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CNN This Morning

Latest Update: Milton Now A Category 1 Hurricane. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired October 10, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:32]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Kasie Hunt.

Our breaking news at this hour: Hurricane Milton bringing historic destruction across Florida, slamming into Siesta Key just south of Tampa last night, as a category three storm. The roof of Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team destroyed by Milton's high winds, the stadium had just been converted into a massive shelter for first responders in town to help restore power no reports of injuries from the stadium.

Storm surge now a major concern for parts of the gulf coast.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got surge. We're in the Gulf of Mexico now, in Punta Gorda, Florida.

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HUNT: Punta Gorda, 50 miles south of where Milton made landfall, getting up to ten feet of storm surge according to a storm tracker on the ground there.

More than 3 million customers are now without power across the state. The storm's outer bands spawning a tornado outbreak causing multiple deaths in St. Lucie County, 135 miles away from where Milton made landfall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our deputies reported at least visually seeing six tornados on the ground, ripping through our county, their northern direction, leaving hundreds of homes devastated, completely totaled, and unfortunately struck retirement community that was mainly modular their homes, where we did have loss of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Here with us now for continuing team coverage of Hurricane Milton here on CNN, we have Randi Kaye in Sarasota, Florida, and meteorologist Derek Van Dam in Atlanta.

But we're going to start with storm chaser Brandon Clement. He joins us live from St. Petersburg, Florida.

Brandon, you have been in the thick of this storm and as I understand it you were the one who found video, who shot video of what happened at Tropicana Field.

Brandon, tell us what were looking at right now and what you've seen through the night.

BRANDON CLEMENT, STORM CHASER: Yeah. So it's Tropicana Field, of course, this for the Rays play and St. Pete. The roof was ripped off by the hurricane and it was being used as a shelter for first responders.

So what you're looking at is the roof completely shredded I -- I'd say maybe about 10 to 15 percent of the roof has even left out there. And of course, its badly damaged as well. But, of course, you're looking down as the field, you're seeing the field and a bunch of cards as well as the debris from the roof that fell down to the field.

I did not hear of any injuries, but I do know but they had evacuated all the first responders out of the building. Of course, it is not exactly suitable shelter at this point, but yeah, it's a really big -- big thing right where you drive into St. Pete. I mean, you see its lights are still on. They even have light shows going on inside that the changing colors. So it's reflecting off the white roof. Somebody you see it from a ways away and it's definitely a scar left by hurricane Milton.

HUNT: Brandon, walk us through kind of where you were a through the night. What you've been able to see on the ground, there as you approach this and I'm also interested, clearly, they thought that this was going to be a safe place for first responders to shelter.

How did they make this miscalculation?

CLEMENT: You know, I -- that's -- that's really beyond my pay grade there. I don't really trust large roofs. First, stadiums -- we saw with the Superdome, which is a more substantial roof, but typically when you're looking a possibility of a major hurricane coming in, I'm looking for still concrete reinforced buildings and parking decks and stuff like that. But, you know, when that -- that type of wind comes in and it's really unpredictable what can happen.

So I don't know what it was right for it. And all that good stuff, but definitely feel like a miscalculation when that entire roof comes off.

HUNT: So walk us through -- I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's very remarkable.

So what else have you seen on the ground or through the storm? I know that the storm surge -- that was actually reversed storm surge in Tampa Bay overnight, of course, as the storm hit just -- just south of Tampa Bay. Yeah, so, Jonathan Petramala and myself are all over the state. We were in central Florida, in Polk County, lots of the tornadoes were ongoing.

[05:05:01]

And then made our way out to the coast south of Sarasota, Venice area, saw storm surge down there.

Luckily, we didn't see any of the storms surge that was projected, you some of the double-digit totals. Mostly what we saw was probably not 7, 8-foot range, which is still devastating, is still floodwater homes, but it's not that catastrophic type storm surge. Now, whether or not that happened on barrier islands, I think rapidly until daylight to see and you see what took place up there.

You know, these hurricanes have many different impacts. So you saw the severe weather in the tornado aspects, and the central and eastern part of the state and then we saw the storm surge south of the landfall area where you have the onshore flow, we have a negative 30 north of the area, we hit the offshore flow.

And, of course, you had the high winds. He had flash flooding, storm surge, damage from both land, and when we saw some buildings that were damaged from wind and so on, purge. And of course to flash flooding aspect, we saw far stalled and businesses, homes flooded from that. So it's a big mess all the way around. It definitely impacted state with all aspects.

HUNT: All right. Brandon Clement for us this morning. Brandon, thanks very much for joining us. Glad that you are safe. Incredible video to see what's happened to Tropicana Field. Thanks very much.

CLEMENT: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Let's head now to Randi Kaye in Sarasota, Florida.

Randi, good morning to you. How are things there right now? What have you seen there overnight?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, we've been doing this storm coverage since 7:00 a.m. yesterday morning. So we have seen the ups and downs of this hurricane throughout the last 24 hours or so. We have seen the light rains came through early and then we were here for the heavy winds, the heavy rains, the eye passed over us and everything got very tranquil, the birds came out, the frogs came out, and then everything got bad again when we were on the backside of the eye and then the heavy winds push through again.

So, right now, we seem to be my hate to say it, but in a very calm state, it seems like we are -- like were through it, but I could until you there are some evidence of what we went through here, for example, is a piece of a fan blade that was on a fan up above a porch, up above us that came down.

You can see this fence. This is the fence between the house that were in our neighbor, three huge pieces of offense came down during these high winds. This piece was wobbling for quite some time, but it did stay. It remained standing.

But what we don't know the real mystery is what downtown Sarasota looks like because we know that were only about 20 minutes from Siesta Key and that's where hurricane Milton just made landfall, nearby there.

And so that's one of the barrier islands. And if the storm surge, which was predicted of nine to 13 feet, came over these barrier islands, then pushed into Sarasota Bay and possibly pushed into downtown Sarasota as they were expecting that storm surge to do been there could be flooding there.

We have had some reports of flash flooding. We have made major power outages here, most of the counties in the dark. So, hopefully, Kasie, people did evacuate the heeded the warnings after what they saw happen with Hurricane Helene. And once daylight comes, we will know what the reality is.

HUNT: Indeed, we will. All right. Randi Kaye, thank you for all of your incredible coverage throughout this. We really appreciate the update.

The latest update from the National Hurricane Center just issued moments ago.

Let's get to our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam with the very latest on Hurricane Milton.

Derek, what did we learn?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Kasie, so were seeing that the eye of Hurricane Milton is moving off the space coast, there it is a little spin right there. National Hurricane Center talked about that in the 5:00 a.m. update.

But there are still some immediate threats to the east coast of Florida particularly across the Treasure Coast. You can see right now, Daytona Beach, winds gusting to 83 miles per hour. And on this radar, all you have to do is really just follow the rain bands to see the direction of that wind.

And because it's coming off shore, because the eye is moving off the eastern coastline of Florida, this is where were getting that onshore component and that is going to push up water from the Atlantic and therefore, National Hurricane Center has continued the storm surge warning for the treasure coast all the way past the Florida/Georgia border. This is where we have three to five feet of storm surge potential. And we've lowered the numbers here in Tampa Bay.

We saw the reversal of -- reverse storm surge because of the placement of the eye just south and Siesta Key. But there is still some elevated surge values across extreme southwestern portions of the state. This storm dumped a lot of rain. In fact, you can clearly see it on this radar estimated rainfall total, Tampa, Orlando, we're talking about two to three months of rain, fell from the sky and it's not done yet and sunlight occasions, we still have flash flood warnings for a few different areas included this region here, Orlando, Daytona Beach.

[05:10:04]

We're talking about over 1.5 million people under a flash flood warning as it stands. St. Petersburg got a foot and a half of rain, just incredible amounts of precipitation from the system as it continues to pull away. There are 107-mile-per-hour wind gusts that were reported some portions of the west coast.

But the good news is that this system is going to exit very quickly, but we still have the immediate threats here, right along the treasure coast of Florida, a tornado threats cannot be diminished just yet, we still have the potential for spin-ups here going forward, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Derek Van Dam for us this morning, Derek, I'm sure well be back with you throughout the next couple of hours. Thank you very much for that.

And coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, our special coverage of Hurricane Milton continues, including this, a dangerous moment in St. Petersburg, Florida, as a crane collapses into a building amid devastating winds from the storm.

In just a few hours, Governor Ron DeSantis and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, hold a press conference to give us an update on the damage. Stay with us.

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[05:15:32]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton. The latest update shows more than 3 million people are without power across Florida.

Let's go live to Tampa, Florida, bringing Archie Collins. He's the president and CEO of Tampa Electric.

Mr. Collins, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Just give us an update at the scale of the damage here and what you all are facing at this hour.

ARCHIE COLLINS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TAMPA ELECTRIC: Well, good morning, Kasie. And thanks for having me on. We, clearly, it's just first light here this morning. We're trying to take stock of what we're dealing with, but what we do know, certainly, is that we have an unprecedented number of our customers who were without power at last count. I see it's around 590,000 of our 845,000 customers.

Lots of what were being told we're not able to travel on the roads yet. What we're being told is many roads are blocked, impassable with trees down some of our electoral infrastructure down, unfortunately, and its going to be a busy day to day, just trying to prioritize safety and open things up here in our community.

HUNT: So in a situation like this infrastructure is, what is job one once you are able to get out on the roads?

COLLINS: Job one this morning is really its really about public safety -- supporting the search and rescue teams that are out and about trying to navigate the streets and confirm that everybody has come through, come through the storm okay. And really -- you know, and then beginning damage assessment really getting out and laying eyes on all of our transmission lines are substations. And working out from there to try to assess how many customers can we restore as quickly as we can with the resources that we've brought into the state to assist with it.

HUNT: All right. Sir, how does this compare to previous disasters that you've worked on in this role?

COLLINS: This -- this is -- you know, we were -- we were certainly grateful that Milton made landfall just to our south, which meant we didn't -- we didn't experience or we don't believe we've experienced this significant storm surge that we did experience in the bay during Helene. That said, the eyewall did travel right across Hillsborough County and that is a game changer.

These were the strongest wins that we believe have been experienced in Hillsborough County in as long as anyone can remember.

So, you know, the damage out there I think is going to be significantly more than our customers have experienced in their lifetimes and for me, and you know, in my 34, 34-year career, this was certainly the biggest hurricane that I've had to deal with personally.

HUNT: Remarkable so what can folks out there, what do you have to say to them in terms of what they should expect over the next 24, 48, 72 hours, how long should they be prepared to be dealing without power?

COLLINS: The -- so, I think the first message I'd want to give to everyone is no one -- nobody needs to be going outside today to try to, you know, sort of do inspections of anything, just let first responders and let TECO power crews do their job. That, you know, there are so many hazards outside right now that we would just ask residents to shelter -- shelter in place.

It's too early it will take to get the bulk of our customers back. Our customers should -- we are so committed to what we do? We recognize the importance of power to to our community, to the economy.

For this, for this restoration, we have brought in over 6,000 utility workers that is almost double the resources that we have ever brought in for a previous hurricane. So, we are well staffed with the resources that we require, but it is going to take some patience from our customers but I want our customers to know we are committed to working 24/7 to get as many customers as we can restore it as quickly as possible. And we won't stop until every customer has been restored.

[05:20:03] HUNT: All right. Archie Collins, the president and CEO of Tampa Electric, you've got so much in front of you. Thank you very much for taking some time with us this morning. I really appreciate it.

COLLINS: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton continues after the break as this major storm causes more than two dozen tornadoes, including this one, seen near Florida's east coast. The St. Lucie sheriff -- county sheriff says that multiple people have died.

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HUNT: All right. Welcome back to CNN's continuing breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton.

[05:25:01]

Let's get straight to Victor Blackwell in Orlando where a flash flood warning is in effect.

Victor, you have been out in this storm all night. What are you seeing at this hour?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're getting the mix of rain and wind and that's really the story of the storm at this point.

At some points, you have all wind and no rain, and then you have all rain and no wind. And right now, were getting a mix of both. We just checked in on those power outages, 3 million customers out across the state here in Orange County, that number has doubled to 80,000 in just the last hour. So, we've been seeing the flashes of greenish blue lights in the sky, which typically means that a transformer has blown. So that number likely will get continue to increase, but I'll give you a look of just here.

This is the Buena Vista -- Lake Buena Vista area here in Orlando. We're right in this hotel zone near the Disney parks. So you see some tree branches down. Nothing major on this road.

It's also good that we haven't seen a lot of traffic here as well. Speaking to traffic and cars getting back on the road, the Orlando police, their fire rescue, Orange County sheriffs office, as well, they are now back on the roads, are responding to calls.

They were off the roads when the winds were at their strongest, who are few hours overnight? Orange County says that they have received dozens of calls about flooding trees down, at least one call about a roof that collapsed here in Orange County. So there'll be heading out to that as well.

There was a lot of preparation for the storm though, expecting that there would be the flooding, like what we saw with Ian in two years ago, with Lake Davis overflowing and a lot of the creeks and basins and retention ponds that are all over this part of Florida. The city opened up thousands of parking spaces in the city owned garages, so people could put their cars there to get away from the rising water and the falling trees, more than 3,500 people took advantage of that.

But it's not until the sun comes up that we'll get the first look for ourselves at just how bad the damage is. But we know that the authorities, local first responders, are heading out now to respond to some of those calls they got overnight.

HUNT: All right. Victor Blackwell for us, we'll be with you throughout the next couple of hours. Thank you very much for being there for us.

Our breaking news coverage, tracking Hurricane Milton just hours into the major storms march across Florida. Tropicana Field's roof, this is the home of the Tampa Bay Rays roof was ripped off. The stadium was being used to house thousands of first responders.

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