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FPL: Workforce Increased To 20,000 Plus, Including Workers From 30 States; Ian Now A Tropical Storm, But Remains Dangerous. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 29, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:31:44]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Lots of work to do this morning. First responders are rescuing people stranded and trapped inside their homes in many cases, by floodwaters from the powerful Hurricane Ian.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And our colleagues here at CNN spoke with some of the residents who decided not to evacuate. Take a listen to their experience which was terrifying for many.

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SCOTT CARLOS, RODE OUT HURRICANE IAN IN PUNTA GORDA HOME: The whole parking lot is completely destroyed. All the water has gone back though for the most part. I am right on the beach and I can see on both sides and front and behind me. The water has gone back pretty far. But yesterday it was well over 10 foot high reaching the houses across the street from me to the roof lines. There is sand everywhere. We actually went walk it around about 10:30, 11 o'clock last night when the winds have died down just a bit. And there's debris everywhere. Everybody's garages basically just gave out and everything from garages cars are everywhere, messed up in the street.

THOMAS PODGORNY, TRAPPED IN HOUSE IN FORT MYERS: The Caloosahatchee River has flowed through the bottom floor of this house. And we're safe on the second floor. My concern is here on East North Shore Avenue in North Fort Myers, we have multiple residents including elderly residents trapped in one-storey houses that probably have 10 foot ceilings in seven foot floodwaters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: Among the damage from Hurricane Ian's path, the roof of a hospital, actually the intensive care unit of that hospital that had around 160 patients in it. Well that roof was torn off by the storm. And what you're looking at now is the floor covered entirely with running water there. The stairwell looks and sounds like waterfall. This is just one example of many of the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian including power being knocked out for 2.5 million homes and businesses. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BIRGIT BODINE, INTERNAL MEDICINE SPECIALIST: We also have one wing of the hospital that is dry that we have been able to triple up some patients into rooms. It was a little bit of an organized chaos. So even though we weren't expecting that, there were so many people there that we really had hands on deck and everybody pitched in.

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SCIUTTO: Well, the one in five customers in Florida now without power, fighting to restore that power in the coming days Florida Power and Light. Their spokesperson Peter Robbins joins us now for more on the phone. Peter, good to have you. We know you got your work cut out for you in the coming hours and days. What are the latest numbers you have of people without power? And how long do you expect before you're able to restore it?

PETER ROBBINS, SPOKESPERSON, FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT: Yes, thank you for having us, Jim. We do have our work cut out for us. We've got right now about 1.1 million FPL customers without power and that number may well go up as we continue to deal with severe weather in Central Florida and on the east coast of Florida. The good news is we started our restoration yesterday in the severe weather we saw in southeast Florida and we've already restored about three quarters of a million customers.

But clearly the more impacted areas near Naples and Fort Myers will take longer and we're just now going in there today doing damage assessments and trying to figure out where we can get our crews to start restoring power. We won't stop until every last person is on. But I know our customers are going to need some patience.

[10:35:04]

HARLOW: One of the big dangers after a hurricane is downed power lines and I wonder what your message is to people who want to get out, they want to survey the damage, they want to get back to their homes, does that make the job even more precarious for your teams on the ground?

ROBBINS: Well, not only precarious, Poppy, but it can slow it down. You know, not only just for us, but for emergency officials. So the best advice that I really hope people follow is to stay home and stay off the roads, and then prioritize their safety. If they ever see downed power lines or equipment that doesn't belong in a certain area, they need to stay away from it. And if they think it's a dangerous situation, they call it -- they should call 911. They never should go near downed power lines or equipment.

And unfortunately, we do see that happen. We see people lose their lives after a storm is gone because they're not prioritizing their safety. So it's absolutely critical they do that.

SCIUTTO: We showed images a short time ago of a scene inside the Port Charlotte Hospital, the ICU, in fact, I mean, underwater, the staircase there, like a waterfall. How do you, are you able to prioritize electricity or storing power for Florida and particularly places like a hospital?

ROBBINS: Yes, we absolutely are, Jim. And we do that we work with all the counties in our service territory before storm season. And they prioritize critical infrastructure like hospitals and 911 centers and police and fire stations. So those are things we talked about in advance so, and we do a damage assessment to kind of find out what those areas are seeing.

And we absolutely can work with them to try to restore those pieces of critical infrastructure first. And from there, you know, we're also working simultaneously to restore our customers and people's homes. But we absolutely can work with counties to prioritize certain facilities.

HARLOW: Was this worse than you guys were expecting?

ROBBINS: You know, Poppy, I don't know if we know the full answer yet. We expected it to be severe. You know, the forecast all along were for significant damage. And as we get in and assess the damage, I do think we're going to be looking at rebuilding parts of the electric grid there, not repairing them, but rebuilding them from the ground up particularly where there's been severe storm surge.

So it's going to be, you know, a long restoration for folks where we have a rebuild where we saw, you know, A plus speed of saltwater inside buildings and on streets and in neighborhoods.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that's the point. You hear that from the governor as well, a rebuild and a lot of areas to the critical infrastructure. Peter Robbins, Florida Power and Light thanks so much for joining us.

ROBBINS: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, this morning water rescues in Central Florida where floodwaters have been rising, we're going to speak with the Orange County Mayor about the ongoing response and what's worrying them, next.

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[10:42:28]

SCIUTTO: Live pictures right now flooding in St. Augustine, Florida as Hurricane Ian, now tropical storm, slowly rolls across Central Florida, still bringing massive amounts of rainfall with it and danger. It is already this morning come through Kissimmee, Florida where first responders have been using large utility vehicles with clearance over some of that water to rescue people.

HARLOW: Other people have been trapped as they have tried to drive into what becomes very quickly very deep water. Reporter Louis Bolden from our affiliate WKMG is on the scene. Watch this.

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LOUIS BOLDEN, WKMG REPORTER: And you can see just how deep that water is. So people were driving through that. A couple of people just had to leave their vehicles and got out on foot. The woman, April, who left her home said at one point she had to swim because the water was up to her chest and she'd left with not even shoes on her feet, just got out as quickly as they could.

We saw other groups of people that had backpacks on, people had duffel bags. It looks like they just grabbed whatever they could to get out of the house. And again, we just saw these people who were rescued by airboat. It looks like two adults and two small children. So help is on the way.

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HARLOW: Two small children and so many families going through this, you have to remember not just trying to protect themselves with their little kids as well. Flash flood warnings remain in effect in and around the Orlando area, a threat far from over produced by Ian is a one in 1,000 year rain event in parts of Florida.

SCIUTTO: All right, joining us now Mayor Jerry Demings of Orange County, Florida that includes the area of Orlando central part of the state there. Mayor, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

MAYOR JERRY DEMINGS, ORANGE COUNTY FLORIDA: Thank you for inviting me on the show. We're fairly well here, but we still are within a tropical storm force winds at this time. I'm happy to report that so far we have minimal damage within our area and minimal injuries.

SCIUTTO: We heard from the Orange County Director for Public Safety Danny Banks call this a multiday threat. I think he made that warning intentionally to say this is not going to fade quickly. And I wonder if that's your view too.

DEMINGS: That it was my view. We're going to continue to experience some wind gusts perhaps up to 55 to 60 miles an hour for the remainder today. This is projected to go through about 1:00 a.m. tomorrow, so overnight. So we still have to be somewhat vigilant here within the area. But the good news is that we've been downgraded from hurricane strength, the hurricane force winds to tropical storm. And we believe that by early morning hours even a tropical storm winds will have clear from my area.

[10:45:32]

HARLOW: The Orange County Public Safety Director just said a few moments ago that they are projecting for you guys a total of up to 24 inches of rain. And I just wonder, are you concerned at all that the worst flooding might still be to come?

DEMINGS: We're going to continue to have some localized flooding here within the area. But the National Weather Service had estimated that we would receive as much as 24 inches of rain. But given what we have, the measurements we have at this point, we average eight to 12 inches in some areas averaged about 16 inches thus far, the National Weather Service is projecting that we may see another a couple of inches of rainfall. And so that's better news than what we had, that's the most recent update that has been given to us so far, the resonance here within this area, that means that we will be able to likely return to some sense of normalcy faster than have been projected. Our theme parks, as you know, have closed down for today, perhaps with the news that we have received that we could perhaps see them reopen as early as sometime this weekend.

SCIUTTO: You've been urging people to stay off the roads. And this is something we hear consistently because folks go out. They want to look, they want to get a sense of the damage, they may need help, right, they may need supplies, they may need to get to the hospital. We had one of our reporters talking about it, someone with the -- where the mom was about to give birth. But that's often dangerous. So I wonder what you're saying to folks right now who may be watching this who are saying, hey, I'm going to go have a look now, I think everything's fine.

DEMINGS: We still don't want people out on roadways, because we're still experiencing some wind gusts above 39 miles an hour. And so with that, we want people to stay in continue to stay within their homes. We still do have flooding in the area. We still have a number of trees downed, power lines down, et cetera. We still have about 200,000 households within the area that are without power.

And so because of that, it's not yet the time for people to go back out into the public. Let us get through the early morning hours until 1 o'clock. And so tomorrow will be a better day for people to really get out of the household. So we want to -- we're continuing to respond to emergency calls for service. I will tell you that up to this point by 6:00 a.m. today, we have surpassed the average daily call responses for the first responders.

And so we had a very fast pace of responding to those emergency calls for service. So we say to all of our residents, help us out here. Don't put yourself in a situation where you become imperiled because of the rain, wind, and water within our area.

HARLOW: That's such an important message. Thank you. Good luck to your entire team and the city and the county as you guys work to get through this. Thanks again, Mayor.

DEMINGS: Thank you very much. Thank you for the call and concern.

HARLOW: Of course.

Well still ahead, the widespread damage across the Gulf Coast of Florida, residents waking up this morning seeing the destruction that Hurricane Ian has left. Stay with us.

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[10:49:04]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around what's going on right now because it is so unbelievable. If you take a look behind me this whole bay, there is a dumpster just floating by like a log. Our news cars that we drove to get here are completely underwater.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage. Port Charlotte, Florida was at the center of some of the strongest winds from Hurricane Ian.

SCIUTTO: A reporter from our affiliate WBBH got this look at the damage just as the summit was coming up this morning.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To my right, though, you can see this is the Charlotte Harbor Community Sailing Center, also place known as learn to sail. You can see the wall collapsing in, all that insulation inside there even looks like some broken glass within some of that frame. Those winds pushing in there and it looks like it's lifted pretty much this entire back section of the building. And we can see where those surge waters rose up in there. And it completely flooded the entire place.

Absolutely heartbreaking this morning, as we're really starting to see in light what has happened here in our own community. I also want to point out too, I'm going to step down here, as you can see out here in the water, this sailboat, I mean just watching it battling these waves, this river still very angry this morning. It is just bouncing around like a little toy boat just back and forth.

[10:55:11]

I also noticed a little while ago I was walking along this seaboard, which good news is you can see, this water mostly has receded. So that's some good news seeing that surge going down. But I want you to see and hopefully the camera can pick this up, but right here along the sidewalk is just a bunch of seashells pretty much all the way from over there through here. In fact, let me put the microphone down. You can hear him crunch this entire area just covered in seashells. That just goes to show how powerful those waters were as hurricane Ian was pushing through.

Those winds just about four miles off here to my left, about four to five miles of punchboard airport we recorded wind speeds up to 123 miles per hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Wow. Our thanks to all of our reporters and all of the local affiliate reporters on the ground doing this work, we'll continue to bring you updates on Hurricane Ian all day long. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: Yes, they're taking a lot of risks they and their teams are. I'm Jim Sciutto. Kate Bolduan continues our coverage right after a quick break.

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