Welcome to the lead, aim jake tapper. And we start with breaking news, violent and explosive wildfires in hawaii. Fueled by strong winds from a hurricane, 800 miles away. It is a situation so sudden and so catastrophic on maui, local Officials Say a dozen people ran into the ocean to try to escape the flames. And they went out so far they then had to be rescued. Hawaiis governor said hundreds of families have been displaced and some loss of life is expected, unquote. Cell towers and 911 are out of service on the the hardhit west side compounding the difficulty for many. Were expecting a Press Conference and well bring you that when it starts but Derek Van Damme looked at where this erratic disaster may be headed next. Reporter hellish scenes of wildfires engulfing normally picturesque maui. Powerful winds, associated with Hurricane Dora helping fuel the flames. Fact that we have wildfire in multiple areas as a result of indirectly from a hurricane is unprecedented. Reporter Lieutenant
shelters on maui may be full but you do have an option here onna wahoo at the convention center so i wanted to make sure that you knew that. i particularly want to thank at the convention center, cal annie and daniel and terry orten for accommodating us. i don t think they ve slept since we got the calls last night. and we want to thank jerry gibson from the hotel association. we ll have booths set up there that will tell and inform guests that are coming what the hotel status is, what the rate is and the hotels that have occupancy. so on behalf of hawaii tourism authority, once again, it is a sad day but we thank everyone for the cooperation, aloha and mahalo. at this time, we ll open up for a live q&a with the media and i m going to repeat the
overwhelmed with burn patients and those suffering from smoke inhalation. these violent and explosive wildfires are not under con troelg on maui, which is the second largest of the 137 islands. the fires are being fueled by strong winds from a hurricane 800 miles away. let s bring in bill weir and chad myers. bill, how unprecedented is this kind of situation in hawaii? you know, jake, you could hear it in the voice of the lieutenant governor who was talking about the fact that we are prepared as hawaiians out there vulnerable in the middle of the pacific when it comes to hurricanes, they know what to do. but it comes to volcano eruptions, they know what to do. but the fire moved so quickly and the pikes from the air harken back to paradise, california, which was almost completely incinerated by fast
out there working. we have our chokers open, so i believe at this time, those are we appreciate the support that people have given to us. especially appreciate the team work that we ve received from our firefighters, federal partners, our military, our national guard, a lot of our private contractors who have been out there, and others who have just reached out to help. we re so thankful for that. but at this time, our thoughts and our prayers are with maui and we re not out of woods yet. but i think the situation in maui right now should take precedent over this.
islands, will cause this type of wildfires. wildfires that wiped out communities, wildfires that wiped out businesses, wildfires that destroyed homes. we re learning and gathering information more and more and we just feel so sad and just great sympathy and prayers out to the people of maui, the individuals who are impacted and josh and i want to send our deepest gratitude to the mayors, both on maui and the big island for working so hard. they re both their teams and at the same time all of us are working very closely to ensure the health and safety of our communities and members on all of the islands are protected. today we signed another emergency proclamation which will discourage tourists from