Welcome to the lead, aim jake tapper. And we start with breaking news, violent and explosive wildfires in hawaii. Fueled by strong winds from a hurricane, 800 miles away. It is a situation so sudden and so catastrophic on maui, local Officials Say a dozen people ran into the ocean to try to escape the flames. And they went out so far they then had to be rescued. Hawaiis governor said hundreds of families have been displaced and some loss of life is expected, unquote. Cell towers and 911 are out of service on the the hardhit west side compounding the difficulty for many. Were expecting a Press Conference and well bring you that when it starts but Derek Van Damme looked at where this erratic disaster may be headed next. Reporter hellish scenes of wildfires engulfing normally picturesque maui. Powerful winds, associated with Hurricane Dora helping fuel the flames. Fact that we have wildfire in multiple areas as a result of indirectly from a hurricane is unprecedented. Reporter Lieutenant Governor silvia luke issued an Emergency Proclamation on tuesday. Governor josh green has been out of state but it returned tonight. It has turned very serious and very dire. Reporter she said the hospitals on the island are overwhelmed with Burn Patients and people suffering from smoke inhalation. And also 911 cell and Phone Services are down, complicating evacuations. The maui county has not been able to communicate with residents on the west side, so were dealing with because were an island state, in addition to dealing with the disaster, were dealing with major Transportation Issues as well. Reporter right now Emergency Response teams are working together to gain control of the island. The Disaster Wiping out power to around 14,000 homes and businesses. People sleeping everywhere. Reporter also Stopping Travel at the airport forcing several travellers to sleep on airport grounds. And according to maui county officials, the u. S. Coast guard has rescued at least 12 people from waters saying they jumped into the ocean to escape the smoke and fire conditions. Some residents comparing the scene to an apocalypse. People running for their lives. Reporter many now saying they are homeless. Our house is gone. Everything that we had ever known is gone. Everyone i know in law hina, theyre homes have been burnt down. Zprf reporter similarly to what Southern California residents experience with santa ana winds, the winds that rushed over maui in the terrain went through some basic thermo dynamic processes as they went up and over the mountains, they dry out, they warm up and they speed up. And as long as that hurricane continues to move away from hawaii, it will impact this area with wind. Derek van damme, thank you. Lets go to hawaii where officials are giving an update. As we monitor the situation and we have spoken to both mayors several times throughout the night and we have been working with not just the federal delegation, many of the state partners, many of the the industry leaders, thanks to general hara and hime. The point is a lot of residents in the tate of hawaii, when we are preparing for the hurricane, we expect rain, sometimes we expect floods. We never anticipated in this state that a hurricane, which did not make impact on our islands, will cause this type of wildfires. Wildfires that wiped out communities, wildfires that wiped out businesses, wildfires that destroyed homes. Were learning and gathering information more and more and we just feel so sad and just great sympathy and prayers out to the people of maui, the individuals who are impacted and josh and i want to send our deepest gratitude to the mayors, both on maui and the big island for working so hard. Theyre both their teams and at the same time all of us are working very closely to ensure the health and safety of our communities and members on all of the islands are protected. Today we signed another Emergency Proclamation which will discourage tourists from going to maui even as of this morning, planes were landing on maui with tourists. This is not a safe place to be on certain parts of maui and we have shelters that are over run and we have resources that are being taxed. We are doing whatever we can and the state is providing whatever support that we could to give support to both maui and to the big island. You know, governor green is cutting his trip short. He is en route. He will be back at midnight. He is cutting his trip by a week and that tells you the magnitude of how grave we think this situation is. And we have been working all night to make sure that the situation is contained. We are thankful to the mayors and we we are grateful to the federal delegation, we have already reached out to and they have generously provided support and so we are just thankful for many supports, but at the same time, please reach out to people, i mean, we any time there is a disaster, any time there is things like this that happen to our community that shake our community, it is our families and our people, it is our ohana, that help each other and this is a time we need help. We need to be standing together and we need to be brave for each other and at the same time, it is just with sadness and just we are just struck by the devastation felt in maui. Acting governor luke, at this time, i would like to bring up Major General hen hara, from the Hawaii State Department of defense. Aloha and good morning. So Lieutenant Governor green appointed me as the overall Incident Commander for the state for this incident. However, i just wanted to stress that in accordance with hawaii statute 127 alpha, we are in support of the counties and they are the lead. It is very difficult because of the conditions last night, the high winds and the fire, we really dont have all of the details on exactly how many structures are damaged, but we do know power is out and having problems with water and ill let the county share the details of each each effects by island. We did get support from the active duty military providing helicopters to Hawaii County and then i sent two helicopters over to maui to do water bucket Fire Suppression missions. And in addition, guardsman to assist with Search And Rescue and Traffic Control and security and were standing by as the Lieutenant Governor mentioned close coordination with fema for additional federal resources. Based on the request for our visitors, to leave maui, we worked with the department of Business EconomicDevelopment Tourism and the Hawaii Convention center, so if there is anyone that is traveling off of maui to oahu and do not have and was not able to get a hotel room, they could get lodging at the Convention Center. We dont have any transportation laid out. Were working that logistics now. But if you could find your way to Convention Center, we could provide you shelter until you get follow on transportation out of the state of hawaii. If you need information, on the website, so ready. Hawaii. Gov and that is hawaii spelled out and ready. Hawaii. Gov is Hawaii Emergency Management Agency website and you could get the current information and that is the core site for you to get accurate information. And the phone number is 8087334300. And again, 8087334300. We are in coordination working with our Airline Partners to try to get more flights so they could get room and if any of the visitors would like to stay in a hotel as opposed to the Convention Center, then as a last resort, the Convention Center. Thank you. Major general hara, at it time i would like to turn your attention to the screen electronically. And joining us today is mayor Richard Bessen with maui county. I would like to first thank the Lieutenant Governor as well as the attorney the Acting General for arranging this joint Press Conference. We know there is a lot of interest in what is going on in our county and i would like to update everyone. As a result of three fires that have occurred, that are continuing here on our island, we have had 13 evacuations from different neighborhoods and towns, weve had 16 road closures. Weve opened five shelters. And weve, as a result of that, our west side of our Island Law Hina Area was cut off. Only one road was able to be traveled in and out. Power was out to 2,628 customers. There is no power at our hotels. Or even at the shelters that we opened up. Im sad to report that just before coming on this, it was confirmed weve had six fatalities. That we were able to confirm. And we are still in a Search And Rescue mode. And, so, i dont know what will happen to that number. Weve had many dwellings, businesses, structures, that have been burned, maybe to the ground. Mostly in alina neighborhoods and that area. Weve also should have added multiple School Closures to were grateful to the doe to allow us to use the iffacilitie and over 2100 people in shelters and within those shelters, i mentioned to you, several that are unaccounted for in the sense that they are in their cars an do not come into the actual shelter. We are grateful again tfor the assets that have been sent over to us by the state. Our federal partners and county and allies, were grateful for the outpouring of assistance. At this time we are battling and continuing to battle the fire. We now have helicopters that were unable to get up in the air yesterday that are now using water drops to help suppress the fire. That is the latest information from maui county. Thank you again for allowing us to address you. Mayor bison, at this time i would like to turn your attention to mayor mitch roth virtually from Hawaii County. Aloha. I would like to thank the Lieutenant Governor as well as the Acting General for having this Press Conference today. Hawaii islands, we had three to five fires depending on how you count them. Right now we are still battling three of those fires, pretty much well contained the fire, we have some containment on there, however we do still have firefighters out there who still im hesitant to say we have it completely under control. The highway is still closed from mile markler 6 to 17. As far as resort fire, that is still being actively fought right now. I have just got word before going on that the that they opened the highway that was closed. So, were still going and in that area. So, still under a Red Flag Warning and we see that the winds coming up is very possible for planes to get sent out. We think we almost have things put out. But right now, firefighters are out there working. We have our chokers open, so i believe at this time, those are we appreciate the support that people have given to us. Especially appreciate the team work that weve received from our firefighters, federal partners, our military, our National Guard, a lot of our private contractors who have been out there, and others who have just reached out to help. Were so thankful for that. But at this time, our thoughts and our prayers are with maui and were not out of woods yet. But i think the situation in maui right now should take precedent over this. Well answer any questions. Thank you. At this time, id like to bring up director ed sniffen with the Hawaii State Department of transportation. Hello, everybody. Absolutely horrific situation that were trying to work through right now. And really hard to to maui county. We are strongly discouraging nonessential travel to maui. But the airports are still oper operating efficiently. Last night we had 2,000 people staying at the airport that got stuck because they couldnt get on the red eye or waiting for other flights to come in. We made sure that we processed them through this morning and working with our Airline Partners on all of that. There is another 4,000 visitors that we are expecting to want to leave the island. From the west side. So the highway is open on the back road to make sure that you could come from la hina to get into kalui and the bypass are closed for operational or Emergency Responders only at this time. There is just a lot of poles down and fires in different spots an it is dangerous to utilize that roadway. But caw healy is open. We expect everybody to use that to get into the airport. Our Airport Partners are amazing. Theyve dropped fares an offered waivers to help everybody get off of maui, so to make sure that we could move people to oahu or get them home to use the resources to recover and focus on the residents of maui in that area. Well keep updated on our website pages, the accessibility of our highways and if any impacts occur at the airports. I would recommend to everybody, any time we have travel like this, that is that is impacted on one iexd island, it will impact others. Make sure you check in with your airlines and status of your flight to make sure it is on time. Thank you very much. Finally, id like to bring up jimmy toka with the state Department Business development and tourism. Good morning. As everyone has said, it is just incredibly sad day today. Weve seen the devastation, we could compare it coming from myself coming from kawai to inki. But you could see the hurricane comes so i want to ask that as the administration, were communicating with all of the people involved, from the federal government to the State Government to the counties. But to the visitors who are watching this, and looking for answers, were going to ask for your patience, were preparing very well for this and general hara is at the command. So we have the confidence that hes handled these situations before. In my role, we are preparing the Convention Center. And early this morning, even prior to the proclamation for support at the Convention Center, we set it up to potentially accommodate 4,000 people. Theyre cooking food. The prepgsarations are there an the red cross is setting all of that up. But it is a tall task. The city buses will be transporting people from the airport to the Convention Center and were working right now with the airport and the city to accommodate those, that transportation for the visitors that are coming. But i also want to say, it is not only for the visitors. Local people have lost everything. Theyve lost their house, theyve lost their animals and it is devastating. So were we are also reaching out to local people that the shelters on maui may be full but you do have an option here onna wahoo at the Convention Center so i wanted to make sure that you knew that. I particularly want to thank at the Convention Center, cal annie and daniel and terry orten for accommodating us. I dont think theyve slept since we got the calls last night. And we want to thank jerry gibson from the hotel association. Well have booths set up there that will tell and inform guests that are coming what the hotel status is, what the rate is and the hotels that have occupancy. So on behalf of hawaii tourism authority, once again, it is a sad day but we thank everyone for the cooperation, aloha and mahalo. At this time, well open up for a live q a with the media and im going to repeat the question. Im inviting acting governor silvia luca, but either she or i will repeat the question so everybody could understand. So the first question is going to go to star advertiser dan macaso. Do you have an estimate of the fatalities. Were they drowning or were they fire related . Before you answer, mayor, the question is around do we have an update on fatalities and injuries on maui county . You know, i dont have the specifics for those six confirmed fatalities because you got that number just the minute before we came on to this Press Conference. Weve been trying to get that update this morning was first time that we were able to assess oshs du obviousliy during daylight hours. As far as injuries, weve had a few injuries. We sent folks to straub and im trying to think about six or so, not all were burn related. Three of them were. And we also had a firefighter that suffered smoke inhalation, that firefighter was also treated and i believe transported ore to a hospital over on oahu. But is in stable condition. So we did have some injuries as well. Governor, the next question comes from if you could repeat your question. Do you have an estimate on the number of businesses and homes impacted. The question im sorry. You want to repeat the question. The question is how many businesses have been impacted . We dont have that exact number just yet. Again, were still in the Assessment Phase this morning. Now that we have light, so i dont want to take a guess at the number. But it is quite, it is goi