Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

12 People Dead, 3 Million Without Power After Hurricane Milton; Trump, Harris Campaign In Swing States With 26 Days To Go; Lebanon: At Least 22 Killed, 117 Injured In Beirut Strikes. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired October 10, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA: -- how he's hanging on for dear life.

[16:00:02]

His mom evacuated him to a safer area last night. He was walking home, didn't realize the water was going to get flooded as deep as it did. And he's not a good swimmer and hence, hence the rescue and he was visibly shaken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah, that young man, extremely lucky, some 200 rescues conducted in Hillsborough County alone. Others not quite as lucky at least nine people confirmed dead from Hurricane Milton here in Florida.

We'll hand it over to THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER, which starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

At least nine people have been killed in the state of Florida and search and rescue efforts are underway right now after Hurricane Milton made landfall as a powerful category three storm last night on Florida's west coast. Floodwaters inundated multiple areas across the state of Florida, leading to water rescues that began late last night, Milton dropped more than 18 inches of rain on the city of St. Petersburg, which was more than a one in one 1,000 year rainfall events.

That's where Milton also ripped the roof off of Tropicana field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, Major League Baseball team. The stadium had been set up previously to be a makeshift shelter for first responders, but no first responders were staging there when the roof was damaged.

And in Manasota Key, close to where Milton made landfall, Milton leveled entire homes along the beach. In Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, an incredible moment there today as the sheriff found a 14-year-old boy in need of rescue, he was clinging onto a fence that was floating. The sheriff's office says the teen was at a friends house last night, did not think it would get that bad, but when he tried to get back home, he needed help and that's when he flagged down and he was thankfully pulled out of the water. (VIDEO GAP) winds certainly and he caused many problems, especially on Florida's west coast. At least five of the deaths reported so far came from a tornado outbreak on the opposite side of the peninsula.

Milton created deadly supercharged tornadoes. The National Weather Service issuing more than 125 -- 125 tornado warnings, the most ever issued in the state in one day.

At least nine tornadoes struck St. Lucie County, killing five people there and flattening hundreds of homes. We're going to talk to the St. Lucie sheriff in just a moment.

So, of course, the big question, what comes next in terms of recovery as many areas were dealt a one-two punch from Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, and now Hurricane Milton. Right now, about 3.4 million people are without power. Many are without water.

St. Petersburg shut down water services citywide, and one in four Florida gas stations still has no gas, according to GasBuddy, which could complicate travels for evacuees who are trying to return home. President Joe Biden today said there are still dangerous conditions in the state of Florida, and he urged people to wait to go out until given the all-clear by local officials.

According to Governor Ron DeSantis, Milton's worst storm surge, up to ten feet came in Sarasota County, where Milton made landfall and that's also where we find CNN's Randi Kaye and where she rode out the storm. Today, she reports on what the storm left in its wake.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really hard to see. It's kind of spooky to see all the damage.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hours after Hurricane Milton moved off the coast of Florida, Floridians are surveying the extensive damage across the state.

There were a number of confirmed dead in St. Lucie County, over 100 miles from where the storm made landfall following tornadoes.

MICHAEL BRENNAN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: The tornadoes we saw develop yesterday in Milton, were really kind of supercharged paired to the typical tornadoes you see in a hurricane environment.

KAYE: New drone footage shows Milton's destruction on the west coast of Florida, where the hurricane made landfall as a category three storm. The storms monstrous wins, ripping the roof of Tropicana field in St. Petersburg to shreds and downing several cranes in downtown St. Petersburg.

AMADOU DIOP, LIVES IN PETERSBURG, FLORIDA: Things can be replaceable but life cannot.

KAYE: In Fort Myers, Robert Haight says he got his pregnant wife and kids to a safe spot just moments before tornado bore down on them. ROBERT HAIGHT, FORT MYERS, FLORIDA, TORNADO VICTIM: I saw the tornado

coming, my wife can look at it as cool, kid and wife can look at it. Starting to close at trees, and we all started going through the hallway, didn't make their time, so glass break and suck the roof off and I felt things sucking up, my grandma kid, my wife and hunker down another.

KAYE: Another Fort Myers homeowner says the storm ripped his home apart in a matter of minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All this has happened like instantaneously like these windows blew out. I was about probably right here when it happened.

KAYE: One Tampa business owner braved floodwaters to assess the damage to his commercial property Thursday.

[16:05:02]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what to say. It's a lot more than race or never seen anything.

BILL FORQUER, LIVES IN VENICE, FLORIDA: With Helene, we further first time, we had storm surge and took on water in the 20 bottom units. Now with Milton here we've lost the brand new car ports. Our dock is destroyed.

KAYE: While many evacuees are hoping as soon return home, hard hit Sarasota's chief of emergency management is urging people to hold on a little longer.

SANDRA TAPFUMANEYI, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CHIEF, SARASOTA COUNTY, FLORDIA: Still dangerous out there. So we're asking for residents just to stay put. We know a lot of people evacuated, which we appreciate, but we just need some time. It's a clear everything so that safe for them to return.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (on camera): And, Jake, the power of this storm is just incredible. We were on South Shore Drive where we are right now, much of the morning yesterday, this dock was intact.

This boatlift was up there. Now it's in the water. And take a look at this. This piece of the dock, right here, guess where it came from? All the way over here, just flew in that storm. There's pieces of the dock, the pilings are out there in the water as well.

So it just goes to show you what can happen here. We also spoke to this homeowner and he told us that his security alarms were going off because the storm blew his front doors wide open -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Randi Kaye in Sarasota, thanks so much.

CNN's Brian Todd is in Fort Pierce, Florida, and St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast, which sustained so much damage from a deadly tornado outbreak before Hurricane Milton even officially arrived.

Brian, it seems as though many people have simply lost everything.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Jake, and everywhere you go in this county, St. Lucie County, you get glimpses of the sheer power and force of these tornadoes that plowed through here yesterday.

And this is one example, take a look at this. I don't think I've ever seen an 18 wheeler just basically picked up and tossed over like this. Look at the power that it took to just kind of just knocked this thing over. There's another 18 wheeler across the street here. This -- this truck was basically picked up and kind of impaled on a tree back there and just again, just the power that it took to lift this thing up and throw it on its side and impale it on trees.

Again, there's another one across the street, just down the street from here on the Lakewood Park Methodist Church, a roof gut ripped off. We spoke to the pastor there, Leo Volbragg (ph). He said he -- he knows some people in the community where the fatalities occurred. That's called the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village Community.

According to the sheriff of St. Lucie County, Keith Pearson, that's a modular home community for people who are 55 years and older. We have tried to get access to that community. The police and the sheriff's office are not letting us into that community. They're still scoping the damage, possibly looking for more victims and assessing just kind of exactly what happened in that village.

But that -- that area is the one that's really devastated. That is just a couple of miles south of here, Jake. You know, again, quotes from local officials, the commissioner of St. Lucie County, George Landry, said this has been a tragic 24 hours. The mayor of St. Port -- St. Lucie, Shannon Martin says, quote, we've never seen anything like this.

And again what's interesting about these tornadoes that came through here, Jake, that they seem to have been kind of sporadic in nature in some communities, they tear whole swaths through communities and you can see the path. This one, it seemed that these 20 touched down affected certain pockets of communities than lifted up. So you can see devastated buildings and things like this next to buildings that are completely intact -- Jake.

All right, Brian Todd, in Fort Pierce, Florida, thank you so much. The storm surge left boats stranded on lawns and even tennis courts in Punta Gorda, Florida, about 50 miles south of where hurricane Milton first made landfall, and other areas of the state, people lost their entire homes. That, of course, is where FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency comes in.

I want to bring in Keith Turi. He's FEMA is acting director of response and recovery.

Keith, how vast is the devastation in Florida and where do you think it is the worst? KEITH TURI, ACTING DIRECTOR OF RESPONSE AND RECOVERY, FEMA:

Obviously, the storm impacted the entire state as your reporters were just saying and we were talking about that before the storm off. So we have the storm surge risk, the rainfall, which was extreme in some areas and that tornado risk, which turned out to be a more significant risk of tornadoes than we typically see in a hurricane like this.

So I think it's hard to say exactly where the most -- the most damaged areas are. Obviously, some of those areas south of Tampa where they had that storm surges significantly impacted, but there's inland flooding in the Tampa area. You just talked about the tornadoes on the East Coast, and, of course, we're still going to see riverine flooding in other parts of the state.

So still a very dynamic situation and widespread impacts from Milton.

TAPPER: Let's talk about that because the ongoing flooding that you're referring to in several parts of Florida, it's going on right now. How is FEMA aiding search and rescue operations?

TURI: So we're well synced with our -- with our state partners. We've got teams in the state operations center and with embedded in all of the counties that are most significantly impacted.

[16:10:04]

We brought in federal search and rescue teams. We brought them it to be integrated with the state efforts. So they are out working with the state partners to help undertake any rescue efforts but maybe required and we're also just trying to push that safety message that there are still a lot of hazards out there, really be down power lines, floodwaters, areas that may still flood as the river has come up.

So really just trying to push everyone to stay safe, listened to those local officials about where when you can return and just please stay off the roads and stay put until the safe to do so.

TAPPER: For folks in Florida who need help from FEMA what should they be doing right now and what is your message to the people who have heard falsely that they're only entitled to a few hundred dollars of aid?

TURI: Yeah, the first thing you do, obviously, make sure your home is safe. It's safe to be there. But if you do get to get home at which was first want to do is take pictures, want a document what the damages were when it comes to the point to do assessments and look and register for assistance, that's going to be important.

You know, it's been said, obviously, that only $750, that's not true. That is the first type of assistance that people impacted by a storm like this can get access to. It's for those upfront things they might need, like food, water, diapers, et cetera. But after that, there are opportunities to get additional assistance, temporary housing assistance, access to a hotel room, a range of other things.

So, if there's more to be provided than just that, that's just the initial funding, and we want people to trust that FEMA should help them, and they should register for assistance if they need it, so that we can begin that process.

TAPPER: And FEMA was already dealing with the aftermath from Hurricane Helene two weeks ago. How does this -- this result from Hurricane Milton -- how does that compare?

TURI: Well, I am, first and foremost, just the fact that these two storms have impacted the same area. You know, our hearts go out to those people that are impacted. It's very difficult to go through something like this and to have those impacts multiple times that a let alone once. And so our hearts are going to be with them.

Obviously, you know, there's some complications with having multiple disasters. We do have resources, though, that are already deployed, we're already working with the state. We've already surged our staff there with many others to be able to help.

So it's going to be a long road. But we're going to work with the communities and all of our partners to help people, first, to stay safe and then recover as best as they can.

TAPPER: All right. Keith Turi from FEMA, thank you so much and thanks for what you do.

CNN side-by-side with rescue teams on a boat. What a sheriff told our reporters about people he knows in his community now, among the rescue today.

And some breaking news, deadly strikes in Lebanon. At least 22 people killed, reportedly by the IDF. Is this the beginning of a bigger conflict to come? We're going to go to CNN's Ben Wedeman, who's in the region. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:53]

TAPPER: Hurricane Milton storm surge has inundated parts of Tampa on Florida's gulf coast.

Officials say crews had to rescue more than 135 people from a flooded assistance instead living facility this morning.

CNN's Isabel Rosales was with one crew earlier today during one rescue.

Isabel, in many cases, you tell us the on the only way to reach people in trouble is by boat.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, by amphibious vehicles, either by an airboat or that sort of vehicle that can go into these floodwaters in certain portions of this neighborhood, it actually reaches up to chest level. So this is the great American assisted living facility where the sheriffs office here in Hillsborough County focus their efforts this morning to get out over 100 people that were in desperate need of their help, water coming out of the air events they told me overnight, suddenly an area they never expected because there's so far inland to take on this sort of flash flooding from all of the torrential rainfall from Milton, and that is what they experienced.

A lot of the people in there could not walk, Jake, they use wheelchairs, walkers, a lot of them on medication and oxygen tanks. So, clearly, a very important mission by HCSO. So to get these people out, I spoke with Sheriff Chad Chronister during one of these rescue operations. Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA: I've never seen flooding like this. We had people that evacuated here to make sure they were safe. They listened. They came here 135 elderly, disabled individuals that we rescued earlier. They came here. They were evacuated from Bradenton to stay safe.

This is a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot. They have very little and the very little they had, they've lost everything. They're -- we have water for feet up into their first floor here.

This is a heavily Latino community. Their church is gone. Their cars are gone. Again, they don't live paycheck to paycheck. These are people that live day to day and they have nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Jake, I don't know if you caught that, but he said that there were people here from Bradenton, south and Manatee County, people who came here thinking that they would be safe here, riding out the storm because this has so far inland.

And, of course, they found themselves in this extremely dangerous situation and the sheriff would know about this. His rookie years as a deputy, he spent in this community called the university area. Now it's called upstate. So this is so heartbreaking and personal for him to see the community in this state.

Let me also show you this. So, so what a strange situation, right? You had these people evacuated out of this dangerous situation. And now folks out here seeing the kiddos waving? Trying to live life as they can or dry up there but to get out of this community, they have to make a choice, either wading through these waters or calling HCSO for help.

They're Latino, heavily Latino community as the -- as the sheriff here said. A lot of them giving me the thumbs up, children I've seen them playing the each other, playing ball, trying their best to just go day by day and waiting for these floodwaters to retreat here.

What else can they do? And beyond that, Jake, a long process here to recovery for those that did take on water in their homes.

TAPPER: All right. Isabel Rosales in Tampa, thank you so much. In St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast, at least five people have been killed in a massive tornado outbreak, at least nine tornadoes touched down there.

St. Lucie County. Sheriff Keith Pearson joins us now.

Sheriff Pearson, at least nine tornadoes struck your county. It killed at least five people. Some of those deaths, we're told, were in a mobile home retirement community. Are all of the residents of the area accounted for specifically in the retirement community? Tell us what the status of search and rescue is right now?

SHERIFF KEITH PEARSON, ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FLORIDA: So, not everyone is accounted for. Search and rescues are still active if its a rescue mission at this point. Yesterday, about 24 hours ago, the first feeder band from hurricane Milton came through. When it came through, it produced multiple tornadoes and a 20-minute span. Our deputies report where did back seen six different individual tornadoes on the ground and they all funneled to the north and they struck this neighborhood, which is a modular whole neighborhood of 55 and older neighborhood. And it just completely left devastation in there.

Within an hour-and-a-half, Governor DeSantis had the National Guard here along with search and rescue teams, are fire rescue to our deputies, we are actively throughout the last night during the storm. We're going through the rubble trying to rescue as many people as we can, and we were actively searching and trying to save lives, right now.

You have said that hundreds of homes were completely totaled by the tornadoes in the county before hurricane Milton even arrived. Are you expecting that the death toll might rise?

PEARSON: You know, I don't wish that, but again, we're trying as positive as we possibly can. And again, we have hundreds of people search teams going through the rubble of these residences that are just completely devastated.

TAPPER: The county's telling the public to stay off the roads, stay --

PEARSON: -- will check.

TAPPER: Yeah. Keep going. I'm sorry. We lost your audio there for a second, please. Please continue.

PEARSON: You know, we are -- the effects are really isolated to a half square mile radius in this specific community. So we're focused all of our efforts right here. Were not having any other issues throughout the county, although we do have lots of structures that were completely demolished.

We've got a great community, so we don't have any, any issues going on, that's restricting anybody buddy from moving or doing anything like that. But again, all of our efforts right now are in rescue mode, trying to save as many lives as we can actively right now here in the Spanish Lakes community.

TAPPER: So the county is telling the public to stay off the roads, stay inside until everything has been deemed safe and the all-clear has been given. Do you have any idea of when that might be?

PEARSON: We had a restrictive movement. You know, we're encouraging people to stay indoors, but we haven't issued any orders on that. Again, we're not having these issues countywide we're just bringing assets to this half square mile radius here.

So we're not going to county lockdown or anything like that. The weather, the storm had already passed. Right now, we're just making sure that were actively rescuing individuals from the rubbish that here in this neighborhood.

TAPPER: All right. St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson, thank you so much for your time, sir.

Just into CNN, the death toll from Hurricane Milton is now up to 12 across the state of Florida, 12. New pictures from a woman's home near Tampa. The force of Milton did this the top of her house now, in a living room, a tree fell her roof.

The woman who lived there will join us next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:15]

TAPPER: And we're back with our national lead. Rescue efforts ongoing in Florida as officials work to save anyone who may still be stranded, is still very much a rescue operation. This group in the Tampa area was rescued while the sun was still down, stuck on their apartment balcony, brought to safety by first responders.

Let's get right to meteorologist Elisa Raffa.

Elisa, the National Hurricane Center's forecasts was within 12 miles of Milton's actual path. That's pretty good. Did anything surprise you about this hurricane?

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think Milton taught us to not underestimate the power of two things, rapid intensification and the ability of a hurricane to produce tornadoes. This wobble in the track also kept meteorologists up at night. This really stressed us out where there was always confidence in a going to the west coast of Florida but the way that it got there had a lot of wobbles and deviations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Like you mentioned, that forecast track was only a few miles off days in advance, really had that bullseye. But the problem with the wobbles was it really determine who got the worst of the storm surge particularly in the Tampa Bay area because of the way that its shaped. We want up getting that landfall to the south of the bay, which sent the offshore winds and the reverse surge in Tampa Bay throughout the events. So they didn't get the worst of the storm surge that we were fearing.

The tornadoes was another thing that just had jaws the floor for a lot of meteorologists. I will say, it is common for tornadoes to be in land-falling hurricanes because the whole hurt spinning. There's a lot of moisture in there. You hit the friction on land. We get that.

But usually, the tornadoes don't look like this. They're very weak and small EF-0s and EF-1s, not massive tornadoes like this.

[16:30:00]

And we actually just have the National Weather Service confirmed that at least one of these tornadoes was an EF-3. That's incredibly rare in a land-falling hurricane.

We had 126 tornado warnings across the state of Florida yesterday. That sets a record for the number of warnings issued in one day. It breaks the record by a lot that we set in 2017 in Irma. It breaks the record again, that was just a couple of weeks ago in Helene.

Again, just incredible to see what that hurricane was able to do -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Elisa, I have to ask you. Are you -- are you seeing any other concerning tropical weather patterns out there?

RAFFA: For right now at least, no. But I will say as we go through the rest of the season, we still have these very warm ocean temperatures, and that could still fuel some additional storm development. It could also still fuel a lot of this heavy rain.

That heavy rain that was able to come out of a Milton here. I mean, we had these heavy rain totals over a foot. That was -- what caused all of that flash flooding. That's what's also gets fueled by the warm air in the warm ocean temperatures. And this is what caused a lot of that damage around the Tampa Bay area -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Elisa Raffa, thank you so much.

It will take a while before we know the full extent of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Milton, but already, people are dealing with horrific loss, such as, for example, Kayla Lane, who lives in Bartow, Florida. It's about 39 miles east of Tampa. She lives there with her mom and her brother.

Her entire home was destroyed when a tree fell on a home last night.

Kayla, let me bring you in here. I'm so sorry for your loss. Is everyone in your world or the people okay?

KAYLA LANE, HOME DESTROYED BY HURRICANE: Yeah. We're all doing okay physically. We're hunkered down in a hotel right now and just trying to wait it out. But, yeah, we're doing fine physically. Emotionally, maybe not.

TAPPER: Yeah, you tell us about what happened with the home because that is -- that is horrible, that is devastating.

LANE: Yeah. Of course, I mean, we were all just hanging out in the living room showed are waiting for the storm to pass. So we were hanging out, coloring pages, everything like that when we started to get caught once the power went out.

So we all went to our rooms and sort of rested and wanted to wait until the storm passed around 3:00. We all heard a huge boom in the living room. The cherry fell in where we were all just hanging out, not even an hour ago.

We could see the sky and everything. There was rain coming through. It was just -- it was terrible.

TAPPER: Did you think at some point that the worst was over and you were safe before the -- before the tree fell?

LANE: Yeah, of course. I mean, it started at like earlier in the night, around 9:00, it started getting bad. And then we thought everything had passed, like I said, at 3:00 a.m. is when it hit. And that's when we went to sleep. So, yeah, that was definitely surprised.

TAPPER: Do you and your family know what to do next in terms of reaching out to FEMA, in terms of registering, in terms of applying for aid and all of that?

LANE: Honestly, we have no clue. We've been trying to figure that out all day today. We even tried to call our insurance company and even they're closed today for the hurricane, which is definitely a big surprise. But yeah, we're just trying to play it by ear, as of right now.

TAPPER: Okay. I mean, I think we had a guy from FEMA on earlier and he said one of the first things that you should be doing is taking pictures of the damage, and then obviously, if you go to FEMA -- FEMA, I assume it's FEMA.gov, you register and that that is among the first steps that you should take.

What are you hearing from your neighbors? Is everybody in your neighborhood okay?

LANE: Yeah. I mean, it seems like everybody else is doing fine. Everybody else has their yard cleaned out and everything like that, has their generators setup and it just seems like were living in a completely different world at this point. But yeah, everyone else seems fine.

TAPPER: Do you think that the House is repairable?

LANE: I mean, me, personally, it doesn't look like it. I mean, at this point, it looks like it's a home for squirrels.

TAPPER: Right. All right. Well, we're glad that you and your family are physically okay. And please check out FEMA.gov, and please go with your phone and take pictures of everything because that's what the guy from FEMA told us earlier in the show. Kayla Lane, thank you for sharing your story with us. Stay in touch

with our team, please.

LANE: Awesome. Thank you.

TAPPER: Many drivers in Florida see this when they pull up the gas stations: pump wrapped up, signs that read "no gas or sold out". We're learning now that that could quickly change. Millions of gallons of gas are coming in to help this shortage. The leadership effort to make that happen, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:39:13]

TAPPER: In our national lead, you are looking at terrifying footage from St. Lucie County, Florida, as a tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton violently ripped off the roof of a building, just one of the deadly tornadoes that were, quote, supercharged by the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center. This was on the eastern part -- eastern part of Florida.

On the western side, and the Tampa area, the part that took the hit from hurricane Milton, St. Petersburg saw more than 18 inches of rain.

Former FEMA administrator under President Trump, Brock Long, joins us now.

Thanks so much for joining us, Brock.

Given the level of damage on both coasts, where did the recovery efforts start today? Just everywhere?

[16:40:01]

BROCK LONG, FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, right now, I think it's still probably search and rescue mode. They're probably also conducting their initial damage assessments. They are taking place and obviously that mission over the next day or two is going to transition into life sustainment. And part of the -- part of the thing that's going to be really difficult to manage when you take a hit like this is everybody wants to rush back into the areas to check on their homes and rightfully so.

In many cases, it's a dangerous area and there's down power lines, there's materials obviously debris everywhere. So it takes some time for responders and communities to get the debris out of the way, open up the roads so that people can be allowed back in. And then once that starts to take place, you'll start to see some of the initial recovery -- recovery efforts and then eventually bleeding into the long-term community recovery efforts.

TAPPER: So gas says a quarter of the gas stations in Florida have no food fuel. But CNN learned that at least seven large tanker vessels are currently heading to south Florida over the next 48 hours.

How crucial is fuel in these critical first days after a disaster like this?

LONG: Yeah. Well, obviously, on the evacuation, this was a massive evacuation, probably one of the largest in Florida seen. Obviously during that phase, gas purchased and bought up. There's no fuel shortage to Florida per se, but it's all been purchased and the gas stations don't have time to recover because, you know, many of the people - you're not going to allow gas trucks to come in, as the storms coming in.

Obviously, so it takes some time for things to come back online. But again, what they've got to be able to do is the first pushed debris to open up the highways and secondary roads to be able to get these trucks in to some of these locations. And then hopefully, the gas stations are operational.

You know, did they have passed power generator, backup? So there's a lot that's got to take place and I wish we could just flip a switch and get things to work in the infrastructure, but that's just not the case after traumatic hit like this.

TAPPER: We've seen a wave of misinformation following Hurricane Helene. Have you heard of any instances of FEMA teams being harassed in the field as they're trying to do their jobs?

LONG: You know, unfortunately, FEMA has been the victim of misinformation for many years, well over a decade. You know, it's -- I really wish both FEMA was a politically neutral agency that was allowed to do its job. It's full of, you know, golden heart of people, but I don't think people realize that disaster response to recovery is a team sport here is. It's disasters or locally executed, state- managed, federally supported and they all have to work together.

So when people say, where's FEMA? The systems working FEMA is probably been on the ground with hundreds of employees in Florida because of multiple storm hits that we've seen in the past, working with Kevin Guthrie in Florida Division of Emergency Management and trying to assess what the counties need, as well as the states and then FEMA comes in to help supplement and augment state support to the counties that are hardest hit.

TAPPER: When you were in charge of FEMA during the Trump administration, hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. What was the biggest lesson learned for you during that response. And how could that lessen be applied today.

LONG: Sure. So what we developed as a result of those storms was what's called community lifelines and what we've got to do as a country as we have to identify what infrastructure has to be working that if its not working, people are dying or life routine is disrupted, regardless if it's a tornado, hurricane, act of terrorism, whatever it may be.

And then eventually we have to redesign the mitigation programs around public and private infrastructure to make sure that when they go down, there only down for a short time. But hopefully, we can mitigate them in the future to where they don't go down for various scenarios. And so, I really think, Jake, if we want to stop this response cycle that were in, this constant response cycle we really have to get Congress to start incentivizing proper land use planning, building codes ensuring infrastructure that's insurable and really mitigating the infrastructure that we need to work.

And people get frustrated after disaster at FEMA for things that are outside of their control. For example, we don't own the power grids, you know, at FEMA. FEMA doesn't own the communications backbone, but what we do want to do is coordinate with those private sector agencies to figure out what they need to get back online.

TAPPER: All right. Brock Long, thank you so much. Appreciate you, sir.

New aerial pictures coming in, showing damage from Hurricane Milton in Palm Beach county? That's on the east side of Florida. Keep in mind, Milton made landfall on the west side of Florida.

Many of you are reaching out, compelled to help. We're compiling a list of ways how you can do so. You can head to CNN.com/impact. That's CNN.com/impact.

Much more of our coverage ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:49:06]

TAPPER: Our 2024 lead now.

Both former President Trump and Vice President Harris are on the campaign trail today, Trump is in battleground Michigan. Harris is holding events in two swing states out west, Nevada and Arizona.

CNN's Alayna Treene is live for us in Detroit, Michigan, following the Trump campaign and CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is covering the Harris campaign.

Priscilla at this hour, Vice President Harris is taping a town hall with Latino voters that will air later tonight on Univision. What more can you tell us about that?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's exactly right.

I mean, part of this is to appeal to Latino voters, which the vice president has an edge on when compared to former President Donald Trump, but lags when compared to Democratic nominees historically. So she is currently in that town hall, which is underway in Las Vegas.

According to reporters in the room, they have about 100 Latino voters who are there and they're asking questions in English and Spanish. Now, we are getting a little bit of color from inside the room in terms of what questions have been asked.

[16:45:02]

So it looks like the hurricane has been a focus including mis- and disinformation, as well as, of course, the former president in issues like immigration.

So we will learn more over the next several hours in terms of what she said to these questions. But again, this is the vice president trying to gain more ground when it comes to former President Donald Trump in this critical state of Nevada. Later today, she also goes to Arizona, where she's going to have a rally. Now, not long ago she was in both of these states. So you can see here how the campaign is trying to build momentum and mobilize voters as they turn into what is trying to get voters out to the polls.

In fact, today, former President Barack Obama, also in Pennsylvania with that same focus, campaigning for her, going -- starting his blitz in Pittsburgh over the next several weeks, where he again is going to try to turn out those voters because the campaign realizes but this is going to be key for them. In the next several weeks, especially as they see those polls completely deadlocked and not moving.

But again, turning back to the Vice President and what she's doing now with this taping of the Univision town hall, clearly trying to appeal to Latino voters. And especially, well look at her answers for how she tries too gained some ground with Latino men, which when you look at the polls, she's evenly split there with former President Donald Trump -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. And, Alayna, just moments ago, former President Trump spoke to the Detroit economic club. Give us the highlight of that.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Jake. Donald Trump laid out a series of steps for what he said would try to reinvigorate a collapsing U.S. auto industry, but he also criticized Detroit, the same city that he was giving remarks. And so he walked through a series of things among his economic proposals. One saying he wants to revert back to the trade agreement that he had had between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

He talked about imposing, sweeping tariffs on imports, as well as wanting to give some sort of tax break to automakers that build their own factories here domestically. But then at one point during this two-hour or so speech, Donald Trump called Detroit, like I said, a collapsing city.

He also argued it was a developing city. He said, quote, it is more developing than most places in China. He also called it a once great city.

And then he used to Detroit to characterize what he argued would happen to the entire country if Kamala Harris were to win in November. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think anything that we're talking about today is high on her list. I mean, the whole country is going to be like you want to know the truth? There'll be like Detroit, our whole country will end up being like Detroit or she's your president.

We're a developing nation, too, just take a look at Detroit. Detroit's developing -- Detroit's a developing area, hell of a lot more than most places in China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: -- comments there, Jake, from Donald Trump and we know that in the past, he has criticized Detroit before. But, of course, this is an incredibly important city. It is the state's -- Michigan's largest city. And, of course, Michigan is one of those key blue wall states that Donald Trump is really working hard to be victorious, once again, come -- come November.

TAPPER: All right. Alayna Treene and Priscilla Alvarez, thanks so much.

This note, CNN has invited both campaigns to participate in town hall events with voters. Today, Kamala Harris's campaign accepted that invitation, that town hall will take place on October 23rd. We're still waiting to hear from President Trump, former President Trump.

To breaking news now in our world lead, fears of a, quote, mass casualty event in central Beirut. According to a Lebanese security source, after what witnesses say were massive strikes on a building full of people.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Lebanon, south of Beirut.

Ben, what are your sources telling you?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But what we know, Jake, is that there were two airstrikes in central Beirut, not the southern suburbs, which have been the target of daily and nightly strikes by the Israelis. But these are in central Beirut. One was an eight-story building where there was a very targeted strike on the third floor.

The other one was a four-story residential building in a very densely populated area. That building utterly flattened, flattened to the ground we understand from the Ministry of Health that the death toll at this point is 22, with 117 wounded.

Now, as you mentioned, they're describing it as a mass casualty event. And what were seeing is the death toll is rising steadily from that strike. Many of the people who'd moved there had fled other areas thinking they would be safe.

Now, Israeli media is reporting that they believe that the target of the strike was one Wafiq Safa, who's considered sort of the chief diplomat for Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah's source tells us that Wafiq Safa survived that strike -- Jake.

[16:55:04]

TAPPER: All right. Ben Wedeman. Thank you so much.

We're going to go back to Florida next in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. CNN's chief climate correspondent is there. This storm from his perspective, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we are following breaking news this hour as search rescue efforts are underway across hard-hit Florida after Hurricane Milton tore across the state, the rescues are not just taking places in flooded cities, although some of that flooding has been devastating. The Hillsborough County sheriff says, first floors of apartment buildings near the city of Tampa are simply underwater, cars submerged. They had to help --