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Hurricane Milton Still Cat. 1 Hurricane; Search and Rescue Underway in Port St. Lucie; Hurricane Milton Now Exiting Florida's East Coast; Soon: Tampa Officials to Give Update on Milton Damage. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired October 10, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. 5:32 a.m. on the East Coast. Here is a live look at Orlando, Florida, after Hurricane Milton is passing through there.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Breaking this morning, Hurricane Milton unleashing on Florida officials eagerly awaiting daylight to see what Milton has done to their state.

The storm making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Florida's Gulf Coast last night. Millions now without power as damaging winds and severe rain pummeled the state. The powerful storm dumping more than 18 inches of rain on St. Petersburg, a more than one in 1,000-year rainfall in that area, and ripping the roof off of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball stadium.

And in Punta Gorda, Florida, a storm surge flooding the city. Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack standing in the downtown area as water poured in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON JAYJACK, STORM CHASER: I'm at about two feet of water right here and we're probably five to seven feet of water above sea at this location. So, y ou can imagine that the surge is probably about seven feet right now here in Punta Gorda. These posts right here, these were not in the water 15 minutes ago. The water is still rising here. It's surrounding this downtown. All these businesses here in Punta Gorda are just getting inundated with water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Dozens of tornadoes also touching down in the state, including along the state's Atlantic Coast in St. Lucie County. The sheriff says a tornado outbreak has caused multiple deaths.

Let's go live now to Sarasota, Florida with Jamie Carson, the Director of Communications for Sarasota County. Jamie, thank you very much for being with us this morning. I just want to start simply with your message to residents here as daylight approaches, JAMIE CARSON, THE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR SARASOTA COUNTY: Kasie, you were talking about how vital that daylight is. We want our community to know that our tactical person teams are out there in the community right now assessing our major arteries, our roadways, our major infrastructure. We're asking our communities to please stay put. We know there are dangers. We know there are downed power lines. Over 300,000 of our community members are without power right now.

So, if you're in our community, if you're in Sarasota County and you're waking up, stay where you are. Know that Sarasota County, our first responders, our local law enforcement, the Florida Army National Guard, we're out there, we're checking on things, and we're going to give you the green light. But right now, for your safety, we're asking you to please stay put.

[05:35:00]

HUNT: Were you at all taken by surprise in terms of where this hit? Because clearly Sarasota seems to have been at the center of all of this as it hit a little bit farther south of Tampa Bay than was initially expected?

CARSON: Sarasota County -- run through. So, we have plan --

HUNT: All right. I think we may be losing Jamie Carson there. Jamie Carson was the director of communications -- is the director of communications for Sarasota County. And of course, you're just looking at live pictures of Sarasota. The flooding there pretty remarkable. And actually, she may be back with us now.

Jamie, can you hear us?

All right. We're still working on getting Jamie Carson back. Instead, we're going to go to our Isabel Rosales, who we find in Tampa, Florida, where she weathered overnight. Isabel, what a coming to me now.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys. Trying to get some light here. Hello. OK. So, we're at the Holiday Inn here in Plant City off of I-4 that has -- come right with me, right here, taken on a couple of feet of water, just gets deeper in that direction. So, I'm here with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. They're responding to this call of people that have been trapped inside of the hotel. We can see their amphibious vehicle right here and some of the people that they have just gotten out of this hotel and they're going to bring them to dry land.

Come with me this way, Wes. Here is the hotel full of water here on the front first floor. There's still some customer and staff members here awaiting their turn to get out of here. But the damage from the flood waters is extensive.

And let me tell you, I lived in the Tampa Bay area for many years. This is extremely unusual, to see this sort of water, inland, in Plant City, on the eastern part of Hillsborough County. This is something I have never seen. This is something some of the folks that I spoke with here have never seen. They were taken by surprise once the water started rushing into the hotel and suddenly, they found themselves trapped.

So, HCSO is working a lot of these water rescues as we speak. We know that they suspended services just past 11:00 last night because the conditions were too dangerous. Well, now it's a full flurry of activity to get people in dicey situations like this back into safety.

And I've got the sheriff right here. Sheriff, is it OK to talk with you?

SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY SHERIFF: Yes.

ROSALES: Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff, what can you tell us about what's happening with these rescue operations?

CHRONISTER: Yes. We're -- we have three of the amphibious vehicles staged throughout the county and they're in full operation at assisted living facility up on the north end. Here at the hotel, we have some elderly folks that struggle with some disabilities and able to get them to some dry land, get them some medical attention.

These aren't people who didn't heed the warning. This is -- these are individuals in areas where we've never seen flooding. Never seen flooding. And to go from no flooding to three feet of water up over your knees, I can imagine how frightening that was for everybody here.

ROSALES: Yes. And specifically, the assisted living facility, another separate operation happening right now in the northern part of the county. That's where the University of South Tampa, another place you would never imagine to see flooding like this. That's a more complex situation because you people dealing with medical complications. What can you tell me about what's happening there?

CHRONISTER: Yes, that's a -- it takes a little more of a triage. Certainly, have to handle a fragile situation with the utmost care and a lot more care. We have almost 100 residents up there and that's certainly going to be a more prolonged rescue operation.

ROSALES: Any message you want to give to folks out there that, you know, they're stuck, stuck and more blindsided, again, in these areas that they've never seen conditions like this before?

CHRONISTER: Just hang tight, shelter. I know you're uncomfortable. Almost 600,000 people in our county without power. We'll come to you as quick as we can.

ROSALES: And any idea how many of these calls you have right now?

CHRONISTER: Right now, these are the two big facilities. We have another rehabilitative facility. We have a hotel here and then up on the north end. But again, out east and up north, we've never experienced this type of flooding. So, I'm sure it was quite frightening for these folks who thought they were safe. They were sheltered in place. And now, faced with having flooding and not knowing what was going to stop.

Again, you can see the relief. My heart is certainly full of content knowing that we're going to get them to dry ground and get them the medical attention they need.

ROSALES: Sheriff, thank you so much for your time. Back to you.

HUNT: Isabel, we've just been watching all of this remarkable footage play out in front of us here. And you mentioned, and it sounds like the sheriff was echoing exactly what you said, that you had lived for a long time in the Tampa Bay area. The initial concern had been, of course, the storm surge, which would have affected Western Hillsborough County. What you're seeing there, this is primarily from the rain from the storm?

[05:40:00]

ROSALES: Right. And it seems in the Tampa Bay area, specifically when taking in mine, Hillsborough County, we have avoided the worst-case storm surge expectations that we originally had with Milton, right. That was great news that we avoided that aspect of it. But then, you have all of this heavy wind knocking down, you know, power lines, trees, and then all of the rainfall, that relentless rainfall. Well, that leads to -- even inland flooding leads to flash flooding.

And clearly, we're seeing not even -- the sun's not out yet, but we're beginning to understand just how dangerous of a situation that is for so many people here in Hillsborough County.

HUNT: All right. Isabel Rosales for us. Stay safe out there. We'll be back with you, I'm sure, throughout the course of the morning.

Let's now go live to Punta Gorda, Florida. We're going to bring in Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell. Sheriff, thank you very much for being here. Actually, it sounds like we may have just lost our sheriff, Bill Prummell, who we were hoping to speak to here to ask him exactly what many of those he is trying to help and rescue right now. So, while we try to track our sheriff back down, we're going to continue to cover this breaking news, Hurricane Milton's -- the latest from Hurricane Milton throughout this morning. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:00]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton. Let's go live to Orlando where we find CNN's Brian Abel this morning as this storm has made its way across Florida overnight. Brian, what have you seen where you are?

BRIAN ABEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've seen heavy rain as well as heavy winds. Kasie, good morning to you. Those winds, they're pretty circular as when they hit us, up to 74 miles per hour recorded at Orlando's airport. Because they were so strong, first responders, police officers had to be pulled from the roads for their own safety at some point. I'm not sure if you can see these trees that are here behind me. At some point this morning, at different points, they look like they're about to snap. That's how strong these winds are. But the real concern now is this flash flooding because of the rainfall, the multiple days in a row that this area has experienced rain. It hasn't stopped yet. Still coming down. There is a flash flood warning in this area.

I did talk with the Emergency Management Division. They tell me that the first responders here, they're really waiting until the sun comes up to assess the damage of this area. So, right now, it's kind of just a sit and wait and see what happens. But we have seen some trees come and go. We've seen what appeared to be electrical outlets and transformers blow.

You see, the power is still here behind me downtown right now. Obviously, not the case for some 3 million plus customers at this point. Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Brian Abel for us this morning in Orlando. Brian, thank you very much for that report. Stay safe out there. Let's now go live to Punta Gorda, Florida, where we find Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell. Sheriff, thank you so much for being with us this morning. We, of course, have seen -- we've been looking at some of the video, a storm chaser who was in Punta Gorda, which is in Charlotte County and the damage there, the flooding level is pretty astonishing. What do you know at this hour about how bad things are there?

SHERIFF BILL PRUMMELL, CHARLOTTE COUNTY, FLORIDA: Well, we're still trying to assess the situation. I have one of my helicopters up right now, basically find the whole coast of the county. The City of Punta Gorda tends to go underwater during a heavy rainstorm. So, we knew that was going to be flooded. And it took on a tremendous amount of water when Helene came through. So, we knew that was going to be one of our areas of concentration.

But also, my understanding from reports back from my deputies is that our West County area out in Englewood took it pretty hard, that we have a lot of flooding out there and our Barrier Islands and the beach down there have all taken on a lot of flooding. We've seen a lot of buildings that have been damaged. But overall, the surge wasn't as great as it was predicted to be. So, I'm very happy on that.

HUNT: Grateful indeed. So, sir, what is your message to folks at this hour, especially in those areas that are a little bit farther west? Do you have more people there who perhaps expected to be able to safely shelter in place?

PRUMMELL: Well, it appears that a lot of our residents did heed the warning, and they left and went to shelters or left town altogether. But we do have several that we know of that stayed back. Our SAR teams are starting to hit those areas. So, we can see who's out there and who might need some assistance.

But what I want to put out to all the residents is please don't go out yet. It's still dark out there. We don't have an entire assessment of the situation and the damage. So, we don't need you to get in the way of our first responders, and we don't need you to put yourself in danger. So, just stay put. If you're stuck in your house, we'll get to you.

HUNT: Sir, our Isabel Rosales was just talking a few moments ago with the Hillsborough County sheriff, and they had identified a couple of spots where they had a number of people, a hotel, an assisted living facility. Are there any places in your county at this hour where you're aware that you have to do a higher number of rescues?

[05:50:00]

PRUMMELL: Well, right now, we're assuming down on the Manasota Key area, we were told that several residents did stay back. So, we're not really sure the exact number. I also know on our Barrier Islands, we had a handful of people that elected to stay out there. So, those are some of the areas we're going to be concentrating on.

And then, of course, within the City of Punta Gorda, that is underwater like it normally is. So, we're going to be going door to door in those areas.

HUNT: Sir, how did the recent hit from Helene affect your planning for this one? And how do you think it's affected what's happened from the storm? Because, obviously, this is really a one-two punch.

PRUMMELL: Yes. Now, you know, I don't know if Helene was a blessing or not, but when Helene came through, Helene flooded some areas that we have never seen flooded before. It actually -- we had more than 2,000 homes that received major damage or destroyed during Helene. So, we knew those areas that were affected by Helene were going to be at least two-fold affected by Milton. So, we have -- we planned accordingly.

And also based on the surge predictions, we had our maps all laid out. So, we knew where we were going to send our SAR teams and what our plan of attack was. We also know that that has to be a fluid plan. So, as our air unit reports back to us as to what areas were hardest hit, we may have to adjust and go in there first.

HUNT: All right. Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell, I know you have a long few days here ahead of you. We wish our best to you and to those that you are working to protect. Thank you very much for your time this morning.

Let's go now to CNN's --

PRUMMELL: Thank you.

HUNT: Of course -- Victor Blackwell, who is on the ground in Orlando. Victor, good morning to you once again. What is the latest where you are in Orlando as this storm starts to move across Florida?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I mean, right now we've got just very light wind and light rain. I can't promise that's what it's going to look like by the end of this live shot because that's how quickly that combination of the wind and rain changes here. We just checked in with power outages, that number continuing to grow, now nearing 90,000 here in Orange County. Several tens of thousands in Osceola County, where Kissimmee is, straight south of us.

And our hotel, where we are, and we're in a hotel zone here, right near Disney, there's an interesting combination of the people who have come here. You've got some people who are -- were hoping to evacuate before the storm. I spoke with a family from the U.K. that they came here to the parks, but unfortunately, because of Milton, they shut down the parks early Wednesday afternoon.

And then, you have people who have evacuated to this hotel. The lights are starting to come on in the rooms as they wake up. They can't use the televisions here. Last check the signal was out. But they're going to try to go through social media and check back on their homes and their businesses on the southwest coast.

We are waiting for an update from the Orange County and Orlando authorities. They're back on the roads now. As you can see at this moment, the winds have calmed down. So, they are responding to some of those calls. Likely, they'll be checking the Greenwood neighborhood first, which is likely to -- when there's a lot of rain, to flood. We

got an update from the Orlando International Airport on rainfall here. They've had about four and a third inches of rain since this started with more than three and a quarter yesterday, which is a single day record for that meter there at the airport. Still, two to three inches of rain to come today. So, they could get close to that record on the second day of Milton's impact here.

So, again, as you're probably hearing from our correspondence all over this part of Florida and certainly, on the southwest portion, that they're waiting for the sun to come up. They're waiting to get that first look for themselves at some of the damage. We're certainly doing that here in Central Florida as well.

HUNT: Right. As, of course, we've heard from a number of local officials this morning that they're seeing more damage in the western portions of their counties in places that normally wouldn't necessarily have expected this kind of flooding, as of course, this for St. Petersburg, it was once in a thousand-year rain event, even though the storm surge was not as bad as it may have been predicted. Victor Blackwell, very grateful to have you. We'll check in with you again shortly.

Straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, our coverage of Hurricane Milton continues, including destruction in Tampa after the city was slammed with wind gusts up to 100 miles an hour. We are expecting a press conference from officials in Tampa in the next hour. We're going to bring you that live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:55:00]

HUNT: All right. Just before 6:00 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at Hillsborough County, Florida in the Tampa area. Police beginning search and rescue efforts ahead of daybreak. Officials in to hold a news conference any moment now to give an update. We will, of course, bring that to you live as it happens.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt.

It's Thursday, October 10. It's wonderful to have you with you. But we do continue to cover this difficult breaking news this morning. Hurricane Milton hammering Florida with life-threatening floods, extreme wind, and deadly tornadoes.

In St. Petersburg, a one in 1000-year rainfall, the storm dumping at least 18 inches of rain on --

[06:00:00]