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Florida Residents Race to Evacuate as Hurricane Milton Closes In; Harris Launches Media Blitz One Month Before Election; Iranian Foreign Minister Warns Against Israeli Strike. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired October 09, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Listen to the local authorities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The time to get out is now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe Helene was just a rehearsal for what's to come. Helene was a surge, but Milton is a monster.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This case is not about regulating the content that is shown to TikTok users. It's about TikTok's own bad conduct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The damage being done to young people could be permanent.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump has this desire to be a dictator. He admires strong men, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they're his friends.
HARRIS: OK, cheers.
STEPHEN COLBERT, THE LAT SHOW HOST: There you go. It's like the beautiful city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
HARRIS: The champagne of beers.
COLBERT: There you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from the U.S. and around the world. I'm Max Foster.
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Wednesday, October 9th, 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. on Florida's west coast, where in a matter of hours, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever will slam into the state.
FOSTER: Millions of people are under either mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders at this hour, with officials and health weather experts alike doing all they can to convince residents to get out of the storm's path before it's too late.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A local emergency currently exists. Quickly secure your home or business and safely evacuate the area. Listen to local media and authorities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: This view from the storm from space, Milton's Eye will take about ten hours, if we can show you this, to cross over Florida, but its effects will be felt well into Thursday. Hurricane hunters, though, flew through the storm on Tuesday, but despite the turbulence, they were still able to collect valuable data.
FOSTER: Royal Caribbean crews in the Gulf of Mexico had to be turned around as Milton continued to gain strength. Passengers said several amenities were closed, shows were cancelled, and multiple port stops were missed because of the high waves. The ship's captain told passengers he wasn't willing to risk their safety, and authorities in Florida urging anyone who has stayed behind to do the same.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA: This storm's going to be different. If you're in an evacuation zone, please get out. Don't gamble with you and your loved one's life. Make the preparations. Find a hotel. Find a family member. Stay at a friend's house. Worst case scenario, stay at a shelter. There's plenty of them open.
But you're better off being inconvenienced and uncomfortable, yet alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Easy to say when the roads are jam-packed, isn't it --
MACFARLANE: Yes.
FOSTER: -- and the petrol's running out. We're going to go to Atlanta now, where CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam is following the storm for us, and it's all about those small shifts in the storm that could mean it does avoid the most built-up areas.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, without a doubt, it's a game of miles, right, Max and Christina? But we are less than 24 hours away from a societal and economic disaster that I would like to say we haven't experienced in decades, but we did so just two weeks ago with Hurricane Helene, and here we are again. This storm has maintained its strength overnight, still a powerful
Category 5, and we are within striking distance of the U.S. mainland. Here it is, a very defined pinhole eye, lots of convection bubbling up in advance of it, so we're already experiencing heavy rainfall across southwestern Florida. The time frame hasn't changed much. We still believe a landfall will occur overnight tonight or at least late Wednesday into early Thursday morning.
But the specifics on exactly where that most powerful right front quadrant makes landfall is still being ironed out. I know we're still 24 hours away from this, and we should have a good handle on it, but this is the nature of the beast. These storms wobble when they are at this intensity.
In fact, you can see that the hurricane has now made it into Key West radar. There is the eye. It's only six miles wide at the elevation that this radar beam is sweeping across the area, so that just shows you how compact and how organized this storm is, a lot of lightning and convection around it.
[04:05:00]
I want to show you this. This is new because we get these updated infographics from the National Hurricane Center. The shading of red you see here stretching from coast to coast, that's hurricane-force gusts.
You see that darker shade of red? That is major hurricane-force winds, so we're talking in excess of 111 miles per hour, and that will cross the central portion of the peninsula, and that means a large area, not just the coast, will experience these catastrophic winds as well.
This is new overnight, so we've seen that subtle shift in the strongest winds south of Hillsboro and Pinellas, even though you will feel extreme winds from this storm. I don't want to diminish the threat there, but we are noticing more of a southerly track in all of our computer models, and that is because the storm has moved slightly to the east of where the projections were originally located. The modeling that we receive is actually not aligning where the actual center of the storm is, and that has downstream implications on who gets the worst part of the storm.
One thing's for sure, there's an expanding wind field, so we're going to build up all of the water ahead of it across that right front quadrant, the Gulf of Mexico, very shallow in nature. This area is susceptible to storm surge. We're talking 10 to 15 feet of above ground, normally dry ground inundation, so we're looking at Sarasota southward into Lee County.
We don't want to hear this. We all know what happened in September 2022 with Hurricane Ian, Fort Myers Beach getting absolutely destroyed, but I want to say this and plead to the residents there, if you did not heed evacuation warnings, it is time to move inland now.
Maximum wave heights as the storm approaches over 30 feet, according to some of our computer models. That's on the open ocean, and then we can't talk about an oncoming hurricane without the threat of waterspouts and tornadoes.
In fact, there is an enhanced risk today. Some of the dynamic players in the upper levels of the atmosphere are going to come up and spin up tornadoes very quickly, and those can be extremely destructive as well. There will be a lot of rain associated with this system.
We could get two to three, even four months of rainfall as it crosses the central peninsula of Florida, and this has been a very wet year, wet past couple of months, so inland flooding will be a threat. And then, of course, we've got the surge working together, and that's only going to help raise water levels within inlets, rivers, and along the coastline as well. Right now, we're getting minute-by-minute update from Hurricane Hunters. This is a neat perspective.
I'll leave it like this with you, Max and Christina. We will get more information as we get more center fixes on where exactly that eye is because that plays the crucial role on who gets the worst parts of the storm.
MACFARLANE: Thank you, Derek. And as you say, updates minute-by- minute. We will be checking back with you at the half hour. Obviously, we're going to be tracking this all hours today. Thanks very much.
About 20 million people are under hurricane or tropical storm warnings, covering almost the entire population of Florida, as you saw there.
FOSTER: Yes, more than 3 million live in the Tampa metropolitan area, which hasn't had a direct hit from a hurricane in more than a century. CNN's Boris Sanchez has our report from Treasure Island. But first, Leigh Waldman is in Tampa, which is preparing for a worst-case scenario.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Massive piles of debris are clogging the streets here, not only in Tampa, but along the western coast of Florida, left over from Hurricane Helene. There was a massive exodus of people leaving here, fleeing what is expected to be one of the worst hurricanes to hit Florida in a century.
WALDMAN (voice-over): Storm chasers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on a, quote, bumpy ride flying inside Hurricane Milton as it tracks toward Florida.
The storm is expected to double in size before slamming into the Sunshine State late Wednesday, just two weeks since Hurricane Helene hit.
ASHLEY ISAACSON, ORLANDO, FLORIDA RESIDENT: Well, my mom just lost everything in the Helene storm. Don't want to do it again or, like, potentially have anything bad happen.
WALDMAN (voice-over): The back-to-back storms left little time to clean up. Piles of debris still not picked up from Helene could be tossed around by Milton's winds and water, causing new hazards. JENNIFER POIRRIER, CITY MANAGER, CLEARWATER, FLORIDA: There's still a lot of debris out there. So it is a concern, and we're running out of time with that, which is another reason why the best thing that we can advise for people at this time is those are the areas that are required to evacuate, so please do so.
WALDMAN (voice-over): Officials are pleading for people to leave, warning that they risk being killed if they stay.
CATHIE PERKINS, DIRECTOR, PINELLAS COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: This is not survivable. I just want to tell you, if you think you're going to be able to stay out there and protect your property, it's not going to happen.
WALDMAN (voice-over): The storm's eye and eye wall could come ashore in the Tampa area and unleash record storm surge, potentially becoming the worst storm to hit the city in over 100 years.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): If you're going to get out, get out now.
WALDMAN (voice-over): NOAA officials warning that the destruction from Hurricane Milton is already roughly projected to cost, quote, multiple tens of billions of dollars.
[04:10:02]
WALDMAN: Tonight, almost 20 percent of gas stations across the state are empty. The governor is bringing in tankers to refuel and telling people this is not just a danger for the coast but will impact the entire state.
In Tampa, Florida, I'm Leigh Waldman reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eerily quiet today on Treasure Island. This is an area with about 10,000 residents, roughly. Usually a big tourist destination, but many of the beachfront hotels are shut down because of Hurricane Helene hitting about two weeks ago.
And there is trash strewn everywhere. This is one of the giant piles that we've seen in Pinellas County. This thing is about 20 to 25 feet high, a couple hundred feet long, and it is full of just random stuff. There's a bag of golf clubs. There's a ton of pieces of wood just like this. Imagine this thing coming toward you at 120 miles an hour. On top of that, you've got space heaters, you've got all kinds of scrap metal.
The other issue with this barrier island, like so many others, on the other side of the ocean, there's a bay. So you're talking about a 10 to 15-foot storm surge coming in here with a foot of rain, more or less, estimated to be on top of that.
Where is this stuff going to go? So when speaking to neighbors that live in the community that have debris lined up outside of their homes, and by the way, we've been seeing this block to block to block across Treasure Island, that's one of their chief concerns.
I spoke to a couple of different residents today, one of them a gentleman named Matt who lives in a condo. He lives on the first floor of a condo, and he road out, Helene here, he said the water got up to his chest, and he panicked and he got out. He was fortunate to get out. This time he wasn't taking any chances. He saw all this stuff and thought that this would essentially turn into projectiles headed his way.
There was another lady who lived in a building next to his. She had some mobility issues. She was contemplating trying to ride out the storm. Fortunately, earlier this afternoon, I saw her family come and asked them, and she decided that it was the right decision to leave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Goodness. Well, Hurricane Milton's projected path across central Florida is prompting the closure of some of the state's biggest and most lucrative tourist attractions, including all four of the main theme parks at Disney World, which will begin closing stages later today. Universal Studios attractions will also start shutting down today.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is closed through Thursday, and its annual Howl-O-Scream event has been cancelled as well. SeaWorld and Legoland are also closed, but Legoland's hotels are operating with limited capacity.
FOSTER: Donald Trump ramped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric Tuesday during a call to the right-wing network Newsmax.
MACFARLANE: The Republican presidential nominee suggested Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, with temporary protected status, still don't have a right to be there and pose a threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I mean, look at Springfield, where 30,000 illegal immigrants are dropped, and it was, they may have done it through a certain little trick, but they are illegal immigrants, as far as I'm concerned. They're destroying the town, they're destroying the whole -- they'll end up destroying the state. We cannot let this happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: These latest remarks come nearly a month after Trump falsely claimed that Haitian migrants in Springfield eat people's pets.
FOSTER: Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has proposed broadening government Medicare benefits to cover in-home health care, which can be quite costly. The vice president's plan is an effort to win over Americans in the so-called sandwich generation, who care for both children and their elderly parents.
MACFARLANE: Harris brought up the plan for the first time on Tuesday during one of her recent high-profile interviews. CNN's Eva McKend has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EVA MCKEND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vice President Kamala Harris in the midst of a media blitz. As the Democratic presidential nominee tries to reach as many voters as possible in the coming weeks of a campaign that is exceedingly close.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It is good to be with you.
MCKEND (voice-over): Among the flurry of unscripted interviews, most of them on non-traditional news shows, including an appearance on The View, where Harris was asked if she would have done anything differently than President Joe Biden.
HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of -- and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.
MCKEND (voice-over): Harris later pointed to one way she would differ from Biden if elected.
HARRIS: I'm going to have a Republican in my cabinet, because I don't -- I don't feel burdened by letting pride get in the way of a good idea.
MCKEND (voice-over): The Trump campaign quickly seized on the vice president's comments, saying in a statement --
If you're a voter who wants to turn the page from Joe Biden's failed economy, open border, and global chaos then Kamala Harris in not the candidate for you.
[04:15:00]
With four weeks until Election Day, Harris also calling out the former president's series of falsehoods about the federal response in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
HARRIS: It's profound, and it is the height of irresponsibility and, frankly, callousness. This is so consistent about Donald Trump. He puts himself before the needs of others.
I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level.
MCKEND (voice-over): In addition to The View, Harris also sitting Tuesday with Howard Stern and late-night host Stephen Colbert, following a wide-ranging interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, this section posted online.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary? HARRIS: I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands, OK. This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles. What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities.
MCKEND (voice-over): Harris telling Stern the high stakes of the election is causing her to lose sleep.
HARRIS: I literally lose sleep. And have been over what is at stake in this election.
MCKEND: And Harris's media strategy not only to preach to the converted, but to speak to Americans more broadly as she tries to remind them of some of the chaos that came to characterize the Trump presidency. She argues that he's easily manipulated by dictators and had a botched response to the pandemic.
Eva McKend, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Well, during her most recent TV appearance, Harris cracked open a cold one with late show host Stephen Colbert.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, THE LATE SHOW HOST: People were calling it the vibe election. All the vibes were all good. But elections, I think, are won on vibes, because one of the old saws is, they just want somebody they can have a beer with.
So would you like to have a beer with me so I can tell people what that's like? OK. This was -- now, we asked ahead of time, because I can't just be giving a drink to the Vice President of the United States without asking. You asked for Miller High Life.
You really love High Life. I'm just curious.
HARRIS: OK, the last time I had beer was at a baseball game with Doug. OK, cheers.
COLBERT: There you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: You know, Max, it's worth noting --
FOSTER: It is.
MACFARLANE: -- that Miller High Life, that they cracked open there, is actually from Milwaukee, a swing state, which Harris is trying to win, a blue state. So pretty shrewd move on their part, right?
FOSTER: Yes, everything. I mean, everything is about politics.
MACFARLANE: Everything counts at this point, doesn't it? Just a month to go to the election.
FOSTER: Still ahead, harsh criticism for Israel, the US and its allies from Iran's president. We're live in Tehran for you.
MACFARLANE: Plus, over a dozen US states sued TikTok, alleging the platform harms children's mental health. More on the lawsuit against the social media giant ahead.
FOSTER: And we'll be keeping an eye on Milton. As the rare Category 5 hurricane is on track to hit Florida's Gulf Coast as a major storm in a matter of hours.
[04:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: As the world braces for retaliation against Iran for its missile attack on Israel Iran's president is leveling new accusations against Israel and the U.S.
MACFARLANE: CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Tehran and is in fact the only CNN international -- sorry, the only international TV outlet to be in the country. And Fred, I understand you spent more than 18 hours driving across Iran and shared those photos of your trip.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Certainly right now, it remains very bold as far as their language is concerned, that also a very birth home as far as their threat to is real concern as well.
One of the things that they have been saying is that if Israel decided to hit Iran, after of course, Iran struck Israeli more than a week ago and there a crushing response from the Iranians.
Now you mentions that we did actually fly through this country, a substantial bit of it because we did take the land route most international flights have been taking. And there is a lot of concern among people the we've been speaking to, not necessarily about a strike from Israel but about a possible retaliation and whether or not that could lead to a wider war here in this region that in the end could then pit the United States against Iran.
One of the things you see in Tehran though, is a great deal of support for Hezbollah and their slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah. when we were driving through Tehran a little bit beforehand to check on -- we did see a lot of billboards that were up talking about their loyalty to Hassan Nasrallah and also to Hezbollah. And one of the writings on those billboards is -- The Victory of God Starts Now.
So obviously the Iranians are going to continue to support Hezbollah, continue to support them right now even as they are under a lot of pressure of course, on the battlefield. And on of their commanders have been slain, including Hassan Nasrallah. And the Iranians are saying the leadership here in Iran are saying that they continue to be at Hezbollah's side. Right now, I think Iranian. Right now I think Iranians are (INAUDIBLE) people (INAUDIBLE) folks here, their national security and defense in both Iran. (INAUDIBLE) where the Iranians are saying that they don't want this escalation here in the region but that there would be a crushing response from the Iranians if the Israelis decide to go after them.
FOSTER: Fred, we're going to come back to you when we can get some better audio. But a bit extraordinary to see him there and taking their point of view.
MACFARLANE: In the parliament building I believe in Tehran.
FOSTER: The Israeli military says it's checking to see whether the presumptive new leader of Hezbollah has been killed in an Israeli strike. Earlier Tuesday the Israeli Prime Minister claimed Hassan Nasrallah's successor Hashem Safieddine has been eliminated along with thousands of other terrorists.
MACFARLANE: An IDF spokesperson says Safieddine was in a Hezbollah building in Beirut when it was hit on Friday but the results of the strike are still being assessed.
FOSTER: A top Hezbollah official is saying for the first time the group supports a ceasefire with Israel even without an end to the fighting in Gaza.
[04:25:00]
It comes as Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon have expanded to the west despite the IDF claim that its campaign would be limited.
MACFARLANE: Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah targets in southern Beirut again overnight. Lebanese state media report massive destruction including the collapse of four residential buildings. Hezbollah is pushing back on the Israeli Prime Minister's claim of success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We've degraded Hezbollah's capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah's replacement and the replacement of his replacement. Today Hezbollah is weaker than it's been for many, many years.
Now you, the Lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice. You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Paula Hancocks joining us now. Paula, what do you make about the phone call between Biden and Netanyahu?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, it's been a long time coming that's for sure. We have been hearing from President Biden a number of times that he was going to speak to the Israeli Prime Minister imminently. But finally, we understand that they will be speaking today. So this Wednesday that's according to an Israeli official.
And also we know that the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was intending to go to the U.S. today. He was supposed to meet with his counterpart Lloyd Austin on Wednesday but the Israeli Prime Minister has postponed that trip.
We believe from this Israeli official that Netanyahu wants to speak with Biden first. There will obviously be a lot to speak about. They haven't spoken we understand from U.S. officials since August which is quite remarkable given the fact that the U.S. is the biggest ally and supporter of Israel when it comes to the number of fronts that they are fighting on.
Now clearly one of the issues they will be talking about is what Israel's response to Iran will be after Tehran fired some 200 ballistic missiles they say at Israel. The U.S. helped with shooting some of those down but the U.S. is at pains to make sure that the already really widening conflict does not widen any further. Although U.S. officials have told us he's unlikely to be trying to convince Mr. Netanyahu not to have a significant response as we saw back in April -- Max.
MACFARLANE: And Paula now that Hezbollah is saying they are backing a ceasefire in Lebanon how likely is it that will get anywhere with Israel especially after the U.S. announced yesterday that they are no longer planning to revive a ceasefire deal?
HANCOCKS: Well Christina you need two sides to sign up to a ceasefire so at this point it appears as though Hezbollah is supportive. It does not appear as though Israel is ready for any kind of ceasefire. We've seen an intensification if anything of what they are doing in Lebanon. We heard just yesterday that they were expanding their operations in southwest Lebanon claiming they're still limited but they've added another division to that.
Now this is a 21 day ceasefire plan that President Biden had pitched believing that both sides had given the green light to at least discussing it. But Israel was very clear in the fact that this was not what they were looking for at this point.
We have heard the Hezbollah number two, well potentially could be number one, Naim Qassem in a speech saying that they supported the speaker Nabih Berri's efforts to try and secure a ceasefire. Hezbollah had tied any kind of ceasefire or ending of hostilities against Israel to a ceasefire in Gaza.
That doesn't appear to be the case at least from what he was saying in that speech. But it was also a very defiant speech against Israel and against what the troops are doing in Lebanon. But it does need two sides to be signing up to this ceasefire. We may hear more about Israel's feeling on this after that phone call with the U.S. President -- Max, Christina. MACFARLANE: All right, Paula Hancock there live from Abu Dhabi. Thanks, Paula.
Now top U.N. officials are raising concerns that Lebanon could become another Gaza. A spokesperson for the Human Rights Commissioner says civilians are paying the ultimate price with destruction everywhere. A million people displaced and hospitals and schools closed. He also says Israel is using the same means and methods of warfare in both conflicts.
And when we come back, social media giant TikTok is being taken to court over allegations its features are designed to hook children.
FOSTER: Plus, as Hurricane Milton churns towards Florida, even the penguins had to evacuate their home to higher ground.
