HONOLULU (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Several dozen people spent the night Wednesday night at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu after tourist hotels were evacuated on Maui.
WBBM's Steve Miller is in Honolulu and talked with some of the displaced.
A family of four -- the Ambrose family -- has been trying to get home to Delavan, Wisconsin, about 100 miles from Chicago.
Joe Ambrose says first they were stranded at the Maui airport with 1,800 people, all looking for a way out. And he managed to rent an air-conditioned van.
"And we went to Walmart and it was like the end of the world was happening. We found a place to park and got water and got snacks,” Ambrose said.
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"We spent all night there. We took turns sleeping because you could see the glow. It would die down and all of a sudden it would glow again. And I'm like, ‘Oh, crap, is it coming here to Walmart?’”
One of the landmarks of Lahaina Town -- a huge old banyan tree -- was heavily damaged by the fires.
"We came here for our honeymoon 31 years ago. We'd see the banyan tree all the time. And now I see pictures of it. They say it's… done."
Lisa Backlin, a Chicago native, also traveled to Kapalua with her family and said as her family was leaving the resort to make room for those needing shelter from being displaced, more tourists were coming in only to be turned around.
"90% of the resorts are in West Maui, so all the planes that kept coming in-people had no way to get anywhere," she added. "There was no where to go, so there's a couple thousand people just stranded at the airport."
Backlin said her family has found a place to stay for the night before joining the thousands of others being evacuated.
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