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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Monster Hurricane Milton Making Landfall In Florida; Category-3 Hurricane Milton Makes Landfall Near Siesta Key, Florida; Catastrophic Flooding Situation Developing In Tampa Area; Eyewall Has 120 MPH Winds, Up To 13 Feet Of Storm Surge Possible. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired October 09, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is going to be a very difficult situation for folks that have decided to shelter in place, especially in those evacuation zones, we'll keep you posted on the very latest as we get it -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, of course, as you are watching that happening and we should let our viewers know that already as that eyewall has started to come on shore there, many places already saying that there will be no response if you call 911, they are already unable to send any emergency responders out as this eyewall has hit land.
These next few hours, so catastrophic for Florida. Our breaking news coverage continues now with Anderson.
[20:00:34]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Welcome to a Special Edition of AC360.
I'm Anderson Cooper in Bradenton, Florida, where the winds have really picked up significantly just in the last 10 minutes or so, they are really starting to whip here in downtown by the river.
I just want to -- you can get a sense of sort of the winds. It's sort of hard to tell when you're actually in it, but you can get a sense in the light over there, there's just been a steady downpour of rain and you can see it there. It reflected in the light.
As I was talking to Erin in the last hour, there is a lot of -- along the river here, there's a lot of palm trees, a lot of these really large branches of these palm trees are just ripping off flying through the air and they're sort of littered all over the ground.
I want to walk just -- if I can over here, a little bit and show you the Manatee River is over here. Pinellas is that way, about 10 minutes ago, we could see lights over in Pinellas, excuse me, in Palmetto, we don't see the lights over there anymore. I don't know if they're still there and just the visibility is so down. I think that's what it is. I think they still have lights, but we have seen a number of what looked like transformers exploding, just that flash of blue light. It is a very distinctive blue light.
We've seen that over the last 10 or 15 minutes or so. There's a lot to get to in this hour. Randi Kaye is positioned south of us in Sarasota. We've got Bill Weir. We also have Boris Sanchez who is in Tampa, Florida.
Bill Weir is in Saint Petersburg. But I want to go to Chad Myers first, just getting an overview of where -- okay, let's go to Randi right now. Randi, let's check in with you. What's the conditions and Sarasota?
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, here in Sarasota, though, the rain has let up a little bit but the winds have certainly picked up. In fact, there is a lot of flying debris that we are experiencing around us.
This is a fan blade that came down just a short time ago from a fan that was above us on a porch. And then if I walk over here, you can see what's happening.
This fence belongs to the house that we are next to. This fence came down just a short time ago with the force of the winds. We're told that we've had 74 mile an hour gust here in the last hour. And then this was just some sort of tarp that they had up.
You could see some power lines are down, so we don't have any power here. We lost power, so we are not especially concerned about those power lines, but they could whip up in these strong winds.
But this is what were concerned about, things like flying debris, things that are airborne as a result of these strong winds. We've also seen those transformers blow that you were talking about that sort of greenish-blue light that comes in the sky very suddenly, but it's really -- it's the winds and were getting the warnings to shelter-in- place on our phones.
Really, it's good news. I will tell you that most of the people in this neighborhood have evacuated, Anderson. The home next door that was here where the fence came down is all boarded up. Many of the homes are the same way. So, that is the good news, so hopefully, Anderson, when the storm gets --
COOPER: What level of storm surge are they expecting there in Sarasota? Randi, what level of storm surge are they expecting --
KAYE: Here we are expecting -- it was originally 10 -- yes, it was originally 10 to 15. Now, its nine to 13 here. We're about a half a mile or so from the water we pulled back from Evacuation Zone A, where the water is to be a little bit safe for this evening. But they are expecting now about nine to 13 foot storm surge.
They had a seven-foot storm surge for Helene, so they are certainly concerned here -- Anderson.
COOPER: Wow. Yes, I mean, if it's 13 feet, that's going to be a real issue. Here, the estimate -- last estimate I heard was as high as nine feet, but we are going to check in with Chad Myers shortly.
I do want to go to Boris Sanchez, who's over in Tampa. Boris, how are conditions there?
SANCHEZ: Yes, Anderson, so we had to actually move from where we were right on the water on Tampa Bay because conditions were just deteriorating very rapidly.
You had very, very intense wind, you had the storm surge pushing waves, pounding them against the seawall. And there was debris nearby from Hurricane Helene. So, we found it is safer to move further inland by a couple of miles.
Here in Tampa proper, we are experiencing very heavy rainfall. We've had about six inches over the last few hours. We're expected to get between two and three every hour until the storm passes. That means were going to see an additional five to eight over the next few hours, totaling about a foot of rainfall.
[20:05:11]
You add that to the storm surge you were just outlining with Randi, at last check we were expecting something at least -- a storm surge of at least eight feet, somewhere between eight and 10 feet here. Obviously, that would be devastating for this area considering that Tampa Bay is such a prominent part of the community.
We've talked to folks, residents that have been coming out and trying to survey the damage throughout the day. Some of them were taking pictures along the bay earlier thankfully, right now at this hour, we don't see folks around us.
I was informed by the crew that actually, as you can see behind the lights, just took a hit. I was just about to say there was a bit of a brownout for a few minutes, moments ago, the crew was telling me. At any moment the lights can go out here, obviously, a precarious situation.
We've heard from residents that have decided to try to ride out the storm and told us that they believe that they have everything they need. Hopefully, they are heeding the warnings from officials to shelter in place and stay inside because there is no doubt, given the amount of rain that we've seen come down, there is going to be extensive flooding throughout the area.
Some roads on the way over to this location were already difficult to get through with flooding. I can imagine that in the next few hours that's just going to get worse and worse -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. Boris, thank you.
I want to go to Bill Weir, who is in St. Petersburg.
Bill, I saw you about an hour-and-a-half ago. It's the last time I was able to see TV because the TVs are out here. There are a lot of waves crashing behind you. How are things now? BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we moved. Those waves got too scary, to be honest. The St. Petersburg Pier is where we were next to the Municipal Yacht Basin. We watch these things just get bigger and bigger by the minute. So we decamped down here to sort of the central business district of St. Petersburg.
Hotels, it is easier to find shelter, but it still gives you a sense of how things look because thankfully, we still have the power here, that's not expected to hold. We had an 89-mile an hour gusts not too long ago. And so, I don't know that we're going to keep this power through the night.
But lot of evacuees in the hotel where we're staying, a lot of folks with families, dogs, elderly folks, hoping for the best by heeding the very good advice to get out of the way of this storm.
But as we peek around the corner, come on over, Carlos, we'll duck out here, we can brave it just you can get a sense of what an abandoned St. Petersburg looks like.
As these gales just really start to kick up, we can peek around the corner here. It's so dramatic in these lights, once the wind speed, Anderson, gets over 50 miles an hour, Manatee County, Pinellas County, they stop responding to 911 calls and so, certainly at this point people are where they are and hopefully, they made the right decisions on where to be.
You can see some pooling, the flooding here, for anybody who's been through this especially the folks in the Carolinas who just went through Helene realize that when the sun comes out, the problems just begin when you have all the mud and the water and you have to worry about the drywall molding and the kids can't go back to school and already, Helene has ravaged the west coast of Florida, 10 days before this one now and a lot of people's belongings were in big piles in front of their houses.
The worry is, is that the surge is going to blend that up in the most violent way. So I don't know if you can get a sense of it here, Anderson, but it is really coming down, really blowing hard here in St. Pete.
COOPER: Yes, it remains to be seen what the wind does and what the water does is this -- it is a largely, a wind event? Is it largely a water -- a flooding event? I think the flooding right now is probably the biggest fear because obviously it was, it's a Cat 3, still an incredibly strong storm and again, we'll check in with Chad Myers shortly, but I want to go to Carlos Suarez, who is in Fort Myers.
Carlos, that area was hit really hard, Hurricane Ian, 150 people died in 2022 with Hurricane Ian. How are things there right now?
CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, you and Bill, were talking about how much of a flooding event this is going to be. That is exactly the case for folks that live in Southwest Florida.
I'm going to walk here. I'm going to try to at least to show you a bit of the flooding that were seeing here in Fort Myers. All this water right now is coming from the Caloosahatchee River, which is to my left here. It's really difficult to see because it's just -- it's nightfall out here and it's pretty dark because we've lost some power in the area, but that water right now has started to breach the seawall. And so, it is just pushing its way into Fort Myers.
As you said, this part of Fort Myers was destroyed, was flooded out by Hurricane Ian in 2022. This part of Lee County, I was covering right after the hurricane hit and all of this was under at the time about 10 feet of storm surge and so what we're expecting the next couple of hours and into tomorrow, is more of this flooding.
We're expected to see anywhere right now, at least according to the forecast, is between eight to maybe 12 feet of storm surge when everything is said and done.
[20:10:35]
Anderson, to give you some context and perspective, Hurricane Ian again, made a direct landfall here in Lee County and the storm surge was well over 10 feet across this part of Lee County and the storm which is going to make landfall where you are to the north of me, it is not going to make a direct impact here and we're talking about some flooding that might be at that number if not higher.
And we're already starting to get a better grasp of some of the flooding out in Collier County in Naples and out in Fort Myers Beach, where about four feet of water has started to make its way inland and that number again is only going to grow hour by hour as we go through the night and we hit high tide around midnight and one o'clock in the morning -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, and obviously, there's beautiful barrier islands off Bradenton, also, I mean, all along this coast, obviously, we are going to be waiting for word there.
I want to check in with Chad Myers.
Chad, the last estimate I heard of some 500,000 people in Florida maybe without power at this stage. Where is this storm? How strong is it? What should we expect?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is not on land yet. The eyewall has made landfall, but the center of the eye has not. So, we haven't even seen 50 percent of this storm. So, that's where the reset all happens.
And where Randi Kaye is, that barrier island to her west is going to be over washed. She is going to get significant surge there. That's why they pulled back.
Where you are, you are up here in the eyewall itself. You are not going to get the eye. You're not going to get real calm winds. You're going to get the backside of this. Where our Bill Weir is up here in St. Pete, he's just going to be in wind, heavy rain, hundred mile per hour winds basically for the next four hours. The problem is we've had so much rainfall in so many places and we've had the wind, the high wind warning, treat it like a small tornado is on the ground.
We had a bunch of tornadoes on the east side of Florida earlier. At least that weather has moved off shore. We had a lot of sunshine earlier in the day, that heated the ground. That heat and the hot weather there just made those tornadoes even stronger than they should have been. And we're probably thinking some of them were EF-3s. That typically doesn't happen in a hurricane, but it certainly did.
There is the eye, almost ready to come on shore, but the winds are going to be 115 in many spots for many, many hours. And the surge is still going to be another three to four hours before it gets to its highest spot. So just because you look out and say, the storm is here, there's no surge. It's still coming. I promise you. It is still coming, nine to 10 to 12 feet in some spots and we're still going to get the wind all the way across to the eastern part of the state.
We're going to have power outages in Orlando, we're going to have power outages in Daytona because this is still going to be a hurricane as it exits the East Coast.
And to the north of the eye, this is typically the other way around. But because there's a front up here, to the north of the eye path, there's going to be 10 to 15 more inches of rainfall that could be flooding from Orlando northward, possibly The Villages, but certainly as far east as Daytona, Cocoa Beach, lots and lots of rainfall with this.
We're not even started yet. Just put another pot a coffee on. We'll be here all night.
COOPER: I've been drinking coffee all day. That's all I've been consuming, so I apologize if I'm a little wired.
Hey, Chad, you mentioned, I think it was last night something that I think is important to point out. I think some people are going to look at this and say, okay, it's down to a Cat 3, so, it's less strong, which is obviously good news.
The storm surge itself though. You pointed out last night and correct me if I'm wrong, that the storm surge is already what it is when it was a Cat 5, that that is what is coming, is that correct?
MYERS: That is correct, Anderson, because it was a Cat 5 high 4, really high five for a very long time. It was building the water under it, pushing the water toward the shore. Now, that bubble of water is just now getting there, even though this is now a Cat 3, we're not going to have Cat 3 surge. We're going to have the equivalent of a Cat 4 or 5 surge.
Now, the good news is at least for now is that it's not a direct perpendicular hit its slightly glancing. When you glance the water, sometimes the water kind runs down the shore a little bit and doesn't just slosh right over those barrier islands. But I assume that some of those barrier islands are getting very close to being breached from the shore, from the ocean all the way back into the back bay. And when that happens, we can get cuts through those islands.
We can have roads that disappear and I'm afraid we're going to have homes that disappear as well.
[20:15:14]
COOPER: Yes, Chad, I'll check in with you throughout the night. I want to go to Meghan Martin in St. Petersburg. I talked to her last night. She is at the hospital where she works. She's brought her kids there as well so that they can be safe and she can continue working.
Dr. Martin, I appreciate you being with us. How are things right now? What are you seeing?
MEGHAN MARTIN, PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, ST. PETERSBURG: The weather right now, you can tell is really deteriorating. I'm not far away from where Bill is. And the wind is whipping. It is super loud. The rain is super just -- it is pounding the windows and the doors. We've had to kind of put towels up because some of the water is starting to just leak in from below.
The ambulances have just stopped running. So right now, we're not going to be getting any patients by ambulance, but there are still people coming in the front doors that are just trying to get their kiddos that are sick, just trying to get them in here.
My kiddos are still safe and they had a great time today at the kid zone. So, we're just hunkering down and watching the weather.
COOPER: Yes, you said you were giving them endless screen time. I hope the power doesn't go out to the batteries don't run out so that they their screens don't go blank. Just in terms of, I mean, you -- the hospital obviously has its own power source, so has it ever lost power in a storm?
We absolutely lose power, but the generators kick on very quickly. Some flickering now, so the generators kick on and then that will restore power to the hospital and we'll continue to be able to function.
COOPER: And how long do you expect to stay there? I mean how long like a shift are you working?
MARTIN: I'm working my normal 10 to 12-hour shifts and I will be here until the recovery team is able to come and tag me out. So, if the weather is bad and the roads are bad and they can't get here for another day or two after the storm is done, then I'm here until they're able to get here to relieve me.
COOPER: We saw it when I was driving in earlier this morning, I saw a lot of a long lines of ambulances heading north. I assume they were taking patients to hospitals out of the danger zone, which is certainly a good thing to see.
I really appreciate talking to you. I want to go back to -- I wish you the best and everybody who is working at the hospital. Thank you for what you're doing.
I want to go to Randi Kaye, who is in Sarasota.
Randi, where are you and what are you seeing?
KAYE: Anderson, we're about a half-mile from the water from South Shore Drive here in Sarasota and it's really interesting what just happened just in the last few moments. When we talked just a few minutes ago, the wind was kicking up, but it was a little bit difficult to stand. We were talking about projectiles around the neighborhood from debris and fences coming down.
Right now, it seems as if were either in the eye or very close to being in the eye because there's a sense of a bit of a tranquility. The rain has really come to a stop. There's a bit of a drizzle. There goes my hat, after I was saying that, and obviously there's still a little bit of wind around here, but, Anderson, there is a sense of just -- it is a bit more tranquil here.
I mean, you know, when the eye approaches, when you get close, people tend to come outside. They think it's safe. That's not what we want people to do, of course, because they think it's over, it's not over. This is just a break for us as the eye passes -- Anderson.
COOPER: Do you have -- have you gotten any sense of how many people sought shelter or how many people are in shelters and Sarasota?
KAYE: Yes, it's interesting. There are a number of shelters open and they were all allowing pets because they wanted to make sure that people didn't abandon their pets during a storm like this, but they were -- they were pretty full.
There was one -- one couple I noticed that they had not evacuated for Helene. They were very concerned about Milton, so they decided to go to a shelter and they did some shelter shopping. They wanted to find the right shelter, but the shelters have been crowded.
From what I understand, I spoke to the Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert, and she told me that people have certainly been heeding the warnings and going to the shelters this time around -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Randi, thanks so much. I want to go to Chief Tokajer in Palmetto, Florida.
Chief, how are things there at the moment? Whoa. We're just getting a big gust right now, apologies. So, Palmetto is right across Manatee from where I am. Chief, how are things in Palmetto?
CHIEF WILLIAM TOKAJER, HOLMES BEACH POLICE: Very windy, really rainy, but we're hunkered down at the condo that I live in and our island is all buttoned up and we are hoping for the best. COOPER: Do you have a sense of -- obviously, there's millions of people under mandatory evacuation orders. Do you have a sense of what percentage of people in your community actually did evacuate?
[20:20:14]
TOKAJER: I think that there was somewhere between 98 and a hundred percent of people that did evacuated evacuate from Holmes Beach. We made the message clear that this was not the storm to hunker down in. This is not Helene. We're not going to be able to get out and rescue you. All first responders left the island when the wind started picking up somewhere around 11 or noon and people were on their own after that and we made it clear that we would not be coming in rescuing like we did with Helene.
COOPER: In terms of -- do you have electricity because I was looking it -- I could see the lights in Palmetto about half an hour ago. I don't see any, I can't tell if it's just that we have no visibility here. Do you still have electricity?
TOKAJER: I do. I'm in the towers across -- I am in the tall towers that are right on the same grid, I think as Manatee Memorial Hospital. So, we stay powered up most of the time.
COOPER: In terms of the capabilities for law enforcement, fire rescue, at this point, I assume everything is shut down when do you decide, okay, it's safe to go out?
TOKAJER: In the morning, we are going to muster up and were going to get the first-in teams. We're going to make sure that the roads and the bridges are clear. And once we can get out to the island and see that the bridges are still there, the roads are still there, and that no power lines are down, then we can clean the roads as much as we can and then we'll start letting residents back out once we get it under control.
COOPER: Well, Chief, I really appreciate all you're doing and thank you very much. Thanks for being with us.
I want to go to the mayor of Tampa right now, Jane Castor. Mayor, what's your message to folks in this area? How are things in Tampa right now?
MAYOR JANE CASTOR, TAMPA, FLORIDA: Well, we're --
COOPER: We lost the mayor, obviously.
The winds have definitely picked up just a little bit as you can tell, just a couple of gust but for now it seems -- again, I can't tell how much of this is going to be in this area, in Bradenton, a wind event, how much the water is going to come.
Again, they were expecting as much as nine feet of storm surge and Chad Myers, who was saying there are still many hours left in this thing that that is likely coming. So, obviously, that's going to be one thing we are watching for. I'm sorry, repeat that.
Okay, let's go to Sara Lesker (ph) who's riding out the storm in St, Petersburg. Sara, I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time hearing you, but how are you doing? You're riding out the storm in St. Petersburg, where are you we are you?
SARA LESKER, RIDING OUT THE STORM IN ST. PETERSBURG: We are, we are in St. Petersburg, right on Central Avenue. We could lose power any second so before I do, I just want to say, hey, Anderson Cooper but now it's very serious over here. It's pretty scary. We see transformers going everywhere. So, we're just kind of hunkering down.
COOPER: Have you been through storms before and if so, what are your thoughts about this one so far?
LESKER: Anderson, I just moved here two months ago from Long Island, New York. So no, I have not felt anything like this before. Helene was the first --
COOPER: So as a first timer, as a New Yorker what's that like?
LESKER: It's definitely -- I'm getting like news alerts on my phone right now probably, yes, flood warning but it's different, you know, the weather here is different. We expected storms and sunshine, but I don't think we expected like two hurricanes in less than 10 days, so.
COOPER: I understand you have a 15-month-old beautiful little girl and two cats as well, is your daughter -- I hope she's sleeping through the night.
LESKER: My daughter is watching "Trolls" right now. She's not sleeping through the night yet. She probably never will. My cats also don't sleep through the night, but everybody is safe right now. That's most important.
COOPER: And did you stack up on supplies because a lot of, obviously, you know, stores closed down here at a certain point today. I was able to get some supplies about three hours north of here before coming into this area at a Kroger, I think it was. Do you have all those supplies you need?
[20:25:11]
LESKER: So, yesterday, we actually tried evacuating to Georgia and right before we had to turn back around because there was no gas. We went to a Target. I think it was like an hour-and-a-half north also. I was able to get a couple of things. So we have enough supplies. We have enough milk for baby -- we're just -- we're doing the best I can, have some candles, tee lights in case we lose power which it probably will.
COOPER: Yes, well, listen, I wish you and your family the best and we'll check in with you because I'm curious -- whoa -- something just snapped, that's never a good sound. I'm curious to just talk to you after this is done to see your first experience, it's always kind of scary to face something that's so unknown. But I wish you the best and I'm glad you're safe. Thanks you so much, Sara.
LESKER: Thank you, Anderson --
COOPER: I want to go to Boris Sanchez in Tampa. Boris --
Oh, you take care.
Hey, Boris, how are you doing?
SANCHEZ: Hey, Anderson, yes, the wind has been sweeping us. It's been coming in bands, it kind of pushes you around. And obviously the rain is still coming down at a really, really intense rate. We just got an alert on our devices warning of flash flooding, because again, the amount of rain that's going to come down over the next few hours is really eye-opening.
We're looking at five to eight additional inches of rain on top of the six that have already come down. That puts us at a foot or above. And I'm listening because there's a tree right by me that is kind of swaying ominously.
We saw the lights in this area. This is a commercial area a mile or so off of the water of Tampa Bay. The lights have been flickering, so they're definitely taking hits to the power here.
Where we were just a short time ago on Tampa Bay, the water there was intense. There were very heavy waves hitting the seawall. Earlier in the day, we watched that water recede because of the easterly wind and then it came back with significant force. It would not surprise me to see extensive flooding not only in that area, but in these neighborhoods.
As we were coming over here, there was a lot of flooding. There was difficult water that we had to traverse. Fortunately, one thing that I have seen change in a positive direction over the last few hours, I haven't seen any residents outside as of the last hour or so.
Earlier in the day, there were people outside on Tampa Bay, taking pictures. This is as very strong winds and very punishing rain were coming down. The rain kind of feels like BB pellets on your skin and you'd think you've got people outside taking photographs, something that officials have been warning about. There had been a shelter and place recommendation from officials since early on this afternoon.
Again, fortunately, no significant damage where we are right now, but obviously, as you get closer to the water of Tampa Bay, that changes and that could change here as well in the next few hours as we get more and more rain -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, hey, Boris, I just want to -- Neil (ph), can we go walk over the river? Can you -- are you able to do that? I just want to walk and just show people a little bit just -- I want to take a look at the Manatee River, because earlier, it was still -- it wasn't -- it was starting to come up on the riverwalk but it's -- you can tell, like the ground here. Obviously, this is a sand, the ground here is very, very wet. It's been raining for many hours. You can see trees here, the branches of these palm trees that have blown off they're over here.
You can see them over there as we, littering the ground. There's more here, but this is the Manatee River. And it is -- it's still several feet below the top of the walk of the riverwalk. You can tell -- you get a sense of how bad the visibility is. That's a bridge right over there. You can see some of the lights are still on the bridge.
But as I said, you can barely see, we were talking to chief of police in Palmetto, he was saying they do have electricity. You can now sort of see some lights over there, but again, visibility is really down.
Boris, in terms of storm surge, do you have any sense of has there been flooding in Tampa or is there -- I mean, obviously, the ground is really wet from so much rain. Has there actually been surge yet?
SANCHEZ: It's hard to tell, Anderson, because as we were leaving from where we are, it seemed like it was about to creep in. We were at a park that was right on Tampa Bay. We were looking at Tampa, the urban center of Tampa's skyline and throughout the day that just got cloudier and cloudier as you could imagine and the water was starting to hit the seawall.
I can tell you that as we drove away into the neighborhood that was right next to that, there were some buildings right next to that park, the water, I didn't get off the car, but the water started to get right to the bumper of our car.
We had an intense amount of splash back on her windshield, and so we slowed to make sure that we were in the center of the road that we weren't going to get in any trouble. And then as we got out of there, it lightened up, even though there were catches in other neighborhoods.
I have to imagine that as the hours go on, that neighborhood is going to experience significant flooding just because of the location where it is. It's hard to say with any amount of certainty whether the storm surge has gone over and into that park, but it would not be a surprise if it did, it was a part of the evacuation zone that officials had asked folks to get out of -- Anderson.
[20:30:27]
COOPER: Boris, you've been out there really all afternoon. I was watching you on television, earlier when I still had had a TV to watch. In terms of what you have seen all day, how does now compare to, I mean, is this the worst of it or was it worse a few an hour or so ago?
SANCHEZ: It obviously depends on location and where you are and even timing, because obviously this is a storm that has a significant size and its bands cover a long stretch of Florida's coast. Earlier in the day, where we were over by Tampa Bay, the rain was certainly more intense. It was coming down almost completely horizontally. But obviously now, we're in a different location. We've gotten intense wind. I think the wind is definitely stronger now than it was before, but obviously, it's going to change as time goes on.
I think that as we've gotten closer to landfall, overall, we've seen significantly more rain and I think that is going to be the challenge, at least for this community moving forward, Anderson.
COOPER: Yeah. All right. Boris, I want to take a short break. We'll be back with more of our coverage from Florida. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:55]
COOPER: Welcome back. We're coming to you from Bradenton. We have just gotten word that Hurricane Milton, the eye has made landfall in Siesta Key, which is some seven miles or so south of Sarasota, which is south of where we are in that direction. Tampa is north of us, which is over there, and that's where Mayor Jane Castor is. I want to check in with her.
Mayor, I'm sorry we lost contact with you before. How are you doing? How are the people of Tampa doing? MAYOR JANE CASTOR, TAMPA, FLORIDA: We're doing all right now, Anderson, where the gusts are just kicking it outside here of the Emergency Operations Center. But, we are, I guess in a bad situation, a bit fortunate that we didn't have this storm on the north side of Tampa Bay. It hit us on the south side, so that'll save us from the most severe of the storm surge. But we are getting that wind and we're definitely getting the rain.
COOPER: So, that's good news. In terms of, have you seen much storm surge at this point? Is it something you still expect, or do you think that, I mean, where are we in sort of the arc of this storm in terms of Tampa?
CASTOR: We're definitely going to get the storm surge, but we're not going to get the 15 feet that was predicted in the onset, with that direct hit, we are a bit north. So, the prediction now is anywhere from six to nine feet. If you recall, we had four to six feet for Hurricane Helene, so expected a little bit higher than that, but they're all predictions.
COOPER: And now that the eye has come ashore in Siesta Key, what are your people telling you in terms of the timeline for Tampa for this night? What should people --
CASTOR: Yeah.
COOPER: -- who are staying at home or in shelters, what should they be expecting over the next several hours in Tampa?
CASTOR: Well, hopefully, they're just sheltering in place right now, because the next few hours are going to be rough here in Tampa, with the wind, the wind gusts. The rain has not stopped and the whole Tampa Bay area is already saturated. And then with the storm surge coming as well, we're looking about probably at 1:00 a.m., maybe 2:00 a.m. that hopefully, (inaudible) by the Tampa Bay area.
COOPER: So, you feel by 2:00 a.m., it should be much calmer?
CASTOR: Oh, yes, we hope so. It's going to move through pretty fast and we're -- you're in it now and we're feeling the same thing. We're getting on the top of the storm, the north side. We're getting really pounded by the wind, more so than the bottom of the hurricane. But, they're getting the worst of it, which is the storm surge. So, we'll take the wind part of that hurricane any day.
COOPER: So that would mean, if in fact that that holds up and obviously, this is -- you can't say for sure. But if it's 2:00 a.m., that would mean that emergency services could go out around then?
CASTOR: Right. We're -- we just take it as it comes. We've got sort of that rule of thumb at about 40 miles an hour sustained winds. But our first responders are here to serve our community, and they're going to go out and do what they need to do to help our community as long as it's safe for them.
COOPER: Yeah. Well, mayor, I wish you the best. Thank you so much. We'll check in with you throughout the night, I hope.
I do want to go to Randi Kaye, who's in Sarasota. Randi, you're about seven or so miles, correct me if I'm wrong, north of Siesta Key, where the eye has made landfall. What are you seeing?
KAYE: Yeah, Anderson, we're just about -- it's about a 20-minute drive or so. And we know that the bridge, of course, to Siesta Key and those Barrier Islands was closed at 7:00 p.m. last night.
[20:40:00]
So if anybody was still in Siesta Key or nearby, they had to ride out Hurricane Milton there, as that eye came over. Right here in Sarasota, even though we're not that far from where the eye came over, it is extremely calm right now. There is a little bit of rainfall, but the winds have completely died down. These fences were blown over from the winds just a short time ago. Those wind gusts, we saw one gust that was about 74 miles per hour or so, and this cloth that had been up on these columns here before, this was whipping, Anderson, in the wind, and now it's just on the ground. You can see, that just shows you how much the winds have died down. They're actually gone.
We've seen some emergency vehicles coming through already. The water is pretty deep in the street near me, but some emergency vehicles are making their way around and those transformers continue to blow around us, but we have seen some lights come on. There's a hotel not too far from us, and we saw that is now lit up. So again, this is the calm before things pick up again, Anderson, as you know. It's not the time to come outside.
COOPER: Yeah. All right, Randi, thanks. I want to go to Aaron Jayjack, a storm chaser who is in Punta Gorda. Aaron, I appreciate you joining us. How are things there? I mean, everybody remembers Aaron Jayjack, Hurricane Charley 2004. People thought it was going to hit Tampa. I think I was up in Tampa that day. It ended up slamming into Aaron Jayjack with just horrible, horrible devastation.
AARON JAYJACK, STORM CHASER: Yeah, that's right, Anderson. Just two years ago, Hurricane Ian hammered Punta Gorda are here. Well, right now, you can see behind me, I'm standing in the ocean. The storm surge has come ashore here in Punta Gorda over the last couple of hours. And I'm at about two feet of water right here. And we're probably five to seven feet of water above sea level at this location. So you can imagine that the surge is probably about seven feet right now here at Punta Gorda and still coming in, kind of coming in like a tsunami now all of a sudden in the last 20 minutes.
We're getting strong winds here, very dry, not much rain, and the occasional power flashes. But fortunately, here in Punta Gorda right now, we do have power. But I'm in this hotel (inaudible) and it's completely surrounded by the ocean waters here that have surged into the downtown area of Punta Gorda.
COOPER: How much storm surge were they expecting in Punta Gorda?
JAYJACK: Anderson, here in Punta Gorda, the AccuWeather Network has predicted about 10 to 15 feet of surge. I think we'll probably get around that 10 feet of surge. We are on the southern part of the storm. We are where the surge will be the most impactful here in Punta Gorda and also where you're at as well, all the way up in Bradenton (ph) is expecting those highest surge.
So we're still -- I think I expect another couple of feet to come in here into Punta Gorda over the next couple of hours. And we'll probably be trapped here at this location where I'm at for at least a day until this water is able to release back into the harbor, Port Charlotte Harbor, which is just to my north here, about 500 yards or so.
COOPER: So you are still -- you're expecting to see a fair amount of water coming in over the next couple hours?
JAYJACK: Absolutely. It's rising right now. Just in the last 15 minutes, it's come up about six or seven inches. It's continuing to rise. In fact, there's these posts right here (inaudible) these were not in the water 15 minutes ago. The water is still rising here. It's surrounding this (inaudible). All these businesses here in Punta Gorda are just getting inundated with water and they are still trying to recover from Hurricane Helene just two weeks ago.
There's piles of debris all over the place here at Punta Gorda from the storm surge that flooded houses here, trying to get that debris out, they just didn't have enough time. And now, here we are, yet again, another major hurricane bringing significant storm surge into this community.
COOPER: Yeah, it's the last thing a lot of -- I mean, anybody here needs is another storm like this given what happened just a couple weeks ago with Helene. Aaron Jayjack, thank you for joining us. We'll talk to you a little bit later on as the night continues.
I want to go to Brian Todd, who is up in Tampa. Brian, where are you in Tampa? And we just talked to the mayor. She was saying she's hopeful that maybe 2:00 a.m., things will be much calmer. Hopefully by then, emergency service services can go out.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right Anderson, maybe by 2:00 a.m., it will be calmer. But right now, I can tell you that we are pretty much at the most violent stage that this storm has been here in Tampa. You can see just the force of this storm all around me. This, the water here on Howard Avenue in downtown Tampa is starting to build up. The flooding is starting to happen, a lot of flash flooding around me.
I mean, just look at the volume of rainfall behind me. This is why they're calling for maybe a catastrophic flooding event here in Tampa because at least six inches of rain have already fallen. There's going to be another five to eight inches of rain in the next six hours.
[20:45:00]
And just, you can see, Anderson, just check this out. The force of this rain all around me is really, I mean, the word is violent. That's the way you can describe it. As the mayor said, it is not so much a storm surge event right now in Tampa as it is a rain event, and you can see the volumes of water behind me. That means that if you take a look at Howard Avenue here, as I kind of slosh around in this, this means that drains are going to overflow, sewers are going to overflow. They're already overflowing here on Howard Avenue.
You've got canals near here that are going to top off and start to maybe push into some of these streets. You can see this is already happening. This is -- the street behind me is completely covered with water. Howard Avenue here is almost completely flooded. We've had a couple of vehicles come by here in the last few minutes, not a good decision by these people, including a motorcyclist who came by here. I don't know what he was thinking, but he got past here just barely.
So, it's really now a matter of wind and rain and volume and people having to withstand that. It is really not safe to be out in this, whether you're in a vehicle or anything else, Anderson.
COOPER: Yeah. Well, Brian, be careful. Let's check in with Carlos Suarez in Fort Myers. Carlos?
SUAREZ: Anderson, It's a little bit difficult -- I can't really hear you right now, so I'm just going to go ahead and give you a sense of what's happening here in Fort Myers, Florida. I am parallel to the Caloosahatchee River and it's about one or two feet from, at this point, just breaching this sea wall to my left. What you're looking at here is the wind and the storm surge associated with this hurricane, that is right now pushing its way inland.
This is the concern that officials had with this storm, especially as that forecasted path still took that hurricane to the north of us here. We are looking at a -- the forecast for the storm surge overnight and into tomorrow, at this point, is probably closer to six to eight, perhaps even nine feet. The initial forecast was calling for between eight to 12 feet of flooding. That number though, looks like it is going to come in a little bit under.
To the south of me, out on Fort Myers Beach and down in Collier County and in Naples, that part of Southwest Florida is, right now, seeing about four to five feet of storm surge. And that's because, again, as that storm moved through, what ends up happening is that all of this water is being pushed in from the Gulf of Mexico. And when it comes to the Caloosahatchee River, the rainfall that is falling across parts of Lake Okeechobee and even Central Florida, that water is also starting to come down.
And so what happens here is, you have the Gulf coming in on one side of the river, you've got the rain and the flooding coming in from the other part of the river, and when it comes here, it has nowhere else to go. And so, this is why what's happening here behind me is kind of taking place. There's some greenery behind me, this kind of landscape yard here. This will be underwater in a matter of hours.
Anderson, I was out here, during Hurricane Ian, and this is something similar that we saw. And so, this part is just getting ready for what's going to be a really long and difficult couple of hours going into tonight and into tomorrow morning. Anderson?
SUAREZ: Yeah, Carlos, thank you. Let's check in back with Bill St. Petersburg. Bill, I mean, you have been there all day. You've been reporting on this. Where do things stand now, and just in terms of the expectation of the storm surge to come?
WEIR: Well, it's interesting, Anderson, it seems at this point that St. Petersburg is going to remember Milton much more for rain and flooding, fresh water flooding than storm surge. Just because you got to think about Tampa Bay like your bathtub, the water sloshes around, the physics are different than it would be just on a coastal area open to the Gulf of Mexico.
But we're here downtown (inaudible) because we still have power and we have some light, I wanted to take you out here and see if I can get a look at these towers. I'm sort of obsessed with these construction towers that the city warned people about. There's four of them in this downtown area, 30, 40 stories high.
And it's sort of a metaphor, really an ironic metaphor for Florida these days. Even as it remains one of the most vulnerable states and places anywhere for climate change, the population is growing here by hundreds of people a day and so many transplants (ph) have never experienced the tropical storm, much less something like this. It might be too -- yeah, it's too much right now to see that high up. But you really get a sense as you look at the sign, the street sign, just whipping around there, Universal Way.
[20:50:00]
We at the corner of First and Universal, it is obviously blessedly deserted. I see one pair of headlights over there. I'm not sure what's going on, but we've gotten five inches of rain in the last two hours. Anderson, we're expected to get another five inches before the sun comes up. And so, the coastal folks may -- I'm sure -- COOPER: Well, you've got five inches of rain in the last two hours, that's incredible.
WEIR: -- places like Indian Shores and others. Five inches in two hours, exactly.
COOPER: Yeah, Bill, that's incredible.
WEIR: And it's just coming down in just deluges. Yeah, and it's not over. It's not over. And the ground is so saturated. The rivers are so swollen. There's no place for all this water to go. And the scientists were doing estimates on the trillions of gallons of water that were moved by Hurricane Helene. On a warmer planet, that's what happens. Our water cycles just get supercharged. The flash floods get flashier and the deluges get more intense. And this is what we're experiencing. As you can see, the street now, water is starting to cover there.
COOPER: Yeah. And so much water on the ground, it causes in some communities problems with --
WEIR: Back to you, Anderson.
COOPER: -- the sewage system, which we can talk about later. Bill, thank you. We'll check in with you.
I just want to give you a sense, if you've been watching for a while, you couldn't even see Palmetto across this body of water, the Manatee River right here. You can now see the lights of it, so you get a sense of the visibility, it has certainly improved in the last 30 minutes or so. When I was talking to the chief of police in Palmetto, you couldn't even see his location from here. So I'm glad that there is electricity over there, at least in the parts that I can see.
We're going to take a quick break. We'll have more from Florida. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:13]
COOPER: Hey, welcome back. We are in Bradenton. I've just gotten word that there have been a number of fatalities in St. Lucie, which is on the East Coast. This is from a tornado. We have some video of that tornado. St. Lucie County, we have a video of that tornado which struck earlier. Throughout the day, there have been dozens -- I think it was as many as 90 tornado warnings, which I think is a record here, in Florida, for one day.
Those were from some of the outer bands of the storm forming those tornadoes. I just want to also give you a sense, the situation has just changed. I mean, what's so fascinating about covering these hurricanes, everyone is different. I mean, you look at it on a map and being on the ground, it just -- it's so interesting how quickly things shift.
Just in the last two minutes before we came back from break, suddenly the Manatee River is now churning. We had seen some white caps on some water, but I mean, these are now, really, these are now waves churning on the Manatee River, and the water is really starting to come over. I mean, you can see it now just running. This is all water, both from the river and also water coming from higher ground from this rain, which has just been coming down, obviously, for much of the day.
But this is the first time we've really -- I don't know, Neil (ph), if you can even kind of come up and just get a sense of just how choppy this water has suddenly become, I guess, as the wind has shifted somewhat. But I'm very curious to see over the next how long whether this wind pattern lasts, how much water starts to come up here. But this is the river walk here.
This is the river walk here in Bradenton and we have been out here now for several hours. And this is really the first time -- this looks similar to what Bill Weir was experiencing in St. Petersburg about an hour or two ago, water really coming up on the piers there. This is the first time now that we are seeing this here.
Bill, I want to bring you in here in St. Petersburg because this reminds me of your live shot earlier in the day. It's just fascinating that this has just started here.
WEIR: Yeah. This is that, being on the northern side of this storm, we got the slop. We got so much more of the rain. Whoa, let's push forward. There goes the hat. And now, it's really gusting. That was a monster. That was a take your breath away -- whoa, watch out, watch out. Now, we see signs starting to flood boys. Back up, back up, back up. There's a construction sign that just is about to blow through this intersection.
COOPER: Whoa, I don't know if you saw, Bill, we just had a big transform -- it looked like a transformer over going off. And again, the water is really coming up. I I'm so wet, it doesn't even matter whether (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
WEIR: We've heard -- we've been hearing bangs.
COOPER: Go ahead.
WEIR: Yeah, we have been getting -- we have been hearing percussive bangs in the last couple seconds that we think might be transformers blowing, or maybe it's just signage getting smacked against the side of these buildings. But wow, it is really violent out here now, really cranky.
COOPER: Yeah.
WEIR: And the rain, as I said, five inches, this is really -- this is really --
(CROSSTALK)
WEIR: Another five inches to come. COOPER: Wow. It's really interesting to see this much water now starting to come up. And again, it's this water coming up from the Manatee River and it's higher -- the higher -- the ground is higher, about a hundred feet from there, and water is just pouring down from that direction here. And now, the wind is really picking up, just in the last couple of seconds and it's really whipping.
Our coverage continues all night long.
