The restaurant the place Katie Austin was a server burned within the wildfire that devastated Hawaii’s historic city of Lahaina this summer season.

Two months later, as vacationers started to trickle again to close by seaside resorts, she went to work at a special eatery. However she quickly stop, worn down by fixed questions from diners: Was she affected by the fireplace? Did she know anybody who died?

“You are at work for eight hours and each quarter-hour you have got a brand new stranger ask you about probably the most traumatic day of your life,” Austin mentioned. “It was soul-sucking.”

Hawaii’s governor and mayor invited vacationers again to the west facet of Maui months after the Aug. 8 fireplace killed at the least 100 folks and destroyed greater than 2,000 buildings. They needed the financial increase vacationers would carry, significantly heading into the year-end holidays. Governor Josh Inexperienced mentioned that vacationers visiting the world would “be serving to our folks heal.” 

However some residents are battling the return of an business requiring employees to be attentive and hospitable regardless that they’re attempting to take care of themselves after dropping their family members, buddies, houses and group.

Maui is a big island. Many components, just like the ritzy resorts in Wailea, 30 miles south of Lahaina — the place the primary season of the HBO hit “The White Lotus” was filmed — are eagerly welcoming vacationers and their {dollars}. 

Issues are extra sophisticated in west Maui. Lahaina remains to be a large number of charred rubble. Over 2,000 buildings burned within the city, most of which have been houses. Efforts to wash up poisonous particles are painstakingly sluggish. The realm stays off-limits to everybody besides residents. 

Some native Hawaiians instructed CBS Information that they worry being pushed out of their homeland due to the rising prices of housing, particularly after the fires. 

Tensions are peaking over the shortage of long-term, reasonably priced housing for wildfire evacuees, lots of whom work in tourism. Dozens have been tenting out in protest across the clock on a well-liked vacationer seaside at Kaanapali, a couple of miles north of Lahaina. Final week, lots of marched between two giant lodges waving indicators studying, “We want housing now!” and “Quick-term leases gotta go!”

“Due to the tourism opening up, a variety of the residents should relocate,” mentioned Vance Honda, a neighborhood resident who remains to be struggling to seek out everlasting housing, in an interview with “CBS Mornings” in October. “So it has been very tough. There’s a variety of blended feelings.”

Lodges at Kaanapali are nonetheless housing about 6,000 fireplace evacuees unable to seek out long-term shelter in Maui’s tight and costly housing market. However some have began to carry again vacationers, and homeowners of timeshare condos have returned. At a shopping center, guests stroll previous retailers and dine at at open-air oceanfront eating places.

Austin took a job at a restaurant in Kaanapali after the fireplace, however stop after 5 weeks. It was a pressure to serve mai tais to folks staying in a lodge or trip rental whereas her buddies have been leaving the island as a result of they lacked housing, she mentioned.

Servers and lots of others within the tourism business typically work for suggestions, which places them in a tough place when a buyer prods them with questions they do not need to reply. Even after Austin’s restaurant posted an indication asking prospects to respect staff’ privateness, the queries continued.

“I began telling folks, ‘Until you are a therapist, I do not need to discuss to you about it,'” she mentioned.

Austin now plans to work for a nonprofit group that advocates for housing.

Erin Kelley did not lose her house or office however has been laid off as a bartender at Sheraton Maui Resort for the reason that fireplace. The lodge reopened to guests in late December, however she does not anticipate to get known as again to work till enterprise picks up.

She has blended emotions. Employees ought to have a spot to dwell earlier than vacationers are welcome in west Maui, she mentioned, however residents are so depending on the business that many will stay jobless with out those self same guests.

“I am actually unhappy for buddies and empathetic in the direction of their scenario,” she mentioned. “However we additionally must become profitable,”

When she does return to work, Kelley mentioned she will not need to “discuss something that occurred for the previous few months.”

Extra journey locations will probably should navigate these dilemmas as local weather change will increase the frequency and depth of pure disasters.

There is no such thing as a handbook for doing so, mentioned Chekitan Dev, a tourism professor at Cornell College. Dealing with disasters — pure and artifical — should be a part of their enterprise planning.

Andreas Neef, a improvement professor and tourism researcher on the College of Auckland in New Zealand, recommended one resolution may be to advertise organized “voluntourism.” As a substitute of sunbathing, vacationers may go to a part of west Maui that did not burn and enlist in an effort to assist the group.

“Bringing vacationers for leisure again is simply presently a bit bit unrealistic,” Neef mentioned. “I could not think about enjoyable in a spot the place you continue to really feel the trauma that has affected the place total.”

Many vacationers have been canceling vacation journeys to Maui out of respect, mentioned Lisa Paulson, the chief director of the Maui Lodge and Lodging Affiliation. Visitation is down about 20% from December of 2022, in line with state knowledge.

Cancellations are affecting lodges everywhere in the island, not simply in west Maui.

Paulson attributes a few of this to complicated messages in nationwide and social media about whether or not guests ought to come. Many individuals do not perceive the island’s geography or that there are locations folks can go to exterior west Maui, she mentioned.

A technique guests will help is to recollect they’re touring to a spot that just lately skilled important trauma, mentioned Amory Mowrey, the chief director of Maui Restoration, a psychological well being and substance abuse residential therapy heart.

“Am I being pushed by compassion and empathy or am I simply right here to take, take, take?” he mentioned.

That is the method honeymooners Jordan and Carter Prechel of Phoenix adopted. They stored their reservations in Kihei, about 25 miles south of Lahaina, vowing to be respectful and to assist native companies.

“Do not bombard them with questions,” Jordan mentioned just lately whereas consuming a day snack in Kaanapali together with her husband. “Take heed to what they’ve gone by means of.”