LAHAINA, Hawaii — Six-year-old twins Luna and Stella Sanchez smile and giggle as they run toward the century-old rubber tree, affectionately known as “The Branches,” that sits in the heart of the Royal Lahaina Resort & Bungalows. LAHAINA, Hawaii — Six-year-old twins Luna and Stella Sanchez smile and giggle as they run toward the century-old rubber tree, affectionately known as “The Branches,” that sits in the heart of the Royal Lahaina Resort & Bungalows. They enjoy playing under the tree’s 75-foot canopy, which provides shelter from the harsh sun and other elements.
It wasn’t that long ago that the entire resort provided shelter to the girls, their brother Asher and their parents, Amy Sanchez and Jacob Ah Puck, who were displaced when the ohana home they were renting was lost in the devastating Lahaina wildfires. Ah Puck, who has worked as a bell valet attendant at Royal Lahaina for 13 years, said, “We lived here for almost 10 months, so the girls love to come back to play. Staying here meant the world and more to us.
” Now the family lives in temporary housing in Lahaina. It’s a step toward normalcy while they wait for more permanent low-income housing to become available. The Royal Lahaina, which was the first Maui resort to take in fire survivors, is evolving, too, along with the rest of Maui hotels that housed some 3,100 households (about 8,000 people) at the peak of the state noncongregated shelter program run by American Red Cross and mostly paid f.