firefighters who lost their homes battling these flames. they say when they checked those fire hydrants, the water pressure was either low or gone, ana. and i m looking at these images of just the level of destruction there, and you ve been talking to people who are staying in shelters. we re now more than a week since the fire hit, this death toll around 111 people at last check. where do the search efforts stand? yeah, they re still searching the rubble. that could take several weeks, and some of the remains are so hard to find because these bodies are so badly burned. they still may be searching that rubble and finding remains months to come, ana. we re hearing from people who are feeling a little bit of relief considering that the governor has taken action to open the lahaina bypass, which is by mee. it s closed now. the importance of having this open is so that people who were stuck there could leave, come back and forth and also so those
the world watching this story. over 1,000 missing according to the governor s last statement on that. given the fact that a lot of the power is back up on the island, a lot of the communication is back up you think we would have heard from those folks by now. and what s especially grievous is when you think about how many children were home that day. i m hearing again and again from kids, there was no school when the fire hit, a lot of young ones were with their brand parents or someone else while the parents worked. so you can imagine the agony in those families, if they haven t found their children. i spoke actually to veteran urban search and rescue officer from fema in hawaii from the houston area and he says of the some 90 disasters he s addressed in his career, this is unlike anything else. what s been really powerful is the fact that there s a number of local firefighter and pd that have lost their homes, lost their everything and they are out there working side-by-side with u
reporter: the first wave of 150 fema agents arrived on the island friday, 90 of them search specialists, looking through homes, businesses and cars. this is front street. without a proper evacuation order, people in a desperate attempt to outrun the flames got into their cars and took to the road, but the fire quickly caught up. you could see the desperation in how these cars are lined up. we re talking dozens as far as you can see. there was so much panic as the fire hit. sources close to the search tell me the death toll could be in the hundreds. if that s what they re telling you, i wouldn t second guess them. reporter: fema administrator surveys the damage. how long do you think it will take to conduct the search effort? it depends on the conditions and how long the dogs can continue to go in. we re bringing in more teams and dogs to speed up that process as much as we can. reporter: as the search
announcer: this is the cbs weekend news from chicago with adriana diaz. good evening. tonight, there is a desperate and intensifying search for the missing on maui. right now they number nearly 1,000 people. at least 80 are confirmed dead with that number expected to rise. today fire crews battled flames still burning from wildfires that ravaged parts of the island. over the historic town of lahaina, the scene is simply apocalyptic. most buildings, torched. some still smoldering. the inferno destroyed much of the town. everything you see in red. and those who escaped the flames are sharing their stories of survival, but also of confusion. we have two reports tonight. cbs s jonathan vigliotti is near lahaina leads us off. jonathan? reporter: adriana, many are returning home today for the first time since this fire hit, and they will face absolute heartbreak.
warnings, but first our team standing by in maui. tom llamas leads off our coverage tonight and joining us with breaking news. reporter: lester, we just learned maui and hawaii emergency management did not sound off those sirens, which could have let residents know danger was approaching. alerts did go out via phones and on broadcast tv and radio, but we just got back from flying over lahaina, and i can tell you, once that fire hit, there was almost no escape. tonight, the return to lahaina, residents allowed back in, and we saw from the skies above the shock that awaits them. even at 400 feet in the air, you can still smell the smoke days later, and you look down, and you can t make out what you re seeing. it looks to be a town that once existed, but nearly every building, every house, every car scorched completely