The Highwire with Del Bigtree - HEROES OF LAHAINA REPORT FROM MAUI

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

After the devastating fires in Maui, Lahaina resident Mike Cicchino tells his horrifying story of having to flee the fires with his wife and child, taking refuge in the ocean for hours. He details his family’s experience, the loss of their home, and separates fact from fiction. Also, hear from two experienced disaster relief responders on the ground in the fire’s aftermath with their take on where the government’s disaster warning systems and relief have failed.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

The tragedy that I think has got us all just riveted to our televisions, praying, trying to give our heartfelt thoughts to those victims in the Maui fires. This is what this has looked like in our news. Maui is on fire. Evacuations are underway. Tens of thousands of people are without power. And there is already extensive property damage, including in the popular tourist town of Lahaina. Some taking shelter behind the seawall, others jumping into. to the ocean to escape the flames. Both sides to the left and the right are on fire.

19 year old Noah Tomkinson waiting in the water with his mother and younger brother for five hours. This is the overhead view of the sweeping devastation in Lahaina. 80% of Maui's historic town in ruins. This gridlock of charred cars details the desperation as many attempted to escape a wall of racing flames. Oh no, oh no guys, no, we have to leave.

This is now the dead. wildfire in modern U.S. history. Everything in line has been decimated, including our house. Everything's gone. All the memories, all the places that we built, beautiful memories together is gone. And so I'm just grateful that they made it out okay and just praying for the best outcome for the rest of my family.

The winds were howling overnight, and I even checked at about 4 in the morning because I was surprised that I had missed the, you know, a weather advisory. and there was still no advisory. People were not informed except for five minutes before they had to evacuate,

and this was via a cell phone message, an emergency alert. We have a tsunami warning system on this island. They did not activate it. Did you hear any alarms? Did you get any kind of warning? No alarms. No warning.

Nothing. No, no sign, nothing. Where were you guys to try and get us out? Evacuate us. No. We're mad, we're mad. You know, we didn't just lose our homes. We lost our town, lost history, you know? Our kids are traumatized.

You guys messed up real bad. And still looking for friends and close family. Wow, I just wanted to let the word know. It's worse than they think. While Lahaina sat in ruins, no assistance came for more than two days. Water, propane tanks, fuel baby supplies and clothing. People in this community are doing everything they can

for their neighbors. They say this is way more than what the local and federal government is doing for people in Lahaina. Government officials are trying to shut down local assistance. It seems like they only want FEMA and they only want the Red Cross. They are sending donations back. If it's not donated directly to FEMA or Red Cross they're not going to like let it in.

None of this is eligible for giving out. Tell me why. I have no freaking clue. They're all fearful that they're going to lose their, their property along with their home and their investment. So that's, and you can hear it in the governor's voice when he, or his languaging when he talks about rebuilding Lahaina. I'm already thinking about ways for the state to acquire that land

so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or to make it open, spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to people who were lost. I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their home, offering to buy their land. How dare you do that to our community right now? Shame on you. Shame on you.

The world needs to see what's happening here and the truth is not being shown. Just horrible images and you know I have to say in some ways it's triggering a little bit of PTSD and me as many of you have been watching this show for years know back in 2018 I lost my family Lee and I and our kids lost that was our home in the Maui the Woolsey fires that swept down through Maui I mean Malibu sorry Malibu where we were living and so and and similarly not a lot of answers to watch there was no fire department or help in that situation. So my heart really is connected with those in Maui that have gone through this. And you really can't get a perspective and news cameras aren't allowed in. So we worked hard to try and find somebody that had been in there

that could give us some sense of what was really going on. And it's my honor and pleasure to be joined right now by Mike Chikino, who is a resident, was right in the middle of it. Mike, thank you for joining me. Of course. I know there's really no words that can be said at this time when you've lost just about everything you own and watch the devastation around you. We have an image that you had as the fires were burning. Your wife and I, you know, I think in some ways wondering if you were going to survive it.

This is just sort of that moment that you capture on your own phone. Coast Guard, Coast Guard. If anybody, you trust find this? You know, it's pretty scary, though, we're going to be okay. You know, that moment, so you'd made your way down to the water, it appears, as those that survived, you had to get down out of the hills, out away from the fire and down on the water, reports of people hiding literally in the water. Tell me just how this, what was your experience?

We're hearing there was no warning, was that true for you? how does this start in your life? What is the moment you realize there's a fire and there's danger? I just happen to leave the house just to see if I could make it to the other side of the island to grab a generator. And within 10 to 15 seconds of leaving my home, my whole neighborhood was engulfed in flames. But like you said, absolutely no warning, no siren. We do have an alert system. where it alerts us by text. I've had a little bit of a signal. I've never received any text.

And at points when we did hop in the car, 15 minutes later, that's when they made the announcement over the, probably over 15 minutes later, that's when they made the announcement over the radio to evacuate. But by that point, it was too late. Now you, you know, I know that when I was going through this situation, and when it happened to me in Malibu I saw the fire again just too I really didn't get warning in time but there's mostly because I didn't have a television on there's no sirens but it was just coming down the hill again for us the wind was blowing so hard and I just really grabbed my son who was with me luckily my wife was out of town and just had just grab a few clothes we lost everything

too in that moment I just you don't know where the fire is you don't know if it's wrapped around you know if you're going to get down to the road what was it like there for you could you tell where the fire was or just feel like it was everywhere? Well, first I'm going to say, I'm so sorry for your loss, and I'm happy that you and your family, you know, made it out alive. But being through that situation is absolutely terrifying. I know that you guys are probably still dealing with it. You know, basically when we started to leave the house, which if you watch our live

live announcements by our government that they do, our governor and mayor, They are flat out lying to us on there as far as they're telling us and telling the world that they didn't have any roadblocks. There were definitely a thousand percent roadblocks that we could not get through. And if they would have let us through and let some of those other people through, a lot more lives would have been saved. Wow. A lot of us are in shock about how much our government is literally lying to our face. was there and I'm I'm they were they're lying to everybody to they're just trying to downsize this and I think they're afraid of a lot of locals are going to freak out they're afraid of lawsuits

but it's they basically at the because of that force us into a pigeonhole does into a death trap and a lot of people died because of what they did not only the warnings but blocking us in from every road and everything went wrong that day. They really did fail us. You know, just from an outsider and because, you know, I've, you know, on this show, we've learned to really not trust government a whole lot and it's really failed us so many times. But one of the things that gives me the sense for being lied to is when I see the images that

we're seeing come out of there, some of these photos and some of the video that you've provided us, when I only see a death toll going from. from 80 to like 100, I think in six I heard this morning over three days, that seems impossible to me. It seems to me there must be a cover up on the amount of bodies that are there. They're obviously trying to slow roll the devastation, figure out how they're gonna explain it,

cover their own tracks. And you know, so much, when you watch so much effort going into trying to protect their own butts in the government, and we're hearing so little effort, it seems, getting the supplies, getting people to their home, you know, helping the people that are there. What does that make you feel? Anger. I can't even describe the amount of anger I have towards our government.

Before, I'd be honest, I had more trust in our government. I grew up, you know, that they're there to take care of us, especially in need. They're going to safeguard us from things like this and warn us, but none of that has. happen. And as of right now, the FEMA is trying to take over, but they're not assisting at us at all. I've had absolutely zero assistance from FEMA. They're saying they're giving out $700 trucks to people. I've never received one, and they're not going to give me one because I happen to run a business side of my home. and I also had a little bit of insurance. But that insurance, they said they can only put me up in a hotel room for seven days.

Then where am I going to be after that? FEMA, since I went to business, has basically said, we'll give you a small business loan. I just want a place to live. I don't, I can't, I'm, I want to start my business back up, but how am I possibly going to do that when I don't even have a place to rest my head at night? I'm jumping from, that's my house. you're seeing right now. Wow. It's completely, that was my business. That was my whole life. I've lived there for 16 years. And even if I did receive that 700, living here in Maui,

that's a night at a hotel room, one night at a hotel room for these people. Fortunately, I have family where we're jumping from house to house, but $700 is insulting for those people that are getting that. I'm glad they're getting at least 700, but You have to imagine even our McDonald's is inflated here. If you go to McDonald's for two people, you're spending $50. Wow. Most of those people have already gone through that money, you know. And a lot of locals are using that money to help locals.

And the only help that we've received the whole time that from this whole situation is from the churches, from the Calvary Church over here. The Catholic Church isn't even going to try to help out with housing. But the government hasn't helped me at all, my family at all. Similarly, while the fires are going on and there's very little help around, you are one of those types of individuals that charge back in there to try and get some help, looking for animals and people. This is just one of the videos you were shooting while you're going through that experience. Asher! Hey, buddy, you okay?

Shit. Asher! Asher! Let me get up. Come in here. Just head down that way. Are you all burnt? Are you burnt? Are you burnt?

Okay, you gotta go down there, okay? Uncle, right here's bad, there's a lot of smoke, you gotta go. Okay, let's, I'll be back. I'll be back for you. Asher! Raina! Okay, come by buddy. We gotta go.

The Coast Guard's coming in. Is this your daughter? This is Raina, right? Okay, oh, thank God. you sort of made your way through the neighborhoods there. How would you describe that? And seeing most of us have never actually seen a body. I mean, that was fairly graphic. Hopefully those watching aren't too offended by seeing that. But I think it's important that we get a sense of what that experience was like.

I mean, I've never been to war. I've never been any type of disaster. But I would guess that it was just like a war zone. I mean, there's dead bodies, people screaming, babies out there that I never saw again. A lot of people were, you could just see that the smoke was slowly killing them. And that's, you know, I was trying to run and help as many people as they can to get out of the area that they were because if they say there any longer, they would have just, you know, went to sleep and died. Wow. But the best thing that I can describe is literally like a new. nuclear bomb or atomic bomb went off.

But imagine that bomb going off continuously for eight hours. So when we're ducking into the water or jumping in the water, ducking behind the wall, the flames were going at 70 miles per hour towards us. It's one of the most indescribable, or probably one of the hardest to describe situations and feelings. It's hard to put in words. It really is.

Now, your wife was with you, obviously, both Godway. How is she doing? I mean, we're going through some mental issues right now. I wish I could say she was better. We're hanging in there. We're one of the lucky ones. We feel bad complaining about our situation when there's people out there that are way worse off than us and getting no assistance. You know, those people that have their lost their house, the family's dead, they don't have any money. We are at least alive and have each other, so we feel very grateful.

We are starting to kind of go through a guilt part of the grieving. Why did we make it out alive? Why did we make it out with our lives and with each other? And all these people are out there that didn't. And then we also, there's people out there that were helping during the fire, and a week later, they're still out there helping and having been left Lahaina. And the local government's not letting us locals in there to help at all. They want to make sure that they're controlling everything. So people are getting, you know, getting stopped, even if they're trying to bring in donations.

So like I was kind of mentioning before, all those donations that the locals are trying to help with are being brought to churches. And that's how I've been getting my help, not from FEMA. Wow. What are the next steps right now as you look? I realize it's hard to have any sort of bird's eye view in the middle of the tragedy there. So as you sit in the middle of it, what are your thoughts right now? What is it next steps for you? We felt like we just got out of a fire that was about to take our lives.

now we feel like we're back into another fire with the U.S. government, basically. So we feel like we just went through all this. Now the government's putting us through more and just watching our, then flat out lie to our faces. And me known for a fact that they're lying to our faces because I was there. And what they're saying is 100% untrue. There's way more bodies out there than what they're saying. there's a lot more and I can't give like sources or anything but they're anticipating over 500 but less than a thousand most of those are going to be children or actually not most but a lot are going to be children

I have a lot of friends finding children out there these schools were off that day because of the electric so that parents still went to work but the children were stuck at home so they're you know You know, you could imagine being 10 years old, taking care of your, your siblings, and having a giant fire. What are they? They don't know what to do. Oh, my God. But they're not announcing this stuff on the news. This is probably, you know, I'm mentioning it to you now, but they're hiding a lot of stuff from the outside world.

And it's up, it's pretty upsetting. Right now, we just want to hear that, you know, a sorry, we, there's things that went wrong. We're trying to do what we can. but they're just so defensive. They just, I think they're just trying to cover their butt right now and not get sued is what it's coming down to, which is just making it worse for us. You have a GoFundMe to sort of get through this.

So let's just give people if you want to help out here. The GoFundMe.com, it's that Maui Fire, Mike and Andreza, Chikino. So if you want to help out, that's how we do it. And I'm sure there are many, many GoFundMe's out there right now trying to figure out a way through all of this. What will you do with those funds? What's the plan? Well, we can't even find housing right now. We're jumping from house to house.

So, I mean, we would like to do it so we can use it for rent food right now because the food we're getting, we're so so appreciative of like the church is giving us food but you know we need more vegetables we need real food that we can need not just canned food sometimes we can get some fruit which is awesome but we need to start to get our lives a little bit back to normal we would also like to start our business again because there's all the job a lot of jobs here are gone um so our concern now is all the money we're we're just trying to get as much as we can right now because we don't know the future. We don't know how we're going to start our business again. We don't, we're, there's a housing crisis out here already. We're, if you wanted to buy a

medium income house, it's going to be a million dollars here in Maui. Wow. So you can imagine with all those housing's gone, thousands of people displaced, it's only going to go up. And it's really unfortunate. I, there's people that are leaving Maui that have been here my, you know, almost my whole life, but I can't leave my whole family's here, my daughter's here. It's not a choice for us. You know, we're going to stay and push through it, but we don't know where we're going to live.

We have no permanent place to live. Well, Mike, first of all, I want to thank you for joining us and sharing with us your thoughts in this very difficult time. Our prayers are with you. I want to thank you for your heroism running in there, trying to help when others aren't, others that were paid and funded to be there for exactly those moments. Stay in touch with us.

We want to sort of hear how this all works out, and maybe we can bring you back on and check in with you a little bit further down the road. Of course, there's so much going on here. There's probably going to be updates almost every day. So please keep in touch, more than happening, answer any questions you have. I also want to say, just because I have been through it, it does, you know, it is really hard in the middle of those situations. but there is hope.

You know, just share with your wife that, you know, we get through these things. Love, what doesn't take away is our love doesn't take away our relationships and what you'll, you know, end up having to stay focused on. It's just that you're alive, you have your life, and now we have to do something with it. All right. So we'll keep you in our prayers. We appreciate that. And if I may just mention there are a lot of people who need help.

I always appreciate the help that anybody can give us. My four-year-old lost everything too, but please don't actually donate to Red Cross or FEMA for people that are out there. They're not helping us. Try to find local families that you can help. And then there's also a local organization called Maui Strong, and may have been helping out a lot more than the government right now. So I just wanted to throw that out there. All right.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. And take care. We'll stay in touch. We wanted to also get a sense, you know, from people. people that are in the middle of disasters all the time. We reached out to a good friend of our Steve Slepsvik, who is a disaster specialist, and he's joining me now with Sam Eaton. Steve, you see a lot. I mean, you've been at Katrina. You've been in the middle of events like

this. How does this compare to all of the disasters that you have been in the middle of trying to help people through those situations, their homes, their lives. How bad is this? Is it as bad as it appears in the news worse? Well, what I can tell you is that for me in doing this since Hurricane Andrews, since 89, that I got in this business responding to both national, international disasters, this was one of the worst responses on the government side I've ever seen. So when you see the police department block in a downed line, but they're blocking an area where he's parked in the area where cars can get by and cars are backed up for an hour and a half. Mike is correct. That the response was horrific when we show up at the EOC and they have generators stacked there and we're like, hey, we can bring you power.

We can bring you the entire thing to set it up. And they're like, no, no, we're good. I'm like, well, base of results here, not good. You have generators here, but you have no electricians, no case. you don't have this whole thing set up properly and how is it that a friend of ours can actually drive into town the next day Unabated no security perimeter drive by vehicles with burnt bodies in it as he's driving his motorcycle in it you know how can one of our friends then deal with these type of Just these images and the PTSD that's coming from it So everything that Mike said is absolutely accurate

And then this is several days so Yeah. To me, accountability, right? These people have to be clear, concise. You cannot make mistakes. And if you look at, they were the last EOC to open up. So they weren't properly staff, staged. They did set, set, put the alarms out of the sirens. And their excuse of like, well, we don't want people to run up to the hills. What are you talking about? People are conscious. They know, hey, there's a fire up there. Yeah, how about I hear an alarm? If I step outside of my house, I will see what's going on and figure it out from there. I mean, like was Mike saying is he doesn't leave his house for his generator at that moment. He doesn't see what's going on. And I'll be honest, when it happened to us, I was lucky that I had a friend text me and said, I heard there's a fire in Malibu.

Do you need any help? I was like, fire. So we didn't really have an alarm either. And I suppose it was being, I didn't have my TV on. I just had no, nothing on inside my house. Luckily, my friend texts me otherwise, and I walked out of my house, and that's when I realized the side of the mountain, basically, I live on was nothing but flames rushing towards me. So all you need is to be told, get out of your house, and you can figure out there.

They didn't even do that. I mean, and just be clear, you're a private company. You don't work for the government. You go in many times, I guess, what do you tend to work? work for insurance companies or who who sends you in link how do you get there no we work for private individuals so typically hospitals ports airports private asset owners commercial real estate owners they know not to trust the government so they call us in ahead of time if it's a hurricane many times three four days before to shore up their assets to minimize the risk to put the

comms in place bringing the additional paramedics bringing the security detail bringing the fuel the power everything else to keep that facility operational they know FEMA's not going to be there they don't count on the public utilities or the public officials to do anything for them. They know they have to stand it alone. But like you shared on the Woolsey fire, if you remember, the fire departments were all pushed up to Pepperdine. And you couldn't find fire trucks down in the lower area where people's homes were burning. So similar to this, they had pushed the firefighters up into the mountains in this one region to fight another fire. When a fire wasn't completely contained, there wasn't any fire trucks down on Front Street. And then they had a problem with the water pressure.

So when they hooked up to the fire hydrants, they couldn't push water out. You know, Sam, we had, I mean, it was, it's very similar. Many of the same stories that I experienced. We had, we paid, I think, you know, in Malibu hundreds of dollars a month extra for a fire line, they call a water line. You're paying just to be ready. And then there was no water in it when we needed it. When you hear things like, you know, well, the electrical line came down, that took away some of our. our abilities to do things. And then you ask, I mean, any intelligent person says,

fires bring down power lines. You weren't prepared for that. You don't have alarm systems that work in that. And we start thinking with all the millions and billions of dollars and taxpayer money that goes to special places like this that know there's potentials for hurricanes and things like that. How can they be this unprepared? Very tough. Backround 30 years in the fire service been to quite a number of disasters myself also with the company we responded to some major incidents you know when i look at when i see what happened you know arriving here um it didn't have the feel of the disaster if you looked at if you looked at the infrastructure that was that should be there in place the stuff that FEMA would normally bring in the things that that you would

normally see you didn't see those things and and i think i think that it was most exhibited in the faces of the of the locals here you know when you're talking to something that's basically been working the last the last week previously for this guy we spoke to an individual that had been trapped every day getting up to bring food and supplies himself as a private citizen into to find a way to help those that were actually in the area the line at the area um to watch him break down in tears saying where's the help why are we having to do this why are why are why is maui having to help moway where's the outside help and and then you you you put it in contrast to what's happened at the border of our country what's happening in Ukraine you look at the money that's flowing in

different directions but but this was not it just did not feel like they had a handle on a lot of things it's it's easy to um to point at uh at the please don't look at the front front line frontline workers or the firefighters because they're being driven by by their own policies and procedures but also they have a desire to be a part of that that response leadership from above i think is what was where the mistakes were made and certainly a whole hopefully there'll be some after action where they'll look into the details of that. You know, I would say at this point that wherever you live, every, you know, different region has some ability to be pressed into a dangerous situation like this.

I've obviously been through my own experience. And there's things that we just weren't prepared for. We hadn't really itemized all the things that we own that I now do when I go into my house. We sort of stay on top of what is actually in our house, in our dwellings. But Steve, do you have some recommendations of things for people to prepare or should a disaster happen? What's the best way to handle it? You know, for me, I always say have a disaster plan, more of an ulceros-based disaster

plan for your family, right? Because this stuff is happening constantly, right? So you have everything from, you know, having your satellite phone, a meeting place, doing the quarterly drill, right? The next thing is obviously documenting everything, reviewing the policy, making sure that, you know, when it comes to removing the policy, it's not just a matter of calling your agent, but I always say, you know, get a third party opinion from a private insurance adjuster, you know, in that capacity. You know, before you enter, another thing that's really important is that when people are approaching these properties, you have to know what the hazards are, right? It's structural, environmental, mechanical. You can't start sifting through the property and then there's, you know, without proper properties.

PPEs. So hire a third-party environmental consultant in these things that are totally burned. And the ones that aren't totally burned before you enter it, there's highly toxic. These cars burn electronics, there's asbestos lead. There's all types of chemicals that were burned and now are blown into people's homes in the surrounding area. So those areas have to be properly remediated. Then a third-party consultant, environmental consult should come in there and provide a clearance testing that it's safe to reoccupy. Because I'm not going to compare it to 9-11, but you know how they had multiple,

what was the number for the firefighters that got cancer from now? Frontline workers, close to 15,000 have gotten cancer since the actual event itself. Right. More people infected in a health situation from 9-11 than wherever initially. Right. So it's going to be a toxic mess for a while.

The trucks, the debris moving through those areas, you know. But with this, you know, for us as first responders, I mean, the satellite phone store has always been really big for us on getting stuff for us when we need it. They're also there for the community. So a lot of times they'll donate the phones, you know, especially in those areas. But don't be that person. Get it ahead of time, you know, be prepared because these things are happening more and more, not just the wildfires and the hurricanes. But as you know, Hawaii still, we're going into the peak of hurricane season. There's another one that's just passing just below us right now.

And those high pressure systems create what they call the Chinook winds, and it comes off those mountains, and any spark will just light up other neighborhoods. It's very difficult for people to get in the way, for sure. Go ahead. Yeah. Something like, no, the wind-driven fire. This was a fire that was driven by the wind. Obviously, bad, poor conditions, part of that, drought-like conditions.

And clearly, when you have something like that, you know, early, early warning is very important, but there's little time to, to actually react. And you experience that yourself, Del. Yeah. Same kind of thing. It is horrific what they went through. And the people that survived, what they saw, what they're exposed to, even just the visuals, but of course, the hell side of this. Those that were sitting in the water affected by this with the embers coming down, that very toxic, heavily laden chemical smoke that was on them.

Many of them probably perished from, you know, basically smoke inhalation. Even though they had, they weren't burned, they couldn't breathe. You know, there's just no, there's no space there. The real tragedy here to me is what's the response afterwards. And that's where it really starts to look. Very, very, there's a lot of lessons learned here, a lot of things that the Maui officials need to take. I mean, I feel like we, I sit here and think, we're the United States of America, We're the richest country in the world.

We have the biggest military in the world. We can go and fight wars that nobody even knows why we're there. In a moment like this, in the movies, the National Guard is flying in. You got FEMA. Everybody's setting up tents and camps and removing people through because we're a first world nation. What is going on? Why are we so incapable of having a response? Why?

I mean, and it's every time. It felt like the same thing with Katrina. Every time it's as though we have. no idea in the, since the dawn of man, we've never figured out how to handle a disaster. I mean, I know you are giving, guys like you, Steve, and you give classes, you're there to teach government, you're there to help, you've been trying to get this. Why are we so incapable? What is it just bureaucracy is, is useless and there's no way to ever get these people to do it right? I mean, it's so frustrating to watch over and over again this level of failure and have

to accept it, to have to accept that. our government is this incapable of handling a dramatic situation. God forbid we ever actually have a war or something come at us, you know, on our homeland. I can't imagine we can't handle a fire or a hurricane. What do we do if we're ever under attack? Yeah, I think the American people are starting to notice the emperor has no clothes, right? Yeah. It's an absolute.

You don't have to, you just look at how it's, they're incompetent people running it from the top down. If you have poor leadership, if I ran my business like this, I'd be out of business. Yeah. Right? That's it. And there's going to be a price to pay. The people in Hawaii are not ones to lay down and just take, you know, take it. They're going to stand up.

They're going to rise up and they're going to hold these people accountable, you know? And Sam was right. Some of the people that we've talked to are it's the Hawaiian people helping the Hawaiian people. And they got to see firsthand the people that they vote for. every time when they come out, hey, vote for us, vote for us. They started to realize now, it's a huge awakening. It's sad that it would come to this, but they're starting to realize really

who the government is and how incompetent they really are. I'm just, I mean, I'm getting to the point now, and I've said this before I grew up a progressive liberal, but I want my tax money back. If this is the Wild West, I'm going to be left on my own every time there's a catastrophe, then give me my money back and let me start developing ways to protect myself, because,

Standing it to you is not working. I think so many people in America are experiencing that. Steve, Sam, I want to thank you for taking the time. I don't want to keep you away from the important work that you're doing there since someone's doing it. Sam, you have another thought. Just to say this, there are some great people that are working in these FEMA camps. We have close colleagues and friends that are in there. There's great first responders.

The firefighters, the law enforcement, they're the people of Maui. They're the people of Lahaina. They had families there as well. And I just want to say that from our perspective. It is not against those workers. Why I work 30 years in the fire service, locking arms with law enforcement as well? And you know that they're going through a tough time themselves.

We pray for them. We pray for the people of Maui, for the people of Lahaina, for this community, and certainly those frontline workers that are dealing with the tragedy up front every day right now walking through the streets of Lahaina, trying to differentiate between what might be a body what might not be. And you'll never forget those kind of things. So our hearts like hearts definitely go out there. I just want to throw that in there at the end here. I appreciate that. Sam,

and it's a good point. I don't mean to disparage anyone that's out there that it is on the front line and our best and brightest and bravest do charge in those situations. Those that do that work should be commended. We asked you guys to put together a list since a lot of people are saying the money from Red Cross isn't really getting there and things like that. You put together a list of places that you are seeing getting the funding and are helping the people. So this is that list for those of you that want to reach out and try and do something. This, of course, will also be, if you are signed up to our mailing list, all of this will be in your hands immediately. I'm sure we're going to tag it in the comments right now. But these are groups that are actually really are delivering for the people,

and I think it's important that we support them. Steve, Sam, thank you very much for taking the time, and our prayers are with you and your work. Thanks, Del. Thanks for getting the message out there. You back. Take care.