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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Hurricane Milton Makes Landfall In Florida. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired October 09, 2024 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is CNN Breaking News.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip. Our colleague, Anderson Cooper, is here with us. He is in the middle of the hurricane in Milton, Florida. We're going to get to him in just a moment.

But first, this monster storm has made landfall tonight and it is right now rocking cities on Florida's west coast. We've got our reporters fanned out in all of these areas that are being the hardest hit.

But first, let's go to Boris Sanchez. Boris is in Tampa, Florida, a place where everyone believed for a long time had escaped so many of these storms. What are you seeing right now in the streets?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Abby, it has been roughly a hundred years since Tampa got a direct hit from a hurricane and it narrowly avoided one with Hurricane Milton. Nevertheless, the effects are being felt significantly here in Tampa tonight. We have seen an intense amount of rain come down upwards of 10 inches, in some parts close to 14. And just moments ago, about 30 seconds ago, the wind had started calming down, but now it is picking up once again.

And as you can see behind me in this neighborhood, the water continues to accumulate. This rainfall is roughly four to six months of what Tampa gets in a year, yeah, in just a matter -- rather, this is the kind of rain that Tampa gets in four to six months coming down in a day, Abby.

And I do want to point out there's at least one car that's stalled out further down the street. There was an elderly gentleman in it. He -- he, for some reason, stopped there. I don't know if his car stalled or he just stopped the car, but he got out and he started walking around. We try to make a contact with him, but he wasn't responding. He didn't seem to know exactly what was going on. Clearly not what you want to see in a situation like this with so many dangers.

You have powerful rain. You have winds that whip you around. They are starting to calm down, but nevertheless, it is a serious factor when you consider that there is debris scattered across this area, the western part of Florida, because of Hurricane Helene about two weeks ago. Beyond that, you have considerable storm surge.

We were in a location earlier tonight, right on Tampa Bay, watching the water start whipping the seawall. We actually had to get out of there because it was becoming too intense and it was a real danger. And so, we moved out of the way. That area right now, as we were getting out, was flooded. That was roughly 7 p.m., Abby. You can imagine what it looks like right now with so much rain coming down.

It is starting to slow down here as the storm moves to the northeast but, obviously, a lot of concern and a lot of danger out there for residents.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I can see that water moving behind you, Boris. Just a sign of perhaps what is to come as the hours go on. Boris, I know that Chad Myers is still with us and has a question for you.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST AND SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Well, Boris, earlier --

SANCHEZ: Yes, Chad.

MYERS: -- in the show, you know, you talked about how it was getting cold and that is a telltale sign that this storm is now interacting with an upper level storm and midlevel storm, a midlatitude storm with drier air in it.

Hurricanes are supposed to be warm. You're supposed to be sweating inside of your rain jacket as wet as it is on the outside of it. But that tells me something that this is going to continue to be a wind event because the colder, drier air that we're feeling here in Atlanta already is now interacting with the moisture from the hurricane, and so you're going to get more in the way of wind, especially east of you as well because it is going to move to the east.

But you just had an 85 mile-per-hour gust at the airport, and the people in Orlando, in Lakeland, and all the way up toward the northeast, they are going to feel the same type of rain and the same type of wind in the coming hours that you felt. This storm is not stopping because of that interaction.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, Chad, I thought -- genuinely, I thought it was because my feet have been wet since like noon. But it has actually gotten significantly colder. I think one of the big concerns for folks, as you were describing, is the size of this storm and its strength as it was approaching the western part of Florida. There were concerns as far away as Orlando and the eastern part of the state.

So, obviously, as you noted, the wind is going to continue to be a concern even as it seems to slowly, slowly -- I don't want to jinx it but it slowly is dying out in this area or at least dying out compared to what it was even an hour ago.

MYERS: Uh-hmm. That wind will eventually translate over to Orlando, your 35 to 40, on up toward even -- I would say even, probably, Cocoa Beach could see 30 to 45-mile-per-hour winds. But this is not over for the people east of you because this still has to go across the entire rest of the state, Abby.

PHILLIP: And Chad, we are already getting reports from the eastern shore of Florida about injuries as a result of this storm.

[23:05:01]

SANCHEZ: Yes.

PHILLIP: So, this is going to be a huge story all throughout the state of Florida. Chad, stand by. Boris, continue to stand by for us, and stay safe and warm in that weather down there.

CNN's Bill Weir is in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bill, it's so amazing to see behind you now where you are. The wind died down significantly. I mean, earlier, you were talking about monsoon-like conditions. What is it like for you right now?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Milton has chilled a bit in this part of the storm right now. There are still some gusts, you still see it, but nowhere near as intense as we experienced for the last couple hours.

And miraculously, the power is still on here in St. Petersburg, at least in the downtown area. We know that 1.6 million Floridians are without power so far in the storm. And given all the linemen who are working up in the Carolinas after Helene, you know, getting the lights back on in this state, it seems like it's going to be a huge challenge.

But another thing, I went back and looked at -- the excellent Tampa Bay Times did an excellent series a couple years ago where they determined that Pinellas County, where I am right now, is the most vulnerable in the state when it comes to flooding vulnerability, that in a Category 1 storm, over 700 vital buildings, schools, churches, gas stations, government buildings, are at risk of flooding. Category 2 bumps that another 400 buildings on to that list, $30 billion worth of property.

So, as the sun comes up on Friday morning, first proof of life really matters. There are so many first responders just waiting to get out the door and start saving lives and looking for people, neighbors, and making sure people are okay. But then, it's that pit in your stomach as you examine what is left and where the flooding is and what has to be done. So, who knows?

Right now, it feels like, okay, we dodged the storm surge in this part of the bathtub that is Tampa Bay, but who knows? It's still too dark to see. But right now, it feels like, Abby, the winds are calming a bit, and we're going to explore a little bit more down by the municipal boat basin here and see what we can find.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, Bill, earlier, you know, Chad Myers was telling us that St. Pete got 16 inches of rain. I mean, just huge amounts of rain, half of that in a two-hour period. I wonder if you're seeing the evidence of that kind of water. Where is all of that water going? WEIR: Well, here in this part of the city, it's draining pretty well, but for those folks living along canals, for those folks with septic tanks and other plumbing issues, that kind of -- there's just too much water. I mean, we live now, it seems like, in the age of too much or never enough where the wets are very wet and the dries are super droughts.

And places, you know, cities that are -- go back hundreds of -- 150 years, as some do in this part of the country here or 100 years, at least, the sewage, the infrastructure just wasn't built for an earth that delivers these kinds of storms. It's something that -- you know, in Miami, they passed a tax initiative, bond initiative, to raise the streets, to raise pumps, sewage treatment plants as well. A lot of cities can't afford that, right?

Another interesting piece, just last month, they completed a huge beach replenishment along the west coast, just west of us here. All of that got washed away in Helene. Tens of millions of dollars of sand washed away in a single storm. And now, who knows what happened to those folks in this one as well? But this one, two punches, this bigger, wetter, it's just insidious, sort of headache after headache.

PHILLIP: Yeah, it's really incredible to think about, especially for those communities that we've been talking about, the smaller ones on the barrier islands and in other places. Bill, stand by for us. We're going to check in with you as we go through this evening.

We're going to go now to CNN's Randi Kaye. She's in Sarasota. Randi, tell us about what you're seeing where you are. I mean, we've been seeing some calmer pictures with Bill and with Boris, but it looks pretty rough where you are still.

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Abby, our story really is more the wind, at least as far as we can tell, than the flooding, which is a lot of what they are seeing there. We have been sort of up and down with the wind and the rain throughout the day. We were here when the eye crossed, and everything got very tranquil and very quiet, the birds came out and the frogs came out.

And now, having passed -- the eye has passed, so it got -- the wind started to kick up again and we started seeing more rain again. We do have winds of 102 at Sarasota Airport, which is not far from where we are.

[23:10:00]

So, that is certainly a bit of what we are feeling as well in this area. The good news is a lot of the people here, Abby, have evacuated. Sarasota is pretty much very, very quiet. The homes are boarded up. They have their hurricane -- hurricane shades on and shutters on.

And this is what we're seeing all around. This is a concern. This was a concern from Hurricane Helene as well. But these pieces of the fence, they came down earlier tonight while we were standing here. And then you have this white tarp that was originally going in that direction. And then when the eye passed and the winds changed direction, the tarp is now -- still hanging on, which is incredible, but it has now switched directions as well.

But I think the real mystery, Abby, is what things look like closer to Sarasota Bay. We're about a half mile from the bay and until the light comes up and we get somebody over there, it wasn't safe to be there tonight. When we get a look at it, that's what we'll see. But that is -- that is the concern, that the storm surge would have crossed the Siesta Key and those barrier islands where Hurricane Milton made landfall, and then would have pushed into Sarasota Bay, and then would push into land here in Sarasota.

So, we don't know exactly what the storm surge looks like until tomorrow, but we know they were expecting anywhere from 9 to 13 feet, and they had about 7 feet with Hurricane Helene here. So, it could be pretty bad. So, we'll have a look as soon as we can, Abby.

PHILLIP: Yeah. Hey, Randi, stay with us because Chad Myers is still in the Weather Center. He wants to ask you a question here.

MYERS: Randi, what elevation do you think you are standing right now? I saw your location earlier when your photographer put it on Facebook, and I was like, wait a minute, that's too close. What do you think you are? Do you think you're 20, 25 feet above the water right now?

KAYE: I would say probably about that. We're in evacuation Zone D, and we actually ran --

MYERS: Okay.

KAYE: -- our location by our fabulous weather department and made sure that this was a safe location for us because we were -- we were -- earlier this morning, we were on South Shore Drive which, as you know, Chad --

MYERS: Yes.

KAYE: -- is right on the bay, and we knew that was evacuation Zone A, so those are the first people to get -- to get told that they should get out of town and then -- so they evacuated. But here in Sarasota, they evacuated Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C, and the mayor told me that she can't remember ever evacuating Zone C. So, we're in Zone D.

MYERS: All right. So, I think you're safe for tonight. Obviously, the water would be coming up in Zone A if, in fact, that water is reaching over those barrier islands. I still don't want you to go down there until daylight. It's still too dangerous. Abby?

PHILLIP: And --

KAYE: Yeah. We were there. I will tell you, in Zone A, we were in those neighborhoods along the shoreline and all of those homes had piles and piles of debris. They were hit so hard by Helene. One woman told me she spent 15 hours cleaning out her house. So, that's all -- all of their lives are basically on the curb waiting for pickup.

PHILLIP: Randi Kaye, you continue to stay where you are and stay safe. I mean, I want to just emphasize to people watching at home that our reporters, our anchors, they're out there in the storm, but they are in places that we've determined, where they can continue to stay safe while they bring you their incredible reporting.

I want to go to Boris Sanchez. He's down in Tampa, Florida as well. Boris, tell us how things are progressing where you are right now.

SANCHEZ: Hey, Abby, when I last spoke to you just a -- Abby, just a few moments ago, when I last spoke to you, I mentioned that the wind was starting to die down, and I didn't want to jinx it. Unfortunately, it has picked up a little bit again, as you might be able to tell.

We're seeing the floodwaters continue to creep closer and closer to businesses. Obviously, the flooding is a major concern with this storm, not only the freshwater flooding with the rain coming down in these parts of Tampa. As I mentioned before, it's about four to six months-worth of rain coming down in a matter of hours.

But you've also got the storm surge that has been one of the key concerns with this storm. We were expecting somewhere between 8 to 10 feet of storm surge here in Tampa. I'm not sure that we got there necessarily, but I would be curious to know how things look where we were earlier today at this Tampa Bayfront Park.

And just moments ago, you see the lights, I'm not sure if you can tell, but the lights continue to flicker in this area. I'm seeing the blue and greenish pop of a transformer going off somewhere. Obviously, this is still a very dangerous situation, and one of the key concerns is flooding.

So, we're going to keep an eye on these waters as they get closer and closer in the neighborhoods. It doesn't look like the homes behind us are necessarily affected, but we were around this corner a moment ago and we got out partly because the water started creeping closer and closer to where we were. So, there is no doubt that, at the very least, vehicles, if not homes and businesses, are going to be impacted, Abby.

PHILLIP: All right, Boris Sanchez, stand by for us.

[23:15:00]

I'm going to go straight to Anderson Cooper, who is in Bradenton. Anderson, you're back with us. How have things been there in Bradenton over the last several minutes?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I mean, as you can tell, it's -- certainly, the winds have died down significantly as has -- certainly, the rain -- it is still raining and it is still, obviously, windy. But it's really nothing compared to what it was. The ground is still very saturated here.

I haven't been able to go into the town. I'm by the River Walk. But as you can tell, even the -- you know, there's not -- the leaves are crashing over on to the River Walk that we saw starting around 8:45 or 9:00. That was when there was that really significant shift in the storm here in this area. So, there's a lot -- you know, it's still -- it's really -- it's not great out, but it has definitely died down to a degree. I still want to hear more information about, you know, water on the ground here. Let's check in again. We were just talking about it with Boris Sanchez. Boris, I just came (INAUDIBLE) of this. How much water is on the ground where you are?

SANCHEZ: Anderson, it's hard for me to get a specific number for you. I know we were anticipating somewhere between about roughly a foot of rain for the Tampa Bay area. Right now, it's hard to say that it's more than a few inches as you feel the rain picking up once more right behind me. A very big gust of wind just came through and sent a ton of debris. I could see branches and tree matter and perhaps some plastic, I'm not sure exactly what it is, blowing behind me.

I can tell you that, at least here, the water is starting to come up off the sidewalk. It's starting to go to what appears to be a bar over to my left. Yeah, and it is sort of dragging some debris with it, some detritus. It's hard to tell.

But as soon as I -- we've been sort of sheltering in a vehicle between live shots and trying to get a view of what's going on. I watched the water come up very quickly. And the last time I stepped out, without realizing, my entire foot plunged in. So, it's about ankle-high right now where we are. But this is a more elevated area than we were earlier tonight.

As I mentioned to you a couple of hours ago, we were standing right outside of Tampa Bay, and as we were leaving that location because we saw the storm surge start to come in, our car ran into flooding and it got right up to the bumper. We got a bunch of water on the windshield. We had to slow down.

I'm curious to see, once the storm starts to pass, what that neighborhood looks like, not only because it had already significant flooding at that point, but because it was a neighborhood that had a lot of tree cover. And with some of the winds that we saw, I imagine that, at the very least, branches went down. Plus, it was on the waterfront. So, combine that intense rain with the storm surge, I would love to know how those residents are faring right now, Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah. Boris, we will come back to you. I want to take a quick break. Then after the break, we'll take you to downtown to get a report about the water on the ground there, the flooding. We'll be right back.

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[23:20:00]

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COOPER: And welcome back. I'm in (INAUDIBLE) Bradenton, along the River Walk here. But I want to go to downtown Bradenton and Ben McMillan, who has been driving around. Ben, what are you seeing right now? The winds have died down. I mean, as you can see from here, they're still pretty strong and it's still really just rolled out. But in terms of flooding, what have you seen?

BEN MCMILLAN, STORM CHASER (voice-over): Yeah, hey guys, we're just north of the hospital, Manatee Memorial, here in downtown Bradenton, and we had, you know, waves of first responders evacuating patients out of the area here before this storm hit, and that was for this reason right here, you can see massive amounts of storm surge.

If you look off to the right, there's actually waves hitting the wall along the river here along Highway 41, coming up over the wall, into an area that is normally a park. So, that's where all that water is coming out. And look at what is coming in now, all those big waves of rain and water, and then it's flowing out over here into the left and completely blocking roadways. We are not going to go any further at this point because, as you can see, it's not even a road anymore, it's more a river at this point.

COOPER: And when you're -- I'm not sure if we still have you, Ben, but when you're driving, it's very difficult. I mean, you know, driving around in these conditions is incredibly dangerous because you have no sense on how deep the water is.

MCMILLAN (voice-over): Exactly. That's why I always say, turn around, don't drown. You know, we're 100 feet from a dry road, so we made a short trip down here. But we also have been tracking these cells in the rainfall and watching things very closely on the radar to know where it's safe to go and where it's not to.

You know, most people are not going to know what they're getting into, just driving to the grocery store or trying to accomplish some sort of an errand. You know, coming across water like this is quite a scary situation. We've seen numerous water rescues in other storms.

And, you know, storm surge is just a unique animal in its own regard. It can change so quickly. You'll have no water in one place, and then 30 minutes later, you'll have three or four-foot deep ocean swells, almost, coming into a community like you're seeing in front of us.

[23:25:02]

COOPER: Do you have any sense of how extensive the flooding is? I mean, is it localized in that one area?

MCMILLAN (voice-over): Most the extensive flooding we've been seeing is in the lower lying areas that are near Tampa Bay and the Manatee River. It actually appears like the water is kind of flowing in opposite directions than it normally does. So that is that surge effect that's being pushed up into these areas. But thankfully, it's probably only -- I would say maybe an estimate of five feet or six feet deep.

So, it's not really making it into those higher areas where you would see more of the city buildings and the hospital that's nearby me. So that's some good news. But the problem is this water is rising. As you can see, it's kind of flowing towards us at this point. So, we don't know how high this is going to get before we start to see things subside. COOPER: Yeah. I want to play -- this is still a very dangerous Category 2 storm that is still impacting large areas of Florida and will be all throughout the night as it crosses the entire state. So, there is a lot to still be monitoring and a lot still to be very concerned about in the hours ahead, particularly these overnight hours.

(INAUDIBLE) Brian Todd, who is in Tampa for us. Brian, where are you right now? What are you seeing?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Anderson, we're in downtown Tampa right now. The storm surge -- I mean, the surge of the actual rain and the wind here is still relentless, violent, very dangerous. We're in downtown Tampa on Howard Avenue. I'm going to show you a couple of pieces of video that really kind of illustrate the unique nature of this storm.

First, something called reverse storm surge on Tampa Bay. My team and I ventured a few blocks from here. It really was not easy to get to the edge of the bay to do this. But my colleague, Duga Makana (ph), was able to get to the railing on the edge of the Tampa Bay, and then shoot some video from his cell phone into the bay, where you could see that the water has been pushed out of the bay. It looks like a beach. It looks like it's dirt there. That's really extraordinary because the water is always up to the railing even under normal circumstances.

In heavy storms, it often floods, and storm surge pushes it over there. But because of the phenomenon called reverse storm surge, the water has been pushed out of Tampa Bay. You can see the dry parts of the bay in this video. It looks almost like a dry riverbed for parts of that video. That surge has been pushed out. We are told that the surge is going to push the water back in.

Now, it may not get to some of the most dangerous storm surge levels that we've seen in other areas when that happens, but you can count on that water that has been pushed out of Tampa Bay, you can see in that video, coming back in.

Another piece of video that I can show you is the kind of the transformers blowing in the area where we are. The transformer right above my head has sparked and arced out a couple of times, at least four or five times, actually. And when it does that, sparks fly, the entire street goes dark for a couple of seconds, and then it seems to recover. So, the transformers are holding up for now, but they are on pretty shaky ground here as the storm kind of passes through.

Again, I mean, just this phenomenon of the transformers blowing, the reverse storm surge, and just the relentless pounding rain that we are still getting here in downtown Tampa, it is really extraordinary, Anderson. We've really seen very few storms like this.

COOPER: Yeah, there are so many strange things you see in the midst of storms like that. And those transformers, that blue light is (INAUDIBLE).

I want to go to -- bring in Chad Myers. Chad, the whole idea of reverse storm surge is -- I mean, it's hard to comprehend. Can you just explain how that happens?

MYERS: Sure. I -- let's just fast forward to tomorrow morning. You poured yourself a cup of coffee and it's too hot. And you blow on the top of the cup of coffee, you blow on the water, you blow on the coffee, and it makes little waves and it blows that coffee to the other side. Well, you've just made a mini storm surge. So, if you blow all of your coffee this way, you're blowing the water or the coffee out of the bay. If you blow it this way, it's what happened, you take the storm surge and you push it here.

The real risk of this storm was the landfalling hurricane center being north of Tampa. And then all of a sudden, it's not reversed there, it's full on being into Tampa Bay. Now, that reverse will kind of slacken and it even already has here at Port Manatee. There's a little reporting station right there and it's now about three feet above, a little bit of a three-foot surge here.

[23:29:59]

Back here where this wind is still blowing from the east, that's still below and inverse, but we will eventually see all that water go back, and when the storm goes far enough east, the wind will eventually blow back into there and make a slight storm surge, but not six to nine feet, like was forecast. That all happened south of the eye. You have to be south of the eye to truly get the big surge.

COOPER: All right, Chad. Let's go to Barbara Tripp, who is the Tampa Fire chief. Chief, you and I have talked for the several days. How, from your vantage point, how are things right now in Tampa?

BARBARA TRIPP, CHIEF, TAMPA FIRE RESCUE: Well, it's pretty rough here. The wind, it's over 100 miles per hour. You know, we're having some large wind gusts. We actually had to cease all services because it's actually been too dangerous to put first responders out there on the road. So, a lot of residents are without power. So, Milton is definitely visiting Tampa.

COOPER: And do you have a sense at what time you may be able to get first responders back out there to kind of survey the situation? What sort of mile an hour winds do you generally operate in?

TRIPP: So, typically, we get 40 miles per hour sustained wind and, of course, gusts have a lot to do with that. Right now, we are having like 100 miles per hour, you know, wind with gusts about 70. We will not put the units out there anything above 40.

COOPER: Do you have any sense right now of how many people are without power?

TRIPP: The last look, they said, is probably over 400,000 people without power in the city of Tampa.

COOPER: Wow. Chief, I appreciate your time tonight. I know how busy you are. Thank you. We are going to take a short break. And when we come back, we'll talk to Bill Weir in Tampa. We'll be right back.

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[23:35:00]

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COOPER: Welcome back. We are reporting from Bradenton. I just went down, by the way, to the Manatee River. It's so interesting. Depending where you stand, it looks very different. From here, things seem a little bit calmer. I mean, obviously, the wind is still blowing. There's a lot of water in the air, a lot of rainfall.

But I went down to the river. It is pouring still over the banks onto the River Walk. There are just big waves of water coming in. So that wind is still blowing really strong. This is obviously still a Category 2 storm that's going to be going across the entire width of Florida in these overnight hours and then into tomorrow.

I want to check in, bring in Bill Weir, who is in St. Pete. Bill, how are things?

WEIR: Well, Anderson, we made our way back do to the harbor side of St. Pete here. And much to the relief, I'm sure, of a few sailors in this town, most of the boats in the basin survived those 90-mile-an hour, 89-mile-an-hour gusts. But even if you don't care about yachting that much, this is an indication that St. Petersburg really dodged a bullet. That could have been much worse in terms of surge, in terms of wind, and in terms of power loss. Look at the electricity, still on, survived here in St. Petersburg.

But about a mile from here is the home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Tropicana Field. The trop, which actually glows at night like an orange because the roof is made of a Teflon-coated fiberglass, well, that roof is gone as the result of this particular storm. You can see it has been shredded by those winds there.

So, so fickle. Obviously, I can't make a very astute assessment beyond what we can see through our headlights just venturing out since the storm has passed. But these are a couple indications that it wasn't quite as destructive as we were worried about four or five hours ago. But there's a lot that will be revealed as the sun comes up around here. Anderson?

COOPER: Chad, let's bring you into this. From your vantage point, Chad, is that the way it looks? Not as bad as it might have been in St. Pete?

MYERS: I think so. I mean, when you talk about what it was, as a Category 5, 180-mile-per-hour storm, yeah, we didn't get that. And that's the good news. We didn't expect it. The forecast was for it to die. I just think it lost an awful lot of power right offshore. And you could see the whole eye just kind of fall apart. Get an eyewall replacement cycle, which means that you lose the real big one and you get the larger one on the outside. You lose the big wind and you get lesser wind with the eyewall that is surrounding it, and there's a moat in between. And it does look like we're still going to get 74 to 110-mile-per-hour gusts across the state tonight. So, this is still what we expected. I think the impact to the coast is certainly less than what it could have been, without a doubt.

COOPER: And Chad, so, what do you think that looks like as this storm, Cat 2 right now, moves across Florida? What should people in the path of this thing expect over the next 12 hours?

MYERS: The real issue is the amount of rain that's still going to come down. And that's even for Orlando, for Kissimmee, and all the way across to the other side of the coast, maybe towards Cinnamon Beach, off toward the east. That's where the wind is going to start to be in the 50 and 60-mile-per-hour range.

[23:40:02]

You have saturated ground and the trees are going to want to fall. And so, when the trees fall, then all of a sudden, you lose power lines as well, you lose that. And so, even at 1.9 million power now loss, we'll probably get well above the 2.5 million even for Orlando proper. It doesn't take much if you get a wind gust of 100 miles per hour over an open property that all of a sudden, you're going to lose some of these palms and some of these taller pines, and those pines will bring down power.

COOPER: All right. Chad, thanks very much. We're going to take a short break. Our coverage continues. We'll be right back.

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[23:45:00]

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PHILLIP: We are back with our coverage of Hurricane Milton. I want to go straight to Anderson Cooper, who is down in Bradenton. Anderson, where are you now and what are you seeing around you?

COOPER: Yeah, so we just moved about 100 feet back to the location where we were at, say, 9:00, at the top of the 9:00 hour. If you remember, at that point, the water had just started kind of in waves coming over onto the River Walk, the Manatee River.

Right now, it is just -- I mean, this -- I'm -- my feet, you know, there's probably four or five inches of water here. It is just flowing directly from the river over onto the ground here. And it's moving about -- I mean, it's probably about 150 feet or so from the river, just covering this whole area along the River Walk.

It's hard to see because it's so dark, but the waves now are just, you know, there's big white caps, there are full on waves, it looks like you're at the ocean, but it's the Manatee River. And the wind is just bringing all this water and just pushing this water on shore. The ground up here, it rises up so the water is not going very far, but it is -- I mean, this whole area along the River Walk is underwater. I mean, you can stand in it, but it's definitely up to, you know, past my ankles.

So, Chad, it's so deceptive because, I mean, you're 200 feet away, it seems like much calmer, but by the water, I mean, this wind is whipping off and this water is just pouring on shore.

MYERS: Right, and you're not that far from the other side of that river. So, we're now at Port Manatee, call it up the river just a little bit, maybe less than a mile. So, the water is beginning to pour back into Tampa Bay slowly, but it's beginning to push itself because the wind is shifting directions.

I know you've talked about how it was from one direction and now it's from another. That is going to continue as the night goes on. We are going to see those winds continue to shift right now kind of from the northwest. When they get to from the west, all of a sudden, your water is going to pour back into that Tampa Bay, and that's why all the official says, please, please, we know you can see the bottom of Tampa Bay right now, but please don't go there, because the water is going to come back.

COOPER: So, now, here in Bradenton, the wind -- I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, the wind is coming from the north, correct?

MYERS: That is correct. That is correct. That's because now you are on the western part, the western part of the eye itself. I'm going to zoom this back out. So, here's the eastern part of the eye. Here's where the winds are coming from the south. Here's where they're coming from the east. And now, you are on this side of the eye and it's coming from the north.

Eventually, as this pulls away, you're going to get winds from the west. Not due west, but you're going to get them enough to get the water back into Tampa Bay. And still, the water still pouring toward where our Randi Kaye is, pouring into the Punta Gorda area, still water rising in Fort Myers. It's still somewhere, even down there, about a 5-foot surge. There aren't any or many surge kind of warning detectors here. So, we don't really know if there really was a 10-foot surge and probably until daybreak. Anderson?

COOPER: I mean, I'm really struck, Chad, by -- I mean, the water has risen now, probably 2 inches around me in just, you know, the last couple of minutes. This is like standing on -- in the ocean. I mean, there are just waves of water lapping the shore.

MYERS: Well, that is ocean water. Really, that is not river water. The river water would have already been all pushed out. So now you're starting to get the ocean water, the Gulf of Mexico water, and it is pushing into Tampa Bay and into your river, and then up your river. So, we are going to see now -- we looked at that Port Manatee, and there was about a 3-foot surge, a positive surge, not the negative surge that we talked about there with Brian Todd's piece.

But what we're seeing now is the water beginning to come back up and you're still just kind of blowing that water away. You're just blowing it back onto shore and it's blowing away from the shore that you're looking at across the river, that you have an inverse surge across the river, might only be a foot or two, but you're seeing the surge. Even though it's just a river surge, it's enough to make television.

COOPER: You know, I think we have a shot of what it was like before when I was standing here. I can't see this myself, so I'm not sure exactly what it looks like. But it's extraordinary. I mean, the difference -- yeah, it's extraordinary.

[23:50:00]

I have not seen something like this in a long time. How long do you expect this to be like this here? How long will this water be coming on?

MYERS: I think it'll come on shore for the next two to three hours without a doubt because that's how long the wind is going to be blowing in that direction. Something else, I think it's just the power of water. Now, another flash flood emergency for Lakeland, Florida getting up toward Kissimmee with flash flood warnings. There's so much water in the system. What you're seeing blown around is actually the land-based water, but all of this is still falling from the sky, flooding more people up the I-4 corridor.

COOPER: Chad, thanks. Let's go to Brian Todd in Tampa. Brian, what are you seeing? I'm sorry, let's go to Boris Sanchez. Boris, what are you seeing? Boris Sanchez, can you hear me? Okay, all right, bye.

Obviously, live television in the midst of a storm is a little hard to -- it's amazing we're able to even broadcast like this continuously for hours. The technology behind it is kind of fascinating to see it up close. I mean, we're all standing here with like paper, like plastic bags over cameras. It's very -- it's high tech, but it's also sorts of very basic and low tech. A lot of water coming in here.

I'm told we may have a connection now with Boris. Boris Sanchez, what do you see and where you're at?

SANCHEZ: Anderson, it is a miracle we can go live from storms like this, honestly. But, fortunately, I'm happy to report that here in Tampa, at least, the wind has died down considerably even though we continue getting very, very strong bands.

The rain has also noticeably been reduced. Instead of coming down horizontally the way that it was before, pelting us, it's now more of a drizzle. It's still coming down. The concern is that it's not going to stop coming down anytime soon. And already, as you can see behind me, roadways are flooded.

The water has receded. I should note, it has receded from where it was when I last checked in with you. It was starting to get into a business nearby, what appears to be a bar. It has left debris up on the sidewalk. But this is not -- this is not the area of most concern. This is a more elevated area. We've heard reports in other areas of serious flash flooding.

I actually drove through one earlier in the evening where I saw in a neighborhood, a residential neighborhood with a lot of tree cover, water that was up to the axle of our vehicle, was up to the bumper of our vehicle. We had a hard time driving through it.

Fortunately, I've not seen a lot of activity by residents, which was a concern, especially earlier in the day. There were a lot of folks walking around taking pictures in front of the storm. So that appears to have dissipated except for one gentleman that apparently parked his car or got his car stuck in the floodwaters further down the street from us. It was an elderly man who is walking around, who seemed very disoriented. We tried to speak to him, and he wasn't, I guess, in the mood to talk.

It seems like things have started to calm down here, Anderson. Of course, there's still a lot of danger, especially as you get northeast where the storm is headed.

COOPER: Yeah. Boris, we are going to take a quick break. Water really continues to just flow in here. We'll be right back.

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[23:55:00]

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PHILLIP: Hurricane Milton. Right now, this massive storm is battering Florida as a Category two storm. We're going to go back to Anderson Cooper in just a moment. But first, joining me now is Debbi Weber. She is watching the storm from a hotel room with her 19-year-old son in Sarasota, just two weeks after she and her son were uprooted by Hurricane Helene.

Debbi, thank you so much for joining us. First of all, I just want to know how are you and your son doing and what has it been like to ride out this storm over the last few hours?

DEBBI WEBER, LOST APARTMENT IN HURRICANE HELENE (via telephone): We're doing pretty good. We're in a structurally-sound hotel. It was -- winds were really strong earlier in the day. But when they did shelter in place, the hotel locked all the doors, and you can barely hear the sound of the wind. But then you can see, like, right now, the trees are kind of bent over, almost. You can see a lot of debris in the parking lot. And then there's just kind of like an ominous feel because we've lost all power here except for the emergency lights in the hallway.

PHILLIP: You were supposed to move into a home, and then Helene totally changed those plans. You've also never really dealt with a hurricane like this. How are you coping with your whole life being upended by these storms?

WEBER (via telephone): I'm coping very well. I feel like, you know -- yes, I do not have a home. We've been in a hotel for the past few weeks. There's a hurricane. I just -- you know, a lot of people have been displaced. And, you know, once -- you know, tomorrow, when we wake up and see the destruction of what this storm has caused, it could have an effect on thousands or more. We're already in. So, and then we're all going to be looking for homes. So, it's going to be -- it's going to be tough.

[00:00:00]

PHILLIP: It is. It has already been so tough for you and so many Floridians. We're really hoping for the best for you, Debbi, and for your son as well. I'm glad that you're safe tonight and right now. Thank you very much for joining us.

WEBER: Thank you. You have a good night.

PHILLIP: Good night. And thank you for watching at home tonight. CNN's coverage of this hurricane and how it is affecting the state of Florida continues right now.