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Hurricane Milton Unleashes Catastrophic Flooding; Hurricane - Force Winds Topple Crane In St. Petersburg; Hurricane Milton Tearing Through Florida, More Than 2.8 Million Without Power; Tropicana Field Suffers Catastrophic Damage, Roof Ripped Off; Milton Dumps 12 to 18 Inches of Rain, Severe Flooding Underway. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired October 10, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

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[02:00:49]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Erica Hill alongside Victor Blackwell with our continuing coverage -- breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton. Hurricane Milton, continuing to slam Florida coming to the state is a monster category three storm when it made landfall. It's now been downgraded to a category one, but this is, by all means, still a very dangerous storm currently tearing across the central part of the state, moving east northeast.

The winds blowing at about 90 miles per hour right now. Milton bringing with it a six-to-nine-foot storm surge in Tampa. There are also reports of at least 19 tornadoes, and some 116 tornado warnings across Florida. In St. Petersburg, a one in 1000-year rainfall, nine inches of rain in just three hours. In the Tampa area, flash flooding emergencies at this hour, the highest level of flood warning.

This after more than a foot of rain fell there, and there are currently more than two million people without power across the state. We want to begin, of course, with my colleague, Victor, who is live there in Orlando and you're really starting to get the brunt of this now, Victor.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Erica, the eye of Milton is about 30 miles south of where I'm standing right now. So, you'll see, as I report from here, over the next several hours, the intensity of the winds and the rain fluctuate as it has for the last several hours. We've seen consistent winds for a while of about 30 or 40 miles per hour. We're seeing a calming right now, a gust at the Orlando International Airport.

Hurricane force at about 74 miles per hour. So, that's what you should expect as we are here, over the next several hours. The continuing, it's the longevity of the rain that is the major concern here as we're in the center of the state. No real concern about storm surge the coast so far away. I do want to go to the coast, though first. Our colleague, Bill Weir, has been watching a lot of the damage, kind of the exclamation point damage thus far that we've seen overnight without that first light of day to assess the communities and neighborhoods.

And I want to start, Bill, with you on the roof of Tropicana Field. When I saw -- first saw this video, I first thought Katrina, and of course, what happened there at Mercedes Benz. What did you see and explain the damage you're seeing across St. Petersburg?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Victor, we're here at the trop, as it is known, and you can see from this angle, the entire roof is just shredded away. This had the distinction of being the only non-retractable dome in Major League Baseball. And this hurricane retracted it forcefully right there. This is also a very controversial stadium and area. This is the gas plant neighborhood, historical black community that was displaced in order to make this stadium and these parking lots.

It's one reason why people say that only 10 percent of the businesses in the St. Petersburg are black owned as a result of that. Baseball fans long hated the stadium because of the catwalk that hung down would actually get into the field of play. Balls would bang off of it and alter the course of games and the rays, the temporary rays, and local politicians announced a new stadium they're going to build here. $1.2 billion with taxpayers picking up half of that and citizens weren't allowed to comment when that decision is made.

So now they're on the hook for, you know, $600 million to build a new stadium at a time when they may have to build -- rebuild other parts of this community. There's a water main break that has immediate concerns for people having to do a boil water advisory here. There's power outage against around much of Pinellas County downtown and the lights around here miraculously are still on while two million other Floridians are out of power.

And a lot of the surrounding neighborhoods here, around the trop field, you can see the pockets of darkness around there. And so, the price tag of this storm, you can't even imagine, Ian was the most expensive in state history from a couple years ago.

[02:05:07]

This one with the combination of Helene, you don't know how to -- how to add these things up anymore, the way these storms run together, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And Bill this facility, trout field, had a special significance to this storm response. Explain that, because it's not just, you know, utilized facility this late in the season for the MLB. Talk about what it was supposed to offer and if it's still useful to local authorities.

WEIR: Exactly. In the most immediate -- you're absolutely right. In the most immediate concern is there are 10,000 cots set up on the field of the trop that was going to be a staging area, a place for first responders to rest and stage people, linemen coming around to fix the power. Maybe some, you know, refugees from the storm who needed a place to go. But that is no longer usable right now and they have to figure out, where do you put those 10,000 cots, and what do you do with that?

I mean, this -- it's a -- it's a different kind of emergency response right off the bat, before even the sun comes up. So, you have that to deal with.

BLACKWELL: St. Petersburg is going through a phase of some development, which brings construction and those large, multi-storey cranes across the city. I know from watching your hits early in the day, you were concerned about those coming down and potentially some threat from those. One did come down. Talk about that.

WEIR: Yes. Yes. This was something that we only knew about because the city of St. Pete put something up on the Web site says we know about the big cranes. We're worried about the big cranes. There's four of them, 30, 40, storeys high. It takes months to disassemble them. Don't have the time. So, heads up, it was basically this, you know, the brunt of their press release. And sure enough, one of those cranes came down.

It's now lying across one of the main thoroughfares downtown. It smashed into a loft apartment building, I believe across the street. It was hard to get an assessment there. We got word, no -- thankfully, no injuries in that crane collapse, but another big mess in the heart of their business district.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And you make a good point, Bill, that adding up the cost of these storms back-to-back now it's hard to calculate just how expensive recovery and response to these storms will be. We'll check back with you, and at first light, we'll hopefully get some more details about beyond the downtowns and kind of that, as I called it, the exclamation point damage, what's happening in these neighborhoods and communities. Bill Weir for us in St. Petersburg, thank you.

Let's go now to our colleague Brian Todd who is in Tampa. Brian, give us an idea of what you're seeing now the latest you're hearing about potential damages, storm surge flooding, just go through it for us.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORESPONDENT: Right, Victor. A short time ago, we thought we were kind of done with this mess. We saw kind of a winding down of the wind and rain, but it has recurred. It has resurged here. We're still getting pelted with wind and rain. So, you know, this -- I can tell you, this has been really one of the most relentless hurricanes I've ever covered, just for its duration, for the volume of water that it just poured on this area.

You've got almost a foot worth -- a foot's worth of rain here in the Tampa area. And for hours and hours and hours that water was flooding the street where I'm on Howard Avenue, and it had very few places to go. So, it really did cause a lot of flooding in this area. And when daylight breaks in a couple of hours, we will be able to see what kind of damage it really did bring. What we can tell you is that now it's a question of when first responders can get out and assess that damage, but part of the equation now is power outages.

There are about 400,000 customers here in Hillsborough County, Florida that are without power and that is affecting water use, because some of the water service facilities and the water treatment plants are without power. So, Tampa Bay water, the utility firm, has asked residents to limit their use of water. They're still asking people to do that for at least the next several hours, while they can get some of those water services up online.

So that is an issue, too. When power is out, it affects the water. So people are asked to limit their water use. Again, this is -- this is one of the most deceptive periods of a hurricane when --like, where we are in temp, I know where you are, Victor, it's still very heavy.

[02:10:02]

But here in Tampa as it's winding down is when people start to think that they can come out, OK? It's over with, I can venture out. Well, you can't really do that because power lines are down. Come across one of those that can kill you. There's a lot of ponding that goes on in streets like this, not just puddling, it's potting, very deep kind of culverts of water in the roads. People try to drive through it. They think they can get through it.

They misjudge the depth of it. They get stuck. They can drown. That's where a lot of people get killed in hurricanes like this, and that danger certainly has not passed. A few hours ago, we got some extraordinary video of a reverse storm surge in Tampa where the water was completely pushed out of Tampa Bay. Now -- right now Victor, it should be getting ready to get pushed back into the bay.

But it looked like, almost like a dry riverbed, which was an extraordinary event that we got some video of a couple of hours ago. And again, when daylight breaks, we're going to see where that surge maybe has returned and where that -- where the water levels stand in Tampa Bay, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Yes. This is not the time to go out and try to survey the damage. In at least a few counties, there are curfews, I know, just south of where I am, in Osceola, no non-emergency vehicles are allowed on the roads until at least 10:00 a.m. Brian, let me ask you, how does -- what -- the reality of this storm is for Tampa compare to what was forecast? What was expected for Milton?

TODD: Well, in one sense, Victor, it was good news, because what was forecast a day or two ago was a storm surge that really could have been completely devastating for this area. And as I tell you this, we're getting just slammed again with another burst of wind and rain here. So -- but that part of it was good news, because they got less, much less of a storm surge. They anticipated maybe 15 feet of storm surge. They did not get that.

So that was good. But the rainfall, which they knew was coming, might have even been worse than they anticipated. We had almost a foot of rain here in just a few hours. You're talking maybe four or five months' worth of rain in just a few hours. And again, at the height of it, we were out here, just the sheer volume of water that was just pouring down on us and everybody out here.

Visibility was terrible. You couldn't see two feet in front of you. I'd never really seen kind of like a sheets and walls of water coming down from a hurricane since that part of it, Victor, was probably a little worse than was forecast. The reality there was worse than was forecast. The reality of the storm surge, fortunately, was a little bit better than was forecast. But again, Tampa certainly not out of the woods yet.

BLACKWELL: All right. Brian Todd for us there in Tampa. Brian, stay safe. We'll check back with you. Let's go now to my colleague, Randi Kaye who is in Sarasota. I know you also, Randi, have seen moments of calm and then moments of ferocity with the wind and rain? What are you seeing now?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor. I'm going to take this moment in and enjoy it, because it is actually pretty calm. There's a little bit of wind obviously here, but the rain has stopped, and it seems like the strongest winds seem to be letting up somewhat. But right now it is just -- it is colder than it was, definitely much cooler than when the storm was coming through but definitely calmer.

So, we'll take it. There is a chorus of frogs behind me. I'm not sure if you can hear that over the microphone, but that happened when we -- when the eye passed over me, there was a sense of tranquility here and the birds came out and the frogs came out. And it's happening again now that it seems as though, hopefully the worst part of it we are through. But the question is, what does it look like around us?

This area is all has pretty much been evacuated. It's been very, very dark here. We've seen a couple of cars, a couple of emergency vehicles, but other than that, there doesn't seem to be any power. We've been without power, Victor, now for several hours. We've now lost phone service. So, I would expect that we're in the same predicament as a lot of other people, if they are here or possibly when they come back, they're going to find that situation for themselves.

As far as damage goes, we just don't know. We don't know what the storm surge is. It was expected to be nine to 13 feet here in this area. Sarasota Bay, coming into downtown Sarasota, possibly with Helene they saw just a couple of weeks ago. It was a storm surge of seven feet. So, this would be significantly more than that. So they are, of course, going to assess that in the morning, as will we once we get out and daylight comes and we can see exactly what is out there.

But I can tell you just even from our experience here since the storm began, we had rocks flying towards us when the winds were at their worst, we had this fence, which was dividing the property line from where we are to the home next door, that has come down just crashed right before our eyes and has been flying up and down and coming apart in more pieces as the night has gone on.

[02:15:09]

The home next to us is boarded up, Victor, as are many of the homes in the area. But we know -- we spoke to some homeowners before they -- before the storm came through on South Shore Boulevard where we were broadcasting, I guess it would be yesterday morning at this point, and they were all evacuating. So, we will -- we will just wait and see when daylight comes, just how bad things might be here in Sarasota, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And that really is across the state, the wait and see moment after the -- the moment of the landfall and the storm moving across the state. We're all waiting for that moment when daylight comes, when the winds die down, that we can go out, that first responders can go out and assess the damage across the state. Randi Kaye for us there in Sarasota. Thanks so much.

Let's go now to Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center. Chad, what's really been remarkable about Milton is that, yes, it came on shore as a category three, but maintain that that hurricane distinction for so long across this state. Tell us about Milton's strength now and where is it?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's 90 according to the National Hurricane Center. I haven't even seen a gust to 90 lately, but it's still possible. This storm still has a lot of energy with it, and so that energy, when it is raining will be translated down to the ground with wind. When the rain stops, the wind kind of calms down. So, if you see on your radar that a little band is coming to you expect now that the wind will pick up as well.

But look at the winds we had from Venice onshore blowing at 107 miles per hour. The onshore is the key here, because this is the area that had the storm surge, the surge that we were hoping that Tampa did not get and they didn't. It was the reverse surge that Brian Todd was talking about. That wind actually blew the water out of Tampa Bay, but it blew it into Punta Gorda. It blew it in all the way from about Sarasota southward, that's where the winds were on shore.

And then from St. Pete all the way over toward Tampa. They were just winds out of the east and then out of the north. But look at St. Pete at 18 inches of rain since midnight last night. And for Clearwater Beach, 14. So, we know 18 is not really an issue. It's not like something that's like, oh, that can't be right. There must be something wrong. If you get another reporting station within a few miles that says something very similar, we know that that data is really probably pretty good.

Still have flash flood emergencies anywhere from Lakeland, almost, almost all the way over toward Orlando. We have a considerable flash flood for Orlando. But this area, this is larger than three or four counties combined. And it is all in an area that had 10 inches of rain or more since midnight. So, there's not really like a small little neighborhood that got 10 and it could run off. Where's it going to run? Because the next neighborhood also got 10.

Here's the rainfall right now, still seeing the last bastion of wind and rain for all the way from Sarasota back to Bradenton and Tampa. That's the last I think, of the outer bands that will finally come through. But over here toward the east, we're still seeing the eastern side of the eye wall. And I know we don't have a Tornado Watch in effect right now, but there were so many tornadoes today. And a few of them were devastatingly large and we know that there are fatalities from them. We just don't have any type of numbers because the sheriff's department are not releasing those numbers to us right now. There's the rain Orlando all the way over to Daytona Beach. You had a wind gust in Daytona of 78 miles per hour. It's calmed down slightly right now, but still in the 40s and the 50s.

So, the storm is still holding some intensity. It doesn't really have an eye. We know the center is 30 miles south of Orlando at this point, but the eye is pretty much gone because there's it really hasn't been much on the south side of it all day anyway. But it's going to move offshore, and it will likely do that as a continued hurricane. So all the way across Florida as a hurricane. Yes, a little bit more rainfall still to come.

Daytona, you could pick up about four to six more inches of rain before the morning. That's because of this rain that's right here. It's still a very heavy rainfall event here, just north of the Cape Canaveral. And yes, still, 74 mile per hour gusts are likely through the middle part of the state. Orlando, 30 to 40 over the next hour, you see a couple of 60s in there as a storm goes by. But then look, by 10:00 in the morning, the center of this thing is back in the Atlantic Sea.

The biggest thing that I'm concerned about are the fatalities from the large. These were middle of the country type supercell tornadoes that hit Florida from a hurricane. Victor?

[02:20:02]

BLACKWELL: Wow. Chad Myers putting that into perspective for us. Chad, thanks so much. I'll check with you throughout the hour. We'll continue our special live coverage of Hurricane Milton. Still a hurricane so many hours after it made landfall near Siesta Key right here on CNN. We'll be back.

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HILL: -- feeling the brunt of Hurricane Milton tonight, we have seen flooding, extensive tornado damage, across the area. Bill Truex is the chairman of the Charlotte County, Florida Board of County Commissioners and joins me now. Bill, it's good to have you with us at this hour. First of all, give us a sense, you know a lot of people, I think maybe not from the area, certainly got to know Charlotte County, got to know Punta Gorda following Ian in 2022. Do you have a sense of what the damage may be like from Milton at this hour?

BILL TRUEX, CHAIRMAN, THE CHARLOTTE COUNTY, FLORIDA BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS (via telephone): Well, I'm afraid it's going to be significantly similar, just with storm surge versus wind. And I know that I spoke with a friend of mine about 30 minutes ago. So -- who is up the Peace River and they saw about 18 storm surge there. So, the city of point of order is obviously going to be devastated with water.

[02:25:04] Our barrier islands who got hit with about seven feet of storm surge with Helene are going to be set is similar, if not worse, storm surge out there. And then, of course, all the debris that we weren't able to pick up prior to the storm made an attempt. But, you know, you just -- we just couldn't get all the picked up prior to this storm hitting.

HILL: Understandably. I mean, you can only do so much when you looking at the extensive amount of damage. The debris that is still out there, the wind has also been a major concern for you. Have you heard any reports at this hour of that debris being picked up and causing even more damage?

TRUEX: I have not yet. We are under a curfew here until 6:00 a.m. which I'll tell you as soon as this lightens up, just a little bit more, I'll probably go ahead and head out. But the concern I do have is that it could become obviously airborne and do more damage, as well as -- Lord knows, where it might end up with the storm surge. So, we are going to be looking at again, potentially of several feet of sand across Manasota Key and across our barrier islands that we'll have to dig out from, as well as in the midst of that all this debris that's still out there.

HILL: Given that Helene was just two weeks ago, really impacting those barrier islands specifically. And frankly, two years since Ian is not that long. How much do you think both of those storms impacted the decisions that residents made about evacuating?

TRUEX: Well, I think was a huge, huge effect in that we had 60 people on little gastro Island, which is a bridges barrier island, only accessible by boat, and we had 50 left at the Don Pedro-Knight Island. We refer to it as Palm Island, but this time we had absolutely nobody stay on those two islands. I was not getting the same report back from Manasota Key which does have a bridge going to it, which is concerning, because they could have loss of life out there.

Some of those structures are old structures that were built pre firm, which means, of course, they're right on the ground and this kind of storm surge gives people no place to go.

HILL: No, it really doesn't. You mentioned those seven, eight feet reports that you had heard. It's also given the time of day. Of course, it is tough to really grasp the extent of the damage, given that it's dark, given that there is this curfew. I wonder if you've been in touch with -- given your role or heard from any of the first responders in the area in terms of whether they have been receiving calls overnight.

TRUEX: They are receiving some. I just heard a rescue that did go on a call out east in the Babcock Ranch area. I haven't heard any other calls over the last two hours, so hopefully things died down because, because leading up to the storm, we had calls with chest pains, two falls with potential broken hips. And in Charlotte County and our hospital in Inglewood, they're all closed. They've all evacuated.

So, we do not have a hospital within 30 miles that's open. And I'm not certain that Sarasota Memorial in Nokomis is open either. I just don't know. So, we're very limited as response right now and hopefully we are gearing back up. I know our first responders are chomping at the bit to go help people.

HILL: Yes. We know they are their safety though, so important, as we know. Bill, really appreciate taking the time to join us. And we will continue to check in and check back to see what, in fact, is the damage there in Charlotte County. Appreciate it.

Also joining me at this hour, Guido Maniscalco, who's the chairman of the Tampa City Council. Guido, good to have you with us at this hour. As I understand, what are the biggest -- one of the biggest concerns right now are these flash flood warnings in Tampa.

GUIDO MANISCALCO, CHAIRMAN, TAMPA CITY COUNCIL: So, we have the flash flood warnings on top of the extreme wind warnings, which came first. And I think you know being that it's dark outside and most people have lost power, the wind is terrifying. I've never heard anything like it. And I've been in Tampa my whole life.

HILL: Can you -- never heard anything like it. Is there -- I mean, do you have the words to describe it? Is it -- was it like a train? Did it feel like it was going to come through the building where you were?

MANISCALO: Well, I mean, it's the intensity, you know, these strong gusts where -- I mean, like, right now it's very quiet and it has died down over the last hour, but it would get real quiet and then these just intense gusts, and then you would hear something, you know, a tree limb fall, something hit metal, something hit the building, you know, just things flying around and it's completely dark outside and a flashlight, you know, in my vantage point, I can see very little.

So, when the sun comes up -- I mean, we're all going to be -- we don't know what we're going to see. You know, when it's daylight here.

[02:30:04]

HILL: That's -- yes. And that's the big concern for everybody, right? Is what, what actually is revealed once the sun does come up later this morning. What has you most concerned in terms of potential damage to the city?

MANISCALCO (via telephone): So a few weeks ago, with Helene, we had a storm surge in parts of the city. So, complete neighborhoods were flooded and people are still trying to recover from that damage. And what we were concerned with was a repeat of that or even worse storm surge, but it showed the way this hurricane moved, the water was sucked out of the bay, so it was like a reverse situation. There's still going to be the rise in the river and other parts, so we don't know the exact damage.

But then, with the flash flood warnings, the intensity and the amount of rains, I would see images on Facebook earlier in the evening where streets were becoming rivers and water was coming up to other people's houses, in areas where that didn't get the storm surge a couple weeks ago. So, the amount of rain so quickly in such a short period of time, I know has affected people. But again, you know, we'll more once the sun comes up.

HILL: Yeah.

MANISCALCO (via telephone): But overall, the wind has been crazy. I mean, I've seen reports of 100 miles per hour gusts and I mean, they can cause a lot of damage.

HILL: Absolutely. And you have the power issue, Tampa Bay Water, as my colleague Brian Todd reported, asking residents to limit that water because the power is out. Guido Maniscalco, appreciate you taking the time to join us. Stay safe and we'll continue to check in, of course, on the area and those developments.

MANISCALCO (via telephone): Thank you.

HILL: A storm chaser who is at Tropicana Field where that roof was torn off in St. Petersburg is with us next. Quick break here and we'll speak with him.

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[02:35:18]

HILL: Hurricane Milton is now a powerful Category-1 storm with winds up to 90 miles per hour. Joining me now is storm chaser, Jonathan Petramala, who has been driving around the St. Pete, Tampa area. I know -- first of all, good to have you with us. You spoke with my colleague Laura Coates last hour as you were making your way from Tampa to St. Pete.

So you've now arrived in St. Petersburg at Tropicana Field. We're looking at some of the video here now, of course, where the Rays play -- not playing now. The roof really torn off there. Can you describe for me what you're seeing in that location? And also, tell us a little bit about the drive to get there.

JONATHAN PETRAMALA, STORM CHASER (via telephone): Yeah, well, I'll start out first of all with the view you're looking at if you have a picture of our live view here of Tropicana Field. This is one of the most surreal things ever -- when you think about it, you think about maybe the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina and the roof damage that occurred there. This is stunning. We were able to get a view up above and looking down into the field -- it's really just a stunning view.

It's surreal to see the stadium like this. I'm actually one of the few people that argues that this is one of the best stadiums in baseball, just because it's 72 degrees year round, don't have to worry about the rain, ironically, until Hurricane Milton. But to get here, it was like a maze. It was a maze to get through, because of flash flooding. That was one of the biggest impacts here in the Tampa Bay area. Obviously, the 100 mile an hour gusts coming through, creating --

HILL: We may have just lost Jonathan, but stay with me. I think we're going to try to get it back. Sounded like a moment there when your AirPod dies. So we'll see if we can get him back. But again, he was describing what he was seeing on his drive, making his way from Tampa to St. Pete. You're looking at these live pictures now of the Trop there in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We do have Leigh Waldman, my colleague Leigh Waldman, CNN Correspondent, joining us now from Tampa. Leigh, good to have you with us at this hour. The big concern, right, we were just hearing from Jonathan and in speaking with local officials, it is these flash flood warnings. Give us a sense, how have conditions changed there on the ground? What are you seeing at this hour?

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Erica, good to be with you. Things have significantly calmed down from what they were earlier. But yes, the flash flood warnings, they were very, very serious. We saw almost 10 inches of rain fall here in Tampa. On average for the entire month of October, it's just over two inches. The street behind me turned into a river with water flowing steadily downstream and taking debris with it.

We were feeling strong wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour blowing us down the sidewalk. It was really powerful in the hours leading up to Milton's landfall and also in the hours after Milton made landfall. The mayor of Tampa said that it was going to be a rough few hours and she wasn't lying. We had power for a long time here, but just before we lost power -- there's power lines above us. I know it's dark now, you can't see it, but those power lines started to spark and set flares across the street. We had to run for cover to try and get out of the way of danger.

The power pole itself started to shake. It became a really dicey situation where we were here in Tampa. We were far away from where this storm actually made landfall. You can kind of hear one of those wind gusts coming in right now. This is still the remnants of the outer bands of Milton as it treks through Florida.

HILL: in terms of -- you mentioned the power. We know more than 2 million people across the state now without power. Those power outages, those specifically in Tampa, are also impacting the water supply system.

WALDMAN: They are. So across Hillsborough County, more than 400,000 customers are without power, and that includes the local water supply company, Tampa Bay Water. They sent out alert to all of their customers saying, "Hey, we need you all to conserve your water usage right now." They're on their own backup generators right now. And if they want to continue to serve the counties that they serve, they need people to conserve water. That's until they can get the services back up and running once Milton really moves out of here.

But it's not just them who's being impacted, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office sending out an alert as well saying their non- emergency number, that's down right now because of these widespread outages.

[02:40:00]

If people have an emergency, they can pick up the phone and call 911. And right now, they're hard at work trying to get that non-emergency number back up and running. It's a hard situation here in Tampa, even long after the storm has moved through here.

HILL: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, the daylight has not yet arrived to be able to assess some of that damage. Leigh, appreciate it. Thank you.

I want to go back to Storm Chaser, Jonathan Petramala, who is in St. Petersburg. We have Jonathan back with us. So Jonathan, before we lost your audio a short time ago, you were talking to us about the maze, as you put it, to get from Tampa to St. Petersburg, to get to that area where you could assess the damage. And you mentioned too that you were able to get a shot of the damage from above. We've heard so much about these 10,000 cots that were supposed to be staged there. How far into the stadium could you see?

PETRAMALA (via telephone): Yeah, you can see inside, they had it staged to basically house first responders after the storm. And that's -- that was the plan. And of course, that plan had to change in a hurry when you see the roof ripped completely away there. It is completely exposed now. Everybody says they want an open roof stadium in Tampa Bay. Well, here you go. This is what you get.

Ironically, they just approved a brand new stadium to be built here in the next couple of years. So, it's just -- again, this is a really surreal scene just to see this. But to go back to the maze, all the bridges to get over from Hillsborough County or from the south, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, those have been shut down because of, of course, the danger of the bridges being undermined possibly by the storm surge.

Fortunately though, since the storm made landfall to the south, we didn't get that epic catastrophic storm surge that was the big fear for most of the week. So, I hope and I believe that those bridges are going to be OK, but it's probably going to be maybe midday before they open those back up. So, to kind of be able to make our way from Hillsborough County, which is Tampa, to get in back in here to Pinellas County and St. Petersburg, you have to go through just a lot of deep water because of the flash flooding. And that was a really big impact.

You could see that some neighborhoods, some homes were being impacted by that as well. So, while the Tampa Bay area didn't necessarily see that, just historic storm surge we were all really, really terrified of, we did see some pretty insane flash flooding that occurred here in St. Petersburg in Tampa.

HILL: And I know as you, I think we have some pictures, some of what you saw, including cars just in the middle of the road, possibly abandoned. Tough to know, obviously, what happened in those moments. We're going to show some of your video now.

Give us a sense of the other damage that you saw as you were making your way there, because we've heard about, of course, the flash flooding, the winds. What could you see on that drive?

PETRAMALA (via telephone): I think we've documented basically, every single impact you can imagine from Hurricane Milton when you -- we started down south around Port Charlotte and made our way up into Venice where storm surge was a big story there. They had the unfortunate reality of being just to the southeast of where Hurricane Milton made landfall. So that means they're in the most surge prone area of that storm. That's just where the most water gets brought in.

So, what we were able to document was at least six to seven feet of storm surge. It could be deeper further back in towards the Barrier Islands there. But of course, it's just inaccessible. Also driving around there, you see the really strong winds from the backside, especially of Hurricane Milton that was coming on shore. The sky was looking like a staccato of lightning, even though what it was, it was transformers just blowing repeatedly, all over, as power was getting knocked out around Charlotte County and in towards, around Venice as well.

Then you see the mobile home parks, the trailer home parks getting ripped to shreds, just kind of like the roof of Tropicana Field. That's why when these hurricanes are making landfall in Florida, even if you're miles inland and you live in a mobile home or a trailer, that's why officials say you must evacuate because these structures just aren't built to withstand hurricane-force winds. And so that, of course, was just on display with the force of these of winds. So, we've seen the gamut of damage from signs and of course, the power outages, homes damaged, awnings of businesses, buildings damaged, and of course, what you're seeing right here, Tropicana Field.

HILL: Yeah, absolutely. Jonathan, really appreciate it. We do have much more to come on Hurricane Milton. Just taking a quick break here. We're back on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:47:42]

HILL: We are following Hurricane Milton's path across Florida. It is now a Category-1 storm after slamming into the state's West Coast as a Category-3 just a few hours ago. CNN Meteorologist Chad Meyers is in the Weather Center. And boy, this is really moving, lot of it being felt now, of course, on the East Coast. Chad, where do things stand at this hour?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I think most of the precipitation now is either along the coast or back toward Orlando, and especially north of Orlando proper, and the winds are really kind of dying down. I mean, I haven't seen a 90 mile per hour gust, even though it's still a Category-1 hurricane at 90 miles per hour from the NHC.

The big story is that where the storm made landfall, I know we didn't really want to look at the eye, but the eye made all of the difference. If the eye was farther to the north, let's say Clearwater, that would've pushed water into Tampa Bay, that didn't happen. It was down closer to Sarasota. And so, we had the wind out of the west in Venice, pushing the water into that city, pushing the water into Punta Gorda, but not into Tampa. The wind was still high in Tampa, but it was from the east. It pushed the water out of Tampa Bay. But look what happened to St. Petersburg. Over 18 inches of rainfall fell since midnight last night, and most of it really during the day today and this evening. But Clearwater Beach, over 14 inches of rain. That's why this emergency, the flash flood emergency here is still posted even for Lakeland. And there's all this rainfall that has to come down. If you see purple and you know where these counties are, here's the villages kind of up here. This is all 10 inches of rain or more. So, not just like a neighborhood got 10 inches or a city got 10 inches, the size of counties got 10 inches of rain overall. And where's that going to go? It's going to go in the rivers and streams, and probably in people's backyards. And not too many basements there, thank goodness, because there's really no place for the water to go. You're almost on the water table anyway.

So, here is your rainfall, it is still moving on, off toward the northeast. Here's the rain into Palmetto. Kind of give you an idea, kind of take the rain off so you can see what I'm talking about. There's Sarasota, Bradenton, Palmetto, it's finally on the backside of that. It's finally done. But now, here, over here on Daytona Beach, you see some heavier rain showers still coming onshore.

[02:50:00]

The possibility isn't zero that some of these small little cells here couldn't rotate tonight as they moved onshore with a little bit of a water spout. Not zero, but not 100 either. So yes, kind of keep that in mind. If you leave your radio on or your phone on, you will know whether there's actually a warning for you. Still not too late for that to happen, even though the storm has really wound down. Most of the gusts are down to about 60 or 70 miles per hour.

So, here's the storm itself on the satellite. Lost all of the purples, lost all of the pinks, lost all of the higher cloud tops. So we're not talking about a big storm anymore, but we're still going to talk about four to six more inches of rainfall in places that certainly don't need it. There you go, Orlando, most of the rainfall is where the wind is because the rain brings the wind down from the clouds. If you don't have any clouds, you don't have any rain, you're not going to get really gusty winds. So watch that. If you see a little band coming to you, get ready, because it's going to be gusty. When the band goes away, it'll calm down.

HILL: Chad, appreciate it. Thank you.

I want to go back now to Victor Blackwell, who was in Orlando. Chad just walking us through a little bit of what you can expect. Coming your way, Victor. It's definitely a little bit more rain than when we spoke about an hour ago. VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Chad said when you see those bands coming, they're bringing the rain and the wind. Well, they're both back right now. We're getting some pretty strong gusts, not as strong as we saw earlier in the morning, but we are seeing more than we were just maybe about 20 minutes ago, and that is the concern. I told you that I checked in with Orlando officials here at the Emergency Operations Center and they say that they're still waiting. They have their first response and their police on hold. But, Orange County says they are getting emergency calls in, dozens since midnight, most of them about localized flooding, trees down, a report of one roof collapse as well, so that more severe than the others. But, we did see a few cars pass through and again, this is not the time to come out. I think people saw that there was a moment of calm, that the ferocity of the storm subsided for a moment. But as Chad just said, this is not over, the flooding which you cannot see and of course, we all know that you should not drive on flooded roads. But every few minutes or so, we see a pretty strong gust of wind, some more rain to tell us that Milton is not done with Central Florida.

Tens of thousands of people without power now and really, the concern of the power outages is that so many of it, here comes another one, so many of those response crews that typically come in after a storm are in the Carolinas, trying to restore power after Helene or were in route back home. I just saw that the Orlando Utilities Commission, they tweeted out a photo of support coming in from Indiana, from local utility companies there to be on standby for this. But, the storm is not done with Central Florida, more rain and wind, and we're waiting for first light to see just how bad the damage is, Erica.

HILL: All right, Victor, appreciate it. Thank you. We will get back to you in just a moment. Also with us, the Charlotte County, Florida Public Safety Director and Fire Chief, Jason Fair, joining now from Punta Gorda. Good to have you with us at this hour. You're there in the Emergency Operations Center. What has been happening overnight? Have calls been coming in?

JASON FAIR, PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR AND FIRE CHIEF, CHARLOTTE COUNTY, FLORIDA: Yes, ma'am. We have been receiving calls through the night, and we are holding those calls and prioritizing those. So as soon as we hit the road again, we'll be ready to send that response based on that prioritization.

HILL: And are those calls for more typical, I would say, 911 emergencies? If there's a fall, a more medical emergency, or where there people calling saying I should have evacuated and I didn't, can you help me?

FAIR: I think Helene probably helped a lot with that. So just over a week ago, we had Hurricane Helene that came through and basically what that did is it produced significant storm surge, almost what we've seen in this storm. And I think that gave everybody just kind of a perspective that helped them evacuate this time, where we didn't see it last time. So, hats off our community.

HILL: And did it change anything in terms of your preparedness? I know that you are trained for this. I know that there's a lot of experience in your department. But having come off of Helene just two weeks ago, how did that impact your preparations and your operations?

FAIR: Oh, absolutely. There's lessons learned for us too. So that was a significant storm surge for our community. So seeing how that -- seeing how it came into our community, where those areas, and pockets and areas of concerns were, kind of those high-hazard areas, so that we can prioritize those in our response for this storm. HILL: I spoke with the Charlotte County Commissioner just a short time ago who talked about some reports that he had received of seven, eight foot storm surge. What kind of reports do you have at this hour? I know it's tough to get out there, but what has been coming in to give you a sense of what you may find once the sun comes up?

FAIR: That's exactly what we've been hearing too, so we haven't heard anything that's met (ph) anything beyond that.

[02:55:00]

It's been basically around that seven, eight foot storm surge measure, but we'll have a better idea once we're able to get out there in daylight.

HILL: What's your biggest concern at this hour?

FAIR: Biggest concern is for us to be able to get to those in need. Again, it's -- we are looking at a high tide, it's going to be around seven. So we're really looking to see what those final impacts are going to be. But being able to get to those individuals and that's going to be water (ph) dependent. But again, we're ready based on the response from Helene that has prepared us.

HILL: And I would imagine you're also in touch with the counties and the other departments around you?

FAIR: Yes ma'am. We are. So, and we've got a great mutual aid system here in this region and we lean on each other and they are standing ready to support us where they can as well.

HILL: Jason Fair, really appreciate you taking the time to join us. And we'll, of course, be watching for those updates as soon as you're able to get out there safely. Thank you.

FAIR: All right, thank you.

HILL Stay with us. Our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Milton continues in just a moment. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell, live in Orlando, Florida, continuing CNN's special live coverage of Hurricane Milton. In just the last few minutes, the wind and rain have really picked up here in Central Florida as this hurricane is now moving east and causing havoc on the East Coast.