It just kind of cakes on your shoe like cement. But many people are actually choosing to stay. We are live at the playa tonight. Plus its right there in the bushes. What . The fire its in the bushes. A couple in hawaii credit the with saving a section of their neighborhood during the evacuation a couple weeks ago. We are joined by our nbc reporter in maui this evening. Also it just felt like the right thing to do. A celebrity chef, Tyler Florence, explains why hes betting on downtown San Francisco even as many retailers continue to leave the area. And de la salles 2001 Football Team just named the Best High School team of all time. Were talking to a former star of that team who went on to play in the nfl and is now back on campus as an assistant coach. Good evening. Im raj mathai. Thanks for joining us on this labor day. Were hoping you had a safe and enjoyable weekend. We start with the traffic. A lot of people heading home after this holiday weekend. Theres some good news. After a days Long Construction closure, traffic is flowing once again across the carquinez bridge. The westbound span reopened just a couple hours ago at 5 00. Thats actually 12 hours ahead of schedule. Its been shut down since last thursday as part of a threemile repaving project along i80. The closure, though, caused traffic backups all weekend. Tonight a different story. Perfect, then tomorrow i dont need to worry about commuting or spend an hour and a half to go to my work. I think everybody is going to be so happy, everybody is going to jam pack that area. I think im going to stay away for one more day. It is open right now and flowing. During the closure, crews repaved the road and fixed those lights on the bridge. Those lights havent worked for two years. Another headline tonight. An innocent bystander caught in the crossfire in oakland. It happened around 1 00 this afternoon at the intersection of madison and lakeside in the lake merritt neighborhood. Police responded to reports of shots fired between two vehicles. When officers arrived, they discovered a woman right there on the trail near the lake with at least one gunshot wound. Again, an innocent bystander. She is in Critical Condition tonight. The neighborhood surrounding the shooting was closed to traffic for hours while police investigated. So far, no details on any suspects. Also this evening, we are live at the playa. Burning man about to come to a close. This is a live look at the festival in nevadas black rock desert. In just two hours, 9 00 p. M. , the final act will happen, the actual burn, which was delayed because of the weather. That big storm came over the weekend, turning the desert floor right there outside of reno into a massive mud pit. It trapped tens of thousands of people who really just wanted to leave. Tonight a dayslong shelter in place is over, and the front gates of the festival finally reopened a few hours ago. This all started actually friday night. Organizers asked people to shelter in place and conserve food and water. Heavy rain then rolled in, and its been a mess ever since. Look at this stuff. Today the sun did come out, allowing the socalled burners to dig out. Some people just left their belongings and their cars behind and just walked a few miles to the nearest road out of the black rock desert. We walked about three miles in mud. The first mile was like ankledeep mud, and we were barefoot because walking with shoes wasnt really an option. It just kind of cakes on your shoe like cement. As we mentioned, some people are not leaving actually by choice. The big burn is at 9 00 p. M. Were fresh. We took a shower, drank lots of water, and getting ready for a big party the last night. They created a different kind of challenge and adventure, so i think our team was just ready to, like, stick it and go strong. We are going to take our time and do this right. We came through it relatively well. I saw some news reports, and a lot of them were saying it was armageddon and the Second Coming and the world was ending, and really it wasnt as bad as all that. The colorful characters from burning man. Joining us now from burning man, nbc bay area photojournalist josh keppel. Josh, good to see you. I think you have no mud on your shirt, so thats good news. Certainly a headache and cause for some panic. But whats the general sense there where you are . Reporter i have not felt any sort of panicking happening here. Most people that come to burning man, its kind of survivalist camping, so people bring more than what they need. Where i live is where like the theme camps are. So my neighbors across the street from me yesterday served 1,000 people waffles. And the day after the rains, my neighbors behind me at nyc deli, they served a thousand breakfast sandwiches. I think there might be a few people that might have been kind of scared or worried. But for the most part, all you have to do is ask around, and everyone has enough to share. Ive been working with you for 20 years, and youve been going to burning man for about 20 years. Whats the general sense there now . Can you just show us around in the camera . Is that possible . Is it still crowded . Are there a lot of people there . Theres a lot of people leaving. Im kind of surprised how many people are leaving because its like a sixhour line to get out. You know, in a couple hours, the man is going to burn. So why not at least wait and see that before you sit in your car for six hours . But, yeah, this is my camp here. Weve been breaking down. The camp behind me over here is totally empty and gone. And some camps are still kind of doing business as usual, but most people are breaking down to some degree, and a lot of people are gone, like a surprising amount. Josh i guess they got to work tomorrow. You have a good perspective of how this has become such a global event. Was this mishandled by the organizers, or did they handle this effectively . Obviously they cant predict the weather like this. That was the big surprise for me is it seemed like everyone was completely caught off guard by how much rain fell. And i follow the weather very closely, and i was following the hurricane that happened before this. And one of my friends was out here for the hurricane, and he said we got more rain than that. There was all kinds of leadup to that, and people had warning. It seemed like no one knew it was going to people knew it might rain a little bit, and it had kind of been sprinkling on and off. But it was like 14 hours straight of rain. That is incredible. Final question for you. How muddy is your stuff, your car, your belongings . Was it a pain . Well, its funny. Everyone was putting plastic bags over their shoes, and we learned this one technique i used yesterday that was sock, bag, sock. So the outer sock would hold the bag on and keep it from ripping. And the bags are pretty amazing. They dont get stuck to the mud, but shoes, you will get like your shoe will cake up with mud like this just walking like one block. So it was a hassle for sure on that level, but now we got a full day of sunshine. Stuffs drying out. Stuff is still kind of wet, so im planning on being here another day or two or three to make sure, you know, you dont put stuff in your container thats wet, and then you have black mold next year when you open it up. So it is a hassle, but everyone has been really in great spirits, and we had a fun night just Walking Around last night. There were no cars, no bikes anywhere. It was like, oh, man, this is actually really awesome. Always finding the positives there. Josh keppel for nbc bay area, thanks for your time. Have a good time at the burn tonight in a couple hours. Thanks, josh. Thanks, raj. Lets move on. Some other stories were watching this evening. Were following some breaking news at sjc. San jose Mineta International airport. A Security Breach has forced arriving flights to hold passengers on board those planes. So you arrive at sjc, but passengers remain on the plane. It started around 6 20 this evening, so almost an hour ago, with reports of someone running through security without being checked. Airport Police Ordered all incoming passengers to stay on the airplanes while they search for that person. Within the past five minutes, weve learned that someone has been taken into custody, and operations are returning to normal. Again, this is all happening at sjc. Well keep you posted with any updates as soon as we get them into our newsroom. Tributes are rolling in for longtime smash mouth lead singer steve harwell. He was born in the south bay, and so was the band. Harwell died today at the age of 56. Once told me the world is going to roll me i aint the sharpest tool in the shed that is harwell right there. He founded smash mouth in the mid90s. The band gained International Attention for songs like allstar, walking in the sun, and im a believer. Harwell grew up in santa clara, went to blackford high school. Ultimately forming smash mouth. His first public gill was at san joses cactus club in 1995. There was a very special connection to the south bay for smash mouth. They supercharged the live music scene in, you know, campbell to downtown san jose. The cactus club, you know, long before their big hit in 1997. Deep down in his heart, he wanted to do good. He had challenges. He lost his 2yearold son to childhood leukemia. He got divorced recently after that, and i think some of those challenges, he just could never overcome. Pretty challenging there. Harwell has reportedly been in hospice care for liver complications. Also this evening, officials in maui are preparing to allow some of the victims back into the burn zone just to get to their homes or their properties. The official search for victims ended last week. Now there is pressure mounting to start the cleanup. The area has been largely offlimits since the fires happened. Its right there in the bushes. What . The fire oh, [ bleep ]. Its in the bushes. Were also getting another look at the confusion that happened as the fire spread. Nbcs sam brock spoke to jessica and Steven Pickering of lahaina. The two saw flames in front of a neighbors home as they were evacuating. Steven pickering jumped out of the car, used a hose to put out the fire. That home survived the fire. The pickerings also say they didnt get any official warnings about the blaze. I havent personally heard of a single notification that anybody received in all of my social network period. Out of how many people you think youve talked to . Hundreds. Our Audrey Asistio spoke with nbcs sam brock this afternoon about the mixed messages still coming from hawaii leaders about those warnings and about what those living in maui right now still need. We got to speak before this just about the ohana spirit. It sounds like youve been seeing a lot of that. Can you talk to us about what that looks like . Reporter for sure. I have a great example of that. Audrey, there were three musicians, slack key musicians theyre called. They got together and performed for us about a week ago for the First Time Since the fires. Two of the musicians lost their homes. They talked about the fact that before there were federal responders onscene, they were getting people from across the other side of the island coming into the burn zone, knowing they were risking their own lives to do so. This is in the hours right after the wildfires broke out, and providing supplies, food, sustenance, a place to sleep, anything that people needed. This is their own Community Members well before members of the state or federal government were there to help out. So i think thats sort of one little window or anecdote into what youre seeing across the island, is people just helping anyone they can, no matter what the circumstances are. Theyre here for each other. Im wondering because we had talked about how the island is asking for people to come visit the island. They need the tourists to come. Are you seeing tourism at this point . Reporter great question. So about a week ago, no. I mean you would go around the hotel, and i would say there was a 30 occupancy, audrey. 20 of it was fema workers. Like 6 , 7 tourists maybe. Youre starting to see some of those numbers tick up again. An exdotely, im hearing from Restaurant Owners that finally people are coming back. Part of this may be the fact that airlines, Like Hawaiian Airlines and some of the other ones, are lowering rates to get people from california to maui right now because they understand how critical the lifeblood is for tourism. I will also say that the amount of revenues that are generated on maui, 70 of it comes from tourism. So if you take that away and im not just talking about the hotels and the restaurants that burned but also some of these ance ancillary positions, it is having a catalyzing effect throughout the economy. Its costing people jobs and its critical right now that more folks come to spend their money and dollars right now. They surely need the help, sam. What do people need there right now over the next few weeks, months, aside from tourism . Reporter two things, i would say. They need an explanation. They need to know what happened so this never repeated again because back in 2018, there was a fire that almost tore through lahaina. It didnt go over one of the main roads. They put their Heads Together to put protocols in place, whether its an early evacuation or deenergizing of the power lines, and those things didnt happen here. They want to know why they didnt. Secondly, longterm, its going to be housing. Its an island, so when you get massive wildfires, which youve seen with the tubbs fire and others, it wipes out inventory to the point where people who are displaced have nowhere to go, and its already really expensive. So the governor right now is grapping with how theyre going to build out in less popular areas of the island. Its got to be something, and its got to be something within the next six months to a year. Its going to be a slow rebuild in maui. Up next, a bigname chef not leaving San Francisco. Hes actually expanding his footprint in San Francisco. Were going to hear from Tyler Florence. Also, de la salle high school, the 2001 team just named the Best High School team of all time. Were talking to one of the were talking to one of the stars of tha t if you have Heart Disease and are on a statin, lowering cholesterol can be hard. Diets and exercise add to the struggle. Today, its possible to go from struggle to cholesterol success with leqvio. With a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by over 50 and keep it low with two doses a year. Common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, urinary tract infection, diarrhea, chest cold, pain in legs or arms, and shortness of breath. Ask your doctor about twiceyearly leqvio. Lower. Longer. Leqvio. Caleb williams is transferring. To wendys for the new loaded nacho cheeseburger. Hold up those crunchy boys and say queso queso [camera flash] thats a nice shot, man. You wanna get in the next one . Of course nope. Starters only. Starters only. Choose wisely. Choose wendys new loaded nacho cheeseburger. Welcome back to nbc bay area news tonight. All this talk about the problems in San Francisco, but there are also many signs of progress. Today a boost for union square. Celebrity chef Tyler Florence is betting on the city. Heres nbc bay areas scott budman. Reporter well, hey, welcome to what has become an all too familiar sight in San Francisco. A restaurant with a sorry, were closed sign on it. This is a coffee shop that has shut down right here in union square. But heres the good news. Tyler florence, a celebrity chef, has signed a deal to put not one, but two cafes here in union square. One will go into this very building. The other just across the plaza. Both here in union square. Weve talked to politicians, hotel officials. Everyone is excited about more business and the business that that will bring specifically to union square and the city in general. I got a chance to talk to Tyler Florence himself a little earlier. Heres what he has to say about the deal. It just felt like the right thing to do. Both those cafe spaces are just not only are they prime real estate, but theyre also lovely and just imagining bringing a european, parisianesque experience, it felt like a Good Opportunity for us. Its really special because we live in marin county. I have three restaurants in San Francisco, about to be five. And its really personal for us, right . So when i travel, you know, to new york city and los angeles when i get a chance to film with food network, and people walk up to me and go, like, how is San Francisco doing . Thats pretty cool. Three restaurants, about to be five. Well check in with Tyler Florence when those new cafes open at union square. Also tonight, this is when it gets real good. College and High School Football is in full swing, and the nfl kicks off this thursday night right here on nbc, by the way. One of those lists came out recently ranking the Best High SchoolFootball Team of all time. Guess what school . De la salle in concord. Espn recently put together a top 50 list, best teams of all time. The 2001 squad from de la salle is at the very top. Pressure. Throws jones is dropped at the 3. Wow, if you were around here in the early 2000s, youll remember how epic de la salle was. This was known as the game of the century. De la salle beating Long Beach Poly on national tv. The teams were ranked one and two at the time. In fact, at one point, de la salle had a 151game winning streak from 1992 to 2004. Joining us now, Maurice Jones drew, one of the stars of that 2001 team, went on to ucla and then to the nfl. Now hes back home, an assistant coach at de la salle. Mjd, nice to see you. Youre lookin