problems here in tampa. there were streets that were difficult to access as we were driving away from the location where we were earlier. i imagine that as this rain picks up, as officials have said, again, five to eight inches before this all wraps up. in addition to what's already coming down it is going to be a very difficult situation for folks that have decided to shelter in place, especially in those evacuation zones, will keep you posted on the very latest as we get it. >> all right? of course, as you are watching that happening and we should let our viewers know that already has that eyewall has started to come on shore there are many places already saying that there will be no response if you call 911, they are already unable to send any emergency responders out as this eyewall has hit land and these names special edition of ac360. i'm

anderson cooper in braden florida, where the winds have really picked up significantly just in the last ten minutes or so, they are really starting to whip here in downtown by, by the river. i just want to get a sense of sort of the wins. it's sort of hard to tell when you're actually in it you get a sense in the light over there. there's just been a steady downpour of rain and you can see it there. it reflected in the light as i was talking to erin in the last hour, there is a lot of along the river here. there's a lot of palm trees, a lot of these really large branches of these palm trees are just ripping off flying through the air and there are sort of littered all over the ground. i want to walk if i can't over here a little bit and show you the manatee river is over here. and nellis, is that way. about ten minutes ago, we could see lights over in pinellas obscures me in palmetto, we don't see the lights over there anymore. i don't know if they're still

there and just the visibilities. so down i think that's what it is i think they still have lights, but we haven't seen a number of what looked like transformers exploding just that flash of blue light. it's a very distinctive blue light. we've seen that over the last ten or 15 minutes or so there's a lot to get to in this hour randi kaye is positioned south of us in sarasota. >> we've got bill we're we also have boris sanchez who is in tampa, flores. >> bill weir is in st. petersburg. but i want to go to chad myers first, just getting an overview of where i okay. let's go to randi right now randy, let check in with you. what's the conditions and sarasota though the rain has led up a little bit, but the winds have certainly picked up. >> in fact, there is a lot of flying brie that we are experiencing around us. this is a fan blade that came down just a short time ago from a fan

that was above us on a porch. and then if i walk over here, you can see what's happening this week. this fence belongs to the house that we are next to. this fence came down just a short time ago with the force of the winds were told that we've had 74 myelin, hour gusts here in the last hour. and then this was just some sort of tarp that they had up. you could see some power lines are down, so we don't have any power here. we lost power we're not especially concerned about those power lines, but they could whip up in these strong winds. but this is what we're concerned about, things like flying debris things that are airborne as a result of these strong winds, we've also seen those transformers blow that you were talking about that sort of greenish blue light that comes in the sky. very suddenly, but it's really it's the winds and we're getting the warnings to shelter in place on our phones. really. it's it's good news. i will tell you that most of the people in this neighborhood have evacuated anderson, the home next door, who was here with us the feds came down, is

all boarded up. many of the homes are the same way. so that is the good news. so what will he understood there and sarasota randi, what we're talking it was originally ten yeah. it was originally ten to 15. now, it's nine to 13 here and we're about a half a mile or so from the water we pulled back from evacuation zone a, where the water is to be a little bit safe for this evening. >> but they are expecting now about nine to 13 foot storm surge. >> they had a seven foot storm surge for helene's, so they are certainly concerned hearing yeah. >> i mean, if it's 13 feet, that's gonna be that's gonna be a real issue. here or the estimate last estimate i heard was as high as 90 feet but we're going to check in with chad myers shortly. i do want to go to boris sanchez, who's over in tampa or what do you how are conditions there? >> yeah. anderson. so we had to actually move from where we were right on the water on tampa bay because conditions

were just deteriorating very rapidly. very, very intense wind, you had other storm surge pushing waves, pounding them against the seawall. and there was brie nearby from hurricane helene. so we found a distinct for to move further inland by a couple of miles here in tampa proper, we are experiencing very heavy rainfall. we've had about six inches over the last few hours. we're expected to get between two and three every hour until the storm passes. that means we're going to see an additional 5:00 to eight over the next few hours, totaling about a foot of rainfall. you add that to the storm surge. you were just outlining with randy last check we were expecting something at least a storm surge of at least eight feet between eight feet somewhere between eight and ten feet here. obviously, that would be devastating for this area considering that but that tampa bay, such a prominent part of the community, we've talked to folks, residents that have been coming out and trying to survey the damage throughout the day. some of them were

taking pictures along the bay earlier thankfully, right now at this hour, we don't see folks around us. i was informed by the crew that actually, as you can see behind the lights, just took a hit. i was just about to say there was a bit of a brown out for a few minutes, moments ago that the crew was telling me at any moment the lights can go out or you're obviously a precarious situation. we've heard from residents that have decided to try to ride out the storm and told us that they believe that they have everything they need. hopefully they are heeding the warnings from officials to shelter in place and stay inside because there is no doubt, given the amount of rain that we've seen come down, there was going to be extensive flooding throughout the area. some roads on the way over to this location. we're already difficult to get through with flooding. i can imagine that the next few hours that's just going to get worse and worse. anderson yeah. >> boris. thank you. i want to go to bill weir, who is in st. petersburg belt. i saw you about an hour-and-a-half ago was the last time i was able to seep tv because the tvs are out here. there are a lot of waves crashing behind you. how are things now?

>> well, we moved those waves got to scary to be honest, started the st. petersburg pier is where we were next to the municipal yacht basin. we watch these things just get bigger and bigger by the minute. so we decamped down here too. so to the central business district of st. petersburg hotels, it's easier to find shelter, but it still gives you a sense of how things look because thankfully we still have the power here that's not expected to hold. we had an 89 mile an hour gusts not too long ago. and so i don't know that we're going to keep this power through the night but lot of evacuees in the hotel where were staying a lot of folks with families, dogs, elderly folks, hoping for the best by heating the very good advice to get out of the way of this storm. but as we peek around the corner, come on over carlos with duck out here, we can brave it just you can get a sense of what did abandon st. petersburg looks like as

these gayle's just really start to kick up, we can peek around the corner here. it's so dramatic in these lights anderson gets over 50 miles an hour, manatee county, pinellas county. they stopped responding to 911 calls and so, sir certainly at this point people are where they are and hopefully they made the right decisions on where to be. you can see some pooling the flooding here for anybody who's spent through this especially the folks in the carolinas, we just went through helene realized that when the sun comes out, the problems is just beginning you have all the mud and the water and you have to worry about the drywall molding and the kids can't go back to school and already he lay in his ravaged the west coast of florida ten days before this one now. and a lot of people's belongings were in big piles in front of their houses. the worry is, is that the surge is going to blend

that up the most violent way so i don't know if you can get a sense of it here, anderson, but it is really coming down really blowing hard here in st. pete yeah it remains to be seen what the wind does and what the water does is this a largely a wind event is largely a water of flooding event i think the flooding right now is probably the biggest fear because obviously it was it's a cat three still an incredibly strong storm and again, we'll check in with chad myers shortly, but i want to go to carlos suarez, who is in fort myers carlos that area was hit really hard hurricane ian, 150 people died in 2022 with hurricane ian. >> how are things there right now? >> well anderson, you and bill, we're talking about how much of a flooding event this is going to be. that is exactly the case for folks that live in

southwest florida. i'm going to walk here. i'm going to try to at least to show you a bit of the flooding that we're seeing here in fort myers. all this water right now is coming from the kaluza hatchie river, which is to my left here. it's really difficult to see because it's just it's nightfall out here and it's pretty dark because we've lost some power in the area, but that water right now has started to breach the seawall. and so it is just pushing its way into fort myers. as you said, this part of fort myers was destroyed, was flooded out by i hurricane ian in 2022. this part of lee county, i was covering right after the hurricane hit and all of this was under at the time about ten feet of storm surge and so what we're expecting the next couple of hours and into tomorrow is more of this flooding we're expected to see anywhere right now, at least according to the forecast, is between eight to maybe 12 feet of storm surge when everything is said and done, anderson, to give you some context and

perspective, hurricane ian again made a direct landfall here in lee county and the storm surge was well over ten feet across this part of lee county. and the storm which is going point to make landfall where you are to the north of me. it's not going to make a direct impact here. and we're talking about some flooding that might be at that number if not higher. and we're already starting to get a better grasp of some of the flooding out in collier county in naples and out in fort myers beach, where about four feet of water has started to i'll make its way inland and that number again is only going to grow hour by hour as we go through the night and we hit high tide around midnight and 1:00 in the morning. anderson obviously, there's barrier beautiful barrier islands off right. >> and ten also. i mean, all along this coast, obviously we're going to be waiting for word there. i want to check in with chad myers. chad, the last estimate i heard of some 500,000 people in florida maybe

without power at this stage where's this storm? how strong is it? what should we expect? >> it is, not on land yet. the eyewall has made landfall, but the center of the eye has not. so we haven't even seen 50% of this storm. so that's where the reset all happens. and we're randi kaye, is that barrier island to her west is going to be over washed. she is going to get significant surge there. that's why they pulled back where you are you are up here in the eye-wall itself. you are not going to get the ai. you're not going to get real calm winds. you're going to get the backside of this where our bill weir is up here in st. pete. he's just going to be in wind heavy rain, hundred mile per hour winds basically for the next four hours, the problem is we've had so much rainfall in so many places and we've had the when the i wind warning treated like a small tornado is on the ground. we had a bunch of tornadoes on the east side of florida earlier at least that weather has moved off shore. we had a lot of sunshine

earlier in the day that heated the ground that heat, and the hot weather there just made those tornadoes or even stronger than they should have been. and we're probably thinking some of them were ef-3s that typically doesn't happen in a hurricane, but it's certainly did. there is the eye almost ready to come on shore, but the winds are going to be won 15 in many spots for many, many hours. and the surge is still going to be another three to four hours before it gets to its highest spot. so just because you look out and say, the storms here, there's no surge. it's still coming. i promise you. it is still coming nine to 1012 feet in some spots and we're still going to get the wind all the way across to the eastern part of the state were going to have power outages and orlando, we're going to have power outages and daytona because this is still going to be a hurricane as it exits the east coast. and to the north of the eye. this is typically the other way around. but because there's a front up here to the north of the ai path, there's going to be ten to 15 more inches of rainfall that could be flooding from orlando northward, possibly the

villages, but certainly as far east as daytona, cocoa beach lots and lots that's the rainfall with this. we're not even started yet. just put another pot a coffea will be here all night i've been drinking coffee all day. >> that's all i've been consuming, so i apologize if i'm a little wired hey, chad, you mentioned i think it was last night something that i think is important to point out. i think some people are going to look at this and say, okay, it's down to a cat, three. so it's less strong, which is obviously good news. the storm surge itself though. you pointed out last night and correct me if i'm wrong, that the storm surge is already what it is when it was a cat five, that that is what is coming. is that correct that is correct. >> anderson, because it was a cat five high for really high five for a very long time. it was building the water under it, pushing the water toward the shore. now, that bubble of water is just now getting there, even though this now a

cat three, we're not going to have cat three surge. we're going to have the equivalent of a cat 45 surge. now, the good news is at least for now, is that it's not a direct perpendicular hit it's slightly glancing when you glance the water, sometimes the water runs down the shore a little bit and doesn't just slosh right over those barrier islands. but i assume that some of those barrier islands are getting very close to being breached from the ashore, from the ocean all the way back into the back bay. and when that happens, we can get cuts through those islands. we can have roads that disappear. and i'm afraid we're going to have homes that disappear as well. >> chad check in with you throughout the night. i want to go to dr. megan martin in st. petersburg. i talked to her last night she is at the hospital where she works. she's brought her kids there as well so that they can be safe and she can continue working dr. martin, i appreciate you being with us. how are things right now? what

are you seeing the weather right now? >> you can tell as really deteriorating. i'm not far away from where bill is. >> and the wind is whipping. >> it is super loud. the rain is super just it's pounding the windows and the doors. we've had to kind of put towels up because some of the water is starting to just meghan from below. the ambulances have just stopped running. so right now, we're not going to be getting any patients by ambulance, but there are still people coming in the front doors that are just trying to get their kiddos their kiddos are sick, just trying to get them in here. my kiddos are still safe and they had a great time today at the kid zone. so were just hunkering down and watching the weather there yeah. >> you said you were giving them endless screen screen time. i hope the power doesn't go out to the batteries, don't run out so that they their screens go go blank just in terms of i mean, you the hospital obviously has its own power source, so has it ever lost power in the storm we absolutely lost lose power, but the generators kick on very

quickly. >> some flickering now. so the generators kick on and then that will restore power to the hospital and will continue to be able to function is a shift are you working? >> i'm working my normal ten to 12 hour shifts and i will be here until the recovery team is able to come and tag me out so if the weather's bad and the roads are bad and they can't get care for another day or two after the storm is done, then i'm here until they're able to get here to relieve me. >> we saw it when i was driving in a earlier this morning, i saw a lot of a long line of ambulances heading north, i assumed they were taking patients to hospitals out of the danger zone, which is certainly, a good thing to see. i really appreciate talking i want to go back to i wish you the best and everybody's working at the hospital. thank

you for what you're doing. i want to go to randi kaye, who is in sarasota randi, where where are you and what are you seeing? >> anderson we're about a half-mile from the water from south shore drive here in sarasota and it's really interesting what just happened just in the last few moments when we talked just a few minutes ago, the wind was kicking up, but it was a little bit difficult to stand. we were talking about projectiles around the neighborhood from debris and fences coming down right now. it seems as if we're either in the eye or very close to being in the eye because there's a sense of a bit of a tranquility. the rain has really come to a stop. there's a bit of a drizzle. there goes my hat after i'm saying that and obviously there's still a little bit of wind around here, but anderson, there is a sense of just a bit more tranquil here. i mean, you know, when the ai approaches, when you get close people tend to come outside. they think it's safe. that's not what we want people

to do. to of course, because they think it's over, it's not over. this is just a break. >> 40 us as the eye passes anderson sense of how many people sought shelter or how many people are in shelters and sarasota yeah it's interesting. there are a number of shelters open and they were all allowing pets because they wanted to make sure that people didn't abandon their pets during a storm like this. >> but they were, they were pretty full. >> there was one that i won couple i noticed that they had not evacuated for helene. they were very concerned about milton's, so they decided to go to a shelter and they did some shelter shopping. they wanted to find the right shelter, but the shelters have been crowded. from what i understand, i spoke to the sarasota mayor liz alpert, and she told me that people have certainly been heating the warnings and go into the shelters it's time around anderson >> randi, thanks so much. i want to go to achieve koka juror in palmetto, florida

chief our our things there we're just getting a big guys right now. apologies so palmetto is right across the manatee from where i am chief. how are things in palmetto very windy, really rainy but we're hunkered down at the condo that i live in and ri wind is all buttoned up and we're hoping for the best obviously, there's millions of people under mandatory back orders do you have a sense of what percentage of people in your community actually did evacuate i think that there was somewhere between 98 and 100% of people that did evacuated from holmes beach we made the message clear that this was not the storm to hunker down in this helene. we're not going to be able to get out and rescue you all. first responders left the island when the wind started picking up somewhere

around 11 or noon and people were on their own after that and we made it clear that we would not be coming in rescuing like we did with helene atrocity because i was looking at i could see the lights in palmetto about half an hour ago. >> i don't see any. i can't tell if it's just that we have no visibility here. do you still have electricity? >> i do. i'm i'm in the towers across from the tall towers that are right on the same grid, i think has manatee memorial hospital so we stay powered up most of the time for law enforcement, fire rescue. at this point, i assume everything shut down when do you decide? okay. it's it's safe to go out in the morning. we are going to muster up and we're going to get the first in teams, or we're going to make sure that the roads and the bridges are clear. and once we can get out to the island

and see that the bridges are still there, the roads are still there, and that no power lines are down then we can clean the roads as much as we can and then we'll start letting there's an ends back out. once we get her under control well, chief, i really appreciate all you're doing and thank you very much. >> thanks for being with us. i want to go to the mayor of tampa right now, jane castor, mayor what's your message to folks in this area, how are things in tampa right now? >> well, we're obviously, the winds have definitely picked up just a little bit as you can tell, just a couple of gas but for now it seems again, i can't tell how much of this is going to be in this area. in britain tend a wind event, how much the water is going to come again, they were expecting as much as

nine feet of storm surge at chad myers, who were saying there are still many hours left in this thing on that. that's is likely coming obviously that's gonna be one thing we are watching for i'm sorry to repeat that let's go who's riding out the storm in st petersburg? sir, i'm sorry. i'm having a hard time hearing you, but how are you doing your riding out the storm and st. petersburg, where are you we are we are in st. petersburg, right on central avenue. >> we could lose power any second so before i do, i just want to say hey, anderson cooper but now it's very furious over here it's pretty scary. we see transformers growing everywhere. so we're just kind of hunkering down have you been through storms

before and if so, what are your thoughts about this one so far anderson, i just moved here two months ago from long island, new york. >> so no, i have not know anything like this before. helene. >> so as a what's that like right now probably. >> yeah flood warnings you know, the weather here is different. we expected storms and sunshine, but i don't think we expected ten days though months old beautiful little girl and a two cats as well is your daughter. >> i hope she's sleeping through the night my daughter

is watching trolls, right now. >> she's not sleeping through the night yet. she probably never well my cab also don't sleep through the night but everybody is safe right now. that's most important because a lot of obviously you know, stores closed down here at a certain point today. >> i was able to get some supplies about three hours north of here before coming into this area at a at a, at a crowd? i think it was do you have all those supplies you need yesterday, we actually tried evacuating to georgia and right before we had to turn back around because there was no gas, we went to a target. i think it was like an hour and-a-half north also and i was able to get a couple of things. >> so we have enough supplies, we have enough note for baby we're just we're doing the best i can have some candles, p lights, and power, which

probably well yeah well listen, i wish you and your family the best and i will check in with you because i'm curious somebody just snapped and that's never a good sound. >> i'm curious to just talk to you after this is done to see your first experience, it's always kind of scary to face something that's so unknown. >> but i wish you the best and i'm glad you're safe. thanks you so much, sara. i want to go to boris sanchez in tampa boards you take care hey, boris, how are you doing >> yeah the wind has been sweeping us. it's been coming in bands if it pushes you around. and obviously the rain is still coming down at a really, really intense rate. we just got an alert on our devices warning of flash flooding, because again, the amount of rain that's going to come down over the next few hours is really eye-opening. were looking at five to eight additional inches of rain on top of the six that have

already come down but puts us at a foot or above. >> and i'm listening because there's a tree right by me that is ominously we saw the lights in this area. >> this is a commercial area a mile or so off of the water tampa bay the lights have been flickering, so they're definitely taking hits to the power here at where we were just a short time ago on tampa bay, the water there was intense. there were very heavy weight it's hitting the seawall earlier in the day, we watch that water recede because if the easterly wind. and then it came back with significant force. it would not surprise me to see extensive flooding not only in that area, but in these neighborhoods as we were coming over here, there was a lot of flooding. there was difficult water that we had to traverse fortunately, one thing that i have seen change in a positive direction over the last few hours. i haven't seen any residents outside as of the last hour or so earlier in the day, there were people outside on tampa bay? taking pictures. this is as very strong winds and very punishing rain. we're

coming down the rain kind of feels like bibi pellets on your skin. >> you think you've got people outside taking photographs officials have been warning about there had been a shelter please recommendation from officials since early on this afternoon. >> again, fortunately, no significant damage where we are right now, but obviously as you get closer to the water tampa bay, that changes and that could change here as well in the next few hours as we get more and more rain, anderson yeah, of course. >> i just want to neel can we walk over the river? can you are you able to do that? i just want to walk it does show people a little bit just i want to take a look at the manatee river because earlier was still it wasn't it was starting to come up on the riverwalk but it's you can tell the ground here. obviously this is a san, the ground here is very, very wet. it's been raining for many hours. you can see trees here, that branches of these palm trees that have blown off there over here you can see him over there as well littering the ground. there's more here,

but this is the manatee river. and it is still several feet below the top of the walk of the riverwalk. >> you can tell you get a sense of how bad the visibility is. >> that's a bridge right over there. you can see some of the lights are still on the bridge. but as i said, you can barely see. >> we're talking to chief of police in palmetto. >> he was saying they do have electricity. you can now see some lights over there, but again, visibility is really down boris in terms of storm surge, do you have any sense of has there been flooding in in tampa or is i mean, obviously the ground is really wet from so much rain has there actually been surge yet because as we were leaving from where we are in, it seemed like it was about to creep in. >> we were at a park that was right on tampa bay. we're looking at at tampa, they be urban center of tampa, skyline

and throughout the day that just got cloudier and claudia as you could imagine and the water was starting to hit the seawall. i can tell you that as we drove away into the neighborhood, that was right next to there were some buildings right next to that park the water. i didn't get off the car, but the water started to get right to the bumper of our car. we had an intense amount of splash back on her windshield, and so we slowed to make sure that we were in the center of the road that we weren't going to get in any trouble. and then as we got out of there, it lightened up, even though there were conscious and other neighborhoods, i have to imagine that as the hours go on, that neighborhood is going to experience significant flooding just because of the location where it is it's hard to say with any amount of certainty whether the storm surge is has gone over and into that park, but it would not be surprised if it did. it was part of the evacuations over. officials said asked folks to get out of paterson boris, you've been out there really all afternoon. >> i was watching you on television earlier when i still had at a tv to watch in terms

of what you have seen all day, how does now compared to, i mean, is this though the worst of it or was it was it worse a few an hour or so ago it obviously depends on on-location and where you are in end even timing, because obviously this is a storm that has a significant size and its bands cover a long stretch of florida's coast. >> earlier in the day, where we were we're by tampa bay. the rain was certainly more intense. it was coming down almost completely horizontally. but obviously now we're in a different location. >> we've gotten intense wind. >> i think the wind is definitely stronger now than it was before but obviously it's going to change as time goes on. i think that as we've gotten closer to landfall, overall, we've seen significantly more rain. and i think that is going to be the challenge at least for this community. pretty moving forward, anderson short break. we'll be back with

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consultation. >> we will get the news of the weekend as questions like, what does a comedy show doing on cnn that's too much but i want donald now, can you slice that

$50 he's dealing with cold tv, got to torture that people are watching and then our world changed. tv on the edge sunday at nine on cnn >> we're coming to you from reading ten we have just gotten word that hurricane milton the eye, has made lounge landfall in siesta key, which has some seven miles or so south of sarasota which is south of where we are in that direction tampa is north of us, which is over there and that's where mayor jane castor is. >> i want to check in with their mayor. i'm sorry, we lost contact with you before how are you doing? how are the people of tampa doing?

>> we're doing. all right. now anderson, where they gusts are kicking it outside here of the emergency operations center. but we are we're i guess in a bad situation, a bit fortunate that we didn't have this storm on the north side of tampa bay into this from the south side. so that'll save us from the most severe of this storm surge. but we are getting that when we're definitely in the race so that's good news in terms of have you seen much storm surge at this point? is that something you still expect or do you think that i mean, where are we in inserted the ark of this storm in terms of tampa? >> we're definitely going to get the storm surge, but we're not going to get the 15 feet that was predicted in the on-set. with that direct hit, or a bit north so the prediction now is anywhere from six to nine feet. if you recall, we had four to 64

hurricane helene so expected a little bit higher than that. but, you know, they're all predictions ashore in siesta key, what are your people telling you in terms of the timeline for tampa for for this night, what should people who are for who are staying at home, who are in shelters? >> what should they be expecting over the next several hours and tampa well, hopefully they're just sheltering in place right now because the next few hours are going to be rough here in tampa with the wind, the wind gusts the rain has not stopped, and the whole tampa bay areas already saturated. >> and then with the storm surge coming as well, we're looking at about probably maybe 2:00 a.m. that hopefully area so you feel by 2:00 a.m. it

should be much calmer oh, yes. >> we hope so. >> it's it's going to move through pretty fast. >> and, you know, we're you're in it now. and we're feeling the same thing. we're getting on the storm. the north side, we're getting really pounded by the win more so than the bottom of the hurricane but they're getting the worst of it, which is the store surge. so we'll take the wind that hurricane so that would mean if in fact that that holds up and obviously this is you can say for sure, but if it's too am that would mean that emergency services could go out around them right? >> we're we just take it as it comes, we've got sort of that and about 40 miles an hour sustained winds. but our first responders are here to serve our community. and they're

going to go out and do what they need to do to help our community as long as it's safe. for them yeah. well, mayor, i wish you the best. thank you so much. we'll check in with you throughout the night. i hope i do want to go to randi kaye, who's in sarasota, randi, you are about seven or so miles and correct me if i'm wrong, north of siesta key where the what what are you seeing? >> yeah, anderson, we're just about it's about a 20 minute drive or so and we know that the bridge, of course to siesta key and those barrier islands was closed at 7:00 p.m. last night. so if anybody was still in siesta key or nearby, they had to ride out hurricane milton there as that i came over right here and sarasota, even though we're not that far from where the eye i came up over, it is extremely calm right now. there is a little bit of rainfall, but the winds have completely died down. these fences were blown over from the winds just a short time ago, those wind gusts, we saw one gsa was about 74 miles

per hour or so, and this cloth that had been up on these on these columns here before. this was whipping anderson in the wind. and now it's just on the ground. you can see that's that just shows you how much the winds have died down there actually gone. we've seen some emergency vehicles coming through already there. the water is pretty deep in the street near me, but some emergency vehicles are making their way around and those transformers continue to blow around us but we have seen some lights come on. there's a hotel not too far from us and we saw that is now lit up. so again, this is, this is the calm before things pick up again, anderson, as you know, it's not the time to come outside all right. >> randi. randi, thanks. i want to go to aaron jayjack yeah. a storm chaser who is in punta gorda aaron i appreciate you joining us. how are things there? i mean, everybody remembers, but to gorda hurricane charley, 2004, people thought was going to hit tampa. i think i was up in tampa that day. it ended up slamming into punta gorda. would just horrible, horrible devastation

just two years ago hammered well, right now but you can see i'm standing in the ocean, the storm surge here. >> you are the last couple of hours to ever probably i feet of water above sea level on this location. >> so you can imagine that the surge is probably about 17 rounds and still coming in and kind of coming in like a tsunami now, all of a sudden, in the last 20 minutes, we're getting strong winds here are very dry, not much rain in the case of fortunately here punta gorda right now, we do have power, but i'm in here that have surged into the downtown area expecting? it puts a gorda i understand you.

>> whether never have predicted about ten to 15 feet of surge. i think we'll probably get around that ten foot of surge. we are on southern part of the storm. we are where the sturgill surge will be the most impactful here in fruit and gorda and closer you're out as well all the way up so we're. still i think i can expect another to come in here over the next few couple of hours and we will probably be trapped here at this location around that for at least a day until this water is able to release back into the harbor. port charlotte harbor, which is just off to my north. hear about 500 yards or so so you're still you're expecting to see a fair amount of water coming in over the next couple of hours the last 15 minutes, about six in fact there's these these we're

water they are still trying to recover from hurricane helene just two weeks ago was piles of debris all over the place here and put the gorda from the surf, storm surge flooded houses here trying to get that debris out is never enough time. now here, you got again, another major hurricane bringing significant storm surge into this community >> the last thing last thing, a lot of i mean, anybody here needs is another storm like this, given what happened just a couple of weeks ago with helene air her in jayjack. thank you for joining us. well, we'll talk to you a little bit later on as the night continues, i want to go to brian todd, who is up in tampa. brian, where are you? >> got? in tampa. and we're just talked to the mayor. she was saying she's hopeful that maybe 2:00 a.m. things will be much calmer, hopefully by then emergent serve service. services can go out

a.m. it will be calmer, but right now, i can tell you that we are pretty much at the most violent stage. but this storm has been here in tampa. you can see just the force of this storm all around me. the water you're on howard avenue in downtown tampa, starting to build up the flooding is starting to happen. a lot of flash flooding around me. i mean, just look at the volume of rainfall behind me this is why there calling for maybe a catastrophic flooding event here in tampa because at least six inches of rain already fallen, was going to be another five to eight inches of rain in the next six hours or just, you can see, check this out. the force of this rain all around me really give me the word is wild. that's the way you can describe it as the mayor said he does not so much a storm surge event right now in tampa as it is rain event. and you can see the volumes of water behind me. that means if you take a look at howard avenue here, because i kind of slosh around in this this means that

planes are going to overflow sewers are going to overflow their already overflowing. here on how an avenue you've got canal near here, that are going to top off it, start to maybe pushing to some of these groups you can see the saudi happening the street behind me it's completely covered with water howard avenue here is almost completely flooded. we had a couple of vehicles come by here in the last few minutes, not a good decision by these people, including a motorcyclist who came by here. i don't know what he was thinking but he got passed here just barely so it's really now a matter of wind and rain and volume of people having to withstand that. it is really not safe to be out in this with you in a vehicle or anything else, anderson? >> well, brian, be careful. let's check in with carlos suarez in fort myers. carlos difficult. >> i can't really hear you

right now, so i'm just going to go ahead and give you a sense of what's happening here in fort myers, florida. >> i'm a parallel to the kaluza hatchie river and it's about water too feet from at this point. just breaching this seawall to my left. what you're looking at here? >> the wind and the storm surge associated with this hurricane. >> that is right now pushing its way inland. >> this is the concern that officials had with this storm, especially as that forecasted path still took that hurricane to the north of us here we are looking at a forecast for the storm surge overnight and into tomorrow at this point, is probably closer to six to eight, perhaps even nine feet. the initial forecasts is calling for between eight to 12 feet of flooding. that number though looks like it is going to come in a little bit under to the

>> that is falling across parts of lake okeechobee and even central florida, that water is also starting to come down and so what happens here is, you have the golf coming in on one side of the river. you've got the rain and flooding coming in from the other part of the river. and when it comes here, it has nowhere else to go. so this is why, what's happening here? hi mean, it's kind of taking place. there's some greenery behind me. this kind of landscape yard here. this will be underwater in a matter of hours anderson, i was out here during hurricane ian and this is something similar that we saw. and so this part is just getting ready for what's going to be a really long, and difficult couple hours going into tonight morning, anderson yeah. carlos, thank you let's

go check it back with bill in saint petersburg bill i mean, you have been there all day. you've been reporting on this. where do things stand? >> well, it's. interesting, anderson, it seems at this point that saint petersburg is going to remember milton much more for rain and flooding freshwater flooding and storm surge, just because you got to think about tampa bay like like your bathtub, the water sloshes around the physics are different than it would be just on a coastal area open to the gulf of mexico. but we're here downtown we still have power and we have some light. i wanted to take you out here and see if i can get a look at these towers. i'm sort of obsessed with these construction towers at the city warn people about there's four of them in this downtown area,

30, 40 stories high and it's sort of a metaphor really an ironic metaphor for florida these days, even as it remains one of the most vulnerable states. and places anywhere from climate change, the population is growing here by hundreds of people a day. and so many transplants i've never experienced a tropical storm, much less something like this might be two guards too much right now to see that high up, but you really get a sense as you look at, look at the sine, the street sign, because whipping around there universal way, where at the corner of first and universal it is obviously blessedly deserted. i see one pair of headlights over there i'm not sure what's going on, but we've gotten five inches of rain in the last two hours. and assume we're expected to get another five inches before the sun comes up. and so the coastal folks about just why the inches of rambler,

the last two hours doors and others five inches in two hours exact bill. that's incredible. she is coming down in deluges yeah. >> and it it's not over and the ground is so saturated, the rivers are still swollen there's no place for all this water to go. and the scientists were doing estimates on the trillions of gallons of water that were moved by hurricane helene on a warmer planet that's what happens, our water cycles just get supercharged. the flash floods get flash year and the dells us is getting more intense this is what we're experiencing as you can see the street out, water is starting to cover that yeah, so much water on the ground that causes in some communities back to you anderson sewage system, which you can talk about later, bill. thank you. we'll check in with you. i just want to give you a sense if you've been watching for a while, you couldn't even see palmetto across the body of

water. the manatee river right here. you can now see the lights of it. so you get a sense that the visibility has certainly improved in the last 30 minutes or so when i was talking to the chief of police in pump medic could even see his location from here. so i'm glad that there is electricity over there, at least in the parts that i can see. >> we're going to take a quick break. we'll have more from florida. we'll be right back vegetable? >> you're actually both, right? but botanically speaking, the u.s. supreme court ruled that a tomato is a vegetable because of how it's used in cooking i didn't know that fall, right? >> yeah. >> hello. now, to strengthen routes all winter, prepare alone next spring, i didn't know all this says it right there on the back. yes, and my lawn app today for one care tips and customize plans feed the law. feeding.

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we have some video of that tornado, st. lucie county. we haven't video of that tornado which struck earlier throughout the day there have been dozens, i think it was as many as 90 tornado warnings, which i think is a record here in florida for one day, those were from some of the outer bands of the storm forming those tornadoes. i just want to also give give me a sense the situation has just changed. i mean, what's so fascinating about covering these hurricanes everyone is different. every i mean, you look at it on a map and being on the ground, it's just it's so interesting how quickly things shift just in the last two minutes before we came back from break. suddenly the manatee river is now churning. we'd seen some white caps on some water, but i mean these are now really, these are now waves churning on the manatee river and the water is really starting to come over. i mean, you can see it now, just running it. this is all water, both from the river and also

water coming from higher ground from this rain, which has been coming down. obviously, for much of the day. but this is the first time we've really i don't know neal, if you can even come up and just get a sense of just how choppy this water has suddenly become, i guess as the wind has shifted somewhat but i'm very curious to see over the next, you know, how long whether it's this wind pattern last how much water starts to come up here but this is the riverwalk here. miss the riverwalk here in bradenton and we have been out here now for several hours and this is really the first time. this looks similar to what bill weir was expected appearing saying in st. petersburg about an hour or two ago, water really coming up on the piers there. this is the first time now that we are seeing this here bill a bill, i want to bring you in here in st. petersburg because this

reminds me of your live shot earlier in the day it's just fascinating that this is just started here northern side of this storm. >> we've got the slop, we've got so much more of the rain that was a monster that was thousand. >> take your breath away. watch out. watch out. now we see signs started to flood voice back up, back up. there's a construction sign that just is about to blow through this intersection i don't know if you saw bill. >> we just had a big transport. it looked like a transformer over it's going off. and again, the water is really coming up i'm so wet, it doesn't even matter what we've heard. >> hurting with fangs hearing percussive bangs in the

last couple of seconds that we think might be transformers blowing. or maybe it's just signage getting smacked against the side of these buildings wow it is really violent down here now really crank out and the rain, as i said, really, this is really interesting. wow this much water now starting to come up. and again it's this water coming up from humanity river and its hired to higher ground is higher, about 100 feet from there and water is just pouring down from that direction here. and now the wind is really picking up just in the last couple of seconds and just really whipping up our coverage continues. all night long. kaitlan collins joins me now i want to toss it over to hurricane landfall near the barrier island of siesta key, florida,

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