Vancouver woman recounts harrowing night surviving Maui fire: ’My whole heart is broken for Hawaii’

A Vancouver woman is back home after surviving Maui’s deadly wildfires. On the night of August 8, Sandy Hauser spent hours huddled in a stairwell by the ocean as everything around her burned. The 82-year-old was at her condo on Maui and went to bed that night not knowing the fire had erupted. She and her friends woke up to an inferno and took cover along the ocean. “I don’t really believe that it’s sunk in yet,” Hauser said. “When we opened that door and that fire was everywhere, I thought, ‘This is it, and I’ve killed my friends too.” They immediately climbed over a fence and sought shelter in a stairwell along the ocean with two of her neighbors. For four hours they huddled there with the water keeping them cool. “It was like we had a little, I hate to say it-- coffin right there. That saved us,” she said. The next morning when the police came to take them to a shelter, Sandy didn’t have a scratch. Her snow-white hair was dyed dark gray with ash. Her condo at ’Lahaina Roads’ is still standing. She’s grateful for her friends’ survival and her life, but she’s heartbroken for the island. “My whole heart is broken for Hawaii,” she said. Her late husband, John, was Hawaiian. The two lived part of their life together in Oahu. “Johnny Angel I called him. And when he passed, he came back as a rainbow. That morning, that rainbow showed up,” she remembered. “So I’m so blessed I don’t even know what to say about it.“ She said she know that her husband was watching out for her that night. “I think he was. Johnny Angel. That’s how I feel,“ Hauser said. Report from Wesleigh Ogle: _______________ Stay up to date with our social media: KATU on Facebook: KATU on Twitter: Subscribe to KATU on YouTube: Daily News Playlist: For more information, visit Have a news tip? Send it directly to us: Email us: newstips@ Call the Newsroom: KATU is a OR based station and a ABC Television affiliate owned and operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the country today. #KATU #news #maui #mauifire #vancouver