A teenager recounted what he did to escape the wildfires that recently ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui in an interview aired Friday on The Weather Channel.
“I was just trying to stay in the water,” the unnamed teen said in the interview. “We just had to stay there for, like, six to seven hours,”
“Chest-deep,” the teen added, referring to the water’s depth. “Like, the deepest was up to our necks.”
“There was no other way?” the reporter conducting the interview asked, to which the teen shook his head.
“It was just either that, or stay on the wall or swim, but I don’t think any of us could really swim that far, because the currents were so strong,” he recalled. (RELATED: Terrifying Video Shows Residents Escaping Wildfire Flames By Fleeing Into The Ocean)
The teenager added that he “was just thinking of my bag and stuff and just trying to [know] if my dad’s okay and everything, because I was with my mom and my brother.” He also said he fretted about his family’s car and the houses on the island.
The death toll from the wildfires rose to 67 on Friday night, according to Maui County officials cited by the Associated Press (AP). The wildfires mark one of the state’s deadliest natural disasters, according to the outlet. In 1946, a tsunami claimed more than 150 lives and another left 61 individuals dead in 1960.
A teenager says he spent hours standing in the sea with nowhere else to go for safety as Lahaina burned to the ground – here’s his story: https://t.co/WbHFiYeFo7
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) August 11, 2023
The island’s residents have been returning to survey the devastation wrought by the wildfires, particularly in the historic town of Lahaina and the economic nerve center known as Front Street, AP reported. The landscape was reportedly strewn with the unmoving “traffic jam” of burnt-out cars, charred elevator shafts of incinerated apartment buildings, and heat-mangled trampolines and scooters.