Officials. kayla tausche is standing by. bill weir is joining us live on maui. tell us more about what president biden is seeing and hearing from officials and survivors for that matter on this visit, bill. well, he s probably meeting with archie, hall of fame water man, life guard, surfer, who has led one of the surviving communities. tiana lawrence. these are people well respected within the family around lahaina. the questions that i m seeing locals posting on social media are about housing. this is a tourism dependent island but people need rooms to stay in. so how will you balance that out? insurance, yes. they were curious about that. tension and mistrust between people given the early response to this disaster. how do you build trust?
Hawaiian businesses, many that we ve seen here burn to the ground. homeowners and renters and nonprofits. if you need help, you can visit fema s disaster recovery center at maui college. or go to disasterassistance.gov. today, i m appointing bob fenton there he is. i m appointing bob fenton as our chief federal response coordinator for maui to lead our long-term recovery work. he s one of the nation s most experienced disaster response and recovery experts in america. and i m directing him to make sure the community has everything, everything the federal government can offer to heal and to rebuild as fast as possible. and we re focused on what s next. that s to be building for long term and doing it together to help get us back on our feet to rebuild the way we want to rebuild, by making sure your
And climate change caused the severity of the fires. do you support maui s lawsuit. so it s immediate recovery. it s long-term rebuilding questions that they have pressing for him then of course, just the grief. over 800 souls still unaccounted for right now. and people coming to grips with the idea this may take months or years or may never form closure for them. forensic anthropologist experts say scenes like this can take years to sort out. so there s so much here for him to take on but he s, looks like he s on front street in historic lahaina, which was once the capital of the kingdom of hawaii then was a very historic point when the missionaries and plantation era came along. so much of that burned in those thousand degree flames, wolf. bill weir from maui.
Shelter for people who will be displaced and have idea when they ll get their homes back, wolf. what do we expect to hear from the president after he finishes this tour on maui? he s going to be making remarks. is there any indication of what we re going to hear from him? show of support nationally for the people of hawaii and for the devastation that they have gone through. he s going to be rephrasing that role as consoler in chief he often takes on. whether it s visiting tornado victims in new jersey. he spent a good part of his presidency making those visits and has come under criticism for doing less of that. we expect him to step back into that role in a big way when he makes those remarks and also talk about the long-term recovery effort. the fact he s tapping a very senior fema official to be the coordinator for the federal
Voices are heard, by respecting your traditions, by understanding the deep history and meaning of this sacred ground, and establishing your community not to change its character but re-establish it. we re also going to bring the capabilities to help you rebuild so your critical infrastructure is more resilient in the future. all of this matters. let me close with this. from stories of grief, we ve seen so many stories of hope and heroism of the aloha spirit. every emergency responder put their lives on the line for us to save others. every day heroes, neighbors helping neighbors. native hawaiian leaders offering solace and strength, and this ban banyan tree. one called it a diamond in the rough of hope. another said fire cannot reach its roots. that s maui, that s america. and to the people of hawaii, we re with you for as long as it