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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) Press Briefing; Ian Hammers Fort Myers; Reporter Rescues Nurse in Floodwaters; Outlook for Ian; Peter Gautier is Interviewed about Coast Guard Rescues. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): You have people that have been displaced due to the catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Ian. You know, that's going to be something that's going to be necessary.

We have been granted 100 percent federal assistance, category A and B, upfront for 30 days to insure we can quickly move forward into this response and recovery situation.

FEMA has, as I mentioned, activated individual assistance for those in need of help, who qualify. You go to fema.gov or you can call 1-800- 621-3262. Make sure you take a picture of the water line in your home because if you can show that, we're able to get assistance to you faster.

As people have emerged this morning, particularly in the areas that were hard hit, just understand, this is still a hazardous situation. Those folks that were in there, in the wee hours of the morning, were taking big risks as first responders navigating this. You have power lines that are down. You have trees that are down. You have a lot of hazards right now.

We do anticipate a lot of the water will subside in some of the barrier islands and some of the coasts, but some of those inland places off rivers and off these inlets, you know, you're likely to have standing water there throughout all of today and even in the days ahead. So that is a hazard. And just be -- please be aware that that is something that you -- if you've weathered this storm to this point, going and doing and getting involved in that is just totally not worth it. And we want to minimize any harm to anybody as a result of what we're seeing right now in the streets.

We have had 26 states provide support. We really appreciate that. It's going to be put to use. This is - I don't think we've ever seen an effort mobilized for this many rescues this quickly, but we appreciate it. And we will make good use of it.

We want people to be safe. Those who have -- who are in need of life support right now, help is on the way. What they were able to do is look to see where the areas that were the hardest hit, and they've been focusing assets there. So, obviously, the barrier islands, but then you also have places along these different inlets and different rivers where people said the water was rising. They were calling into the county or calling 911. And so, they have a pretty good sense of where those calls were coming from and they're focusing their rescue efforts on those areas that were most hard hit.

And again, I just want to thank the urban search and rescue teams, the National Guard, the state resources and the Coast Guard for, you know, not waiting around, but going in there and understanding that time is of the essence and we've got a lot of people we need to help.

For those looking to help, people say, what can we do? Well, the first lady is spearheading our efforts with Volunteer Florida to activate the Florida Disaster Fund, where people can donate. It's much better to donate financially rather than sending items. We've got a lot of items and that resources -- financial resources can really help people get their unique needs met.

We have everything we need in terms of supply, but if you go to FloridaDisasterFund.org or text "disaster" to 20222, you can provide some much-appreciated assistance. And if you want to volunteer, you have official volunteer portal at www.volunteerflorida.org to find volunteer opportunities.

The impacts of this storm are historic. And the damage that was done has been historic. And this is just off initial assessments. There's going to be a lot more assessing that goes on in the days ahead. But I think we've never seen a flood event like this. We've never seen storm surge of this magnitude. And it hit an area where there's a lot of people in a lot of those low-lying areas and it's going to end up doing extensive damage to a lot of people's homes.

So, there's going to be a lot of work to do. Today is about identifying the people that need help, who may still be in harm's way, but also beginning the process of rebuilding some of the things that we need, to have services restored, to have fuel and to have the things that people need in terms of communications.

I want to thank Kevin Guthrie (ph) for having these assets ready to go. We're going to use every bit of them. And we're going to be there until all the tasks are completed.

So, Kevin, you want to come up and give an update?

KEVIN GUTHRIE: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, First Lady, for your leadership across the state.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That was Governor Ron DeSantis briefing all of us on the state of Florida this morning, on the catastrophic destruction across that state.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

HARLOW: We are glad you're with us for this breaking news.

[09:05:01]

I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

A few headlines there. He said that a couple of bridges now, it appears, will need structural rebuild. Just part of the infrastructure price to the force of this storm.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: He also says that he expects to request more emergency declarations for impacted counties, but notes that they've gotten the help they asked for so far. We'll continue to monitor.

Ian has now weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed the northern and eastern parts of Florida, but it still packs a punch. Powerful winds. The remaining risk of major flooding. Fourteen million people in the state currently under flood alerts. Another 2.5 million Floridians without power. That is more than one in five electrical customers in that state.

HARLOW: Right now, water rescues are underway as we speak. You have residents trapped in their homes. Fort Myers, which got -- has really gone through some of the worst flooding so far from this hurricane, inundated by Ian's storm surge. Floodwaters rushing into the streets there. Parts of the city still underwater. Nearly three to four feet of water there still.

And in Naples, officials say half of the streets are not passable this morning because they are underwater. Here, a member of the Naples fire department had to use an axe to break open a car window, making what is really a heroic rescue after some got stuck in those floodwaters. A fire station in Naples also not spared.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now we have a truck issue and the guys are pushing the truck out of the bay.

Because why, chief?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seems like the truck was going to catch on fire. It was smoking. And we didn't want the station to burn down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: In Port Charlotte, a hospital there, an ICU division, just with the roof ripped off.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: Doctors and other personnel having to wade through flooded hallways.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BIRGIT BODINE, INTERNAL MEDICINE SPECIALIST: We had about 160 patients in house and our roof blew off, part of the roof on the ICU, above the ICU. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: It is important to note, it is very early. These are just the earliest images we're seeing. Many communication lines remain down. It will be some time before we see the full scope of the damage.

We are covering every angle of this dangerous storm this morning.

HARLOW: Let's begin with our colleague, Randi Kaye, who joins us in Fort Myers, where, Randi, you have been. You have rescue workers there out trying to help survivors. Crews beginning, right, as the sun just came up, to really see what Hurricane Ian has wrought.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Poppy and Jim.

We made it here to Fort Myers. We drove here from Punta Gorda early this morning just to see what kind of damage. And we found quite a bit of it. In this community, the Caloosahatchee River flooded this community. If you take a look here, I mean some of the water has actually gone down even since we got here. But it was so high, if you look here on this mobile home, you can see that -- where the dirt is on the screen, that's how high the water was.

We talked to one 85-year-old woman who was in her home at the time, and she said that it just took a matter of -- it was just a matter of seconds for the water to get up to shoulder level. She was bounced around in there by her furniture, thrown up against the wall. She was heavily bruised this morning when we spoke to her, but luckily a neighbor saved her.

And that's what it's really been all about here. Just with all this water, some neighbors are coming, they're making sure their neighbors are OK. They're knocking on doors. But this is - this is the scene in just one of the many communities that have been devastated by this water.

If you take a look over here, these are some of the boats that people have used to sort of get - get out of their homes and help rescue people. And even if you - it's just -- you know, it's so disturbing, when you look on the - on the front porches, you can see their - their personal belongings, their family pictures, what they have has just been destroyed and thrown out into the - into the water here.

We talked to a young couple who had just moved here about a year ago. They were so excited to start their lives. Very emotional when we spoke with them this morning about what they found when they returned home. They actually were one of the few that did evacuate. Many here didn't evacuate because they though the storm was going to go to Tampa. But here's what they told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SYDNI VANHORN, HOME FLOODED IN FORT MYERS: It's very flooded. It's ruined. Completely ruined. The fridge is on the floor. The couches are turned upside down. The toilets are on the floor. There is water seeping in our cabinets. Everything's flooded. Everything is ruined. We grabbed, you know, what we could, most of, but we didn't think it would be this bad. You know, we watched the news and, you know, they kind of explained to us that it was, you know, going left and then it just smacked us really hard. And, you know, we fled to my mom's and that's all we could have did. But now we're homeless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And a lot of people are feeling homeless and very desperate this morning.

Let me just show you over here what's going on. And this explains a lot because this is part of the situation here. We know there's about 2 million people, right, without power in the state of Florida.

[09:10:00]

Just look at this. This has gone -- went down during the storm. You can see, it's all just broken and in pieces.

And so none of these communities have power. And they don't have a lot of hope. They're - they're -- they don't - they haven't seen any rescue people coming, the search and rescue teams, they haven't seen them. There were some Cajun Navy members who always rally for a storm and try and help others. So, we did see them here this morning. But it's been - it's been quite an emotional morning for a lot of these folks. Either they're returning home or they can't believe what they lived through overnight with that storm.

It was - it was a lot of wind, they said, but it was really the surge from that river, the Caloosahatchee River, that destroyed their homes here.

Poppy. Jim.

SCIUTTO: The number of people without power in Florida is just remarkable, 22 percent of customers. I believe those numbers have been since updated. Have you seen there any signs of teams out to begin to restore power?

KAYE: We haven't. And we made the drive, you know, about a half an hour drive early this morning before light, but we haven't seen any power trucks around at all, Jim. It's been -- and that's what's so very frustrating for a lot of these people, they just don't know where to start. They don't know - you know, they have to dig out. They have to get the water out of their homes. We went into some of these homes. And they're just - they're completely destroyed.

So, it's not only power, but it's, how do they rebuild? Where do they go in the meantime? It's just -- you know, we see this a lot, obviously, after every - every storm, every hurricane. But it's very, very difficult for these people to know where to begin.

And as I said, they just did not expect what happened here to happen. They thought that it was going to go further north. SCIUTTO: Yes, despite all those warnings, no question. To hear that young woman say to you, we're homeless now, quite a thing to hear.

Randi Kaye, thanks so much.

All right, so Ian is now a tropical storm. That's what happens when they hit land. Weakening from a category four hurricane. But it remains extremely dangerous as it continues to move its way across Florida. Heavy rains, flooding, unrelenting. This is a video of a reporter rescuing a nurse just before sunrise this morning after she got stuck on a flooded road. Officials are urging residents to stay where they are.

Goodness, we see this so often, Poppy, they say, don't drive on the roads, the water rises quickly and then those cars get caught on the roads.

HARLOW: What an incredible thing to see. Wow.

Ryan Young, our colleague, is on the ground in Orlando, which, of course, is feeling a lot of this impact of this storm right now.

Ryan, thank you for being with us.

You actually spoke to that reporter. What did they tell you? And if you -

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did speak to that report. He -

HARLOW: If you - if you can share their name, so that everyone can know what a hero they are.

YOUNG: Yes, his name is Tony Atkins. He's a good brother. I know him very well. In fact, we saw the video and saw that rescue. We were just amazed. I mean he waited out into the water to save that woman. And you think about it, she wasn't just driving in the water because she wanted to, she wanted to get to work. She's a nurse. So you understand her dedication to her job. It's no different than what we're trying to do here is provide a service to people.

So, she was on her way to work. They were trying to wave her down to tell her, hey, there's water, there's flooding. We'll show you some of this video again. And when she got stuck and that car shut off, Tony got in the water himself and went out to her and basically carried her out of that water situation.

This is not the only rescue that has happened in this area. This, of course, happened dramatically in front of the camera. But what we're told is, there have been fire rescue and high-water evacuations from seven different locations throughout this metro area.

The water has been unrelenting. We haven't been hit by the heavy winds that other folks have been hit by, but the water has just been coming nonstop for hours. We've seen transformers blowing, power outages throughout this area. But, guys, I want to bring you back here. If you look in this direction, you can see that car sitting in the middle of the road and you understand, if you look that direction, you can see the hospital just right over there. So, people are coming in this direction for emergency services.

In the last hour or so, we were getting ready to do a live shot and a car came barreling down this street. This is Orange Avenue. And there was a man and woman in the car. And the man was screaming, my wife is having a baby! She's in labor. Can you help us? Because that was the way they knew how to get to the hospital. And one of our producers was able to guide them around so they could go around the back location here.

But, guys, as we walk this direction, you can see how much water's here. That happened right before all the daylight had sort of unveiled how treacherous this can be. So, just imagine that fear of that family as the woman's going into labor, needing help, running to this hospital.

Throughout this area, though, we've heard that there have been several different evacuations because of the water. And what they're concerned about now is people will come out and start driving around and getting stuck in water like this. I can tell you, just in the last half hour or so, more people are coming to our location to kind of look to see what's going on because their house hasn't been damaged. That's what they're concerned about, too. There have been power lines all the way down across the city. When we were on the highway, we didn't see one car besides the one that was following us.

[09:15:02]

So that was good news. People have stayed off the highways. Because there are highways that are shut down because of this heavy water and pulling.

But you can tell right now, though, the rain has stopped for the most part. We're not sure where the outer bands may be. But if you think about this in the next few hours, there will be so many people who will start coming outside. And what they're concerned about, especially rescue crews, is someone trying to drive through water like this.

We've seen it drop just a little bit. But as you look at this, you can tell how dangerous this could be, especially if you didn't know it was there and you were driving at night.

SCIUTTO: Ryan, thanks so much.

And listen, a reminder to folks, this is Orlando, right? That's the middle of the state.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It's not coastal.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It just shows the power of this storm as it continues to cross there.

Good to have you, Ryan.

HARLOW: I would also say, you know, Ryan shows us, Jim, in the middle of some of the worst things that people face, you see the best of humanity, you know. That reporter rescuing that nurse, Ryan's producers getting the woman in labor to the hospital, you know those are important things, encouraging things to see in the middle of all of this.

SCIUTTO: No question.

HARLOW: Let's go - let's go to our colleague Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center.

Chad, thank you for helping us understand all of this. Where do we stand now, especially the storm surge, flash flooding remains an ongoing threat, right?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely, especially from Orlando northward. I mean you talk about Sanford and just to the north and to the northwest of Orlando had record flooding already in some of these creeks and streams. To the northeast, it is still raining and the water is still going up.

Obviously, the onshore flow coming this way and the offshore flow coming this way. And it's still centered, believe it or not, Cape Canaveral. Exactly where they moved that Artemis rocket back into the shed to get it out of the way of this. Look at all the rain. Everywhere that's purple is 10 inches of rain or more. And it's still coming down in some spots.

We are still going to see these rivers go up. Even some of the rivers down here, the Pearl River, that Randi was talking so much about, as she was standing there waiting for it to go up, well, the water is upriver, still trying to go downriver at this point, because that's kind of how it got pushed.

There's the rainfall. It's going to continue to move to the north. And the wind is still coming in at Ft. Myers. I know you have a lot of these rescues trying to happen, but we're still well above into this minor flood stage because the water is still getting pushed with that west wind.

So, talk about those things from yesterday. Really, how much water was supposed to come into the Ft. Myers area? And this is what we have, right here. That's what should have been covered. And this is what Sanibel looked like.

Now, you can't get to Sanibel anymore because the causeway is broken. About 60 feet of the ramp running up to the bridge is gone, washed away. This story just really broke just a couple of hours ago at daylight. People cannot get on or off of Sanibel or Captiva. Forty-nine percent of all fatalities happen because of surge. Easy to

see why. And even the freshwater flooding is another almost half of that.

This storm is going to continue to move off into the Atlantic Ocean. It is going to get stronger possibly again. Turn left for a third landfall. And I say third because you probably put it out of your head that this thing already hit Cuba once. So, Cuba, west coast, now east coast. And possibly could be a hurricane, but we're thinking about 70 miles an hour right now. The water is warm, but there's enough sheer that it's not going to rapidly intensify like it did before. The rainfall comes in, the rainfall comes in for Charleston, comes in for Myrtle's Inlet, for Myrtle Beach, for Jekyll Island. And with that wind pushing onshore, we could see some flooding there, especially Charleston. If it rains in Charleston, you can get flooding. You can get an onshore flow with the wind, maybe a surge, of four feet. That's a lot of water in downtown Charleston.

Jim. Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: That's a lot.

Chad, thank you. Stay close. We'll get back to you very soon.

SCIUTTO: All right, if you want to help, CNN has verified ways you can help victims of Hurricane Ian. Go to cnn.com/impact. Lots of good options there. And we will, of course, will continue to update that page as more options become available.

HARLOW: And we are, of course, staying on top of the just devastation left by this monster hurricane. Next, we check in with the Coast Guard on rescues happening right now in Ft. Myers.

Stay with CNN as we cover Ian's path.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There goes the signs (ph). There goes the beds. Holy cow. Oh -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:23:39]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Now to our special coverage of Hurricane Ian's aftermath.

We do want to show you some stunning images. This is from the Sanibel Causeway, just came in moments ago, really the only access by car to Sanibel Island. And you can see the approach there collapsed. A real sign of the power of the wind and particularly the water. And a lot of damage there, Poppy, as you look at the rest of those pictures along the rest of that line.

HARLOW: Yes, that is -- if anyone has driven on that, it's stunning to see what this storm did, what Ian did there.

Reporter Gage Goulding, from our affiliate WBBH, was just there at the scene. I want you to watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAGE GOULDING, WBBH REPORTER: I just want to step out and just let you take this in for a second. This is 50 feet, approximately 50 to 60, maybe 65 feet of the bridge that has collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico during the Hurricane Ian that we experienced for the last 48 hours here.

This is a monumental piece of the bridge. I don't know any other word than to say monumental piece of this bridge that collapsed.

And, Paul, can we zoom in here to this actual piece of roadway? This one here, you can still see the guard barrier, kind of the jersey barrier, if you will. And you see the center line. It's just laying in the Gulf.

[09:25:02]

It's truly a breathtaking sight.

Wherever we walked up here in the middle of the night, you know, it was kind of like one of those moments when you say, it can't be so, it can't be so. And, you know, we're being as safe as we can. Paul, can you kind of look down here and just show where it crumbled and the sand and the concrete underneath this bridge that once held it up and carried travelers, you and me, your loved ones, and your friends and family and all of our friends that visit us to the beautiful islands of Sanibel. Now, it is entirely collapsed.

If you go back this way, you know, now that we have some daylight, it's much more to take in. Just look at this light post. It is about level to my eyes right now, but it is actually sitting about 20 feet below me in the Gulf waters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Wow. Wow.

All right, let's talk to the Coast Guard, because Coast Guard officials say that they are prepared for a very busy day of search and rescue ahead across the state of Florida.

Yesterday, first responders rescued this person trapped in a flooded car. This was in Naples. This morning, crews are pulling people off of roofs of flooded homes.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now from FEMA headquarters here in Washington, D.C., is Vice Admiral Peter Gautier, the deputy commandant for operations of the U.S. Coast Guard. Good to have you on, sir. Thanks for taking the time.

VICE ADM. PETER GAUTIER, DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR OPERATIONS, U.S. COAST GUARD: Thanks, Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Your teams have been out in force, Coast Guard crews. I wonder, how many rescues have you been able to carry out in the last 24 hours?

GAUTIER: Well, as you mentioned, we've been preparing for this storm for the past week. We've moved our Coast Guard cutters and boats and helicopters and aircraft out of the impacted area, and we've mobilized others from around the country to be prepared to quickly come in behind this storm, to first and foremost do rescues and evaluate the situation. We've done 23 -- rescued 23 individuals so far, and we expect many more to come.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: We just heard Governor DeSantis say that this is a 500-year flood event. We heard him say we've never seen a storm, a flooding event like this. And so, I wonder, given the reporting we've heard from another commander in the Coast Guard about pulling people off of roofs in Ft. Myers and elsewhere, what else do you expect to do, especially if we haven't seen the worst of the flooding yet?

GAUTIER: Yes, right. Well, the Coast Guard does have experience, for better or for worse, doing search and rescue over land, urban search and rescue, and doing what you described, helping people who are in flooded areas, both from the very heavy rains and from the storm surge that we've experienced. And we do this very tightly coordinated with the National Guard there in Florida and other federal state and local agencies are going to be participating in this for the days to come. Both on land and in the air. So I think we can expect for the folks who didn't evacuate, I think we're going to be expecting a lot of people that are going to be hoisted off roofs, a lot of people who are going to be rescued on the ground, and we've got a very strong team going forward to do that.

SCIUTTO: Vice Admiral, we've been showing live pictures as we've been speaking to you of a house on fire in Ft. Myers, Florida. It just shows you one of the many risks beyond the water. There are gas lines there. Certainly active, you know, electrical risks in the area that haven't lost power.

Some state and local rescue crews, they've been telling us that they have limits as to when they can go out. If the winds exceed say 40, 45 miles an hour, they can't go out for the safety of those crews.

I wonder, does the Coast Guard have similar limits and can you describe what your crews faced last night carrying out these rescues?

GAUTIER: Yes. Yes. Sure. Our Coast Guard crews do have limits, but they're pretty high limits, and they do a really robust risk evaluation before we go out. We started flying last night over the Florida Keys out of Miami to do the quick evaluations in the areas where the last rain bands and wind have passed. And now we're doing that up and into the Ft. Myers area, in the areas of greatest impact, kind of following the track line of this storm so we can get in and amongst the areas of the greatest damage, together with the local and state and other federal responders so we can rescue the folks who need rescuing. We can do the rapid evaluations to understand where the hard work in the days and weeks ahead are going to be. And part of this actually is, we worked closely with port authorities and focuses in the maritime transportation system to close down all the maritime transportation there on the west side of Florida and we've got to work here in the next couple of days to make sure we can get that opened up safely in the next few days to come.

SCIUTTO: Got it.

HARLOW: Vice Admiral, I wonder how worried you are about the fact that Hurricane Ian really intensified as it reached land. And that's not usually what happens with hurricanes. And it certainly is not what happens in terms of the rapid intensification that we saw. And all of - and all of the studies you look at point to climate change as being, you know, a driver and a contributor to that.