Maui search crews have allegedly found over 450 bodies, according to a local resident who is leading a grassroots relief effort to aid victims of the fire that decimated the town of Lahaina earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI guarantee you right now, from what has been seen, the number is over 450 and it\u2019s gonna get \u2014 it\u2019s gonna get closer to 1,000,\u201d Maui resident Dale Hermo-Fernandez, who has close contacts inside local recovery efforts, said in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not giving the number until they toe-tag them and identify them, which is understandable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s guaranteed in the four hundreds. More than likely you\u2019re going to get to 850 or 900 \u2014 with 40 percent being kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he did not want to discuss the children too much, out of respect for parents holding out hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m telling you right now is there\u2019s a lot of kids. There\u2019s a lot. There\u2019s so much. And that\u2019s the thing right now. The real disaster hasn\u2019t even happened to the fullest,\u201d Hermo-Fernandez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re all in this void of hope. We\u2019re in this void of hope. We have parents hoping that the kids are on the other side [of the island], they\u2019re hoping that the kids would run through a safe person\u2019s home and we just can\u2019t just get a hold of them. So there\u2019s a little bit of hope,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut the truth of the matter is, I\u2019ve been in [Lahaina]. There is no hope. There\u2019s \u2014 I\u2019ve seen kids in there. I\u2019ve seen \u2014 you know, it\u2019s, there is no hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hermo-Fernandez said that on the day of the fires, before they had spread in Lahaina, school had been called off due to power outages. His cousin had brought his kids with him on his way to work on the other side of the island that morning, dropping them off at his father\u2019s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut a lot of people didn\u2019t do that. A lot of kids were home because the school got called out because there was no electricity. And when there\u2019s no electricity, they can\u2019t feed the kids lunch and breakfast. So they keep them home, which makes sense. But they got called out and parents went to work and the kids were at home by themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He described what he has seen in Lahaina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhole families are lost \u2014 huddled in cars hugging each other. This is firsthand. Like a husband and wife hugging each other on Front Street in the car. It\u2019s bad. It\u2019s so bad. I don\u2019t want to get too far into the kids and all that, out of respect for the families,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen it starts coming out, it\u2019s going to be heartbreaking. It\u2019s going to be a disaster once these parents find out there\u2019s no hope. That\u2019s when the crying really sets in and starts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Breitbart News reached out to Maui Police Department to confirm the number of bodies found, but did not immediately receive a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, Maui authorities have only announced 115 dead, with 100 percent of the area searched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n