Pub­lic schools on Maui start­ed the process of re­open­ing and traf­fic re­sumed on a ma­jor road in signs of re­cov­ery a week af­ter wild­fires de­mol­ished a his­toric town and killed at least 110 peo­ple, while the head of the is­land’s emer­gency agency said he had “no re­gret” that sirens weren’t sound­ed to warn peo­ple about the on­rush­ing flames.

At least three schools un­touched by flames in La­haina, where en­tire neigh­bour­hoods were re­duced to ash, were still be­ing as­sessed af­ter sus­tain­ing wind dam­age, Hawaii De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion su­per­in­ten­dent Kei­th Hayashi said.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, but over­all the cam­pus­es and class­rooms are in good con­di­tion struc­tural­ly, which is en­cour­ag­ing,” Hayashi said in a video up­date. “We know the re­cov­ery ef­fort is still in the ear­ly stages, and we con­tin­ue to grieve the many lives lost.”

Else­where crews cleaned up ash and de­bris at schools and test­ed air and wa­ter qual­i­ty. Dis­placed stu­dents who en­rol at those cam­pus­es can ac­cess ser­vices such as meals and coun­selling, Hayashi said. The ed­u­ca­tion de­part­ment is al­so of­fer­ing coun­selling for stu­dents, fam­i­ly mem­bers and staff.

The Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency opened its first dis­as­ter re­cov­ery cen­ter on Maui, “an im­por­tant first step” to­ward help­ing res­i­dents get in­for­ma­tion about as­sis­tance, FE­MA ad­min­is­tra­tor Deanne Criswell said. They al­so can go there for up­dates on aid ap­pli­ca­tions.

Criswell said she would ac­com­pa­ny Pres­i­dent Joe Biden on Mon­day when he vis­its to sur­vey the dam­age and “bring hope.”

At a news con­fer­ence, Her­man An­daya, Maui Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency ad­min­is­tra­tor, de­fend­ed not sound­ing the sirens dur­ing the fire. “We were afraid that peo­ple would have gone mau­ka,” he said, us­ing the Hawai­ian di­rec­tion­al term that can mean to­ward the moun­tains or in­land. “If that was the case then they would have gone in­to the fire.”

There are no sirens in the moun­tains, where the fire was spread­ing down­hill.

Hawaii cre­at­ed what it touts as the largest sys­tem of out­door alert sirens in the world af­ter a 1946 tsuna­mi that killed more than 150. An­daya said they are pri­mar­i­ly meant to warn about tsunamis and have nev­er been used for wild­fires. The web­site for the Maui siren sys­tem says they may be used to alert for fires.

Be­yond the de­ci­sion to not use sirens, state and lo­cal of­fi­cials have faced pub­lic crit­i­cism over short­ages of avail­able wa­ter to fight the fire and a chaot­ic evac­u­a­tion that saw many trapped in their ve­hi­cles on a jammed road­way as flames swept over them.

Av­ery Dagu­pi­on, whose fam­i­ly’s home was de­stroyed, is an­gry that res­i­dents weren’t giv­en ear­li­er warn­ing to get out and that of­fi­cials pre­ma­ture­ly sug­gest­ed dan­ger had passed.

He point­ed to an an­nounce­ment by Maui May­or Richard Bis­sen on Aug. 8 say­ing the fire had been con­tained, “in­still­ing a false hope in res­i­dents of La­haina,” when hours lat­er the fire ex­plod­ed. That, he said, lulled peo­ple in­to a sense of safe­ty and adds to the mis­trust that he and oth­ers have over of­fi­cials’ ef­forts now.

At the news con­fer­ence, Gov. Josh Green and Bis­sen bris­tled when asked about that mis­trust and how they can as­sure the pub­lic they will do all that’s need­ed to help the com­mu­ni­ty re­build.

“Did mis­takes hap­pen? Ab­solute­ly,” the gov­er­nor said, lat­er adding: “You can look here to see who you can trust,” re­fer­ring to the po­lice, fire, emer­gency and Red Cross of­fi­cials stand­ing be­hind him.

“I can’t an­swer why peo­ple don’t trust peo­ple,” Bis­sen said. “The peo­ple who were try­ing to put out these fires lived in those homes — 25 of our fire­fight­ers lost their homes. You think they were do­ing a halfway job?”

With the death toll ris­ing by four since Tues­day, a mo­bile morgue unit with ad­di­tion­al coro­ners has been brought in to help.

Kim­ber­ly Buen was await­ing word Wednes­day of her fa­ther, Mau­rice “Shad­ow” Buen, a re­tired sport fish­er­man who lived in an as­sist­ed-liv­ing fa­cil­i­ty that was de­stroyed.

The 79-year-old was blind in one eye, par­tial­ly blind in the oth­er and used a walk­er or an elec­tric scoot­er to get around. In re­cent weeks he al­so had swollen feet.

“For him, there is no mov­ing quick­ly,” Buen said. The sto­ries from sur­vivors who fled the fast-mov­ing flames ter­ri­fied her.

“If able-bod­ied peo­ple were hav­ing to run and jump in­to the ocean, I can on­ly imag­ine what’s hap­pened to the as­sist­ed liv­ing and the low­er in­come and the el­der­ly peo­ple that didn’t have warn­ing, you know, or have any re­sources to get out,” she said.

Bill Sei­dl, 75, lived in the same com­plex. His daugh­ter, Cassie Sei­dl, of Va­len­cia, Cal­i­for­nia, said he knocked on doors be­fore es­cap­ing.

“I think peo­ple were as­sum­ing it was just an­oth­er brush­fire,” she said. “I don’t think peo­ple re­al­ized, and they were not warned.”

Sei­dl’s fa­ther is now camp­ing on a friend’s prop­er­ty in Wailuku.

On Tues­day, the coun­ty re­leased the names of two vic­tims: La­haina res­i­dents Robert Dy­ck­man, 74, and Bud­dy Jan­toc, 79. They were the first of five who have been iden­ti­fied.

Sa­cred Hearts School in La­haina was de­stroyed, and Prin­ci­pal To­na­ta Lole­sio said lessons would re­sume in the com­ing weeks at an­oth­er Catholic school. She said it was im­por­tant for stu­dents to be with their friends, teach­ers and books, and not con­stant­ly think­ing about the tragedy.

“I’m hop­ing to at least try to get some nor­mal­cy or get them in a room where they can con­tin­ue to learn or just be in an­oth­er en­vi­ron­ment where they can take their minds off of that,” she said.

The main build­ing of the Chil­dren of the Rain­bow Preschool in the cen­ter of La­haina was al­so com­plete­ly de­stroyed, di­rec­tor and lead teacher Noelle Ka­maunu said via email Wednes­day, adding that she’s thank­ful she closed the school the morn­ing of the fire be­cause the pow­er was out. The staff is safe, and fam­i­lies have been ac­count­ed for.

“We are not al­lowed in­to the area so I am un­able to even see it with my own eyes. Chil­dren of the Rain­bow Preschool is in my heart, my sec­ond home,” said Ka­maunu, who has worked there for 20 years. “It is a trag­ic loss.”

The gov­er­nor said Wednes­day that he in­struct­ed the state’s at­tor­ney gen­er­al to in­sti­tute a mora­to­ri­um on land trans­ac­tions in the La­haina area. Green said he has heard of peo­ple he de­scribed as not even in re­al es­tate reach­ing out to ask about pur­chas­ing land owned by peo­ple in the dis­as­ter area.

“My in­ten­tion from start to fin­ish is to make sure that no one is vic­tim­ized from a land grab,” he said.

The cause of the wild­fires, al­ready the dead­liest in the U.S. in more than a cen­tu­ry, is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Hawaii is in­creas­ing­ly at risk from dis­as­ters, and wild­fire is what is es­ca­lat­ing the most, ac­cord­ing to an AP analy­sis of FE­MA records.

Green has warned that scores more bod­ies could be found.

John Allen and his daugh­ter sur­veyed an ash-gray land­scape once fes­tooned with colour­ful or­chids and plume­rias from a hill above the fire zone. His daugh­ter wept as she point­ed to the cof­fee shop where she used to work, and the places they used to live.

Allen moved to Maui two years ago af­ter leav­ing Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, where he wit­nessed a de­struc­tive wild­fire race up hill­sides in 1991.

“No one re­al­izes how quick­ly fires move,” Allen said.

Kelle­her re­port­ed from Hon­olu­lu and We­ber from Los An­ge­les. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Haven Da­ley in Kala­pua, Hawaii; Kathy Mc­Cor­ma­ck in Con­cord, New Hamp­shire; Jen­nifer Mc­Der­mott in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Is­land; Seth Boren­stein in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.; and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mis­souri, con­tributed.

LA­HAINA, Hawaii (AP) —