Anxious and weary family members in the North Bay are waiting to hear word their loved ones living in Hawaii are OK.
It was pure chaos as the skies turned orange Tuesday night and anything in the path of these wildfires in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui was charred to pieces.
“We woke up to family text messaging,” said Mill Valley resident Gerald Kaleikini.
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Kaleikini is Hawaiian and raised in the Bay Area. He still has family in Lahaina.
For the UPS driver, it’s been hour-by-hour since Tuesday night. By Thursday, there were some good news and no news.
“Just the communications been really bad. So, there’s a lot of speculation. I mean, there’s really no confirmation of answers,” he said. “We’ve located two of the relatives including my oldest brother. Confirmation, they’re sound and safe but we’re still awaiting, we have a 98-year-old grandmother, who we don’t have confirmation of and whereabouts where she might be.”
That could very well be the mission of firefighters headed to the island. NBC Bay Area learned Thursday that at least one firefighter with Contra Costa County is leaving Friday morning to join the rest of the search-and-rescue teams.
Most of them arrive for anywhere between a two week to one month mission, bringing in specialized animals. They are also trying to get communications up.
Now, retired fire chief Harold Schapelhouman was one of the sponsoring agency chiefs. He said this is not just a search and rescue operation but it's likely recovery too.
“I don’t know how big their unaccounted for list is. But that’s usually when you arrive there. What you want to find out is how big is it? how many homes we are talking about? blocks square miles and where do you want us to look?” he said.
The Red Cross of Northern California Coastal Region said 13 of its volunteers have deployed or are en route to Hawaii.
Tom Tanner is one of them set to leave from San Jose Friday morning. He’s flying to Honolulu first but he said that he is ready to go where he’s needed.
“I may be deployed to one of the other islands as necessary. I wouldn’t at all be surprised,” he said.
Kaleikini told NBC Bay Area that his family living there have lost everything.
“Honestly, it’s ravaged everything is laid out flat,” he said.
Yet there is light. The church Kaleikini’s missing grandmother has been part of since its inception is still standing.
“The hope is good, the hope is great,” he said.
Kaleikini’s own customers along his UPS route for about eight years started a GoFundMe to help his family in Lahaina rebuild.
