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As many as 850 people are still missing and 114 are dead after apocalyptic wildfires in Maui, as president Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Hawaii on Monday.
Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen gave the update on a video posted to Facebook, which he used to send a message of hope about those still missing while reminding the public the death toll is expected to rise.
'It is my sad duty to report that 114 individuals have been confirmed deceased,' the mayor said on a video posted to Facebook. 'There are currently 850 names on the list of missing persons.'
'We are both saddened and relieved about these numbers,' Bissen said.
Bissen pointed out the initial number of people initially first feared dead was more than 2,000 but decreased once cellphone communications were restored.
Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said 850 people are still missing after apocalyptic wildfires
The teenager is one of 114 confirmed dead following the horrific fires on Maui
Recovery teams can be seen sifting through scorched debris throughout Lahaina
The FBI, which is assisting with search efforts, combined various lists of missing people to arrive at the total number of missing, the mayor added.
Bissen added that 27 deceased individuals have been identified and 11 families have been notified.
The mayor's update comes as Biden is set to visit the devastated island following criticism that it took him too long to do so.
Biden's trip follows a period of public silence where he was criticized for his 'no comment' while spending time at his Delaware beach house.
Biden will visit with those who lost homes and loved ones during the disaster and be briefed by public officials. The White house said he has continued to receive briefings over the weekend, after Biden issued a series of public statements on the disaster following his early stumbles.
He will be accompanied by first lady Jill Biden.
'The biggest thing that the president needs to see is just the actual impact. It really feels different when you're on the ground and can see the total devastation of Lahaina, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanna Criswell told CBS News.
'He'll talk to some of the families that have been impacted by this and hear their stories.'
The wildfire that broke out August 8 in the town of Lahaina is now the deadliest in more than a century, and the fifth-deadliest on record for the U.S.
Meanwhile, locals have told DailyMail.com the actual death toll is at least 480 and that morgues have run out of body bags.
Many of the bodies have been left unrecognizable by the fire with authorities asking friends and family of the more than 1,000 people still missing to submit their DNA so the remains of their loved ones can be identified.
A general view shows the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina
The wildfire that broke out August 8 in the town of Lahaina is now the deadliest in more than a century, and the fifth-deadliest on record for the U.S.
Aerial view of a body bag being loaded into a refrigerated truck at the MPD Morgue Office
The soaring death toll means authorities have also had to bring in mobile morgues with five refrigerated trucks parked outside the Maui Police Department morgue office to store the remains of fire victims.
DailyMail.com photos taken on Wednesday showed hundreds of cars and vehicles still unsearched – with just a handful marked with an orange X to show they'd been looked at.
For Allisen Medina, 24, who has lived in Maui for five years and has spent the past two weeks making perilous trips into Lahaina to help burned out residents, that is still too slow.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, she said: 'People have been doing their own recovery.
'I know there are at least 480 dead here in Maui and I don't understand why they're [the authorities] not saying that. Maybe it's to do with DNA or something.
'I do know they ran out of body bags by the first or second night and had to ship some in from the mainland.'
Allisen says the slow recovery process has led to family members being left to find the charred corpses of their loved ones themselves, including a friend of hers who lost four family members.
Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, from Hawaii, said that as of Sunday about 85 percent of the affected area had been searched and nearly 2,000 people remained without power and 10,000 were without telecom connectivity. Water in parts of west Maui is not safe to drink.
While immediate aid such as water, food and blankets has been readily distributed to residents, Schatz said that cellphones, identification and other documents that people would need to help them enroll in longer-term aid programs were burned in the fires, adding more challenges to the application process.
More than 1,000 federal officials remain on the ground in Hawaii to respond to the wildfires, according to the White House. The administration has doled out more than $8 million in aid to affected families.
Schatz, who will be with Biden as the president travels to his home state on Monday, stressed that officials were 'still responding to the disaster' and 'We are not yet in a recovery phase.'
'As bad as this looks, it´s actually worse,' he said in a phone interview on Sunday.
'What you can´t see is the damage to utility infrastructure. What you can´t see is the thousands of kids who are trying to figure out how to go to school this fall. What you can´t see is the first responders who went into the flames without regard for their own safety and had their own homes burned down.'
