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Hurricane Helene Makes Landfall In Northwestern Florida; Residents Urged To Evacuate In Asheville North Carolina; Millions in Path of Deadly Category 2 Hurricane Helene; Interview with Sarasota, Florida Mayor Liz Alpert; Storm Chaser in the City Where Hurricane Helene made Landfall; Boat Captain Trying to Ride Out Storm. Aired 1:05-2a ET

Aired September 27, 2024 - 01:05   ET

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

[01:05:00]

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world for our special coverage of Hurricane Helene. I'm Michael Holmes. Thanks for being with us tonight.

Now, Hurricane Helene is the strongest storm ever to make landfall in Florida's Big Bend, sweeping across the coast, less than two hours ago, as an extremely dangerous category four with winds of 140 miles an hour. The National Weather Service describing it as unsurvivable with up to 20 feet of storm surge expected in some areas. There have been at least two deaths reported in Georgia and one in Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON DESANTIS, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: We have had a report of a fatality on the roadway. Car Driving on I-4 near Ybor City in Tampa was hit when a sign fell onto the highway. So that just shows you that it's very dangerous conditions out there. We are going to see downed power lines. Those are very hazardous as well. Please do not mess with any downed power lines in and around your home or anywhere you may come in contact with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, the storm has knocked out power to more than a million homes and businesses in Florida, rescues too are underway, and officials in one county told people who didn't evacuate to write their name and birth date on their arm or leg to be identified if needed later.

Severe flooding is reported up and down Florida's west coast, far away from where the storm made landfall, beyond Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas now bracing for Helene's impact. The deputy director of the National Hurricane Center says this will likely be a historic inland flooding event, and warned that a lot of people might not make it through the night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMIE RHOME, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICAN CENTER: People have got to be ready to take care of themselves, take care of themselves for several days without power. Somehow we got to get people to realize that these aren't just an interesting phenomenon. They're very, very deadly, especially with this setup that we talked about, with this preexisting rainfall, we're probably going to lose a lot of lives in this setup with this much flooding potential.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Chad Myers joins us now to bring us the very latest. Where is Helene? Where is she headed? What are you saying?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's Valdosta, Georgia. And what is special about Valdosta, it is that right on the middle of an interstate, a north, south interstate, where truckers, roads, our veers all drive up and down, north, south, from Florida all the way up to Michigan. I hope no one is on the roadway right now, because the winds are still 110 miles per hour. 170, 180 kilometers per hour right now.

Down to a category two, Michael, from where it was, which was a category four, and we are still seeing those gusts. Now, somewhere around 90 to 100 miles per hour around Perry. We still have tornado watches in effect, which means a tornado could form overnight. If you live in any of these red areas, make sure you have your phone on that it will alarm you whether there's a tornado in your zone.

Now, these are not big tornadoes. These are not these things you see on movies, but there's still enough. If you'd hit your house, it would do some damage.

Here is the rainfall that you talked about, how much rainfall is coming down here with this rain. This is a front that kind of stopped in the Appalachian Mountains right here over the last couple days, and it rained a little bit, but now, now this moisture from the hurricane is just feeding into that front, and it is raining. It is just not going to stop.

We are going to see, likely, 200 millimeters, eight inches of rainfall in some spots. That is going to be a big deal on top of ground that it has been raining on for 48 hours already. So every little red spot you see here, there's flash flood warnings are going on.

Here's the saltwater flood, Michael. Here's what we're really concerned about, because the water levels are still going up, even though the storm is in Georgia, the winds are out of the west, blowing this water onto this call it shore. I want to call it land. The good news, if there's any good news about where this landed, is that it's a National Seashore area, not really a populated area, not like Tampa or Miami.

[01:05:06]

It landed in where we see trees, shrubs, bushes, animals, plants. So if there's anything good about this, that's it. But if you're caught in a 20 foot, six meter saltwater flood, it's going to be a long night.

HOLMES: All right, Chad, thanks so much. We'll check in later. Chad Myers there with the very latest on Helene. Now, before Helene made landfall, Tallahassee's mayor told CNN, this could be the most powerful storm ever to hit Florida's capital. He said his main concerns power outages, structural damage, and, of course, downed trees. CNN Ivan Rodriguez is live in Tallahassee, Florida.

You've been out there for hours now. What is the situation there now? What have you been seeing?

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, it really feels like in the last 30 minutes, maybe even less than that, we've started feeling a lot stronger rain and wind, and that's interesting, because we now really aren't close to that eye wall. We know that that eye wall was east of where Tallahassee is, especially where we are here in downtown Tallahassee, but maybe that back, those back bands, outer bands, coming back again, giving us a little bit more of that, a heavy rainfall, a little bit stronger winds here, where I am here, elevated a bit of a hilltop area. Get a great background of the city here of Tallahassee.

Still see some areas with power that are on. Here where I am, just on this street couple minutes ago, these street lights went all out. A couple minutes later, we saw them come back on, but it sort of been like that throughout the evening. Now it's been a lot calmer earlier.

Now it's getting a little bit stronger, and you mentioned it, the mayor mentioned that as well. The big threat that they were facing also was the wind and how strong that was going to be if we were going to see trees toppled over, power lines down, and then the whole mess that it was going to make to then try to get power restoration back on, because we know they can't start doing that until they clear all these roadways, and then those crews are able to safely start that power restoration process.

HOLMES: Yes, yes. More than a million people without power in Florida alone, there have been deaths reported. I know there's not storm surge where you are, but there are increasing reports of that being an impact as well.

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, more than a million customers without power in the state of Florida. And here, when we go down into Leon County, where we are, here in Tallahassee, there's about 130,000 customers without power, which doesn't seem like a lot, Michael, but when you put it into perspective, in this county, there's only about 300,000 people who live here, so you're almost looking at half of the population here in the county without power. It's going to be a big emphasis going into tomorrow.

Now you mentioned deaths. We heard from Governor Ron DeSantis, who confirmed one death in the Tampa area from a person who was driving a car on Interstate Four. He says after a sign fell on that car, killing the driver. We also are learning of two deaths in Georgia, also related to hurricane Helene, but because of a tornado, and that happened about 75 miles south of Macon, Georgia, which is now in that trajectory of hurricane Helene.

HOLMES: All right. Ivan Rodriguez in Tallahassee, Florida. Appreciate the reporting there. Ivan, thanks. And joining me now is Vincent Long the administrator of Leon County in Florida. He oversees part of the so called Panhandle Region that includes the state capital, Tallahassee, and some major universities as well. Thanks for taking time out of a crazy, busy night view.

I was reading before I came on air, a local Tallahassee newspaper which wrote that Helene is quote, a storm whose fury has never been seen in this area. What's it like where you are now? How the last few hours been?

VINCENT LONG, LEON COUNTY, ADMINISTRATOR: Well, thank you for having me, Michael. Yes, we would certainly agree we have a lot of experience with storms here. Since 2016 we have had, we felt the impact of five hurricanes here in our community. Helene would be number six, and is number six.

And as you reported, just within a couple of hours, Helene made landfall here, just about 30 miles east of us as a cat four. So certainly that has never happened here before, and we're sort of riding it out now that it's nighttime and the winds are expected to continue for the next couple of hours.

And we so we truly won't know the extent of the damages in our community until first light, when we have an opportunity to do our damage assessments and to respond to the needs of our community and to begin the hard work of getting our community back together.

[01:10:04]

But we know that even when the winds do begin to die down, that we're not out of the woods. We ask our citizens to be as vigilant as in especially when navigating around the community with downed trees and downed power lines, as you mentioned, and certainly, again, we asked them to exercise just extreme caution in those cases.

It's going to take some time to get our community back up in shape, but I can assure them that the county government is going to be working with the city, working with the state, working with our local partners, to get the community back up as quickly and as safely as possible.

HOLMES: Yes, as you said, you're no stranger to big storms. What do you expect to see when the sun comes up? What do you fear you might see? How bad could it be?

LONG: Well, we expect to see what we have been saying now for a few days to our community and advising our citizens that we expect thousands of trees down, we expect hundreds of roads to be blocked, and we expect prolonged power outages. And again so those are those are real issues that we're going to face. It takes enormous manpower to clear roads and to get power lines restored.

And so again, we just asked the community to have patience with us. We know that we will be responding to emergencies. We may very well be responding to critical infrastructure failures, and so getting back to the conveniences that we all enjoyed pre storm, it's going to take some time, but we're going to get there as a community, and really we look forward to having that happen just as soon as we possibly can, and importantly, to as just as soon as we can begin to help our neighbors to our east and even to our north, as you've been reporting.

HOLMES: Yes, yes. You mentioned power and things like that. Florida now up to more than a million customers without power. You're a seasoned administrator. I mean, dealing with the hurricane itself is one thing. How well prepared is the state to deal with the aftermath that that damage done and the recovery.

LONG: Well, I can't say enough about the coordination that we have enjoyed with our state, under the leadership of our Governor and with our municipal utility provider. The resources that they have brought to the community are extensive, not everybody realizes that those contracts are in place. Those mutual aid agreements are in place all year long.

And so when a disaster strikes, those resources can be made available very quickly. The work still takes time, but those contracts are in place again so that we can effectuate that just as soon as it's safe to do so.

HOLMES: Yes, yes. Seems pretty well organized. I mean, when it comes to the people and the people and most important things in these situations, do you think people took the warnings seriously enough, early enough?

LONG: Well, I think they have. I mean, we've got some indications here that they certainly have. We have about 1,600 people sheltered tonight, and about, well, in nine shelters that we opened throughout the community. And so we've heard that -- we know that we had a large number of people evacuate from the community who perhaps felt like the homes that they were living in, whether it was a manufactured home or mobile homes, whether they were not safe enough to withstand a storm like this.

So again, we received a lot of good feedback. We haven't received the number of emergency calls that perhaps we might have otherwise if people didn't do again, as we advise them to do, and as and as they're prepared to do, which is to effectuate those, those family plans early and we certainly hope they did so. And again, we'll, we'll truly understand the impact to our community and what the needs of our citizens are at first light.

HOLMES: Yes, as I say, a busy night for you, but you're a seasoned administrator. All the best and good luck with it. Vincent Long in Tallahassee, Florida. Appreciate you making time.

LONG: Thank you.

HOLMES: All right, well, in Steinhatchee, Florida, Jules Carl is hunkering down with her husband, three kids and their pets, and she's done this before while pregnant. Jules Carl is joining me now. Jules, you were on CNN earlier, I watched that interview as a few hours ago. What have conditions been like in the last few hours since then?

JULES CARL, STEINHATCHEE, FLORIDA: You know, to be honest, as far as the wind and the rain goes, it's pretty well side off, we still get some pretty heavy gust.

[01:15:04]

Right now, the major concern is that we are definitely having flooding. This town is seeing more flooding than it's ever seen. It's about halfway up the pillars on our house, and we've heard reports around town of people needing rescue that they're in chest height water some of our friends. So it's not -- it's not looking so good here.

HOLMES: Yes, you --

CARL: Worst at a moment but not everybody is.

HOLMES: Yes, yes. You were you a storm chase, you and your husband I think. You've experienced tornadoes when you lived in Kansas. You've gone through several hurricanes since moving to Florida. Compare what you've seen in the past with this and what you're going through.

CARL: This is undoubtedly the worst I've seen, either tornado or hurricane, just the sheer amount of water that is pouring into this town. It's unlike anything we've ever seen with anything, even we had a record break flood, I think, like five, six years ago, and it's well past that as well. I think even for past storm of the century back in '93 so it's the worst I've seen.

HOLMES: Yes, where you are Steinhatchee, it is a flood plain. It is susceptible to flooding. Did you think about leaving? Do you now wish that you had rather than staying put?

CARL: No, I still don't. I still feel like having known, you know, my elevation and my house, I still feel like we're probably safer than a lot of people, especially like I was saying on CNN earlier tonight, not knowing, you know, further inland houses aren't built to withstand kind of wind that they are around the coast.

So as far as that goes, I think we were a lot safer than that as just the water that's coming in, but I don't think that it's going to reach inside our house. It's already starting to slow down a little bit. And of course, the hurricanes almost passed us at this point.

HOLMES: Yes, yes. And I point out to you and also our viewers, it is now a category two hurricane, officially, now that it is crossed onto land, but still significant and dangerous. Just letting people know that.

You rode out hurricane Idalia while you were 34 weeks pregnant last year, and now that baby Kai is with you for another one. How's he and the kids doing? What are they doing?

CARL: I that was doing pretty good right now. They're all just kind of hunkered down, and we got them in the closet so they're in an interior room, just like you would with the tornado, kind of sitting here with daddy playing around, and he got a little bit of sleep, but he's definitely not sleeping super well tonight.

HOLMES: Yes. And just quickly, if I may, when I saw you on a few hours ago, you were a lot more chill than you sound now. Are you more worried than you were a few hours ago?

CARL: I'm not as much worried as I am heart sick, especially knowing that I've got friends out there that are currently underwater and needing help, it's just -- it's hard to read comments from people saying, Hey, I'm underwater. Planning on helping your neighbors because we're setting our house as deep.

HOLMES: Yes.

CARL: And that's -- that you read that kind of thing, and there's nothing you can do. It's just heartbreaking, yes, our school nurse.

HOLMES: Are you worried it's going to rise higher when it comes to your house?

CARL: No, not so much. We've still got, I'd say, three or four more seats before it's actually into our house. It's more my concern over the people, very lower than us.

HOLMES: Yes, yes, close knit community. I know Jules Carl in Steinhatchee, Florida. Appreciate it. Good luck, and we'll hopefully talk to you when the sun's up and things are looking a bit better.

CARL: All right, sounds good. Thank you.

HOLMES: All right. Well, please stay with us our breaking news coverage of the monster hurricane Helene continues right after the break. We'll also have a report from Asheville, North Carolina, where residents are fleeing their homes in expectation of what could be historic flooding in the area. You're watching CNN Newsroom. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:23:26]

HOLMES: Our top story, of course, historic and extremely dangerous hurricane Helene is now ripping through the South East U.S. after slamming into Florida's Big Bend coastal area with 140 mile an hour winds. It is the strongest hurricane to hit this particular region on record. More than a million customers in Florida without power at the moment, that number seems to grow every hour.

Currently a category two storm now. Helene will maintain hurricane strength as it pushes into southern Georgia before gradually weakening. At least 60 million people under some type of watch or warning related to the storm in at least 12 states, it is a massive storm.

And residents in Asheville, North Carolina, are being urged to evacuate ahead of what is expected to be historic flooding in the area. Video there it is there showing a torrent of water rushing down the Swannanoa River on Thursday. The ground around Asheville is already soaked after more than 10 inches, 250 millimeters of rain from a previous storm, that has officials worried about landslides and buildings collapsing due to compromised foundations.

Another video shows rainwater rapidly flooding down from mountains in Highlands, North Carolina on Thursday, ahead of hurricane Helene, WLOS reporter Neydja PetitHomme has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEYDJA PETITHOMME, REPORTER: The situation here in Fletcher is dire.

[01:25:00]

I mean, as you can see right behind me, the flooding has risen so high that it is covering the entire Westfield Park. The visibility of the park is extremely limited. Now the National Weather Service is projecting catastrophic and historic flooding in our area, including the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers.

Now the next 48 hours is crucial. Now officials are urging that, if you live in low lying areas, is crucial that you evacuate, and just because you don't live along the front broad doesn't mean you won't feel the impact of the lane. Now local authorities are working diligently to evacuate residents and provide shelter for those in need.

Now officials say if you feel the need to stay in your home, they cannot stress this enough on the importance of gathering its central supplies, including nonperishable items, household medications, and if anything, check on your neighbors and make sure that they are OK.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Now, ahead of its arrival in North Carolina, Hurricane Helene is pounding Georgia and Florida right now, millions of people in its path. We're tracking the massive and extremely dangerous storm. We'll be right back with much more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back to our special coverage of Hurricane Helene. I'm Michael Holmes. We are closely tracking that hurricane, deadly, extremely dangerous, category two that is now battering the southeastern United States. Helene made landfall earlier in Florida's Big Bend area along the Gulf Coast, bringing torrential rain, destructive winds and a life threatening storm surge.

At least three deaths reported across Georgia and Florida so far, millions of people still remain in the storm's path.

[01:30:00]

Have a look at this, NASA capturing the view from space. Just have a look at that. Helene, one of the largest hurricanes to pass through the Gulf of Mexico in the modern era, even eclipsing Hurricane Katrina is wind field.

Let's bring in Chad Myers, our meteorologist.

Again, because it's the size of this thing, isn't it Chad? I mean it's category two, but it's still got a lot of steam left. I've been watching the map behind you, it's huge.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is huge. And even if you only have, let's say, 100 kilometer-per-hour wind, you know, and you look at that 200 kilometers across that's a lot of people that are being affected you know.

It may not be 200 kph, but it is still a very large event for so very many people. So yes, now is losing some intensity. It was 140 miles- per-hour. Now it's 120.

We're seeing some gusts around 99, the highest per, you know, that I've seen so far, so 160 kilometers per hour. But there will be some minor little tornadoes today.

Every little storm that comes on shore here could produce a tornado. In fact, two tornado warnings going on right now not that far from Charleston just kind of moving on upstate.

So the wind at the surface, 99. The wind aloft -- you had a wind aloft of 160 miles-per-hour from the airplane. I'm not sure how you get the courage to fly an airplane through 160 mile-per-hour hurricane, but they do it all the time.

Here's a surge now approaching ten feet in many spots and the wind is still blowing it right on shore. So this water is going to continue to go up.

So that lady that you just talked to Mike, a little bit ago, she's going to see that water come up. She said she's got three more steps. She may need those three more steps because that water is still coming up.

And then the rainfall. This is the fresh water because the saltwater flood were talking about that surge -- that's all salt. This is freshwater.

We've now seen in some spots, ten inches, 250 millimeters of rain and possibly another 250 to go. Could you imagine any mountainous area or this hilly area, a half a meter of rain in just four days? That's not going to end well for some people. There you go.

Here's still the severe weather over the next couple of days. It's still going to be possible. It's not yet over, but close.

HOLMES: Yes. And heading out right now.

MYERS: Yes. HOLMES: But before I let you go too, one of the things because we're talking about Asheville and we had a lot of rain here a day or so ago. They've had ten inches. How does that play into the effects of this storm when it comes to a soaked ground?

MYERS: Well, there's a name for it. It's called the P-R-E, the PRE. That predecessor rain event that is a rain event that is north of a northward moving hurricane.

That is kind of taking some of the moisture from the hurricane, pushing it into a frontal system that was already there. And then squeezing that moisture out.

So if you have saturated ground and then you take a wind and make it, you know, I don't know. 100 kilometers-per-hour. And you're going to knock those trees over because those trees are just in mud and then you put another ten inches of rain on top of that? You have more problems.

HOLMES: Yes.

MYERS: More problems.

HOLMES: Yes. They're waiting. Chad always great to have you on this front for us.

(CROSSTALKING)

MYERS: Good to be here. She was earlier in the day. Yes. Once you get a new shift, it's what we do. We are the overnight. Good to see you, mate. Thank you.

All right.

Now, as we've been reporting the western coast of Florida getting the worst of the hurricane.

Liz Alpert is the mayor of Sarasota, Florida. Thanks so much for making the time. You've had a busy night to the storm moving on from where you are. But give us so sense of what your area has gone through.

MAYOR LIZ ALPERT, SARASOTA, FLORIDA: Well, it's looking very bad actually. It's too dark for me to see whether the surge from the Gulf of Mexico has started receding at all.

But this is the worst probably we've seen in our area in a hundred years. I know, I've been in Sarasota for 22 years and I've never seen anything like this.

You know, I'm getting reports of our barrier islands under three to four feet of water (AUDIO GAP) -- look really, really bad.

Lot of people have lost their homes, their cars, just everything.

HOLMES: Yes. Are you, I don't know -- are you afraid of what daylight will bring?

ALPERT: Absolutely. Absolutely. As I just -- there's just been nothing like this here. And with our barrier islands being completely underwater, it's not going to be good.

[01:34:48]

HOLMES: How fragile are those barrier islands? Give people a sense of what they're like and how exposed they are.

ALPERT: Well, they're very low lying and you know, each of them really are not that big. They're not very far across. And so -- and very flat and so a lot of it is sand so it's easy for things to wash away.

We probably have had a lot of our beaches wash away and who knows how many homes possibly have done the same?

HOLMES: Yes. I covered Hurricane Sandy and remember the damage down to similar areas up there.

What sort of preparations were you able to put into place ahead of time? And do you have any indication on how they've held up?

ALPERT: Well, we started preparing on Tuesday, so just, you know, with extra personnel and getting everyone staged so that they would be ready for whatever we faced.

But once the wind starts getting past a certain mile-per-hour, and once the water starts rising we can't even get to people anymore.

So even, you know, those preparations don't help with if people don't evacuated like we've asked them to do.

And I think (AUDIO GAP) did but some people just decided to stay and ride out the storm because we've been warned many times with hurricanes that there would be a storm surge but never happened. This time it happened.

HOLMES: Yes. Yes. Yes, it's risky when people think it's not going to happen again. And then they get -- they get whacked.

ALPERT: Yes.

HOLMES: Mayor Liz Alpert in Sarasota, Florida --

ALPERT: Thank you.

HOLMES: -- thanks so much. Good luck with the hours ahead.

(CROSSTALKING)

ALPERT: All right. Thanks so much.

HOLMES: All right. Let's go back now to CNN's Ivan Rodriguez to get the latest on the situation in Tallahassee, Florida. I mean -- Tallahassee, where you are was the bullseye, but it did make

landfall a little bit north. Hopefully that made a little bit of difference.

But it was the first cat 4 Tallahassee has ever seen.

Lay out what's been going on and the conditions now.

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It definitely made a big difference. Just the fact that it was several miles off of being a direct hit in Tallahassee.

We were west of that eyewall and you really see a big difference, especially now Michael. Compared to 30 minutes ago last time that we spoke, the rain is substantially. Winds are still, you know, coming and going, but in terms of that rain being continuously strong, this is the first break that we've had now in several, several hours.

One thing we are taking a look at right now were rescues in Pascoe County, which is a county right above Tampa, Florida. We're learning that 40 people were rescued from rising waters because of Hurricane Helene.

Sheriff's office there says that rescue boats are continuing to be loaded into the water there, making sure that anyone who still needs help is able to get it.

That's the big -- the biggest news that we've gotten so far. In terms of rescues at a larger scale across the state.

Here in Tallahassee, where we are we haven't gotten any sort of information on any rescues and needed so far. From where I can see and from where I'm standing, we also haven't seen any trees that have been toppled over, any power lines that have fallen.

Power here? It is really hit or miss as well, Michael. A large part of the county here still remains without power.

HOLMES: Yes. Yes. A lot of I don't know the area myself, but there's a lot of trees there too. What are the fears when it comes to that and the damage they can do, let alone the loss of trees.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we heard earlier, even today from the mayor of Tallahassee saying that the biggest threat was going to be that wind and possibly up to 110 miles per hour here in Tallahassee, which brings us to right around a category 2 kind of wind.

But if those trees began to topple over which many of them do for regular storms here in Tallahassee, it would make a mess. We were expecting thousands of trees possibly even hundreds of thousands in roads, downed power lines.

And from where I'm standing, were not seeing that which is great news. But power restoration is still going be something that they're going to be efforting when the sun does come up. Like I mentioned here in Leon County, about 130,000 customers are

without power. The population in this county is only about 300,000. So really putting that into perspective just how many people are without power across the state of Florida. We're looking at more than 1 million customers without power.

[01:39:46]

RODRIGUEZ: Florida's used to this, right? They know how to handle and how to recover from those hurricanes. But we knew early on that it was going to be a marathon recovery for a lot of these communities.

HOLMES: Yes, yes, yes. What daylight brings, we do not know.

Ivan Rodriguez in Tallahassee, Florida, appreciate your reporting through the night. Thanks so much.

Well, most people tried to get out of the path of a huge storm like Hurricane Helene, but some go towards the danger. We'll talk to a storm chaser who is in the city where Helene made landfall.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: And we continue to track the path and the impact of Hurricane Helene. Officials say the storm is still extremely dangerous and life- threatening.

It made landfall in Florida's Big Bend as a category four storm. At least three deaths have been reported in Florida and also Georgia.

In Cedar Key, Florida, rescue services have been suspended until the storm passes. It's just too dangerous.

One resident describing the situation just ahead of landfall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BOBBIT, CEDAR KEY FLORIDA, RESIDENT: The Gulf is rising up to swallow the island. I don't know that Cedar Key as we know it will exist in the morning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: -- storm bypassed Tampa Bay but the massive size and strong winds created a powerful surge in that city. Just look at those images. There are vehicles driving across the bridge as it is getting pounded by the water. More than 1 million customers without power in Florida and the across the southeast.

Now Matthew Heller has been riding out the storm at his home in Tampa, Florida is with us now. Thanks so much for doing so.

You spoke with CNN last hour about the rising waters. How quickly did it all happen? What was it like watching it rise like that and has it come up further?

[01:44:44]

MATTHEW HELLER, TAMPA, FLORIDA RESIDENT: Yes. I mean, within two hours, I had four feet of water in the house. I'm a lifelong born Floridian, you know. I survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992 down in south Florida so I don't get too apprehensive when they announced the storm.

We didn't even think this one was going to be that big. But holy cow, that storm surge -- the whole lower level of my home is filled with water. I ended up hopping on to one of my little kayaks to float around in my living room.

I went live on TikTok and now here we are talking to you, guys.

HOLMES: Yes. Yes.

Now the kayak, you also said that that was -- that was a potential -- you said that was a potential means of escape. Is it still there? Do you think you're going to have to use it at some point to get out? What -- what's the situation?

HELLER: Yes, it's still down there.

We lost power about an hour-and-a-half ago. I was able to shower and get some of that nasty water off.

HOLMES: Matthew Heller -- he's lost power.

He's talking to us by flashlight. Are you there, Matthew.

Oh. Ok. We've lost the audio. I mean, you can just imagine what the situation is like. No power, he's got the kayak in the living room. He says that he might have to use it to get out, but seems to be in good spirits, remarkably.

That water rose very quickly. He was saying he's been through storms before, but nothing like this in terms of the water rise.

Matthew, you're back.

HELLER: Yes. Can you hear me, ok?

HOLMES: Yes. Yes. I was -- I was just saying to people because the audio went in and out. I'm not surprised. You don't have power. You're in the middle of the storm.

The storms aren't uncommon where you are. How does this one compare with what you've seen before.

HELLER: We didn't think this one was going to be strong at all. So we kind of took it -- took the warnings for granted. We knew we have the second level of our house here and that we're up high and dry but this has been just a heck of a storm surge.

It's wiped out all my neighbors. I see just the destruction going on down the road. One of my best friends, Shane, his house got wiped out.

So I don't know. I can't wait to see what the morning will bring and, you know, I hope everyone makes it through the storm ok.

It's been a lot of destruction.

HOLMES: Do you think you're through the worst of it in terms of the water rising and so on?

HELLER: The tides are going to be rising until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. So we're about halfway through the tide cycle. The wind is slowing down. That's what's pushing all that water up into the bay and overflowing all the streets and the rivers here.

So we're were just, you know, trying to stay positive, keeping our fingers crossed and we'll see.

HOLMES: Well, well, good luck, mate. I'm telling you, they're crazy images of the kayak, but not funny if you're going to have to use it to get out of there. We're thinking of you, good luck. Keep smiling.

You've got a great attitude, I tell you. I don't think I'd be smiling like you right now but goon on you.

HELLER: It is what it is. We have our health that's all I was concerned. I don't have insurance or anything, so it is what it is. But we will rebuild, typical Floridian.

HOLMES: Well, before you got the drywall downstairs in that video looked like it was pretty new, isn't it.

HELLER: Yes. I've been recovering from Hurricane Ian that happened about a year ago. So I've been going through all the stuff with the city of Tampa and open permits and everything to fix the electrical.

This time we raised all the electrical up higher, but the storm surge that we got today, it went even above those outlets now. So we're just going to have a lot of wet insulation and wet drywall again. But it's the cleanup process.

HOLMES: You've you got a lot of practice, the things look pretty well matted. So you know what you're doing.

HELLER: Thanks, mate. I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos. I had to watch a YouTube video earlier how to secure my boat properly because I don't want that to blow away either.

HOLMES: Love your attitude. You look like a good guy to have a beer with one day. Matthew Heller, thanks so much.

HELLER: Cheers. Thanks, have a good night.

HOLMES: You too.

Got to love that attitude, don't you?

Now a house boat owner in Florida has secured his lines and is onboard trying to ride out the storm. We'll hear from him when we come back.

[01:49:11]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right.

A quick update now on Hurricane Helene, a monster storm that made landfall in Florida just over two hours ago. It came ashore as a category 4 storm in the Big Bend area, now headed north as a category two.

One storm chaser was there just as Helene's eyewall was closing in on the coastline.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON JAYJACK, STORM CHASER: This is storm chaser Aaron Jayjack and I am here in Perry, Florida where we are now starting to get hammered by the eyewall of dangerous major Hurricane Helene.

(INAUDIBLE)

Just last year a major hurricane went through here and now here we are again in the very part (INAUDIBLE) not only last year but Helene is now starting to cause power flickers.

Power outages are eminent. We are only moments away from losing power completely here as the power plant behind us (INAUDIBLE).

And it is about to go downhill here significantly in (INAUDIBLE). We just lost power now here. It's back up. It's back up.

That's the power plant. (INAUDIBLE) is tearing apart the Big Bend (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now despite evacuation warnings, there are people battening down the hatches and trying to ride out the storm. Boat captain Bobbie Witt (ph) in Cedar Key, Florida is one of them. CNN's Laura Coates spoke to him a little earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE WITT, BOAT CAPTAIN: It's a rough ride, real rough ride.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: How rough are we talking? My God.

(CROSSTALKING)

WITT: Well, a little hard to stand up in the boat. It's rocking and rolling so bad but the wind has eased off just a little. And now the tide's come in and I'm seeing a lot of water.

[01:54:57]

COATES: How high are you experiencing this water? Can you estimate how high this is? How much farther higher above your boat?

WITT: Well, the boat goes on up. I'm looking down at everything now. I'm looking down at the world. I say it's at least a 10-foot surge, something like that, maybe more. It's a lot of water.

COATES: Why did you decide to ride out --

(CROSSTALKING)

COATES: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

WITT: Well, I know the town's got to be flooded if it's doing that right here. And like I say, the winds we had a couple of hours ago were I'm sure 100 -- 100 mile-an-hour or over. It's just incredibly bad winds.

COATES: The wind, the surge and you're on a boat. Why did you decide to ride the hurricane on that boat.

WITT: Well, to keep it safe and to keep an eye on my property here. And try to save as much of my business as I can. It's a water-based business here.

And that's what I've done my whole life. I've been a waterman my whole life. And that's what some of us do. Stay with our boats, protect them.

COATES: It's your livelihood. We understand that. And thinking about what things look like. You know, Cedar Key had been hit by a powerful hurricane just last year. And you rode that one out too and said that was the worst storm you had encountered. Is this one worse than that?

WITT: I think so. I don't know. Maybe I say that every time. But this was a bad one and is still when I mean, it's still -- I don't know what it is, 50, 60 mile-an-hour winds, but not something like it was. But yes.

No, it's been a bad storm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Thanks for spending part of your day with me, watching CNN NEWSROOM.

I'm Michael Holmes.

My friend and colleague Kim Brunhuber will have the latest on Hurricane Helene when our special coverage continues after a quick break.

[01:57:07]

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