flooding, lava, hazmat conditions, or a terrorist event. reporter: this map also from the county s page shows where the warning sirens are located. according to the state, there are about 400 sirens statewide including 80 on maui. and in the historic down of lahaina where more than 100 people were killed in the flames, there are five sirens. five sirens that were not used to warn those in grave danger. instead, officials say they chose to send alerts by text message to cell phones as well as alerts on land lines and through tv and radio. it is our practice to use the most effective means of conveying an emergency message to the public during fire. reporter: while that may have worked in some cases, the wildfire moved so swiftly it knocked out power and cell service. so how were residents supposed to receive those warnings? there s no warning at all.
unaccounted for. gloria pazmino reports. reporter: on maui, some of missing are moved to the list of those lost. have we found remains that are maybe smaller than other remains? i m not going to sit here and sensationalize that. reporter: the official death toll from the wildfires is now well over 100 with possibly more than 1,000 people still missing. jose garcia lost his 15-year-old brother in the fire. after trying in vain to run home and save him. everyone was saying get out, don t go that way. even though i was four or five miles away, i could feel the heat. reporter: his father found his brother s body in the burned rubble of the family home. what we saw is where he always slept, what he had seen was not just a body, but the
for us. so many of us residents felt like we had absolutely no warning. reporter: hawaii has one of the largest public safety outdoor sirens in the world. sirens that were silent as wildfires raged. question is, why? first it was this we would not have saved those people on the mountain side. do you regret not sounding the sirens? i do not. the sirens, as i mentioned earlier, is used primarily for tsunamis. reporter: that s what the head of maui s emergency management agency said wednesday before suddenly resigning a day later. even before that press conference ended, his reason had changed. this time suggesting the sirens weren t used because people wouldn t have been able to hear the warning. it s an outdoor siren, so a lot of people who were indoors, air conditioning on, whatever the case may be, they re not going to hear a siren. plus, the winds were very gusty
of southern california. it s going to interact with cooler ocean water. this will help weaken the storm as it approaches the southwest. but as is typical with tropical systems, influx of moisture will bring heavy rainfall to this area. so we re concerned about the flash flood potential. and this highlights it, john. the national weather service saying actually the weather prediction center saying that they have never issued this high-level risk of flash flooding for some of the eastern-facing slopes of the mountains in southern california. so potentially a year s worth of rain in a council of days. again, for the hurricane snobs who say it s just a tropical storm that s going to hit this area, tropical storms don t hit this area. this is very, very rare which is why people need to pay attention. good point. the amount of rain they re going to get quickly is not something they usually deal with. derek van dam, thank you for keeping us posted on this. sara? our camera operator
starts to ramp up. it s been a record-breaking year with more than a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters coast to coast from catastrophic flooding to tornado outbreaks to crippling winter storms. that s not even counting the recent historic floods across the northeast and that devastating maui wildfire that has become the deadliest u.s. fire in over a century. a fema official tells cnn the relief fund could be used up by the end of this month unless congress acts. from the white house this morning, that s terrifying. is there an assurance congress will act? reporter: it s going to be top of mind when they return, but the bottom line when i talked to officials about this is it would delay that critical recovery if fema does not get these funds. as you mentioned, it s been a record-breaking year for expensive disasters, and that s put an intense strain on their funds which could be depleted by mid to end of august. the white house has been monitoring this, and in their