NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — It’s been an emotional two weeks for Alexa Wright and Peter Cummings. Exhausted, they made their way through Norfolk International Airport Thursday — the pair and their 10-month-old son Banyan spending the past 14 hours traveling to Norfolk from Maui.
Wright, who has lived on Maui for four years and Cummings, seven, saw their neighborhood in Lahaina destroyed in the deadly wildfires.
Wright and Cummings plan to spend the next week leaning on friends and family in their hometown of Virginia Beach as they process the devastation in their Lahaina community.
“It’s not easy. We were looking at each other when we left like, you know, we were leaving our home and it just hit,” Cummings told 10 On Your Side. “We want to go help unload boats and pass out stuff, but how do we do that in between changing diapers, … so we kind of had to make a tough decision to get off of Maui temporarily.”
We first spoke with the pair last Friday while they took refuge in a hotel on Maui. The family evacuated their home in Lahaina with minutes to spare before it was burned to ash.
“We just want to spend some time with our loved ones and get some love with them,” Wright said.
The couple’s family started a GoFundMe to help them get back on their feet which has since soared to more than $60,000.
“We plan to spread a lot of that with some of our friends and family who also lost their homes,” Wright explained.
While Wright and Cummings begin contacting their insurance company, they ask that if you want to help, donate to the Red Cross or Lahaina Restoration Foundation. The family has hope and plans to return to Maui as soon as they can.
“We’ll get back there one day,” Wright said.
As for Lahaina’s 150-year-old Banyan tree that the couple named their son after, they tell us it was charred in the wildfires, but is showing signs of growth.
“It’s a miracle it’s standing so there’s a reason that it’s standing,” Wright said, “to give the community hope.”
