CNN’s Brianna Keilar interviewed Democratic Congresswoman Jill Tokuda of Hawaii on Wednesday to discuss the wildfires ravaging the state as an offshore hurricane kicked up winds.
Tokuda “represents actually most of the Hawaiian islands, including Maui, and in particular this where we’re seeing all of these pictures come into,” Keilar began.
“Congresswoman, I’m so sorry for what your constituents are dealing with. This looks horrific. What is the very latest that you can tell us?” she then asked.
“Well, first of all, thank you, Brianna. And I can tell you, this is absolutely been heartbreaking, devastating for so many of us, two of my islands in my district on fire,” Tokuda began, adding:
Such fear overcoming so many individuals. And right now, as was mentioned, as daylight takes hold, we’re really only now being able to really assess the damage. Now, the really hard part was that much of this happened at night.
And so you can imagine the terror and the fear. Literally, they’re estimating 100 people taking to the ocean for safety because of the flames whipping around them — the high winds and the gusts. So this is really, you know, at the moment of reckoning when we are able to see just what happened last night. And quite frankly, the fires are still going. We’re still not out of the woods yet. This is going to be a long recovery ahead of us.
Keilar then asked about casualties from the fires and the emergency response in place. “You know, right now we don’t know of any casualties. But like Governor Green said, we’re still waiting to really see what happened,” replied the congresswoman, adding:
We do know that there were, you know, LifeFlight sent out people taken to O’ahu in critical condition. We know our hospital on Maui was overwhelmed with people showing up. My big fear was so many homes, so many businesses were burned down. We will literally have to be combing through the wreckage to see exactly what happened. And we fear that there will be casualties as we comb through the wreckage of what’s left of such a large part of Maui, such a special place in all of our hearts.
Tokuda later in the interview offered some more details about areas impacted. “We have a lot of tight-knit homes there. A hotel was taken out. So many different things. This literally will be all about us going through piece by piece and making sure that we know exactly where everyone is.”
“I’m praying, praying for their safety and their health. But sadly, we know that things just move so quickly. You’ve seen the footage, you’ve seen the videos, you’ve heard the firsthand accounts. These are scary times. And I fear the worst that some were not able to make it out of their homes in time,” she concluded.
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