Rochester Hills family shares harrowing tale of escaping deadly Hawaiian fires

ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (FOX 2) - The Hawaiian Island of Maui on fire with at least 53 killed.  People raced to safety - some actually jumping in to the water to escape the smoke and flames.

Visitors fleed the popular resort town of Laheina with 11,000 tourists flown off the island. The Liess family arrived home in Rochester Hills Thursday morning.

"We were very lucky to get out of not just our resort, but out of Maui when we did," said Craig Liess.

Renee and Craig - their children and friends - were enjoying the beauty of Oahu at a Disney resort for the first part of the trip. They were then on to Maui - and the Honua Kai resort in Lahaina on the western side of the island.

"Saturday or Sunday on the news they started talking about some winds because of the hurricane," said Renee.

Hurricane Dora was out at sea - and pretty much - out of mind.

"And it wasn't windy at all so we were just like - okay, so there will be some high winds," Renee said.

Monday night's luau was perfect - but unbeknownst to them - the situation was starting to sour.

"When we went to the Old Lahaina Luau on Monday, we got a call to cancel our volcano sunrise trip on Tuesday for the wind and we were like - it's not really windy at all," she said.

But that was about to change.

"Tuesday morning we woke up and no power," Craig said. "At that point that's when we kind of realized that something was not right and the winds had definitely picked up from the night before."

So many power lines were down they couldn't even drive to get gasoline - but they started packing - because their flight home was scheduled for Wednesday.

"We actually got a knock on the door about 3 a.m. Wednesday morning," Craig said.

"He was very calm and said you guys should think about evacuating," Renee said.

They were told to go to a nearby high school but instead, they headed for the airport - unable to go the quickest way because of downed power lines - they were forced to drive the long way - along the cliffs.

"Mostly about 25 miles an hour -a lot of single-lane road driving - along a cliff with no lights because obviously, nobody has power," Craig said. "The only lights are our headlights and some other lights from other cars that were on the road."

And they passed police roadblocks along the way.

"There was no cell coverage - 911 coverage - that was all down," he said. "So you don't realize how dependent you are on your phone - to get maps to get information, and to be in a total information blackout  - that was a bit concerning."

Fortunately they made it to the airport - and made it home to Michigan - their hearts still in and with the people of Lahaina where at least two 200 homes and businesses were burned to the ground.

"Thinking that all that is gone and some of these people's livelihoods have been completely destroyed is just horrible," Craig said. "It definitely is going to take some time to rebuild," Craigno doubt - hopefully they can."