Yet been released. The question is when will they come home, and what are we giving iran in return. Joining me now, National Security counsel coordinator for strategic communications, john kirby. Admiral, thank you very much for being with us. I know that we believe, the United States believes those imprisonments and trials and charges were not true. And were happy to have these individuals back. When will they be on a plane back and out of iran . I dont really know right now. Were still working out the details and parameters here about eventually securing their freedom, and when that will be, what that will look like. But we dont really know right now. Were just really happy that theyre out of evan prison because the conditions there were just intolerable. Theyre in house arrest, but still in iran. Theyre not home yet, and we still have a lot of work to do to get them there. Have we been in touch with them directly . Do we know what condition theyre . We have been in touch with them t
Correspondent dana griffin. dana, it s good to have you. what can you tell me about what you re seeing out there? reporter: well, katy, i can tell you i m seeing some very resilient people here in maui, people who have lost their homes, walking out of here still smiling, grateful to be alive. about 300 to 400 people spent the night here at this evacuation center. we re at maui high school. they tell me they have plenty of supplies inside. they re getting water, food, shelter, clothing, and they say that, you know, the volunteers are doing a really great job. but many of them have seen some devastating images escaping the flames in lahaina, which as you mentioned is a very historic town which has been obliterated. 36 people we know of so far have died. this is not including the pets. you know, maui is home to endangered species. that could be a concerning thing as crews are working to assess the damage. it s still unclear how much they have been able to contain the
People died. it s been really crazy here on maui. have you been able to get back down to lahaina to see what s left? i ve just seen photos. it s been closed off. they haven t been letting people go in because it s still really dangerous there. there were boats on fire yesterday, which could have exploded, so they had it all rubbed off barricaded off, so you couldn t get close to it. the photos i have seen, it looks just apocalyptic. it s completely destroyed. i photographed in afghanistan and syria, and it looks like that. i mean, it s just completely destroyed. and what happened with you? you were inside your home when the winds started blowing, were you able to get out? we were actually stuck in our home. the roads were blocked by the trees, and then there was fire. there was three fires actually around us at the time, so there was nowhere to get out. i stayed up on my roof watching
Their release, it s going to fix all of our problems with iran. any update on paul wheeler in russia and what s going on with the negotiations there? sadly no, other than to say we are actively working on those two cases as well. paul whelan, admiral john kirby, thank you so much, we appreciate it. and it is a little after 9:00 a.m. in hawaii right now. and this morning s dawn did not bring good news. though the winds have died down, day break revealed massive devastation. lahaina town is basically gone. the flames raising hundreds of homes alongside businesses. nearly 11,000 people are still without power. cell and internet service is spotty at best. mandatory evacuations zones have expanded and at least 36 people are dead. at least. with devastation like this, officials fear it is only a matter of time before the death toll rises. joining me now from one of the shelters on maui is nbc news
Weather. why were the fires able to take such hold? you think of california in a drought with all the dry brush. yeah, so i live maui actually has a win ward and leeward side. we have a wet side of the island and a dry side, separated by a 10,000 foot volcano, so the dry side had been in a drought. everybody thinks of the rain forest and east maui, but the dry side of the island had been in a drought for quite some time. up where i live on the volcano, it has been incredibly dry. they were telling us to limit water before this happened, and then this hurricane dora came south of us, and the winds just churned up, you know, the fires and made everything just so much more intense. what will you do now? well, right now we don t have water, so we re just trying to get by without having water.