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Water Rescues Underway After Hurricane Kills At Least 13 in FL; Biden Approves Major Disaster Declaration for Florida; Record Surge Slams Ft Myers; Homes Under Feet of Water. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 29, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota in New York.

Hurricane Ian has killed at least 13 people. It's the strongest storm to hit the west coast of Florida in nearly 20 years. And local officials say we should brace for that number of victims to rise. The life and death danger from Ian continues as it pushes northeast, still pummeling Florida.

Rescuers were pulling people from high water all day and night. Survivors described no time to wait as people had to carry children, as you can see, through chest high waters. Ian made landfall just west of Cape Coral. Our CNN drone shows the devastation there. I mean, obviously, you can just see these are supposed to be streets but they are completely flooded.

Nearby Fort Myers and Naples further south are both decimated, countless neighborhoods are still submerged in the floodwaters at this hour. The communities of Sanibel and Pine Island are now cut off from the mainland after Ian washed away parts of this causeway. This is a major thoroughfare right there. The Governor said the area suffered a biblical storm surge.

Let's bring in Michael Brennan. He's the Acting Deputy Director at the National Hurricane Center and joins me now from Miami. Michael, thank you so much. Tell us where is the danger right now?

MICHAEL BRENNAN, ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Well, right now we're most concerned about this area from east central Florida, say, from Cape Canaveral up to the Jacksonville area. We have the center of Ian pushing offshore Cape Canaveral, but very strong winds occurring along the east central Florida coast, south of Daytona Beach. We also have storm surge inundation ongoing in places like St. Augustine.

You can see water pushing into the old parts of the city. There we have very heavy rainfall. So this is sort of the hunker down mode for the storm right now. But very quickly that thread is going to shift up to Georgia, and South Carolina and North Carolina as we go through the evening hours and into tonight and tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: So is the biggest danger to life the wind or the storm surge?

BRENNAN: Well, generally storm surge has the potential to kill more people than wind. But wind can certainly be dangerous and lead to downed trees and power lines and very dangerous conditions. But it's usually water hazards, a combination of either storm surge and/or rainfall flooding that tends to kill the most people in tropical storms and hurricanes in the United States.

CAMEROTA: And so where should people be evacuating right now or what should people in that zone be doing at this hour?

BRENNAN: Well, people who live in these storm surge evacuation areas in places like South Carolina, in particular, coastal Georgia, even areas into North Carolina, if you've been asked to evacuate by your local officials, you should please go ahead and do so. We can see storm surge inundation as high as four to seven feet above ground level, for example, in the Charleston, South Carolina area and also widespread inundation of four to six feet in places like Hilton Head and Savannah; Brunswick, Georgia and two to four feet up along the North Carolina coast. So certainly dangerous storm surge there and then the potential for a very heavy rainfall exacerbating the problems with inundation in those coastal areas.

CAMEROTA: And is the fear, Michael, that it will - when it hits that - right now I know it's sort of dispersed in the ocean. It's less concentrated than it was on the West Coast, but that it will regain its strength and reconstitute?

BRENNAN: We are forecasting it to become a hurricane again. It's almost there now. It's got maximum winds of 70 - 74 is a hurricane, so it's very close. But the wind field is much bigger now. The tropical storm force winds are almost already on the coast and parts of northern South Carolina.

So the tropical storm force winds go about 400 miles from the center, so it's a much bigger, broader storm and those impacts are going to occur over multiple states from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina even up into Virginia with some of the heavy rainfall.

CAMEROTA: All right. Michael Brennan, thank you very much for the warning. Hopefully everyone is getting into position there now. Thank you.

BRENNAN: Thanks.

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CAMEROTA: So in Naples, some of the flooding has receded, but officials are still urging people to stay away from the city's beaches and pier, which were so badly damaged. That's where we find CNN's Brian Todd. So Brian, are people staying away?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes and no, Alisyn. Some people who were staying in their homes right here on Bayshore Boulevard are still here and I'm going to give you a sense of just what some of the devastation was. Check out these apartments on Bayshore, the water came right into these two right here. Look, just blew out the facade on this one and damaged everything inside. Our photojournalist, Mike Love (ph) and I are going to kind of do a sweep for you here. On the one next door, pretty much the same situation.

Now the lady just above this, I just kind of spoke to her as I called out to see anyone's home, she came to the window and said that the water obviously came through all of this. These people, she said, were not home, so hopefully no one was hurt here. Here's a third one that had the facade kind of broken through.

Now, the lady in the apartment was telling me about the damage here, said the water levels, and we're going to be able to show you some perspective here, Mike is going to show you that. He's going to come over here with me. She said the water levels, actually, Mike, let's go over here and show them the street sign here. This pedestrian street sign with the yellow.

She said the water was to the level of that lower rectangular portion of the sign right there and - but beyond that, you can get more perspective, it came, obviously, the storm surge had to come from the beach area there, over that elevated beach area, all the way here and she said the water level was right to that rectangular part of the sign.

So that gives you a sense of just the power of that water and anyone who was in these ground floor apartments was vulnerable. Here, there's another one over there that was damaged like that. So again, we're just getting - we just got here a short time ago going street to street to street and talking to people about how they survived this and what they're doing to recover, but this gives you a sense of just how powerful that rush of water was at the height of the storm.

And again, I think I heard you talking to others just before me about how - going back to your homes this soon, even though it's almost 24 hours later, is still a kind of a dangerous proposition. Your homes are not necessarily safe. There can be downed power lines, other lines. Obviously, if you go into a place like this, there's going to be debris all over the place.

It's, of course, natural and understandable for people who want to go back to their homes, recover what they can. But it's still not that safe, Alisyn, as you can see here. And again, we're just kind of going straight to street here, getting here a short time ago and assessing some of the damage, but Naples pretty much devastated.

CAMEROTA: It looks like that. Brian Todd, thank you very much for giving us that snapshot of just those few houses that are destroyed.

So officials are warning residents that now is not the time to return to their homes, as you just heard Brian say. The inspection and rebuilding process will have to get underway soon. And at his visit to FEMA headquarters today, President Biden says the federal government already has a plan in place. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And folks in Florida who have destroyed or damaged homes, you don't have enough insurance, it means the federal government will provide individual assistance of $37,900 for home repairs and other $37,900 for lost property, everything from automobile to lost wedding ring.

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CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Keith Turi. He's the FEMA Assistant Administrator for response and recovery. So Keith, we just heard President Biden, there are two payments of basically $38,000. Explain how we get to that number and what that covers.

KEITH TURI, FEMA ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, RESCUE AND RECOVERY: Yes. Well, President Biden declared a major disaster declaration last night at the request of the governor and for, at this point, nine counties. He's authorized what we call individual assistance.

The first step in receiving individual assistance is to register with FEMA. The best way to do that is to you download the FEMA app and register that way or you can go to disasterassistance.gov. That's the easiest way to register, file your claim, provide information about what insurance you have, what your losses are and then a few minutes inspector will contact a survivor to start the process.

CAMEROTA: And Keith, I mean when as we - as you're talking, we're looking at these aerial shots of just the devastation throughout Fort Myers Beach, throughout - I mean, everywhere: Sanibel, Fort Myers downtown itself, Tampa. And so where do people even begin? How do - when your home is destroyed like this, what are they supposed to do today and tomorrow?

TURI: Well, the first thing is, as I heard your reporter talking about is make sure they stay safe. It's - this is still an ongoing incident. The floodwaters are still receding in some areas. And unfortunately, sometimes we see additional loss of life in those days after impact when folks drive into floodwaters or don't operate a generator correctly, so that's the first thing.

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Then it comes down to just making sure there's a safe place to stay and they have food, they have water, they have those things they need just to get through the day. And then between the local officials, the state and FEMA, there'll be a community of folks to help them with that recovery.

Again, if you have insurance, you look there first, register with FEMA. And there's a great group of nonprofits and other community organizations that will be there to assist as well.

CAMEROTA: Keith, I know the number of people killed, is fluctuating or it's possibly going to rise, do you have any latest numbers on fatalities or people who still need to be rescued at this hour? TURI: I don't. The last number I heard was there was one confirmed

fatality. However, we do know that there are additional reports that are coming in. That will be a dynamic number for some time as the search and rescue continues. Of course, everyone here at FEMA is hoping that number stays as low as possible and that's why we're stressing safety today, too, to make sure that everyone stay safe as we move through this response and into recovery.

CAMEROTA: Gov. DeSantis of Florida just had a press conference that we listened to last hour in which he said that they - that Florida has a budget surplus. I think that he said the best they've ever had or something like that and they will use a good portion of that to recover. Does that make this easier for Florida?

TURI: It's a partnership, obviously, between the state and federal government and local government in the response effort and then the long recovery effort. And so there are certain costs and funds that the federal government will be able to provide due to the disaster declaration there's certain responsibilities that the state will have. The Governor's commitment, obviously, is critically important to that along with all the other local officials as well.

And so it'll be a partnership, everyone will have to bring resources to the table and we're committed to working on that with the citizens of Florida for the long haul.

CAMEROTA: We just checked in with the National Hurricane Center and they said, of course, Ian is not done yet wreaking its havoc. And so now it's on the East Coast and it's possibly regaining steam and they're very worried about Charleston and those low lying areas. So what's the plan there?

TURI: Yes. Charleston is another very flood prone area, both from a storm surge perspective and from some of the intense rains that we expect to see at the - you saw the warnings are up for those areas. We have teams that are coordinating with the state of North South Carolina and Georgia and North Carolina if they end up being impacted as well.

So again, just like it was a few days ago for southwest Florida, the message today is take the time to prepare those initial tropical storm force winds that are going to be reaching South Carolina tonight. So those - citizens in those areas really need to take this opportunity to make sure they're ready, they have a plan in place, they evacuate if they're in a storm surge area and they're ready to hunker down and withstand the storm.

CAMEROTA: Keith Turi, thank you very much. Obviously, we know that all of these government agencies as well as state rescue agencies are stretched thin. We really appreciate your time.

TURI: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: The Coast Guard and the National Guard are pulling people off of roofs in Fort Myers, because their houses are completely submerged. So we're going to take you there live next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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CAMEROTA: Here's some brand new video of Fort Myers Beach, Florida. Look at this.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) about this ...

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CAMEROTA: I mean, it's just in tatters. Hurricane Ian left block after block and home after home and storefront after storefront destroyed. CNN's Randi Kaye is in the city of Fort Myers. And Randi, I know that all day you've been talking to people who've just lost everything.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn. It's been quite a day. You talk to people and they just don't know what to do next. Of course, they're grateful to be alive and their families alive, if that's the case. But certainly, they have lost a lot in - with at least the people that we've spoken with.

We are at the Fort Myers Yacht Basin and you want to talk about hurricane force winds. Look at this, these boats were literally picked up out of the Caloosahatchee River here behind me and tossed over here. They had been docked or moored and now they are on their side, certainly too close for comfort in terms of those boats.

We have a drone up as well, which can show you a greater picture of what's going on here in this marina. There are boats that are on their side. They - there are boats that are just loosely floating out there, boats that are heavily, heavily damaged. And if you just look around even just closer to where we are here back on the ground, there's stools and captains' chairs and dinghies, and stuff that was just thrown around by the force of this storm and the winds here.

As you know, Fort Myers was basically underwater for most of the day yesterday. We were in the city proper just a little a little while ago and there are huge pieces of the dock on the city streets. So these are giant cement blocks that had been carried by the force of this storm onto the city streets.

We also were in a community earlier in North Fort Myers where we were talking to people that was completely flooded by this river. It's only about a mile or so away, a mobile home community and they were just completely swamped. So much water on the ground, people lost their homes, there are thick mud inside. We went inside some of these homes. We talked to a lot of the residents and here's what one of them told us.

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SIDNEY VAN HORN, HURRICANE SURVIVOR: 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 seeking in our cabinets. Everything's flooded. Everything is ruined.

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We grab what we could and most of, but we didn't think it would be this bad. We watched the WINK news and they kind of explained to us that it was you know going left and then it just smacked us really hard. And we fled to my mom's and that's all we could have did, but now we're homeless.

Being so hard working honestly doesn't matter. It's just destroyed and it's ruined. And then you have to start all over again. And honestly, where do you start? How do you start in this?

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KAYE: And that really is the question for so many people today after any storms, certainly after one this strong: Where do you start? How do you dig out of this? How do you get your power on? What do you do about a new home? Belongings? I mean, if you just look around here, I mean, it is a mess, certainly in this city. This is just on the corner here of the marina of the Yacht Basin.

So it's a real - it's going to be a heavy task, Alisyn, and a heavy lift for a lot of these communities and a lot of the people here who have lost quite a bit. It's not so much the boats, but a lot of their personal belongings and hopefully they all survived, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, Randi, there's no answer to that about where do they start, how are they going to rebuild for that young woman there. Yes. I've been watching this with such intense personal interest also, because just less than six months ago, I went on a girls trip with some of my best college friends down to Fort Myers Beach to my friend's beach bungalow and I have a picture of what it looked like then, less than six months ago.

On the left side, that's the home that we all hung out in and visited. And yesterday, on the right side, Randi, I don't know if you have - can see this, but that's her house at 4 pm yesterday. It is under water, the entire house. All you can see is the peak of the roof. And that is just one house on that block. And there's just one block of dozens and dozens of homes that are like that.

And so that young woman that you talked to echoes my friend's feeling today, as well as everyone there. Where do you start? How are you ever going to live there again?

KAYE: Mm-hm. Yes. I mean, we saw so many people who - so many who did not ride it out at their home, go back to their home today and just sort of assess what was left. And they're just walking out with whatever they could carry in their arms, whether it was a puppy in their arms or an aquarium with a favorite pet that they left behind or a pair of sneakers and some, whatever dry clothes they had left. It's just - it's heartbreaking.

But they have to start somewhere and many of them, luckily, have somewhere to go. But a lot of the people here, Alisyn, thought this was going to go much further north towards Tampa and they got hit with a wallop.

CAMEROTA: I know. I mean, it was very hard for them to prepare because of that. I mean, obviously this is an imprecise science, figuring out exactly where it will make landfall, but they were definitely - a lot of people were surprised as we've heard today. Randi Kaye, thank you for being there and thank you for all of the reporting.

Let's bring in Dan Allers. He's joining us now on the phone. He's a Fort Myers Beach town council member. Councilman, thank you for being here. I don't know if you just heard that young woman that Randi Kaye spoke to. They don't have much money. They just invested in - this was their first house and it's all gone and destroyed and so where do they begin?

DAN ALLERS, COUNCIL MEMBER, FORT MYERS BEACH, FL: Alisyn, unfortunately, I started walking down our main thoroughfare, Estero Boulevard, this morning at about 6:30 and what she was saying has been replicated so many times by so many people that have come back to see the destruction and the devastation that no one really anticipated or expected.

I guess 90 percent, I would say, of the island is gone. And when I say gone, it's not just the insides of the houses, it's brick homes. It's houses that were on stilts, wood homes. It's gone. Businesses that had been here for years, decades that have - gone through several hurricanes like The Cottage, gone. It's quite devastating. It's total devastation.

CAMEROTA: And Councilman, when you say gone, can they be rebuilt or are these gone for good?

ALLERS: Most are gone for good. I was able to get down to my house actually. We were fortunate to stay a little bit higher in a home with some friends of ours and I made it down to our house today finally to check on it and everything's gone. Most streets on the island are completely blocked off, not with just debris but actual homes that have been uprooted because of the water that moves through the houses that are on the beach side. There's parts of the of the main thoroughfare of Estero Boulevard that have broken away and falling in of the gulf and created a major swamp, if you will.

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Essentially, if your home is not built out of concrete, that is - to FEMA standards over the last five years, it's pretty much gone. There's literally nothing to come back to.

CAMEROTA: And what's your plan, Councilman?

ALLERS: Well, some may say I'm a little hard headed. But my wife and I wrote up a storm last night, but we were, I felt, in a very safe home and high enough that we knew what the storm surge couldn't get to us. It did creep up to the first floor, I'd say, within two to three feet. So my estimation is probably a 16-foot storm surge or close to it, 14 to 16. We're just going to roll our sleeves up. We're going to get out there. We're going to help. We're going to do what we can. Unfortunately, we've lost several island residents. Things can be bought things can be brought again.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Did you know how many residents you've lost, Councilman?

ALLERS: I do not. I personally today saw three. I was able to help get a gentleman out of the house about Mid Island, myself and a couple other guys who were stranded. The house fell on him. He's fortunate enough to make it. But some weren't. Some people were hanging out the window. Some people were stuck in stairwells. It's - and the road is so blocked.

Fire and rescue, you might be able to hear it in the background, there's still flying overhead. They're still doing everything they can, but to get to them is hard and it's kind of where we're at.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, we can hear the toll it's taking on you and on everyone there. And we - our hearts go out to you and we totally understand how hard this will be going forward. Dan Allers, thank you. We really appreciate talking to you and we will check back with you as you roll up your sleeves and figure out what the future looks like.

ALLERS: Thanks, Alisyn. And don't be afraid to come back and visit us again. We will rebuild.

CAMEROTA: I really enjoyed my time there and I will do that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman.

Well, CNN teams are spread out across the state of Florida including Englewood, that's just north of Fort Myers. That's where that hospital was forced to close, also Naples where first responders were faced with an even more dangerous situation when their firehouse flooded. Stay with us.

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