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Florida Facing Long Road To Recovery After Hurricane Milton; Lebanon Health Ministry: Israeli Airstrike In Beirut Kills 18; Source: Israel's Security Cabinet To Vote On Iran Response; Ethel Kennedy, Widow of Robert F. Kennedy, Dead At 96. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired October 10, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:34]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is 8:00 p.m. in London, 10:00 p.m. in Tel Aviv, and 3:00 p.m. here in New York.

Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM. Let's get right to the news.

Floridians and rescue crews are beginning the herculean cleanup effort after Hurricane Milton devastated that state. At least eight people are dead. That number is expected to rise when gusts exceeding 100 miles an hour, ripping roofs off of houses, stripping trees, toppling cranes, and tossing debris through the air.

The roof of Tropicana Stadium, which had been set up as a makeshift shelter for first responders, you see there, completely shredded. In St. Lucie County, the storm spawned nine supercharged tornadoes, three of them, in less than 25 minutes, they destroyed everything in their paths and left at least five people dead. And while the storm has moved offshore into the Atlantic, the danger is not over yet. That's because flooding remains a major threat as rivers continue to swell.

More than 3 million people are without power and airports remain closed. In the last hour, President Biden emphasized preparations, saved lives, and people need to remain vigilant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are still very dangerous conditions in the state and people should wait to be given all clear by their leaders before they go out. We know from previous hurricanes and it's often the case, the more lives are lost the days following the storm than actually during the storm itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's Carlos Suarez is in Fort Myers Beach.

Carlos, describe the damage that you've seen.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jessica.

So, we got gotten into the town of Fort Myers Beach a few hours ago after city officials out here reopened its residents. The damage really is a result of the storm surge that we saw here. We're talking about five-and-a-half feet of flooding for Fort Myers Beach here in Lee County. That number was supposed to be anywhere between eight to 12 feet. So folks are breathing a bit of a sigh of relief.

Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't, of course, a good amount of damage. You can see this one fridge here that was pushed him out of this business just came to a stop at the entrance of this restaurant here, the owner of this place, just -- just actually went inside for the first time and said they've got about a half a foot of water inside, but that he didn't think the damage was particularly bad considering the power of this hurricane.

Now, Jessica, Hurricane Ian devastated a good part of Fort Myers beach two years ago. The storm surge for that hurricane was 15 feet. And so, the folks out here, were really concerned that Milton was going to, you know, damage this part on the same level as it did two years ago with Hurricane Ian. But that's not the case.

And so, what we're seeing at this hour is a dump trucks that now line Fort Myers beach here. They're trying to get all of the debris, they're trying to get all of the sand that has been pushed in by the storm surge. They're trying to collect that onto these dump trucks so that they can get them out, and then folks can come back in and take a look at their damage.

As you noted, coming out to me, a lot of these deaths are being attributed to these tornadoes. Two of them hit here in Lee County to the north of where we are here on Fort Myers Beach. One was in the city of Fort Myers, the other one was in north Fort Myers. We were there earlier today. We saw a number of homes that had the roofs torn off parts, the windows were blown out.

But luckily in that one neighborhood that we were in, nobody was seriously hurt -- Jessica.

DEAN: Absolutely lucky.

All right. Carlos Suarez for us there in Fort Myers Beach -- thank you so much for that.

And joining us now is Hillsborough County Fire Rescues chief, public information officer, Danny Alvarez.

Thank you so much for being here. I know you guys have been tremendously busy. I just first want to get your assessment now that the sun has come out up and the actual storm has passed through, what is your assessment of the damage?

DANNY ALVAREZ, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY FIRE RESCUE PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER: Oh, thank you for having me.

The assessment were pretty optimistic given what could have been. We do have a lot of trees -- trees down power lines down as well as some traffic lights. We do -- we are also experiencing some flooding on the west side of our town or the west side of our county. So compared to what it could have been, we're waking up to a more optimistic situation.

DEAN: And we heard the president and others say that preparations, evacuations being prepared for this storm helped save lives.

[15:05:06]

Do you think that's true?

ALVAREZ: Without a doubt, without a doubt. We're truly grateful to the members of our community who were in low lying areas. They heeded the warnings and the evacuation orders that were given. Without a doubt, it saved lives.

We suffered quite a bit with Hurricane Helene two weeks ago. Storm surges were from anywhere from five to nine feet. And we were anticipating anywhere from 10 to 15 feet. However, we are truly grateful that our citizens listened. They sought shelter inland, further inland, and there was a great success. In Hillsborough County, we haven't reported any deaths resulting from the hurricane.

DEAN: Yeah, that is -- that's tremendous news. We're just watching video as you're talking of earlier today in Hillsborough County, just seeing some of the efforts out there to clean up and certainly get to people and things.

Are you still getting calls for rescues at this point?

ALVAREZ: Yes. We are. Currently, we're working our tactical search and rescue teams. We have 12 of those deployed throughout the county, actively working at this moment. We have eight boat teams that are also actively helping those that are being affected by these flash floods that we did see on the west side of our county. And we have four SHERP amphibious vehicles that we recently purchased specifically for these types of hurricanes and disasters. So we are actively working still.

DEAN: Yeah, and so, what is your biggest concern at this point?

ALVAREZ: Right. I think our biggest concern as a fire department, as people get complacent, they think the biggest threat is over and either try to just come outside of their home and just evaluate neighborhood or try to come back into the neighborhood if they did actually evacuate. And we have downed power lines, we have a hazards that are you cannot see with the naked eye.

Currently our -- TECO, which is our light provider, they just said that 590 out of 800,000 customers are without power. So we are in the process of coordinating those efforts, making sure these downed power lines are not energized which could obviously be -- obviously be a huge hazard for our residents.

DEAN: Of course. And we saw just some of the amphibious vehicles that you were describing. Do you feel like you and your team have the equipment, the resources that you need?

ALVAREZ: At the moment, yes, we do. We were -- Hillsborough County fire rescue was well-prepared. Hurricane Helene did teach us a few things and, you know unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to see it, we were in a state of readiness for two-week period. We had all our equipment staged. We had all our personnel ready to go.

So, as far as the fire department goes, and I'll speak for the county itself, county administrator, all our local leadership, they've been tremendous and assisting us and just being a unified team to respond to the needs of our community, also wanted to give thanks to our state representatives and the federal -- at the federal level as well. It's just been a wonderful coordinated effort.

DEAN: All right. Danny Alvarez, thank you so much for the time and good luck with what lies ahead. I'm glad to hear that it's not -- not as bad there as you all had feared. We're really glad to hear that.

ALVAREZ: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

DEAN: Let's bring in CNN meteorologist Elisa Raffa, who's been tracking hurricane Milton since it first began to form.

Elisa, walk us through what we -- what we've seen.

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We have this finally offshore. It's still though producing some wind gusts, up to 32 miles per hour Charleston, South Carolina, 30 miles per hour in Jacksonville, still 20 mile per hour gusts in Daytona Beach. And what some of these gusts are doing is still kicking up some storm surge on the East Coast of Florida. We still have three to five feet of storm surge possible from Daytona Beach up into Southern Georgia, definitely rip currents will be a risk go up and down the east coast so you don't want to be out in the water at all, as we go into the next couple of days.

We still have power outages, more than 3 million people without power across the state of Florida because remember when Milton mainland, the wind field was incredibly wide, 250 miles. So that means it's got far- reaching winds to knock out a ton of power. These winds, when it made landfall, Venice 107 miles per hour, Sarasota, 102, Tampa, 91 miles per hour. So, again, pretty destructive winds.

[15:10:00]

And the tornadoes that of Milton have been prolific. It is common to get tornadoes from a hurricane making landfall because it is a spinning system would a lot of moisture, but we don't get these. Usually, those tornadoes are very skinny, very weak, and very fast and brief. These were monsters that you typically see in a tornado outbreak in the Midwest, 126 tornado warnings were issued across the state of Florida yesterday, and that's set a record that was the most that they've ever issued in a day, and that beats out previous hurricanes like Irma, Helene from two weeks ago and Ian.

And look, beat up by a lot, 126 warnings. And number two, Irma was at 69 warnings. The storm was also a little bit lopsided and it put the footprint of the heaviest rain to the north of the storm track. Typically, we see that footprints to the south, but this heavy rain has caused significant flash flooding problems. We've seen a lot of our reporters around the Tampa area in

floodwaters. That is from the torrential heavy rain, you cannot evacuate for that -- Jessica.

DEAN: And before we let you go, give us some perspective in terms of where we are in hurricane season.

RAFFA: Yeah. So we've got another six weeks to go. Hurricane season continues to go through the end of November, so we still have October to get through. We still have November to get through. And our ocean temperatures have been incredibly warm and that has what's been fueling the active season.

So we still have a ways to go. We're not quite done yet -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Elisa Raffa, thank you so much for that. We appreciate it.

Let's go now to the Middle East where Israel is once again hit Beirut in a series of airstrikes, flattening entire residential building. According to the ministry of health, at least 18 people have been killed, nearly 100 injured.

In the two weeks since Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, the IDF has now launched over 1,100 airstrikes on Lebanon, a quarter of the country is now under Israeli evacuation orders. That means more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. And the U.N. is warning that the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is, quote, deteriorating at an alarming rate as Israeli airstrikes intensify, and increasingly targets civilian infrastructure.

I want to get to Ben Wedeman, who is in southern Lebanon.

And, Ben, another Israeli airstrike targeting Beirut. You have been there throughout this whole thing. What do you know?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, these were two airstrikes on central Beirut, not the southern suburbs which have been a frequent daily and nightly target of Israeli strikes in one of them, according to security sources the strike hit the third floor of an eighth floor building. But in the other case, a four story residential building was completely flattened, basically blown to smithereens and we understand from neighbors that they are still hearing the screams of people caught in the rubble underneath.

Now, this is an area where to which many of those who fled the southern suburbs and other parts of Lebanon thought they would be safe. These were considers areas outside the zones that to have a significant Hezbollah presence. So that's where many of the people who have fled have taken refuge.

Now, as you mentioned, the death toll according to the ministry of health 18 with 92 injured. But this is a preliminary death toll. What we're hearing from the scene of that collapsed four story residential building is that they are still pulling the dead from under the rubble -- Jessica. DEAN: And you are right now in southern Lebanon, where towns have been destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes. Tell us more about that.

WEDEMAN: Yeah, towns have been destroyed, but if you look sort of across southern Lebanon, much of the population, though not all of it, has fled. The Israelis have put out more than 125 evacuation orders for southern Lebanese towns and villages. And for instance, where we are in the southern city of Tyre, normal life has come to a screeching halt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEDEMAN (voice-over): You have to walk carefully through the rubble. All that remains of three buildings in Tyre demolished by Israeli bombs. Neighbors say the bombing killed at least five people, including women and children.

The Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military will occasionally over Twitter or X put out evacuation orders for specific buildings in Beirut before they're struck. Here in Tyre, there have been no warnings.

For 35 years, Beha (ph) has run a small clothing shop next door. Now, in shambles.

History is repeating itself, she says. A three-story building fell over our heads during the 1982 Israeli invasion.

[15:15:04]

This ancient city is just 12 miles or 19 kilometers from the border with Israel. Most of the residents have fled north. Those who stayed behind live under constant threat.

It was terrifying. The missile hit and it collapsed, says 70-year-old Makdad (ph), describing another Israeli strike that destroyed multiple homes in Tyre's old city.

For more than half a century, every generation has witnessed destruction and death.

We're used to it, says Makdad's neighbor Yousif (ph). We're used to wars. We've seen wars.

Going back to the days of the Phoenicians, Tyre has looked to the sea. Now, a forbidden zone.

Israel has warned people to stay off the beaches and fishermen not to take their boats out. So in Tyre's port, Abu Ibrahim sits and smokes his water pipe. We go to sea so we can eat, he tells me. Now we can't. How can we eat?

An old man deprived of his sea.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WEDEMAN (on camera): And south of the city of Tyre, what we're seeing in the hills behind us in the area that has the Israeli-Lebanon border is continued fighting along the border between Hezbollah and Israeli forces who say they are in Lebanon on localized, limited, and targeted raids is the term they use. But what were seeing is that fairly intense its fighting on the ground, sort of very close combat between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Ben Wedeman, thank you for that reporting in Tyre, Lebanon. We appreciate it.

We're going to return to our coverage of Hurricane Milton next, including how the federal government is working with Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis on the recovery efforts that are now underway. More on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:41]

DEAN: Hurricane Milton has moved out of Florida, but the federal response to the devastation is just beginning. President Biden speaking about those efforts just moments ago and how misinformation is impacting them. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who engage in such lies are undermining confidence in the rescue and recovery work. That's opening an ongoing. As I speak, they're continuing. These lies are also harmful to those who most need help lives are on the line. People are in desperate situations. Have the decency to tell them the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: President Biden also says he spoke with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis today and told him he'll provide any support that that state needs to speed up recovery and response efforts.

MJ Lee is here now with more on how the White House is responding.

MJ, this is taking up a lot of their time recently.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And keep in mind, Jessica, President Biden ended up canceling his trip abroad to Germany and Angola at the last minute so that he could be stateside to oversee whatever would come the country's way after Hurricane Milton. This was, of course, the president speaking to the public today. Yesterday, you'll recall that we actually saw or heard from the president three times about Hurricane Milton and the recovery efforts that are continuing after Hurricane Helene.

So I think that in and of itself really gives you a sense of how important the White House clearly believes it is to show that President Biden and Vice President Harris, too, are really saying focused on these recovery efforts. I think the misinformation disinformation, piece is really important and clearly top of mind for President Biden and everyone on down.

You know, yesterday, there was a really interesting moment where the head of FEMA joined the White House press briefing again and was asked a number of questions about this problem. And she said, one of the ways in which they are actually seeing this affect people on the ground is people simply not asking the federal government for help and assistance when they really should be.

That, of course, is kind of tragic. This idea that people who could be getting help are not getting help and she said that this is because they are sort of confused and afraid about the government's role right now, given all of the factually inaccurate information that is sort of flooding the zone, and she said, as an example, this idea that if people ask for help, the government is going to confiscate their land. She was very clear, this is not true.

So as you can see, all of these images that you are showing, the task ahead for the federal government both after Hurricane Helene and now Hurricane Milton, it is herculean, but it is both the physical -- physical recovery efforts that are ongoing across the country. And then there's just trying to win the information war and trying to make sure that people have the right information right now as this important to recovery is underway, Jessica.

DEAN: Yeah, it is incredible, just dual-track there. How important it is to both get their recovery right, but also to combat that disinformation full-time jobs on both sides.

MJ Lee, thanks so much.

Before Milton hit and as Floridians were evacuating, there was already a significant shortage of gasoline. Now, according to the gas price tracking service, GasBuddy, nearly one-quarter of all gas stations statewide in Florida were without fuel. Thankfully, the mayor of Tampa says the city's port, which is a critical lifeline to the states fuel supply appears to have minimal damage.

Let's bring in CNN's Matt Egan for more on this piece of the story.

And, Matt, people still trying to leave, get around. And now there's added emergency crews, of course, coming and using up what's left of that gas supply. What do we know about how much fuel there is and who's able to access it?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Jessica, this is a major focus for local officials and, of course, a major concern for Florida residents. The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, he said that date about one- and-a-half million gallons of diesel on hand, at 1.1 million gallons of gasoline. He said that he's directed the highway patrol to escort the fuel tanker trucks with their sirens on to get to the gas stations that needed.

Now, as you mentioned, GasBuddy says about one in four gas stations in Florida, don't have any fuel. [15:25:01]

That's as of the latest update around 9:30 this morning. And this is a bigger problem in some other parts of the state that have been hit hardest by the storm. So, nearly two thirds of the gas station in the Tampa region don't have any fuel, one in three in Fort Myers, Naples, almost half in Sarasota.

Now, here's the good news. The Port of Tampa appears to have avoided the really significant damage that a lot of people were worried they were going to get, right? And that is very significant because this is one of the most critical pieces of energy infrastructure really in the entire country and without that poured, it would be difficult to get gasoline supplies into that part of Florida. So the fact that the mayor says that there's minimal damage here is very encouraging.

And a veteran oil analyst, Andy Lipow, he told me that he sees at least seven fuel tanker vessels on the way to south Florida over the next few days, each one is carrying at least 10 million gallons of diesel and of gasoline and some of it will be jet fuel as well. And so that will help this situation really as soon as the coast guard is able to say that it's safe and they're able to open these ports, there should be plenty of fuel at that point -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Matt Egan with the latest, thank you very much.

And let's go now to Florida where Governor Ron DeSantis is speaking. Let's listen in.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: -- outside your home. We still have visit Florida's emergency accommodation modules on Expedia and Priceline available if people need temporary shelter. For another two weeks, we have extended the Hope Florida line. So that's going to be 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So if you need help or you need some resources, like maybe helping hand with some things around your house or maybe some things with some supplies, you know, we've got all these organizations that come to help and subsequently storms. They're all plugged into Hope Florida. So you can call 1-833-GET-HOPE, 1-833-GET-HOPE and activate. Hope is the disaster on for Hope Florida. And that is up and running.

We also have small business loans available. So we have $50 million. It's interest-free, very forgiving payment options. If you need cash as a business, you can apply for up to $50,000. If you're agriculture and aquaculture, you have up to $100,000. And if your citrus and cattle, you have up to $150,000.

So, please, take advantage if you want. If you want to apply for that, you go to Floridajobs.org/EBL.

We also are accepting donations for the Florida Disaster Fund. This is a charitable tax deductible donation. Hundred percent of the proceeds go to helping victims of both Hurricanes Helene and Hurricane Milton. And so if you want to do that, you can go to Florida disaster fund.org Florida disaster fund.org. I want to thank everybody who's worked really hard.

We're still assessing the damage from this storm. I mean, I think clearly just going around that there was damage from it. I think in some areas that in terms of what was being predicted, some of the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass, certainly in terms of some of the storm surge, people were predicting, perhaps in the Tampa Bay area.

The storm did weaken as it made landfall. And so whereas it was churning ferociously off the Yucatan peninsula, by the time it made it to the coast of Florida, those winds were a little bit tamer, still, still enough to do a lot of damage. But in terms of our assessments and being able to bounce back, and I feel confident we're going to do that as a state.

This power restoration effort is underway by all the major utilities. They've had the people ready and they know that this is something that's really important. So you got a lot of people working on that.

We're very confident on reopening the ports like Tampa to make sure that fuel is continuing to flow. We have a lot of fuel in reserve and the state, if we need to fill any gaps. But I'm confident we're going to be able to have an adequate amount of fuel delivered to the gas stations one way or another if we need to use Florida highway patrol to help rushed the trucks there, then we'll do that. But we should be in pretty good shape as far as that goes.

So I want to thank everybody that's been involved. We got -- we'll be putting out information about things like points of distribution for food and water. We're taking some of those inputs from some of the counties. I mean, some people said before the storm they wanted pods.

DEAN: All right. That was Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, outlining kind of how they're assessing that situation there.

[15:30:06]

And also what kind of resources are available to Floridians who have suffered damages as a result.

We're going to have more on Milton ahead. But up next, how will Israel respond? That is the vote being taken up by the country's security cabinet today on what to do in response to Iran's barrage of missiles launched at Israel last week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Happening right now, a source tells CNN, Israel's security cabinet is set to vote on how to respond to Iran's missile attack last week. This coming of course, a day after President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke on the phone about Israel's next steps.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Tel Aviv.

And, Nic, we could soon learn more about when and potentially how Israel will retaliate, a big question that has been looming for days now.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It really has. You know, what happens tonight when the cabinet votes tonight, that'll bring the country one step closer and it will put the authority to call a strike in the hands of the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, frankly, after that moment, all bets are off. I mean, I'm thinking back to a cabinet session a couple of weeks ago where the cabinet was ostensibly meeting about including the northern front in Israel in their war aims.

And, you know, everyone looked at that and, you know, it took many hours before there was clarity that that was a decision that had been made. But, of course, that was the night when the prime minister was thinking of getting rid of his defense but the point being they made what sounded like an innocuous decision. And then the pager bombs started going off in Beirut the next day.

It was that decision at the cabinet was the decision to stop the war. So, is that what were going to see tonight? We don't know that. What we do know is that the government here is playing incredibly close to the chest that their aims and their intent here. You know, President Biden, as you said, spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu, doesn't want Israel to strike Iran's nuclear targets, doesn't want them to strike the oil facilities, oil refineries. He's talking about proportionality, striking back. That would mean at the same things that Iran struck out here, which is intelligence headquarters, military bases that sort of thing.

But there's, we get no sense here at the moment of what Israel is actually prepared to do. We know what they want to do. Prime Minister Netanyahu, and a lot of people in his cabinet would like to strike the nuclear facilities and they feel this is the best moment because Hezbollah, which has always been a danger for them in the north in Lebanon, it's sort of an effect, sort of incapacitated at the moment. So, this would be the perfect time to execute the strike.

They've always wanted against Iran. But of course, that could cost some part of the relationship with the United States. So it really isn't clear which way this is going to. We are definitely this night going to be one step closer though.

DEAN: Yeah, it is certainly -- we will all be watching to see what unfolds.

Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv, thank you very much for that reporting.

Let's go now to CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen, who is on the ground in Iran.

Fred what is your sense of the feeling in Tehran?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly I think the Iranians are bracing for all sorts of different scenarios. And one of the things that we have to keep in mind, Jessica, is that the Iranian forces at launch that missile strike last week against targets inside Israel, against those military targets that Nic was just talking about, that's the same unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace forces, that is also responsible for air defense here in this country. So no doubt they are going to be on high alert tonight as they have been for the past couple of nights, waiting to see whether or not there's going to be some sort of Israeli strike.

But, of course, the Israelis have said it's unclear how and when a strike on their part is going to happen. But we have heard some warnings already coming from the Iranians, on the one hand saying that it will be a crushing blow in return if the Israeli strike Iranian territory. And then you had the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who came out and said, if the Israeli strike Iranian energy facilities, that, of course, meaning first and foremost, oil and gas facilities, that then the Iranians could do the same thing in Israel also strike energy facilities there.

So, the Iranians are saying there could be a for tat response, there could be a tougher response on their part depending on what the Israelis do.

Now, as far as the mood here on the ground in Iran, as all of this is unfolding, we went on the streets of Tehran today and we did find a lot of defiance, large parts of the people that we were talking to.

Here's what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Israel is nothing. It is just bullying 50,000 innocent people have been killed by Israel. Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love our country. We don't want actually to be destroyed by any, any, any enemies. This is what we --

PLEITGEN: Do you think Iranians will defend Iran if there's a confrontation?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are ordinary people. We are not military. We are not politician. We're just caring about my country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Caring about their country.

All of this, by the way, Jessica has also coupled with a diplomatic blitz, one must say, by the Iranian authorities here. You have the Iranian president who a couple of hours from now in Turkmenistan is going to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And, of course, the situation in the Middle East and that standoff with Israel is definitely also going to be one of the topics those two men are going to be discussing.

And then you got the Iranian foreign minister who's been touring the Gulf Region. He met with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salmaan and also made diplomatic advances there, saying that the prices in the Middle East that is currently unfolding can only be solved through more cooperation of countries like, for instance, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Fred Pleitgen for us, thank you so much for that reporting from Iran.

After the break, we're going to return to our coverage of Hurricane Milton. We're live on the ground in St. Lucie County, Florida, on the state's Atlantic coasts where at least five people have been confirmed dead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:42:27]

DEAN: Welcome back.

Some of the worst damage from Hurricane Milton was felt on Florida's east coast where tornadoes knocked out power, flipped cars, and destroyed homes. And in St. Lucie County, at least five people are confirmed dead. This is where we find CNN's Brian Todd.

Brian, what are you seeing?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, we're at the Lakewood Park Methodist Church, just north of Fort Pierce, Florida, in St. Lucie County, and take a look at the damage that these tornadoes did to this church alone. You could see this roof behind me has been completely -- well, not completely, but almost half of it has been sheared off, just totally devastated by the tornadoes touched down yesterday.

We're told that a total of nine tornadoes slammed through this county on Wednesday three of them within the span of 25 seconds. That's according to CNN's estimates of National Weather Service warnings.

I spoke to the pastor of this church, Leo Bolbrack (ph), a short time ago. Luckily, he said, No one was in this church at the time, no one was injured -- no, none of his parishioners were injured. He does know some people, some prisoners who are from the neighborhood where the fatalities occurred. The Spanish Lake's Country Club Village, a stay -- a modular home community, which is just back this way a little bit, but the media is not being allowed in there because they're still searching around, trying to find victims, trying to assess damage, and trying to kind of get their arms around overall, what happened neighborhood there.

But again, you can see the damage behind me and if our photojournalist, Jake, can kind of pan to the left with losing our signal too much. You can see some damage there to a building adjacent to the church. That's part of the church complex. There again, this community was just completely devastated by this. And what I can tell you is that unlike some tornadoes that just kind

of cut an entire swathe through a given community when they touchdown, from what our teams have seen on the ground here, this was one of those tornadoes that kind of would hit a specific spot lift up, hit another specific spot, and lift up, and move around. So you don't see like an entire street gone. You see a few houses damaged, you see something like this. And then now next door, you'll see something that's completely intact.

So it just kind of demonstrates the fickle nature of these tornadoes. And again, if we can take just another zoom up of that -- of the damage here, the sheer force of the tornado to take a look at all that reinforced would the plywood and the beams and all of that, it just ripped it completely off its base there, Jessica. And we're kind of just scoping around here to get an assessment of more of this damage.

DEAN: Yeah. There's a lot to take in there.

[15:45:01]

And Brian, look, it's hard. We can tell just by your signal that there's still not a lot of cell service, that sort of thing. It's tough to cover these, but we appreciate that from you and your crew. Thank you so much.

Joining me now, Mike Linden, a meteorologist from the weather forecasting app My Radar.

Mike, thank you so much for being here with us.

And we just heard our colleague, Brian Todd, describing these tornadoes. The National Hurricane Center telling CNN, they respond to -- these tornadoes were super charged compared to typical hurricane- created tornadoes. Brian was describing how they'd come up and go down, come up and go down kind of thing in terms of the damage.

What more can you tell us about that?

MIKE LINDEN, METEOROLOGIST, MY RADAR: It impacts from Milton, of course, still being felt. You can see behind me over on this side here, more than 3 million customers without power as we speak right now across the state of Florida and Milton brought a lot.

When we're talking about tornadoes, in fact yesterday alone, 126 total tornado warnings. To put that into perspective, if that's the second most ever issued in a single state, in a single day, only behind the super outbreak on April 27, 2011, across the Deep South. So just a staggering amount of tornado warnings 19 conformed tornadoes, but everything was spinning yesterday, and that happen in a matter of just a couple of hours.

So the tornado threat, of course, really felt for folks there on the eastern coastline.

DEAN: Absolutely. We're looking at video while you're talking. It is really remarkable. I know you're also focused on the heavy rainfall from Milton,

particularly in the St. Petersburg area. Tell us about that.

LINDEN: Well, that really jumped out at me where it was reported to have seen just over five inches of rain in a single hour. In three hours, just over nine inches of rain, that's a one in one 1,000 year rain event. It doesn't mean that it's going to occur once in every 1,000 years. Effectively, it's a statistical well anomaly. 0.1 percent chance of that happening.

And with that five inches of rain in a single hour for St. Petersburg, that again, confirmed that one in 1,000-year rain events.

So again, from west to the central portion of Florida to the east coast of Florida and up and down the state, impacts will just continue to be felt from Hurricane Milton.

DEAN: Right, because the storm has passed through, of course. But the rivers and the waterways will still rise. They will still swell, right, as this all kind of levels out.

LINDEN: Right. I mean, there's not a ton of elevation changes in Florida, but in that sense, of course, what goes up must come down. So the rain is certainly going to run off and full up in the lower elevations and it's certainly going to take some time to see the true extent of the damage.

Of course, I'm sure you've seen footage from all over were Florida where up people are still reeling. Of course, after two weeks ago when Hurricane Helene made landfall, so an unrelenting couple of weeks here from Mother Nature in the Sunshine State?

DEAN: Yeah. It certainly has been I also want to talk to you about the backside of this hurricane that you noted was much worse than the leading edge. And that is difficult -- different, I mean, that from a typical hurricane, is that right?

LINDEN: Right. So this was a quasi -- what we call a stinging jet where typically you find this in nor'easters or storms tropical cyclones that go into Canada. And effectively what happens is the southern side of the storm seemingly disappears and that's what we saw yesterday with Milton. But what happens there effectively is colder air out ahead of the warm, moist air settled near the surface. And as the rain falls through, the atmosphere at effectively evaporates, and at that point, that drier air rushes down to the surface and brings incredibly powerful winds of up and above 100 to 110 miles per hour.

And I think that's what caught a lot of folks off guard that perhaps looked at radar and saw that the storm was weakening somewhat. But, of course, those winds were rushing in fast and furious behind it and to of course, you saw winds along the eastern coastline up and above are gusting up in above 85, 90 miles per hour. And, of course, the storm made landfall along the western coastline.

So Milton just really a wild storm and I would imagine folks in Florida are glad to see it go. DEAN: One hundred percent. Lastly, what are you watching for now?

LINDEN: Well, of course, hurricane season is far from over the last official day of the Atlantic hurricane season is December 1st. So it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when and we are just not done with hurricane season by any stretch. So it's very important that folks remain vigilant. It could always be something lurking out there this time of year and it's important to just stay prepared because again, hurricane season far from over.

[15:50:00]

DEAN: All right. Mike Linden, thank you so much for walking us through that.

LINDEN: Of course.

DEAN: We're going to be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, and the matriarch of the Kennedy family, has died. Her family says she suffered a stroke last week.

CNN's Tom Foreman has a closer look at her remarkable life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the last links to the Camelot of the Kennedys, Ethel Skakel Kennedy knew triumphs few can imagine, from her own family's rise in politics to the extraordinary changes that eventually brought the nation's first African American president a fact she right reflected on in the film made by her youngest daughter, Rory.

ETHEL KENNEDY, WIDOW OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY: That was so refreshing and wonderful and shows how our fabulous country has moved ahead.

Born to a large family in Chicago when she was five, her father, a successful businessman, moved the family east, to wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut. She was raised Catholic. As a young woman, she led a charmed life, attending the best schools and falling in love with Robert Kennedy.

They married in 1950. And as he and his brother, John, rose and political prominence, she was right there with them. The charming socialite, Ethel was considered by many to be more outgoing, more exciting, more entertaining than John's wife Jackie.

But Ethel Kennedy's role took a more serious turn after President Kennedy was assassinated. As her husband became a senator and then sought the presidency himself, she struggled to raise 11 children. The last of whom she was expecting when Robert, too, was gunned down.

The losses for Ethel Skakel Kennedy grew her whole life long. Both of her parents died in a plane crash, a brother was killed in another plane, went down. Her son David died of an apparent drug overdose. Another son, Michael, in a freak skiing accident. Her granddaughter, Saoirse, died of a drug overdose. Months later, another granddaughter Maeve, drowned with her eight-year-old son in a canoeing accident.

She took each disaster in turn. And still, those who knew her say her faith never wavered. She founded the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial to raise money for the humanitarian and environmental causes in which he believed.

KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, FORMER MARYLAND LT. GOVERNOR: I want to welcome each of you.

FOREMAN: Their oldest child, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, followed her father's footsteps into politics and yet troubles continued. In 2014, another daughter, Kerry Kennedy, was tried for driving under the influence of drugs. She was acquitted, but her mother looked frail.

Through it all, Ethel Skakel Kennedy stood by her family. She went on carrying her husbands name and memory as a living legacy of Camelot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Ethel Kennedy was 96 years old.

Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.