in california. the death toll jumped again when fire officials found the besiod of two more people when they were overcome by fire. homes either burned to the ground or seriously damaged. hundreds of thousands of people around los angeles have evacuated. it's just not safe to stay there. the most destructive is in northern california. that's where about 6500 family homes have burned down. some towns north of sacramento have been completely destroyed. there's something else. officials fear the death toll may still go up. more than 100 people who live in fire zones are not accounted for. their families don't know at this hour if they are safe or not. cnn dan simon is in paradise, california. we're told that nearly everything in that town was destroyed. how much warning did people have to get out?

>> reporter: they have very little warning. main road that leads in and out of town is called sky way. they call it sky way to paradise. on thursday morning it was filled with cars bumper to bumper with people frantically trying to leave town. susan works at the local hospital and when the flames got dangerously close, she was told to leave. she grabbed her daughter, collected a few belongings and hit the road. the video they shot shows how dangerous the conditions were. take a look. >> it's okay mama. >> oh god. >> it's okay mama. please drive. please drive. >> i'm trying.

>> let us get out safe. >> i thought the windows were going to shatter because it was just so hot. i mean everybody's trying to get out as fast as they can. trying not to get in accidents. >> we had the air-conditioner on high an it was still hot. >> circulating.d it was still h. >> circulating. >> you were praying the car in front of you wouldn't stop. i'll have nightmares for the rest of my life. this was a bucket list i informnever wanted. >> reporter: like thousands of others they are staying at a hotel. just trying to figure out what is next. with them susan's father. he is an 82-year-old korean war vet. he's in fragile health. he needs oxygen to really function. he's frightened. this is the first time in his life he says he's been homeless. just the bottom line that video just really shows you the terrifying conditions that

people face as they were trying to get to safety. >> no doubt about it. that video just chilling. thank you. >> at least two people have died in the malibu area near los angeles. they were overcome by that fast moving wildfire. scott, what kind of problem are firefighters making against the fires there? >> reporter: well, good news is it seems like firefighters are doing a reasonably good job of holding the fire where it is right now. they are attacking it from the air. using plane, dropping water from helicopters. it seems like it's not getting out of control as was feared. yesterday it seemed to be reprieve for firefighters where the wind was minimal. today they have picked up a little bit. there are gusts potentially, 40 to 50 miles an hour. we haven't felt anything near that strong. we know that right now in the

west hills area or this morning in the west hills area firefighters were doing it. they were attacking this fire from the air and from the ground trying to hold it where it is. that's really the edge of the los angeles area neighborhood. they want to keep it away from those homes. here in malibu seems the risk has come and gone. they're not out of the woods yet. you can see what's left of this home. you can imagine how quickly and hot if fire would have come through. you can see what's left of what seems to be a washer and dryer. out in front i assume that's an oven but it's really impossible to tell at this point. if you look through here, that canyon, sort of goes down to the bottom and the fire race back up to the to the. it sort of scorched near a lot of those homes. there's a condo building just out of sight there. it's completely still in tact. people are hoping some of the smoldering areas don't return. there's a really block of houses in this area. you can see all the way to the

pacific ocean down there. lot of people that we talked to said we didn't expect the fire to reach this close to the ocean. it seems like people up in the hills were prone to fire but this area not so much. the winds are expected to continue. there's a red plflag warning meaning conditions are ideal for fire to spread. this area is under a mandatory evacuation order. it's unlikely to change until firefighters have a better picture of what they are dealing with and what the risk is. the fire only 10% contained. >> scott, officials there are worried about the weather it sounds like. the conditions will not be helpful in the coming days. you mention this red flag warn for the next few days. what's the plan? >> reporter: they have over 3,000 firefighters working.

there was a smoldering area. firefighters not with water but with tools try to move the earth around to try to build a line and try to put out the smoldering areas. that's what they're doing. yesterday we were in another part of malibu where what seemed like a guest house in the back of the property continued to ignite. firefighters were there. three different times. sometimes it's not always the flame that's the risk. it's the embers that can carry from house to house. in this area that's true. it seems like mother nature randomly chose houses. you'll see two or three destroyed and another block that's entirely intact. that's the big risk there of having these open fires that the embers would spread. not necessarily that flames would spread. >> thank you. these fires have been spreading so rapidly that people have had very little time to get out. you saw what dan simon showed up. they are having to drive through

the fire just to get to safety. the allen family of paradise, california is another family that recorded their own escape as the flames threatened their neighborhood. they had to grab their two young children and levave quickly. they took off in one car. joe followed behind in another car. watch and listen as joe comforts his nervous daughter as they are driving through the fliames. >> guess what. we're not going to catch on fire okay. we're going to stay away from it. we'll be just fine. okay. >> okay. >> we're doing all right. ♪ baby it'll be all right >> thankfully the allen family made it out safetily. i had chance to check in with them last night. here is joe and olivia. >> joe and his beautiful daughter olivia are joining us

now from chico, california where the family is staying with relatives now. i'm wondering how did you stay so calm and find the words to say to olivia and even started singing. >> well, you know, it's kind of our thing to just have conversations every morning when we go to preschool. she loves her baby shark song. >> i know that one. i have an almost 3-year-old as well. >> yeah. we just kind of found a happy spot and had a normal conversation what about was going on and kept moving forward. >> did you ever have any doubts about whether you would make it? >> actually, yeah. there was -- hold on. there was a moment when the ambulance towards the end of the

video where -- baby girl. thank you. toward the end of the video where they made a u turn and decided not to go up the hill. i thought this is the last moment where they were going to just, a tree had fallen. baby girl, thank you. i thought a tree had fallen an th -- and they were going to mike us go back up the other way.aike us go back up the other way.ke us go back up the other way. there was nowhere to go. it was extremely hot. i had my air-conditioner going full blast and i still had the radiating heat coming from the one side of my car. in that moment, absolutely. >> amazing that you could feel the heat. you could see the flames, smoke,

hard to see it looked like. obviously everybody made it out safetily. tha -- safely. you all celebrated her third birthday with a candle and cake. it looks like you are doing all right. tell me what the situation is for your family now. >> right now we're pretty fortunate enough to have family in what we could consider southern california. more like san diego area. they have offered up a travel trailer for us to kind of find refuge. we were lucky enough to have our own travel trailer at my sister's house. right now we're just kind of figuring out where we're going to put it and what we're going to do and just kind of move on from there. it's day by day. >> yeah, one day at a time. >> do you know the status of your home? >> we found out about three hours ago, we had some friends. it's the way it goes. a friend of a friend of a friend was able to go down our street

and it's interesting to say that he can't say that our house gone. he can say all the houses are gone. there's no placards with address numbers. it's just absolutely desolate. >> i'm so sorry to hear that. i've covered on the ground many a wildfire having come from colorado. also worked in washington for a while. maybe offer a glimmer of hope that every now and then you see the wildfires jumping and some houses still standing amid the rubble. i pray that your house is one of those still standing. thank you for taking the time to share your story with us. so great to see both you and olivia safe and sound with family and we wish you all the very best. >> absolutely. thank you. >> for ways you can help go to cnn.com/impact. showdown in the sunshine state this evening. lawsuits and unfounded

accusations are flying as a recount is under way for two key races. one county supervisor says it can't meet the deadline. nancy pelosi says she's 100% sure she will be the speaker of the house. some members of her own party says not so fast. that's next.

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or a woman blocking the entrance to a polling place or a dog or water hose. that's not voter disenfranchisement by itself. voter disenfranchisement isn't even whether somebody has the right form of id or not when they show up at the polling place. voter disenfranchisement also includes when man or a woman who gets up every day to go out there and work on somebody else's job in order to keep a roof over their head and clothes on their back and food on their table not by choice or necessity choose to cast an absentee ballot. they do the work. the diligent work of going down that ballot and any of those

races and going further down the ballot to see what constitutional amendment mthey may or may not be for. they stuff that absentee ballot back in the envelope. they do as the instructions say and they sign that thing and they put it in the mailbox believing that when they put that ballot in the mailbox that it will make its way to its intended destination. the supervisor of lelections office. when it get to the office, that good will will be assigned to them that they followed the rules. that they followed the regulatio regulations. that ballot will be opened and it will be assessed to count the intent of that voter. i want you to know right now in this state of ours because the w in their signature may look different today than the w in

their signature yesterday, that a volunteer may have the option of looking at that ballot and deciding that vote is now null and void. that is also voter disenfranchisement. that is also voter disenfranchisement. we believe that those ballots too ought to be counted here in the state of florida. voter disenfranchisement goes deeper than that. voter disenfranchisement includes the young voeter, the first time voter who was so eager, so excited, so disenfranchised before the point because they didn't believe that politics matter to them. repeatedly they have seen candidates and campaigns come

and go and never before motivated enough. come to churches and make promises. come to synagogues and make promises. come to your doorstep and host rallies and give you free food but when it comes to delivering on the promises, those promises seem to never be kept. time and over time and over t e time, you get to place where you wonder whether or not your vote matters. >> that is andrew gillum. florida's democratic candidate for governor currently trailing in the vote count. that is within the .5% or less that triggers an automatic

recount. that is under way right now as he speaks. one key officials says she is running out of time to recount all the vote. palm beach county supervisor of le elections says it's impossible to meet the thursday deadline. rick scott filing three lawsuits in state court today. scott upped the ante accusing bill nelson of fraud. >> senator nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to try to win this election. that's all this is. >> you're accusing bill nelson of trying to commit fraud? >> his lawyer said that a non-citizen should vote. that's one. number two, he's gone to trial and said that fraudulent ballots should be counted. ballots have been thrown out because they were not done properly. he said those should be counted.

>> you think that is the senator himself is committing fraud? >> it's his team. >> nelson firing back. saying quote, if rick scott wanted to make sure every legal ballot is counted he would not be suing to try to stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as intended. let's get right to cnn ryan nobles on the ground the tallahassee. if palm beach count doesn't finish the recount by thursday, explain what happens. >> reporter: we should point out the situation in palm beach county is unique. each county operate voting procedures differently. that's their right under florida law. the machines are not exactly the same way as they are in miami did a or hillsboro. we're told in palm beach county in order for them to do recount they need to run the tabulations three different times for the statewide different recounts.

that's one of the reasons they don't think they can get it done in time. what we're being told is if they get one of these races done, they will certify those results. send them to the secretary of state and that will be part of the recount. if any of those other results are not done in time, if they don't get it done by thursday, it will revert back to the original count on election day. that's very important. when the count was finished on saturday. that could be bad news for democrats because palm beeach county was one of their strongholds. fp the if there was an opportunity to pick up votes, palm beach county would be place where they would expect to see that happen. we should point out that it's very likely and all the sources i talked to believe it's almost inevitable this will lead to some sort of legal action by the democrats. they have not filed anything yet but this opens the door to ask

for some of emergency injunction to extend the time. major development here as this recount is just under way here in florida. >> palm beach under fire. also broward county is part of this new round of lawsuits filed by rick scott. >> reporter: the big lawsuit that's important is that rick scott's campaign is accusing brenda snipes, the supervisosor are counting ballots on saturday. the other two lawsuits are about impounding and taking care of the ballots by the sheriff's department when they are not counting. they are asking for the sheriff's department to do that. we'll have to see a judge rules in both cases. >> thank you. joining us now the chairman of the democratic national

committee. good to have you with us tonight. i don't have to ask you if you oppose governor scott's lawsuits. can you understand the frustration when time and again this democratic strongholds has become embroiled in election controversy. >> the key point here is that every vote should count. that's what it's about. that is what the north star should be. every eligible voter who voted and followed the rule should count. let me give you a very specific example that is very relevant to the reporting you just did. patrick murphy lives in palm beach county. i think he's eligible to vote. he voted absentee. he followed the rules and then he got letter saying you're signature doesn't match and now it's too late for him because he got the notice after the fact.

it's too late for him to have his vote counted. that can't possibly be right. that is one of so many examples that are out there. >> whose fault is that? is that the fault of the election supervisor for how they have conducted these elections in those counties? should brenda snipes still be in her position? >> the challenge here is that you have not given enough time for folks to get it right. again, the north star should always be to get it right an make sure that every eligible voter who cast their vote in accord dan accordance with the rules of engagement. >> who wouldn't agree with that. is it state law that needs to change? >> they don't have enough time. we had record turn out. that's good news for both sides. what record turn out does is it

creates challenges. when you have inexperienced -- and this is an issue that occurred in tennessee, in georgia. it's an issue that occurred in a number of places. nobody is trained sufficiently in how to determine whether that person's signature from eight years ago is matching this person's signature from now. it's been a voter suppression tool that has been used in colorado. it's been used in tennessee. it's been used elsewhere to render eligible people ineligible. that's the challenge here. >> i hear your argument. when we look at what's happening in florida now and i think everybody can agree with you, every vote should count. as long as people got their ballots and votes in in time. do you expect the recount to change the outcome? >> we don't know how many votes

there are. it could change the outcome. we don't know how many people are in patrick murphy's situation. in georgia, for instance, mr. kemp continued to say the votes have been counted and then we learn yesterday there was something like 5,000 votes in one county that hadn't been counted and now are counted and the overwhelming majority were for stacy abrams. >> the deadline to finish that initial count in florida has passed. at this point all the votes that could be counted, at least according to election officials who say there were no complaints of any election, criminal activity, that part has come and gone. now they are in the recount stage. they are counting from the pool that they have. we know they are more than 12,000 votes different in the senator race and more than 33,000 votes different in the o governor's race. how likely is it that's going to change the outcome? >> the reason i can't answer

that question is because we don't know how many people were in patrick murphy's vote. we also have military and overseas ballots that had to be postmarked by a certain day. when they arrived can differ depending on the u.s. mail. there's a lot of work that remains to be done in florida and in georgia and in other places like in texas and congressional race. we heard rick scott say fraud was committed. that's ludicrous. they throw that around. you heard donald trump say that he won the popular vote. that's equally ridiculous.

that is what we're trying to do. >> okay. let me move to the bigger picture for your party. nancy pelosi says she's 100% confident she will be the next speaker. many incoming democrats and run and won by saying they will not support her. do you think she should be the next majority speaker? >> that will be up to the new house that majority. they will be deciding that soon. one of the things they will look at is what do we have to accomplish and who has the steadiest hand to do it. one of the things i admire about leader pelosi is without her we wouldn't have an avrffordable ce act. we wouldn't be able to save things like social security, medicare, medicaid. she's a seasoned pro in those areas. those are areas that are at the top of medium's minds when they voted.

these are treacherous time. there's a lot of choppy waters out there. they will ask the question who has the steady hand to navigate these choppy waters and make sure we catch pre-existing condition coverage for people. make sure we're fighting for dreamers. make sure we're doing the relevant oversight that is necessary to ensure there are checks and ambulanbalances in o government. >> thank you very much for being with us. i appreciate you joining us on this veterans day. in the wake of the midterms, wall street surged. will that translate to more consumer spending going into the holiday season or will things taper off? >> reporter: will the post election euphoria cool off?

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house democrats who are about to be in power come january are calling for newly appointed acting attorney general matt whittaker to recuse himself from the special counsel investigation. they are concerned he is only there to sabotage robert mueller's i venvestigation. take a listen. >> first of all, i think he should recuse himself for any review of the investigation because the statements he has made already in a public domain about the fact this investigation should not -- >> you don't have confidence in him? >> i don't. >> our very first witness after january 3rd, we'll subpoena or summon mr. whittaker. >> i want to make this very clear. if he doesn't recuse himself, if he has any involvement in this russia probe, we are going to

find out. >> at this point republicans haven't made any moves to protect mueller in the wake of jeff sessions firing. even senator lindsey graham who said there will be hell to pay if sessions were ousted is backing whittaker. >> i think he's a appropriately appointed legally. i don't think he has to recuse himself. i'm confident the mueller investigation will be allowed to come to a good, solid conclusion. there will be no political influence put on mr. mueller by mr. whittaker to do anything other than mr. mueller's job. >> our justice correspondent has more on our nation's top law enforcement official. the newly appointed attorney general and why democrats are so concerned. >> reporter: matthew whittaker

was well known as a reliable conservative when hef was hand picked. don mcgahn was behind his fihirg as sessions chief of staff and white house officials believe his loyalties would lie at the white house and not with sessions who had fallen out of favor with trump. he too recommended whittaker since jeff sessions need add strong manager and someone with credibility who had served the department. one source says it was way to keep things on the rails at the justice department and keep sessions focused. whittaker was encouraged by people close to trump to appear on tv to get the attention of the president. in 2014, whittaker told an iowa blog he thought the landmark supreme court ruling from 1803 that established judiciary ability to strike down laws to

violate the u.s. constitution was one of the worst decisions in supreme court history. he said there's no many bad rulings. the courts are supposed to be the inferior branch of our three branches of government. we have off loaded many onto the court and they diddecided them. he said judges should adhere to the bible in making decisions and any judge who didn't hold christian beliefs wouldn't be a good judge. >> are they people of faith? do they have a biblical view of justice which i think is very important. we all know our government -- >> new testament? >> i'm a new testament. what i know is as long as they have that world view, they will be a goodfbi's investigating a shut down florida company that whittaker

was an adviser for beginning in 2014. he was a paid member and hands on seen here explaining a proposed product for a hot tub. >> it's a unique design. >> reporter: world patent marketing build itself as helping inventers secure patents. a judgment was won for bilking thousands of customers out of millions of dollars. with the frk bi investigating i could pose another conflict of interest. he overseas the fbi. he said in 2017 he guessed any replacement for jeff sessions would cut mueller's budget so the russia investigation would grinds to halt. we know he will motnot recuse himself. will he try to shut it down. >> thanks. multiple wildfires raging out of control in california.

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women around the country are constantly fighting for their rights but they may have the upper hand when it comes to one issue, child custody. lisa will recolleling talks to the losing side of child custody

battles. >> all men here seem to agree. as much as they feel hard done by their ex-wives, they blame the court system more. >> the court kind of creates the beginning of the hostility because you might have two good parents. most of the time it goes to the mother. on paper the court does give you the every other weekend and vacations. what happens you go to pick up the child and the parent decides you're not seeing them, you can call the police. now you're back in court. sometimes it can be years that you don't see your children. that's just the reality of it. >> what's it been like for you to be alienated from your kids? >> i'm a veteran and i'm a police officer. there's nothing i've ever faced in life harder than this. at the end all i care to be is father and for my phone to ring

and know my child still loves me. that's all i really care about. >> host of this is life lisa ling is joining us now. you talk to fathers facing a number of situations. why is it so hard for them to maintain relationships with their kids? >> well, as we all know divorce is pretty rampant in this country and very often it can become extremely contentious. w when courts and lawyers are involved, it can get messy. if a custodial parent is designated, it's the mother. it happens in about 80% of the cases. what often happens with the fathers is they become alienated from their kids. the kids don't really know why

dad is not around. it's a very serious issue for people who don't have custody of their kids. >> we look forward to your episode. it is eye opening when you think about the situation and really explore it in depth. i know you talked to the so called deadbeat deaads and ther are those who want to be involved but can't financially support. you get into the issues. i wish we had more time to discuss. thank you very mump fch for bei with us. tune in tonight. georgia's democrat candidate for governor filing a lawsuit in federal court this hour challenging the rejection of thousands of absentee ballots. we'll have the details when we come back. cal: we saved our money and now, we get to spend it - our way. ♪ valerie: but we worry if we have enough to last.

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welcome back. tonight is a special night here on cnn. it is the final episode of "parts unknown." anthony boundary is taking us through new york's lower east side. here's a preview. >> i remember thompkins square. after the police fenced it off, it was in a lot of people's minds the end of an era. >> great, now we're going to have a neighborhood and everything is going to be great. but an came the gentrification. so the whole concept of america is being wiped up because you can't pull yourselves by the boot straps anymore because you can't get in the game. gentrification has affected the whole city. you have to now make a huge amount of money to be here.

they got the skyscrapers in midtown that are sold in million-dollar apartments and no one can live in them. >> i remember those buildings with absentee owners. is that all that's going to be left in new york? >> yes. there was always something that brought it back. but once you fill it with the corporate world, it's never going back. so we turned the corner that we will never go back again. so it's over. >> it's over? >> it's over. >> the final episode of anthony boundary "parts unknown" airs tonight at 9:00 here on cnn. this is big! t-mobile is offering the awesome iphone xr with an unlimited plan for just $40 bucks a month. unlimited. with the new iphone xr?! yeah, iphone xr included. for $40 bucks?! that is big.

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you are live in the "cnn newsroom." thank you for being with me. i'm ana cabrera in new york. our breaking news right now, more people confirmed dead in the most horrific fire emergency california has endured in nearly 30 years. what's making this disaster even more awful is that it's not even close to over. the most destruction thus far is in northern california north of sacramento. a wildfire there as consumed more than 100,000 acres and literally everything built on it, and anything in its path. look at these cars. firefighters say in a matter of days about 6,500 family homes have burned down. the human toll from the wildfires across the state, 25 people so far found dead. more than 100 others still missing. officials and family members