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Now, Outer Bands of Hurricane Milton Lashing Florida; Floridians Race to Flee as Cat 4 Hurricane Milton Closes In; Florida Governor Gives Update as Hurricane Milton Closes In. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 09, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, you are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We do begin with the breaking news right now. The outer bands of Hurricane Milton are starting to slam into the Florida Gulf Coast. This is a live look at the Tampa Bay area as the powerful Category 4 storm is barreling toward the state. Officials are warning of life threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall. It's set to make landfall and unleash its fury overnight. We are awaiting a press conference at any moment from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. We'll bring that to you live.

In the meantime, we have team coverage of Hurricane Milton. We have CNN's Randi Kaye and Isabel Rosales standing by in Florida. But, first, let's go to CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam. Derek, this is still a very powerful, monstrous storm. What's the latest?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, indeed, Jim. In fact, we're getting hourly updates now and we'll continue to do so through landfall, which we anticipate sometime late tonight and into the early morning hours of Thursday.

Still, 155 mile-per-hour wind, that is a powerful Category 4. Note that I did not say Category 5. It was earlier this morning. Didn't lose much intensity overnight like we had hoped it would. But let's not split hairs here. The amount of energy that this storm has enacted on the eastern Gulf of Mexico means that the storm surge that will be realized across west central coastline of Florida in the coming hours and into the overnight period will be consistent with a Category 5 hurricane.

So, let's talk specifics. In terms of this trajectory, we still have that landfall with a Category 4. That's explicitly noted in the National Hurricane Center's forecast track again late tonight, early tomorrow morning, it will zip across the Florida Peninsula and bring its fury along with it along with hurricane force winds.

So, when can you expect the tropical storm force winds to begin? Well, you can see into Tampa this afternoon to this evening. That's when conditions will really start to be felt. And then they go downhill exponentially from there. Remember, tropical storm force winds, they close the bridges in and around Tampa and along the barrier island. So, if you have not evacuated, I implore you, because now is your moment in time to get inland as quick as possible.

This is the latest radar and you can see the eye is actually visible on the radar for both Key West and Tampa base radar systems. The winds that are in the outer band impacting the western coastline already gusting over 30 miles per hour. You can see, look at Venice 39 miles per hour currently right now. But it will only get exponentially worse from here. Catastrophic wind damage possible not just on the coast but inland, and that storm surge potential still there even though it's lowered in Tampa Bay. Jim, these numbers will eclipse what we experienced in Helene two weeks ago.

ACOSTA: Yes, it certainly will. All right, Derek Van Dam, thank you so much.

Randi Kaye is in Sarasota, Florida. How are things on the ground there? Randi, as Derek was saying a few moments ago, I mean, these outer bands are starting to make their way in. And then just this afternoon, a few hours from now, you're going to really start to feel the effects.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Jim, we are sort of bracing for a bull's eye here in Sarasota, along with the rest of the community. Throughout the morning, we have seen several bands come through, definitely some heavy rains and the winds are certainly starting to pick up.

We're on South Shore Drive in an owner's backyard who gave us permission to be here. He evacuated. But we are here and this is what the concern is because the water has been going up and down all morning. And they are expecting, as Derek was talking about, a potentially a 10 to 15-foot storm surge. He left his boat behind. He doesn't know if his boat will still be here when he returns.

And then if you look just across the water over there, take you over here, you can see some of the homes, they've been boarded up, they have their hurricane shutters. Most of the people have left this area after they saw what Helene did. There is destruction from Helene all over the neighborhoods as we were driving around and Sarasota pretty much the neighborhoods that we've been in at least is really a ghost town. The restaurants are closed, the windows are boarded up in homes, the hurricane shutters are on, there's plywood on a lot of the businesses in downtown.

But some people still think that they could ride it out. Some rode out Helene. In fact, I talked to one woman who said that they had a house on Siesta Key, one of those barrier islands where now the bridge is closed to, so you can't get off that island anymore, as Derek was talking about. They've been there for 25 years. They never had an inch of rain in their home.

Well, her husband rode out Helene there, and this is what he experienced. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

K.T. CURRAN, EVACUATED FOR HELENE, STAYING FOR MILTON: That night, he got no power, he had no phone and we lost touch with him. And we found out the next day there was a five-foot surge of water in the house and he was all night in the pitch dark in five-foot of water.

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He sat there for hours on the top of a neighbor's high house until the water went down a little and then went back in the house and laid on a wet bed until light came up.

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KAYE: And, again, Jim, that was on Siesta Key. And I spoke to Sarasota's mayor, Liz Alpert, and she said she's not sure if people evacuated from -- if everyone evacuated from those barrier islands. So, that's a real concern. That's potentially what they could see or possibly even worse if anybody's out there still as Hurricane Milton comes in.

ACOSTA: Yes. Randi, we know Floridians are experienced in dealing with hurricanes, but this is not one where you ride it out. Randi Kaye in Sarasota, thank you so much.

Isabel Rosales is in Tampa where evacuations are coming to a close. Isabel, how are things looking there?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim, I want to show you something real quick. Let's actually move the camera this way. This is Tampa's Marine Unit. Here in the last couple of minutes, I saw them talking to this person who lives on this 20-foot boat right here, speaking very bluntly, telling him, please evacuate, follow the orders to evacuate here in Zone A right on the Hillsborough Bay.

And they told him, if you don't evacuate -- we've told you this before, if you don't evacuate, you're going to die. So, very blunt languages are trying to persuade with this man as we speak to evacuate. Jim, I'm going to pass it right back to you. We have DeSantis.

ACOSTA: My goodness. All right, I hope they're successful in talking him out of that boat. Isabel, thank you so much.

We have to break away from Isabel's live shot for a moment. Here's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

And, folks, we might have a technical issue there with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Stand by and we're going to see if we can iron that out.

In the meantime, officials are telling Floridians to get out while they can. And we're going to go back into Ron DeSantis. Let's listen to this press conference. GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): -- for over two weeks, given both of these storms, the state is actively fulfilling over 1,500 missions. We've delivered massive amounts of supplies, meals, water bottles, sandbags, tarps, generators to be able to help our local communities respond to this storm. We've also deployed more than 11,000 feet of flood protection systems and erected them around critical infrastructure like hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities and electric infrastructure.

Generators have been deployed at shelters and to support sheltering operations. Starlink internet has been deployed across the entire state of Florida. We have surged an additional 600 ambulances and they are currently in operation helping in the effort.

The state of Florida has considerable fuel reserves ahead of Milton and it's staged and they will be utilized as needed following the storm. We've already dispatched a lot of fuel in the lead up to this, but we still have on hand 1.6 million gallons of diesel and 1.1 million gallons of gasoline. There is no, right now, fuel shortage. However, demand has been extraordinarily high and some gas stations have run out to be able to help ameliorate that. The Florida Highway Patrol has facilitated 106 long distant fuel tanker escorts with sirens getting through traffic totaling almost a million gallons of gasoline from ports in Tampa, Jacksonville, Everglades and Manatee. And they are continuing with the fuel escorts, as we speak.

I've been in contact with the ports on the west coast of Florida. We'll see how this storm impacts those. Clearly, there's a chance that you could have a major impact on Port Manatee as well as on Port Tampa Bay. That could interrupt their ability to receive fuel shipments. And so we're working on contingencies to be able to keep fuel flowing throughout the state of Florida.

As we saw this new storm develop, it was clear that a lot of the hardest hit areas on the west coast of Florida from Hurricane Helene had not had major robust debris removal contracts in place or operations in place. Some of these contractors were good, some of them were not getting the job done. So, you had a major hazard on barrier islands in Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota County.

So, this weekend I authorized mandated 24/7 debris removal. We took all the Florida Department of Transportation and other agency vehicles, brought them from all across the state and they are engaged in other missions as their normal course of business and dedicated it to debris removal, so in a little over 48 hours.

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And they were working all through the night, in the wee hours of the morning in places like Manatee, Sarasota and Pinellas. They were able to remove 55,000 cubic yards of debris. So, that's over 3,000 truckloads of debris. And it's our estimation that on those barrier islands, they were able to make a dent in the debris and reduce it by about 50 percent just from what Jared Perdue and the other agencies were able to get done. So, I want to thank everybody that's been involved in that. It did not stop since this weekend. We're now in a position where it's likely the conditions are going to deteriorate. And so we're going to have to wind that down. But they did make a difference and there will be less damage from this storm as a result of getting that debris out than there otherwise would have been.

The Florida Department of Transportation is staging the following assets ahead of the storm. 156 bridge inspectors, 328 cut and toss personnel, and over 1,500 pieces of heavy equipment. Florida National Guard, Florida State Guard, Florida Fish and Wildlife and the Florida Highway Patrol have activated additional personnel in advance of the storm.

We have hundreds of state search and rescue personnel on hand, 26 total teams. They are currently embedded in the potential impact sites along the west coast to begin immediate rescue operations as soon as the storm passes. The National Guard is deploying 6,000 Florida national guardsmen as well as 3,000 national guardsmen from other states. And so we thank for the support on that.

We have 34 search and rescue -- have been brought in from other states. We have 500 tactical vehicles, including 180 high water vehicles, aerial, water and ground National Guard search and rescue teams. This is the largest Florida National Guard search and rescue mobilization in the entire history of the state of Florida.

Our Florida State Guard is also deploying almost 200 soldiers, 10 maritime crews, 3 high water UTVs, 2 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, 4 drone teams, 15 cut and toss crews, 2 amphibious rescue crews. We want to thank them. I mean, this was just a dream a couple years ago that they would be involved and there was a lot of unfair criticism when we stood it up, but they have made a huge difference in this hurricane season. They're going to continue to do it here.

We have also worked with the utilities to have the largest staging of utility workers in linemen in advance of the storm anytime in American history. We will have in Florida, by the time the storm arises, over 50,000 linemen. And those linemen are being brought in from places as far away as California. So, as soon as that storm passes, you're going to see the assessments and the power restoration efforts commence immediately.

Additionally, the state of Florida has assisted with the evacuation of 352 healthcare facilities in the potential path of the storm. 16 hospitals have been evacuated. The state veteran nursing homes are currently located that are in the cone are all accepting families of their residents to shelter with them. All of those are hurricane proof. All of them are outside of flood zone. So, if you do have a family member that's in one of our state nursing homes, you can go and you can shelter with them. That's a safe option. And I know the veterans would appreciate it.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is directing deployment of additional 500 out-of-state law enforcement officers. These officers will help respond after the storm to maintain law and order. And there is going to be a lot of damage from this storm. There's going to be opportunities for people to try to take advantage of that. My message to you is don't even think about it. We are going to come down hard on you. You are not going to regret that you tried to do that. So, I appreciate all the other folks from out of state who are coming in to supplement this effort. We need to maintain law and order. FDLE's mutual aid team is managing more than 70 active law enforcement missions, including identifying post-storm response squads. And these are really important missions and we're happy for that.

So, we're preparing for Milton, but we're also still recovering from Hurricane Helene. When Hurricane Helene hit, we reactivated the Florida Disaster Fund. We are now accepting donations into the Florida Disaster Fund for both storms, both Helene and for Milton. This is a private fund. It's affiliated with the state in terms of disaster, but it's tax deductible donations. We distributed $63 million after Hurricane Ian to help people largely in Southwest Florida.

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This is something that is really, really important. So, I've directed Volunteer Florida to keep the fund activated for Hurricane Milton. I want to thank -- there's already been millions raised for Helene. I want to thank Lennar, Wells Fargo, Walmart, and Publix for making really significant donations. And I know there's going to be a lot more that are going to want to do it.

To contribute to the Florida Disaster Fund, you can text disaster to 20222, disaster to 20222, or you can visit floridadisasterfund.org.

So, now we're bearing down to where the storm is going to arrive within the next 24 hours. You still have time to evacuate if you are in an evacuation zone, particularly if you're in Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, those areas. I mean, this track can bounce around. It's not guaranteed it's going to hit there. A lot of the solutions have it going there. You have time to do that now.

Conditions aren't going to be great today. I would say that the roads in the interstates, they are flowing. We've waived tolls. We've done all that so people can do. But the best option would probably be just to evacuate within your own county to one of the shelters. All those counties have multiple shelters that are open. There's a lot of space in those shelters right now, and certainly it would be safe to do a very short evacuation, tens of miles, rather than get on the interstate and go.

The roads are still open. People can do that. But I just want to warn people that the conditions are likely going to continue to deteriorate throughout the course of the day. We had, of course, on Monday, when the initial evacuations were coming down, particularly in the Tampa Bay area, had a lot of traffic on I-4 and on I-75. FDOT did the emergency shoulder plan that helped, but it was, but it was slow and those roads can be very slow anyways. By the time we got to the end of the night through the wee hours of the morning, it was going pretty quickly.

Yesterday was not as bad on those roads as it was on Monday. But what we did see is Alligator Alley down in Southern Florida was about 150 percent of its normal capacity. And I think that's because as people saw the storm potentially bending a little further south. I think a lot of people in Southwest Florida decided to evacuate across the state. And so that's that.

The roads now are good, but I would just caution, the conditions are not great now and they're likely going to get worse as the day goes on. Of course, we do have a lot of mandatory evacuations in place. If you want to get a hotel, you can go to visit florida.com/priceline, expedia.com/florida. That is the emergency accommodation module that is there. I'm not sure what availability there's going to be in a lot of these places at this point. But if that's something that you're interested in, you can try that.

Of course, we've worked with the Florida restaurant and lodging association for distress rates for hotels as well as waiving pet fees. And I know a lot of the hotels in the state of Florida have responded very positively for that. So, I just want to thank them for doing that.

We've also partnered with Uber for Hurricane Milton to provide free rides to and from shelters and counties with active evacuation orders. So, if you want to utilize that, when you do the ride, you do the promo code. miltonrelief, just one word, miltonrelief.

OnStar has activated crisis mode, which provides free crisis assistance services and in-vehicle data for Chevy, Buick, GMC and Cadillac owners. Schools, most of the school districts in the state are closed today. Obviously, if you get out of the path and like the panhandle, not as much, but in that Florida peninsula, virtually all school districts are closed. All Florida counties in Miccosukee and seminal tribes are assisting the state with storm response. And I want to thank all those for their great work.

We have 149 general population shelters that are open throughout the state. The current total shelter population is just 31,000 individuals. We have room in those shelters for a total population of almost 200,000 individuals. So, there is space available in these shelters. I know a lot of people would rather stay in a hotel, and that's fine, but especially now as the storm's getting closer, you may be able to get in your car and drive ten miles, get to a shelter, ride the storm out and then be able to go as you see fit. And hopefully you'll be able to get back to your place very quickly, but space is available.

So there are 36 county-owned --

ACOSTA: All right. That is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis giving a briefing on the latest preparations for the landfall of Hurricane Milton. The governor there just a few moments ago really urging residents to get out while there's still time and just relaying the message a few moments ago that there is still room available at local emergency shelters.

[10:20:00] So, the governor, local officials there in Florida are trying to encourage people to get away from those coastal areas because this is going to be a very powerful and dangerous hurricane.

We're going to take a quick break, more on the other side of the break. Be right back.

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ACOSTA: All right. For many Floridian families, the hurricane prep is all too familiar. Helene ravaged parts of the state just two weeks ago, and now they're facing Hurricane Milton.

Staci Wilkinson joins us now. Staci, thanks so much for being with us. You live in Cortez, Florida. We understand you and your husband evacuated to higher ground just a few miles away, although in Florida, you know, higher ground is kind of a relative term.

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But how are you prepared for this time around?

STACI WILKINSON, EVACUATED FROM CORTEZ, FLORIDA: Thanks, Jim. You know, it's a lot. We live in Florida where Floridians were used to riding out hurricanes, and this has been a whole different ballgame and a whole different beast. Helene was terrible, not even two weeks ago. And the town that I live in right on the cusp of Cortez along with AMI, you know, we all suffered catastrophic damages. My husband and I took on over three feet of water in our home along with everybody else. And we've lost almost everything. And we're just picking up the pieces from that trying to carry on. And here we are again in a more worse situation.

ACOSTA: Wow. So, you lost your home in Helene?

WILKINSON: I did. Yes, we did.

ACOSTA: Wow. And how are you going to make do moving forward? I'm so sorry.

WILKINSON: Thank you. You know, it's not just us. It's our entire town, our entire community. And I'm very lucky. I'm very blessed. We evacuated with our three dogs and went 6.5 miles inland where my mother and father in law are, and they are at Zone E as opposed to our flood Zone A. So, that's where we've been for the last two weeks, and it's 33 feet above sea level, And we've hunkered down and prepped the house as best we can and, you know saying all of our prayers

ACOSTA: And you said that a friend compared what you've been going through to battle fatigue. I guess that's what it feels like right now living in Florida with these storms coming through that you're in a battle?

WILKINSON: Absolutely. Our friend who's a retired veteran has been, you know, observing what's been going on in this town for the last two weeks. And having to force to continue to work every day to try to pick up the pieces, save what we can, dragging what we can to our streets. Much of the debris and what we've all lost in our homes is still on the streets as we prepare for Milton. And so it's just cause of battle fatigue as a veteran and counselors, you know, kind of call it acute stress disorder. But it's just having to continue to carry on in, you know, circumstances that are way, this is not normal. This feels very unreal, surreal over here.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Staci, what's it like in some of these neighborhoods, your old neighborhood with the debris? Because that's -- I mean, that's what we're hearing from a lot of folks across parts of Florida that were hit by Helene, is that there are piles debris still everywhere. We heard the governor saying a few moments ago they're doing their best to get rid of it all. But it sounds like a lot of it's still lying around and it's going to be a real hazard.

WILKINSON: Sure, absolutely. I mean, there's just not been enough time to recover from Helene, to prepare for Milton. So, you know, they've been working and trying to get the debris out, but it's just more -- it's more than what could be managed in such a short period of time.

ACOSTA: All right, Staci Wilkinson, we're wishing you the best. Good luck riding out this storm. Thanks so much. Keep us posted on how you're doing, but best of luck. Thanks so much.

WILKINSON: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right. We'll be right back.

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