CBS Evening News 08.12.23

Tonight, there is a desperate and intensifying search for the missing on Maui. Right now, they number nearly one thousand people. At least, eighty are confirmed dead with that number expected. 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 apocalypse. 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.

Many are returning home today for the first time since this fire hit. And they will face absolute heartbreak. We’ve spent the past few days in town. We saw entire neighborhoods that were leveled. And of the homes that still stand, they overlook these fields of ash that search teams tonight are combing through looking for the missing. Anxiety and frustration as bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched miles on the reopened highway to Lahaina. Residents, who were allowed through, confronted devastation at the end of the road in what the governor calls the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history. Before Tuesday’s massive fire ripped through Lahaina, turning eighty percent of the town to ash there was a chaos and confusion. Emergency sirens were not activated. And those in town only fled when the flames were on their heels.

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