s just escalated to the point where like his finals were last week and that was the last thing on his mind.”

Shooting guns and hunting, he said, were frequent pastimes for father and son. Gray said he was encouraging the boy to be more active outdoors and spend less time playing video games on his Xbox. When Colt Gray killed a deer months earlier, his father swelled with pride. He showed the investigator a photo on his cellphone, saying: “You see him with blood on his cheeks from shooting his first deer.”

“It was just the greatest day ever,” Colin Gray said.

There’s no mention in the investigator’s report and interview transcript of either Gray owning an assault-style rifle. Asked if his son had access to firearms, the father said yes. But he said the guns weren’t kept loaded and insisted he had emphasized safety when teaching the boy to shoot.

“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do,” Gray said, “and how to use them and not use them.”

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Family evicted in 2022

An eviction upended the Grays’ family in summer 2022. On July 25 of that year, a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to the rental home on a suburban cul-de-sac where Colin Gray, his wife, Colt and the boy’s two younger siblings lived. A moving crew was piling their belongings in the yard.

The Jackson County deputy said in a report that the movers found guns and hunting bows in a closet in the master bedroom. They turned the weapons and ammunition over to the deputy for safekeeping, rather than leave them outside with the family’s other possessions outside.

The deputy wrote that he left copies of receipt forms for the weapons on the front door so that Gray could pick them up later at the sheriff’s office. The reason for eviction is not mentioned in the report. Colin Gray told the investigator in 2023 that he had paid his rent.

It was following the eviction, he said, that his wife left him, taking the two younger siblings with her. Colt Gray “struggled at first with the separation and all,” said the father, who worked a construction job.

“I’m the sole provider, doing high rises downtown,” he told the investigator. Two days later, there was a follow-up interview with Colin Gray while he was at work. He said by phone: “I’m hanging off the top of a building. … I’ve got a big crane lift going, so it’s kind of noisy up here.”

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Boy described as quiet

The investigator also interviewed the boy, then 13, who was described in a report as quiet, calm and reserved.

He denied making any threats and said that months earlier he’d stopped using the Discord platform, where the school threat was posted. He later told his father his account had been hacked.

“The only thing I have is TikTok, but I just go on there and watch videos,” the teen said.

A year before they would both end up charged in the high school shooting, Colin Gray insisted to the sheriff’s investigator that his son wasn’t the type to threaten violence.

“He’s not a loner, Officer Miller. Don’t get that,” the father said, adding: “He just wants to go to school, do his own thing and he doesn’t want any trouble.”

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Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press reporter Trenton Daniel contributed from New York.

One year after the fire, here’s what to know about the banyan tree and the efforts to restore it.

Why is Lahaina’s banyan tree significant?

The banyan tree is the oldest living one on Maui but is not a species indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands. India shipped the tree as a gift to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries to live in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873, a quarter century before the Hawaiian Islands became a U.S. territory and seven decades after King Kamehameha declared Lahaina the capital of his kingdom.

The tree is widely beloved and fondly remembered by millions of tourists who have visited Maui over the years. But for many others it is a symbol of colonial rule that has dispossessed Native Hawaiians of their land and suppressed their language and culture.

For generations, the banyan tree served as a gathering place along Lahaina’s waterfront. By many accounts, it was the heart of the oceanside community — towering more than 60 feet (18 meters) high and anchored by multiple trunks that span nearly an acre.

The enormous tree has leafy branches that unfurl majestically and offer shade from the sun. Aerial roots dangle from its boughs and eventually latch onto the soil to become new trunks. Branches splay out widely, and have become roosting places for choirs of birds.

What happened to it during the fire?

The 2023 fire charred the tree and blackened many of its leaves. But it wasn’t the flames so much as the intense heat that was generated that dried out much of the tree, according to Duane Sparkman, chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee. As a result of this loss of moisture, about half of the tree’s branches died, he said.

“Once that section of the tree desiccated, there was no coming back,” he said.

But other parts of the tree are now growing back healthy.

How was it saved?

Those working to restore the tree removed the dead branches so that the tree’s energy would go toward the branches that were alive, Sparkman said.

To monitor that energy, 14 sensors were screwed into the tree to track the flows of cambium, or sap, through its branches.

“It’s basically a heart monitor,” Sparkman said. “As we’ve been treating the tree, the heart beat’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger.”

Sparkman said there are also plans to install vertical tubes to help the tree’s aerial roots, which appear to be vertical branches that grow down toward the ground. The tubes will contain compost so as to provide the branches with key nutrients when they take root in the soil.

A planned irrigation system will also feed small drops of water into the tubes. The goal, Sparkman said, is to help those aerial roots “bulk up and become the next stabilizer root.” The system will also irrigate the surrounding land and the tree’s canopy.

“You see a lot of long, long branches with hundreds of leaves back on the tree,” Sparkman said, adding that some branches are even producing fruit. “It’s pretty amazing to see that much of the tree come back.”

What other trees were destroyed in the fire?

Sparkman estimates that Lahaina lost some 25,000 trees in the fire.

These included the fruit trees that people grew in their yards as well as trees that are significant in Hawaiian culture, such as the ulu or breadfruit tree; the fire charred all but two of the dozen or so that remained.

Since the blaze, a band of arborists, farmers and landscapers — including Sparkman — has set about trying to save the ulu and other culturally important trees. Before colonialism, commercial agriculture and tourism, thousands of breadfruit trees dotted Lahaina.

To help restore Lahaina’s trees, Sparkman founded a nonprofit called Treecovery. The group has potted some 3,500 trees, he said, growing them in “micro-nurseries” across the island, including at some hotels, until people can move back into their homes.

“We have grow hubs all over the island of Maui to grow these trees out for as long as they need. So when the people are ready, we can have them come pick these trees up and they can plant them in their yards,” he said. “It’s important that we do this for the families.”

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AP writer Audrey McAvoy contributed from Honolulu.

The woman screamed to her boyfriend to get the baby to safety, and he grabbed the child and began to scramble up the driveway on concrete so slick it was almost impossible to walk. But before he made it halfway, he slid backward and his foot touched the live wire — “a little fire, then smoke,” Washington said.

The mother, six months pregnant, tried to reach the baby, but she too slipped and was electrocuted. So was her 15-year-old brother, when he came out to help.

Washington, 18, was on the phone with a dispatcher when she saw the baby, lying on top of his father, move his head — the 9-month-old was alive. Having just seen three people shocked to death, she decided to try to save the boy.

She kept a low crouch to avoid sliding into the wire as she approached, she said at a news conference Thursday, a day after the deaths. As she grabbed the baby she touched the father’s body, but she wasn’t shocked, she said.

“I was concerned about the baby,” said Washington, who recognized the woman as her neighbor’s daughter. “Nobody was with the baby.”

Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman Rick Graves praised Washington for her heroism but confessed he didn’t understand how she and the baby weren’t also electrocuted. The baby was examined at a hospital and is fine, authorities have said.

“We do have fortunately with us a toddler that is going to be able to thrive and do what they possibly can as they move forward,” Graves said. “And they are here, in part, because of the heroic acts of a member of our community.”

The snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures that hammered the Pacific Northwest in the past week have now been blamed for at least 10 deaths in Oregon, from hypothermia and falling trees or utility poles, along with five from hypothermia in the Seattle area.

Oregon’s governor declared a statewide emergency Thursday night after requests for aid from multiple counties “as they enter the sixth day of severe impacts” from the weather.

The ice weighs down trees and power lines making them prone to snap, especially in strong winds. That appears to be what caused the electrocution deaths: A large branch broke from a tree, landed on utility wires and pushed one onto the vehicle.

Washington’s neighbor, Ronald Briggs, declined to speak with The Associated Press beyond confirming that his 21-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son had been killed.

But he told Portland television station KGW that his daughter had come over to use the internet after hers went out. He and his wife had just gotten in their own car to run an errand when they heard the boom and saw the SUV apparently on fire.

He watched as the couple slid to their deaths — and then told his 15-year-old son, Ta’Ron Briggs, a high school sophomore, to keep his distance, to no avail.

“I told him, ‘Don’t go down there — try to get away from them.’ And he slid, and he touched the water, and he, and he died too,” Briggs said. “I have six kids. I lost two of them in one day.”

“It just hurt,” he said. “Being a good father cannot solve this right now.”

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Johnson reported from Seattle.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The decision by Alaska Airlines to stop flying one of its planes over the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii due to warnings from a cabin-pressurization system — yet keep flying it over land — is raising questions about whether the jet should have been in the air at all.

The nation’s top accident investigator says warning lights were triggered on three flights, including each of the two days before the brand-new Boeing 737 Max 9 suffered a terrifying fuselage blowout Friday night. A plug covering a spot left for an emergency door tore off the plane as it flew 16,000 feet above Oregon.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said maintenance crews checked the plane and cleared it to fly — but the airline decided not to use it for the long route to Hawaii over water so that it “could return very quickly to an airport” if the warning light reappeared.

Friday’s flight was headed from Oregon to Southern California, and made it back to Portland without serious injury to any of the 171 passengers and six crew members. But the decision to allow it to fly over land in the first place struck some aviation experts as illogical.

“If you are afraid to take the airplane far from land, what is the reason for that? That has to be answered by Alaska Airlines,” said Steven Wallace, an air-safety consultant and commercial pilot who once headed accident investigations for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA grounded all Max 9s operated by Alaska and United and some flown by foreign airlines for inspection after the Friday night flight. The inspections are focused on plugs used to seal an area set aside for extra emergency doors that are not required on United and Alaska Max 9s.

Monday afternoon, United Airlines said it found loose bolts and other “installation issues” on door plugs that were inspected after the Alaska Airlines incident.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” Chicago-based United said.

Boeing, which has had its own share of problems with various planes over the years, pledged to “help address any and all findings” that airlines make during their inspections.

The FAA declined to comment on whether the Alaska Airlines plane in question should have been allowed to keep flying. The agency said “it would be premature” to comment while the NTSB is investigating the Friday night flight.

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines also declined to comment, saying it would need permission from the NTSB to discuss the plane and its maintenance history. “We will provide information as soon as the NTSB permits us to do so,” the airline said.

Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration, said Alaska should have grounded the plane, period. However, he and other critics said the decision to stop flying the plane to Hawaii might have averted a disaster.

If the blowout had happened halfway to Hawaii, pilots would have been forced to fly low enough so passengers could breathe without oxygen masks, which burns more fuel. And the gaping hole in the fuselage would create drag. The plane might have run out of fuel before reaching land, experts said.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s an angel in Alaska,” Diehl said. “Whoever made the decision to do that probably saved a lot of lives.”

Other aviation insiders saw nothing unusual in the airline’s decision to limit but not ground the plane after the pressurization warnings on flights Dec. 7, Jan 3 and Jan. 4 – the day before the blowout.

“Whatever maintenance they performed on it, (they decided) ’Let’s be conservative and not put this thing out over water,” said John Cox, a former airline pilot and now a safety consultant. He said the intermittent nature of the pressurization warnings – three out of the plane’s 145 flights – might have made them suspect a bad sensor or something else.

It’s not clear whether the airline would have been required to report the warning lights to the FAA or the fact that it had limited the plane to flying over land. Wallace said rules about such reporting aren’t specific.

Homendy, the NTSB chair, cautioned that the pressurization warning light might be unrelated to Friday’s incident, which occurred as the plane cruised about three miles (4.8 kilometers) over Oregon.

On Monday, the FAA approved guidelines for inspecting the door plugs on other Max 9 jets and repairing them, if necessary. That move could speed the return to service of the 171 planes that the FAA grounded.

Alaska has 64 other Max 9s, and United Airlines owns 79 of them. No other U.S. airlines operate that model.

The NTSB said the lost door plug was found Sunday near Portland in the back yard of a home.

At a news conference Sunday night, Homendy said an explosive rush of air damaged several rows of seats and pulled insulation from the walls. The cockpit door flew open and banged into a lavatory door.

Two cell phones that appeared to have belonged to passengers on Friday’s flight were found on the ground. One was discovered in a yard, the other on the side of a road. Both were turned over to the NTSB.

Grounding 171 of 218 Max 9s in operation, including all those used by Alaska and United, led to flight cancellations at both carriers.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun called a companywide webcast to talk about the incident with employees and senior leadership for Tuesday.

Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour trip to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the chunk of fuselage blew out.

Videos posted online by passengers showed a gaping hole where the paneled-over door had been. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout. Firefighters came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.

It was extremely lucky that the airplane had not yet reached cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants might be walking around the cabin, Homendy said.

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The model went into service in May 2017.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max 8 and Max 9 planes were grounded worldwide for nearly two years until Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

The Max has been plagued by other issues, including manufacturing flaws.

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Koenig reported from Dallas and Krisher reported from Detroit. Associated Press reporter Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — Ira “Ike” Schab had just showered, put on a clean sailor’s uniform and closed his locker aboard the USS Dobbin when he heard a call for a fire rescue party.

He went topside to see the USS Utah capsizing and Japanese planes in the air. He scurried back below deck to grab boxes of ammunition and joined a daisy chain of sailors feeding shells to an anti-aircraft gun up above. He remembers being only 140 pounds (63.50 kilograms) as a 21-year-old, but somehow finding the strength to lift boxes weighing almost twice that.

“We were pretty startled. Startled and scared to death,” Schab, now 103, said. “We didn’t know what to expect and we knew that if anything happened to us, that would be it.”

Eighty-two years later, Schab returned to Pearl Harbor Thursday on the anniversary of the attack to remember the more than 2,300 servicemen killed. He was one of five survivors at a ceremony commemorating the assault that propelled the United States into World War II. Six of the increasingly frail men had been expected, but one was not feeling well, organizers said.

The aging pool of Pearl Harbor survivors has been rapidly shrinking. There is now just one crew member of the USS Arizona still living, 102-year-old Lou Conter of California.

Schab, the oldest of those who attended this year’s ceremony, arrived in a wheelchair with his son, daughter and other family.

A crowd of a few thousand invited guests and members of the public joined them in holding a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the same time bombs began falling decades ago.

Four F-22 jets flew overhead and broke the quiet, one splitting away from the rest in a “missing man formation” that honored the fallen.

Thursday’s ceremony was held on a field across the harbor from the USS Arizona Memorial, a white structure that sits above the rusting hull of the battleship, which exploded in a fireball and sank shortly after being hit. More than 1,100 sailors and Marines from the Arizona were killed and more than 900 are entombed inside.

David Kilton, the National Park Service’s interpretation, education and visitor services lead for Pearl Harbor, noted that for many years survivors frequently volunteered to share their experiences with visitors to the historic site. That’s not possible anymore.

“We could be the best storytellers in the world and we can’t really hold a candle to those that lived it sharing their stories firsthand,” Kilton said. “But now that we are losing that generation and won’t have them very much longer, the opportunity shifts to reflect even more so on the sacrifices that were made, the stories that they did share.”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t keep statistics for how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still living. But department data show that of the 16 million who served in World War II, only about 120,000 were alive as of October and an estimated 131 die each day.

There were about 87,000 military personnel on Oahu at the time of the attack, according to a rough estimate compiled by military historian J. Michael Wenger.

Schab never spoke much about Pearl Harbor until about a decade ago. He’s since been sharing his story with his family, student groups and history buffs. And he’s returned to Pearl Harbor several times since.

The reason? “To pay honor to the guys that didn’t make it,” he said.

Harry Chandler, 102, recalled raising the flag at a mobile hospital in Aiea Heights in the hills above Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was a was a Navy hospital corpsman 3rd Class at the time.

Sitting in his front row seat on the ceremony grounds overlooking the harbor on Thursday, Chandler said the memories of the USS Arizona blowing up still come back to him today.

“I saw these planes come, and I thought they were planes coming in from the states until I saw the bombs dropping,” Chandler said. They took cover and then rode trucks down to Pearl Harbor where they attended to the injured.

He remembers sailors trapped on the capsized USS Oklahoma tapping on the hull of their ship to get rescued, and caring for those who eventually got out after teams cut holes in the ship.

“I look out there and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what was happening,” said Chandler, who today lives in Tequesta, Florida.

Asked what he wants Americans to know about Pearl Harbor, he said: “Be prepared.”

“We should have known that was going to happen. The intelligence has to be better,” he said.

Schab’s ship, the Dobbin, lost three sailors, according to Navy records. One was killed in action and two died later of wounds suffered when fragments from a bomb struck the ship’s stern. All had been manning an anti-aircraft gun.

Marine Corps. Capt. Daniel Hower, the 29-year-old grand-nephew of Conter, the last remaining USS Arizona survivor, delivered the keynote address, reading from a podium as he faced the survivors seated in the front row, Pearl Harbor sitting still behind them beneath a light blue sky and scattered white clouds. Hower acknowledged the collective humility of their military service.

“Whenever my Uncle Lou or any other veteran of World War II is recognized or thanked for their service, they humbly answer: ‘We just did what we had to do,’” Hower said.

Hower then hailed their sacrifice, determination, heroism and courage.

“The legacy that you all built remains unmatched and a lesson that keeps on teaching,” Hower said.

That Sunday morning had started peacefully for Schab. He was expecting a visit from his brother, who was also in the Navy and was assigned to a naval radio station in Wahiawa, north of Pearl Harbor. The two never did get together that day.

Schab spent most of World War II in the Pacific with the Navy, going to the New Hebrides, now known as Vanuatu, and then the Mariana Islands and Okinawa.

After the war, he worked on the Apollo program sending astronauts to the moon as an electrical engineer at General Dynamics.

Schab has slowed down in recent years. But he still gets together each week for cocktails over Zoom with younger members of his fraternity, Delta Sigma Phi. He drinks cranberry-raspberry juice.

At his age, he’s thankful to still be able to return to Pearl Harbor with his family and caregivers. The family has a GoFundMe account to help them raise money for the pilgrimage.

“Just grateful that I’m still here,” Schab said. “That’s really how it feels. Grateful.”

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Rush reported from Beaverton, Oregon. Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show Chandler raised the flag at a mobile hospital in Aiea Heights in the hills above Pearl Harbor in 1941.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An off-duty pilot riding in the extra seat in the cockpit of a Horizon Air passenger jet tried to shut down the engines in midflight and had to be subdued by the crew, a pilot flying the plane told air traffic controllers.

Authorities in Oregon identified the man as Joseph David Emerson, 44. He was being held Monday on 83 counts each of attempted murder and reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

The San Francisco-bound flight on Sunday diverted to Portland, Oregon, where Emerson was taken into custody by officers from the Port of Portland. He is to be arraigned Tuesday.

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon, a regional carrier, did not name Emerson, but said Monday that the threat was posed by one of its pilots who was off duty but authorized to occupy the cockpit jump seat.

The airline said in a statement that the captain and co-pilot “quickly responded, engine power was not lost and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.” Alaska said no weapons were involved.

One of the pilots told air traffic controllers that the man who posed the threat had been removed from the cockpit and was in handcuffs in the back of the plane.

“We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit. And he — doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issue in the back right now, and I think he’s subdued,” one of the pilots said on audio captured by LiveATC.net. “Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.”

Bailey Beck, who was on the flight, described to SFGate the confusion and stress experienced by passengers.

“It was really bizarre because there was no overheard commotion to alert the passengers. The man walked from the cockpit to the back of the plane by himself, where he was then handcuffed to a railing and didn’t make any disturbance from the rear,” Beck told the news outlet.

Sunday’s incident occurred on a Horizon Air Embraer 175 carrying 80 passengers, including children 2 or younger, and four crewmembers. The plane left Everett, Washington, at 5:23 p.m. local time and landed in Portland an hour later. Alaska said passengers continued on to San Francisco on a later flight.

The FBI office in Portland said it was investigating.

The Federal Aviation Administration, in an alert to airlines, said a jump seat passenger tried to disable the engines by deploying the engine fire-suppression system. The agency said it was helping law enforcement investigations, but declined further comment.

FAA records indicate Emerson has a valid license to fly airline planes. Property records show he owns a house in Pleasant Hill, California, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of San Francisco. The Associated Press tried but couldn’t reach family members.

The Multnomah County sheriff’s office, district attorney’s office and public defender’s office didn’t immediately respond to inquiries about whether Emerson had an attorney to comment on his behalf.

John Cox, a retired airline pilot who is now a safety consultant, said it isn’t hard to activate the fire handles on a jet. “You want them to be accessible in case of an engine fire,” he said.

He said it’s possible to restart the engines once the fire handles are returned to their normal position.

“This is an extremely rare event. In 53 years, I have never heard of a jump seat rider attempting to shut down engines,” Cox said. He said the third pilot can be invaluable in cases where a crew must deal with a complex situation.

Jeffrey Price, an aviation-security expert at Metropolitan University of Denver, said airlines must approve people who sit in the jump seat, but the pilots working the flight can deny access.

The vetting of crew members is based on trust, he said, and the last line of defense is what happened on the Horizon plane — “crew members physically preventing someone from taking over the flight controls. The system worked, fortunately.”

Airlines use the third seat to accommodate pilots who need to get in position to fly a later flight, avoiding the need to bump a passenger off the plane. Many U.S. carriers will let pilots from other airlines occupy the third seat, at least on domestic flights.

“For the amount of times this type of incident happens — almost never — it’s probably not a procedure we need to get rid of,” Price said. He added, however, that Sunday’s quashed threat will lead to an analysis of whether procedures were followed and whether additional safeguards are needed.

Price could recall only one other similar episode — in 1994, when a FedEx pilot who was facing possible termination tried to kill the crew and crash the plane. The crew subdued the hijacker, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

In 2018, a pilot in the jump seat of a Boeing 737 Max operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air emerged as a hero after helping the crew stop the plane’s nose from repeatedly pointing down. Disaster was averted — or delayed until the next flight of the plane, which crashed, killing all 189 people on board.

There have been crashes that investigators believe were deliberately caused by pilots. Authorities said the co-pilot of a Germanwings jet that crashed in the French Alps in 2015 had practiced putting the plane into a dive.

In 2018, a Horizon Air ground agent stole an empty plane at Seattle’s Sea-Tac International Airport and crashed into a small island in Puget Sound after being chased by military jets that scrambled to intercept the aircraft. The man told an air traffic controller that he “wasn’t really planning on landing” and described himself as “a broken guy.”

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Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.

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This story has been updated to correct the website where the pilot audio was captured. It’s LiveATC.net, not LiveATC.com.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Authorities in Hawaii pleaded Tuesday with relatives of those missing after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century to come forward and give DNA samples, saying the low number provided so far threatens to hinder efforts to identify any remains discovered in the ashes.

Some 1,000 to 1,100 names remain on the FBI’s tentative, unconfirmed list of people unaccounted for after wildfires destroyed the historic seaside community of Lahaina on Maui. But the family assistance center so far has collected DNA from just 104 families, said Julie French, who is helping lead efforts to identify remains by DNA analysis.

Maui Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin, who is running the center, said that the number of family members coming in to provide DNA samples is “a lot lower” than in other major disasters around the country, though it wasn’t immediately clear why.

“That’s our concern, that’s why I’m here today, that’s why I’m asking for this help,” he said.

Martin and French sought to reassure people that any samples would be used only to help identify fire victims and would not be entered into any law enforcement databases or used for any other purpose. People will not be not asked about their immigration status or citizenship, they said.

“What we want to do — all we want to do — is help people locate and identify their unaccounted-for loved ones,” Martin said.

Two weeks after the flames tore through Lahaina, officials are facing huge challenges to determine how many people who remain unaccounted for perished and how many made it to safety but haven’t checked in.

Something similar happened after a wildfire in 2018 that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, California. Authorities in Butte County, home to Paradise, ultimately published a list of the missing in the local newspaper, a decision that helped identify scores of people who had made it out alive but were listed as missing. Within a month, the list dropped from 1,300 names to only a dozen.

Hawaii officials have expressed concern that by releasing a list of the missing, they would also be identifying some people who have died. In an email Tuesday, the State Joint Information Center called it “a standard held by all law enforcement and first responders here in Hawaii, out of compassion and courtesy for the families, to withhold the names until the families can be contacted.”

As of Monday there were 115 confirmed dead, according to Maui police. All single-story, residential properties in the disaster area had been searched, and teams were transitioning to searching multi-story residential and commercial properties, Maui County officials said in an update late Monday.

Police Chief John Pelletier said Tuesday that his team faces difficulties in coming up with a solid list of the missing. In some cases people only provided partial names, and in other cases names might be duplicated. There was “no secrecy, no hiding things,” he added.

“We want to get a verified list. The 1,100 names right now, we know that there’s a margin of that that some of them have first names only and there’s no contact number back. So there was a, ‘John’s missing,’ and when we try to call back who said that, no one is answering,” he said. “And so we’re trying to scrub this to make it as accurate as we can.”

Pelletier urged people to provide DNA and file a police report with as much information as possible if they have relatives unaccounted for.

“If you feel you’ve got a family member that’s unaccounted for, give the DNA,” he said. “Do the report. Let’s figure this out. A name with no callback doesn’t help anybody.”

One whose name was on the list was Roseanna Samartano, a resident of Lahaina, who didn’t know anyone was looking for her until an FBI agent phoned her a few days ago.

“I was shocked. Why is the FBI calling me?” the 77-year-old retiree said. “But then he came out with it right away, and then I kind of calmed down.”

It turned out a friend had reported her missing because he’d been unable to get in touch despite calling, texting and emailing. Her neighborhood of Kahana — which didn’t burn — had no power, cellphone service or internet in the days after the fires.

Clifford Abihai came to Maui from California after getting nowhere finding answers about his grandmother, Louise Abihai, 98, by phone. He has been just as frustrated on the ground in Maui.

“I just want confirmation,” he said last week. “Not knowing what happened, not knowing if she escaped, not knowing if she’s not there. That’s the hard thing.”

As of Tuesday, he said, he still had learned nothing further. He did provide a DNA sample, he said.

Abihai’s grandmother lived at Hale Mahaolu Eono, a senior living facility where another member of his extended family, Virginia Dofa, lived. Authorities have identified Dofa as one who perished. Abihai described Dofa and Louise Abihai as best friends.

He said his grandmother was mobile and could walk a mile a day, but it was often hard to reach her because she’d frequently turn off her cellphone to save battery power.

Confirming whether those who are unaccounted for are deceased can be difficult. Fire experts say it’s possible some bodies were cremated by the intense heat, potentially leaving no bones left to identify through DNA tests. Three-quarters of the remains tested for DNA so far have yielded usable results, French said.

People who lived through other tragedies and never learned of their loved ones’ fate are also following the news and hurting for the victims and their families. Nearly 22 years later, for example, almost 1,100 victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, which killed nearly 3,000, have no identified remains.

Joseph Giaccone’s family initially was desperate for any physical trace of the 43-year-old finance executive, who worked in the World Trade Center’s North Tower, brother James Giaccone recalled. But over time, he started focusing instead on memories of the flourishing man his brother was.

If his remains were identified and given to the family now, “it would just reinforce the horror that his person endured that day, and it would open wounds that I don’t think I want to open,” Giaccone said Monday as he visited the 9/11 memorial in New York.

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Johnson reported from Seattle, and Kelleher reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York, Janie Har in San Francisco and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed.

Retired mailman and Vietnam veteran Thomas Leonard heard a boom as a propane tank at a nearby home exploded, leaving a cloud that looked like “a gigantic mushroom” in its wake.

Thirty-seven-year-old Mike Cicchino, who grew up on Maui, said he could tell how close the flames were based on how far away cars sounded as their gas tanks erupted. He and his family sought refuge in the ocean across a knee-high sea wall and as he helped others onto the rocks, his rib cage ached, his eyes were nearly swollen shut and he vomited.

“It was like a war,” Cicchino said.

About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of West Maui since the devastation became clear last week, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Officials are now mourning the deaths of more than 90 people and preparing the island, particularly Lahaina, for a long recovery.

In addition to lives lost, property damaged and a culture forever transformed, authorities are worried about returning to some parts of the island where toxic byproducts of the fire likely remain.

Residents of some parts of the island have begun returning home, finding melted cars, flattened homes and burnt elevator shafts rising from ashy lots where apartment buildings once stood. But even in places where the destruction has begun to subside, officials are warning residents that it remains too dangerous to return and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are surveying the area for additional hazards.

“It is not safe. It is a hazardous area and that’s why experts are here,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a news conference Saturday. “We’re not doing anybody any favors by letting them back in there quickly, just so they can get sick.”

Hawaii’s state toxicologist Diana Felton told Hawaii Public Radio that it could take weeks or months to clean up the pollutants.

Officials like Bissen and Felton have taken their cue from scientists who warn that fires — even once extinguished in a particular neighborhood or area — can leave lasting health hazards, including in the air and drinking water.

Such lasting effects could prolong recovery, compound residents’ agony and complicate the return of the island’s tourism-driven economy.

Maui water officials warned Lahaina and Kula residents not to drink running water, which may be contaminated even after boiling, and to only take short, lukewarm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid possible chemical vapor exposure.

Though others have returned, some residents, like JP Mayoga, are electing to stay away. Mayoga said on Sunday that he, his wife and two daughters planned to stay at the hotel where he works north of Lahaina because they worry toxic debris now covering Lahaina might negatively impact members of the family with sensitive health.

“It’s safer than it is at home right now,” he said of the hotel.

Unlike factory pollution or forest fires where scientists have a strong grasp about the kind of toxins emitted, fires like the one in Maui can leave a less unpredictable trail of destruction in their wake. As towns like Lahaina burn, propane tanks explode, pipes melt and oil spills.

“When you burn people’s belongings, vehicles and boats, we don’t necessarily have a good understanding of what those chemicals are,” said Professor Andrew Whelton, the director of Purdue University’s Center for Plumbing Safety. “When much of that infrastructure burns, it’s transformed into other materials that are never meant for human contact.”

Whelton said airborne pollutants from smoke often fall to the ground and can require removal by emergency response teams to ensure they aren’t kicked up and inhaled as people return to the burn areas. Melted pipes can compromise the water supply, a concern reflected in the unsafe water alert issued Friday for upper Kula and Lahaina.

Though these concerns may be less apparent than charred trees and homes, the invisible hazards can often extend beyond burned areas to wherever smoke plumes have traveled.

“If you go back into some zones even where maybe all the fires have been put out, you can then be really exposed. If there’s dust and debris kicked up, you can get it in your eyes, on your hands or you can inhale it,” Whelton added, imploring people to wear protective gear, cover their arms and legs and follow evacuation orders.

AP writer Matt Sedensky contributed. Metz reported from Salt Lake City.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Parishioners mourned the dead and prayed for the missing Sunday in Hawaii churches as communities began looking ahead to a long recovery from last week’s wildfire that demolished a historic Maui town and killed more than 90 people.

Maria Lanakila Church in Lahaina was spared from the flames that wiped out most of the surrounding community, but with search-and-recovery efforts ongoing, its members attended Mass about 10 miles up the road, with the Bishop of Honolulu, the Rev. Clarence “Larry” Silva, presiding.

Taufa Samisoni said his uncle, aunt, cousin and the cousin’s 7-year-old son were found dead inside a burned car. Samisoni’s wife, Katalina, said the family would draw comfort from Silva’s reference to the Bible story of how Jesus’ disciple Peter walked on water and was saved from drowning.

“If Peter can walk on water, yes we can. We will get to the shore,” she said, her voice quivering.

During the Mass, Silva read a message from Pope Francis, who said he was praying for those who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods. He also conveyed prayers for first responders.

Silva later told The Associated Press that the community is worried about its children, who have witnessed tragedy and are anxious.

“The more they can be in a normal situation with their peers and learning and having fun, I think the better off they’ll be,” Silva said.

Meanwhile, Hawaii officials urged tourists to avoid traveling to Maui as many hotels prepared to house evacuees and first responders.

About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of Kahului Airport in West Maui since the devastation in Lahaina became clear Wednesday, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

“In the weeks ahead, the collective resources and attention of the federal, state and county government, the West Maui community, and the travel industry must be focused on the recovery of residents who were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses,” the agency said in a statement late Saturday. Tourists are encouraged to visit Hawaii’s other islands.

Gov. Josh Green said 500 hotels rooms will be made available for locals who have been displaced. An additional 500 rooms will be set aside for workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some hotels will carry on with normal business to help preserve jobs and sustain the local economy, Green said.

The state wants to work with Airbnb to make sure that rental homes can be made available for locals. Green hopes that the company will be able to provide three- to nine-month rentals for those who have lost homes.

“There’s very little left there,” Green said, holding up a map of the area titled “Buildings Damaged in Maui Wildfires Lahaina Area.”

More than 2,700 structures were destroyed in Lahaina and “an estimated value of $5.6 billion has gone away.” But mostly there are people suffering and the government is continuing to work to find them, he said in a video statement Sunday,

As the death toll around Lahaina climbed to 96 authorities warned that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. The blaze is already the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

“I will tell you this, as a physician, it is a harrowing sight in Maui,” Green said. “When those providers, the police and this division, do come across scenes in houses or businesses it is very difficult for them because they know, ultimately, they will be sharing with our people that there have been more fatalities. I do expect the numbers to rise.”

Crews with cadaver dogs have covered just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Saturday.

Lylas Kanemoto is awaiting word about the fate of her cousin, Glen Yoshino.

“I’m afraid he is gone because we have not heard from him, and he would’ve found a way to contact family. We are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst,” Kanemoto said Sunday. Family members will submit DNA to help identify any remains.

The family was grieving the death of four other relatives. The remains of Faaso and Malui Fonua Tone, their daughter, Salote Takafua, and her son, Tony Takafua, were found inside a charred car.

“At least we have closure for them, but the loss and heartbreak is unbearable for many,” Kanemoto said.

As many as 4,500 people are in need of shelter, county officials said on Facebook, citing figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center.

J.P. Mayoga, a cook at the Westin Maui in Kaanapali, is still making breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis. But instead of serving hotel guests, he’s been feeding the roughly 200 hotel employees and their family members who have been living there since Tuesday’s fire devastated the Lahaina community just south of the resort.

His home and that of his father were spared. But his girlfriend, two young daughters, father and another local are all staying in a hotel room together, as it is safer than Lahaina, which is covered in toxic debris.

Maui water officials warned Lahaina and Kula residents not to drink running water, which may be contaminated even after boiling, and to only take short, lukewarm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid possible chemical vapor exposure.

“Everybody has their story, and everybody lost something. So everybody can be there for each other, and they understand what’s going on in each other’s lives,” he said of his co-workers at the hotel.

Hawaii Island Mayor Mitch Roth warned that the recovery effort will be a “marathon not a sprint.” In order to keep the effort “coordinated and thoughtful,” Roth urged Hawaii residents to contribute money to established nonprofits and hold off on donating physical items because there is not yet a reliable distribution system in place.

The latest death toll surpassed that of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradise.

The cause of the wildfires is under investigation. The fires are Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946 killed more than 150 on the Big Island.

Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the flames on Maui raced through parched brush covering the island.

The most serious blaze swept into Lahaina on Tuesday and destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000, leaving a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes.

Elsewhere on Maui, at least two other fires have been burning: in south Maui’s Kihei area and in the mountainous, inland communities known as Upcountry. No fatalities have been reported from those blazes.

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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Haven Daley in Kalapua, Hawaii; Ty O’Neil in Lahaina, Hawaii; Bobby Caina Calvan and Beatrice Dupuy in New York; Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Pat Eaton-Robb in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

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