As soon as you enter what once was the town of Paradise
the scale of destruction is painfully clear and overwhelming.
"There were some houses over there.
This is completely devastating."
Christina Taft has lived here for ten years
It was an idyllic spot nestled in the trees of the
foothills but in just a few hours most of this town of 27,000 was destroyed
"Completely gone..."
We turn into her neighborhood
And the home she fled nearly two weeks ago just
"This is completely like crumbled ash..."
This is the first time she's returned since the fire
"The neighbors stuff.
They warned us.
This is just completely leveled.
And this is also the final place she saw her mother.
"She was in the kitchen, like the couch was there and
you know there was actually things here and now it's just unrecognizable
Can't even tell."
a neighbor had knocked on Tafts door the morning of the fire
urging them to leave.
Christina started packing but says her mother
66-year-old Victoria Taft who was partially blind
refused to go.
She hadn't heard an evacuation order from officials
so she wanted to stay put.
The two got into a fight and as the sky
darkened and ash rained down Christina panicked and left.
She just was expecting it not to be as bad
and then it's like this and all gone, and the ceiling and
it's literally buried
"Heavenly Father, please help us."
For all those who tried to escape that day
the drive out was terrifying.
Roads were choked with traffic.
The fire was spreading rapidly.
Once she realized how bad it was Christina tried calling
911 hoping firefighters could rescue her mom.
Later that day she started searching at
the evacuation centers and reported her mother missing then a few days later
searchers found her remains I was a living room they must have found her
because they dug they're just sitting in the living room it's not yet clear how
many people were trapped by the fire but many of those who lived here were
elderly and some couldn't make it out on their own and the days after boards were
plastered with desperate pleas from family members many suspected hundreds
were unaccounted for when the official list came out more than 1,000 names were
on it you know there was a discussion they talked about this thing they said
Sheriff if we put this out you know there's gonna be this is gonna
be big there's gonna be duplicate it make it me you know cause some people
concern about the length of it but I ultimately felt it was more important to
get the information out some of the names were on there twice other entries
are incomplete each day the list swells and shrinks depending on who else is
reported missing and who is found for vacuous and their families there's been
a haze of confusion and miscommunication people are scattered and homeless
there's the stress of losing everything followed by the dread of not being able
to connect with a friend or relative
people are submitting DNA samples so it can be compared against them more than
80 remains that have already been found and there's gonna be a lot of people
displaced Terri Paula Queen's family submitted thirst just wait have time you
know wait for the DNA to come in for my and my brother to find out if he has
perished that's the only thing that we can do right now I think I've done
everything I can Paula Quinn was living in this RV park
his home survived the fire and a neighbor we spoke to even said she was
sure she saw him leave I mean when did you see him last Thursday the day the
fire started right not too long after they came through and said everybody
needed to evacuate so I know they I know they loaded him up and got him out of
there and and you know nobody's been back since a lot of people have been
sharing it but his daughter Alicia Martin and the rest of the family
couldn't get a hold of him they reported him as missing so you know it's not like
him to not contact his daughter especially with a disaster like this I'm
just hoping I get answers you know and I know a lot of people out there are
waiting for answers and the family finally got one news they happily shared
online just hours ago he texted them his cellphone had been lost in the
evacuation that's one more name that can be removed
from this list but so many others remained finished right down here on
this Creek bottom right there we're gonna realign out from there again and
push back towards the road hundreds of searchers have fanned out across the
unrecognizable neighborhoods picking through the ash and rubble of the 13,000
buildings that were incinerated here all of these properties were quickly
searched after the fire but now crews are taking a much more thorough look and
when they're done they spray paint a marking on the drive
like this one it says what time the crews were here and also whether or not
there was a victim village you make your way up here this is the tub at the
shower that looks like the upper piece of it right there in front of you
Jason Denton and his team of volunteers came from Oregon to help out they're
focused on searching what were bedrooms and living rooms places where people
were unlikely to be so since we can't sift through everything we're looking
for the high probability areas at this law they spent more time carefully
lifting up parts of a roof and walls because they noticed that at this house
there was a wheelchair ramp how does this compare to what your your team
would normally search normally we're looking for a missing person on the west
that's alive so this is drastically different
even if it's a person that's no longer
this is a big eye-opener we brought 12 volunteers down here and all we changed
when we get back they then take another sweep of Christina TAFEs home and wear
her mother's body was found one of the few things she packed before the fire
was pictures terrible you know and puddle of got all this stuff in my car
and then not her and looking at them today she feels consumed with guilt it
was terrible to think oh you know dying in flames and I could have stayed longer
and waited business her mother one of the many victims and what is now the
deadliest fire ever in California and that list will almost certainly grow as
crews go lot by lot picking through what once were homes and are now the site of
a grim search breyer joins us now for more briar given what you've seen in
Paradise what really stands out for you well Adrian really just the sheer level
of destruction in a town of twenty six thousand thirteen thousand buildings
were destroyed so nearly everybody is now homeless people are living in tents
at the Walmart at the fairground you have families of five or six cramped in
a single motel room and now trying to figure out just what's next and of
course the other thing is all of the uncertainty around the death toll and
just how high it could be and it's really hard to understate all of the
confusion around the number of people still missing a lot of people have been
putting up posts online looking for their relatives and I spoke with one
woman who said she received a message from someone that her aunt had been
found so obviously a lot of relief there but then she found out a few hours later
that that person was wrong her aunt was still missing so that miscommunication
and confused and really just makes a terrible
situation all that much worse you know it's so interesting to get your
perspective on this briar you've covered wildfires like this before you were in
Fort McMurray when fired tore through that city how does the situation in
paradise compare well there's no doubt that the fire in Fort McMurray was
devastating but really what happened in Paradise was worse on every single level
they could be evacuation in Fort McMurray 90,000 people were able to
leave the city and no one died as they as they left Fort McMurray well in
Paradise that certainly didn't happen we don't know how many people didn't make
it out but we do know some people had to abandon their cars and try to outrun the
fire on foot in Fort McMurray a lot of people were certain that they were going
to rebuild some of the folks have been speaking with in Paradise say that
they're not sure that they want to go back not only is the town nearly
destroyed but they don't want to move back into neighborhoods where there's
been so much death Adrian okay briar thanks very much briar Stewart in
California tonight