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Catastrophic Destruction Across Florida As Storm Moves North. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Berman live in Tampa this morning. Brianna Keilar is in Washington. This is CNN special live coverage of Hurricane Ian, still very much a hurricane, still extremely dangerous. bearing down on Orlando this morning at this moment, and we'll go there for a live report in just a moment. There are so many different stories to this devastating storm.

One of the most powerful ever to hit Florida with winds of 140 miles per hour on landfall. At this point, 20 inches of rain have been measured in so many different locations, including here in Tampa, you can see some of the limited damages even here in Tampa, that appears to be roofing or some kind of siding just torn off of the building. That's just part of the story. The real story is south of here, Venice, Port Charlotte, Fort Myers. I'm actually hearing a helicopter above me which is a good sign, a sign that maybe they're leaving from here to go help people in need further south and there is so much need, enormous storm surge. 12 feet in some places, just swamped.

Familiar cities, Naples, Fort Myers, you could see rivers just floating down the middle of the street. As I said the impacts still very much being felt more than two and a half million customers in Florida without power this morning. We're only going to begin to get a full sense of the destruction when the sun comes up soon. I think everyone here up and down the southwestern coast of Florida bracing for that. And listen to this.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This morning as more than 2 million homes and businesses are without power across Florida, we're seeing people who decided to hunker down and ride out the storm now trapped in the dark with flooding all around them. The roof of a hospital Intensive Care Unit in Port Charlotte blew off during the storm, it sent water cascading down. The staff there, scrambling to save patients as the hospital flooded.

Ahead, we'll be speaking with the doctor there on how the conditions are. John.

BERMAN: As we said, Hurricane Ian still very much a storm that is causing damage as we speak, bearing down on the city of Orlando at this moment. That's where CNN's Conor Powell is. Conor, what are you seeing?

CONOR POWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, Hurricane Ian has been dumping water on Central Florida for really the last 24 hours. But the worst is still yet to come. The storm sort of I, the center of it is moving towards Central Florida. We've already had about eight to 10 inches of rain in most of central Florida. But it's really starting to come down.

Right now, most of the damage has been sort of smaller branches like this, a lot of debris around downtown Orlando, but we're starting to get reports of some flooding. And that's because we've just been drenched the last 24 hours. But that's all been the outer bands of the storm. And as this - the main part of the storm moves into Central Florida to Orlando to Daytona Beach, we're getting more and more reports of flooding. It's mostly in the sort of one-to-two-foot inches on Main Streets. I mean, it's just starting to pool in parking lots and other places, but Orlando is really a series of canals and of lakes and so, as this rain continues to dump, there's no place for this water to go.

It's not like along the coast where after you get the storm surge, the water can go right back out into the ocean. Here, it's just going to continue to pool, it's going to flood into the sewer systems. And that's the real concern.

Now the one good thing John is that, so far, the winds have been strong, but we're not having that sort of piercing - needle piercing rain and these huge wind gusts. There is power on pretty much everywhere around downtown Orlando. The big signs, all seem to be intact. We haven't had these huge wind gusts yet, but we are starting to see these smaller branches, a lot of debris.

And so, over the next eight to 10 hours, we're going to see heavier winds as Ian becomes a Category 1 hurricane and moves in here to Orlando. Really, we're expecting it's late morning, maybe around 9, 10, 11, 12 to really see the heart of this storm John and that's when it's going to get really dicey here in Orlando.

BERMAN: Yes, it's going to continue to get worse throughout the morning, Conor. And one of the things about Orlando is, it's the site that so many people from the southwestern coast actually went to, to seek refuge. Now that's

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understandable because as we wake up and see some of the damage caused in places like Fort Myers and Naples and Port Charlotte, they were just devastated by the storm surge. But the idea of people flowing to Orlando to seek refuge only now to have to sit through what will be a Category 1 storm with a potential freshwater flooding. What are you seeing people doing there this morning.

POWELL: The hotels are full, and they really started to pick up last night. I mean, we'd been in Orlando for about a day and a half or so. And when we first got here, the hotels are pretty empty. Our hotel was just a few people. But last night, we saw lots of cars coming in, they were clearly coming from the coast as well. And yes, the hotels are full. I mean, we're getting reports that a lot of people came down here for Disney holidays. Disney, of course, is here in Orlando in this area. And those hotels are full of people who were down here for holidays.

And so, you have people moving from the coast, people that were coming down here already for holidays. And so, hotels are full and people are just riding out the storm. The expectation is that it's going to move through here and by tonight, the worst of this weather will be passed. And if there isn't large scale flooding, I mean, if there isn't like five to 10-foot flooding in parts of Orlando, they should be able to get a lot of the debris out of the roads. And hopefully the water will drain relatively quickly. But we've had so much rain here before the heart of the storm has even come that that's really the big question about the flooding.

And so, people can be trapped in these hotels, sort of with no place to go for probably at least another 24 hours. And right now, they're just going to have to sort of ride out this storm as the winds pick up and these rains really begin to build momentum here in the next 12 hours or so.

BERMAN: Hey Conor, sit tight, if you will stand by for a moment. I want to bring in Chief Meteorologist Chad Myers at the weather center. Chad, I do understand there has been an update on Ian.

CHAD MYER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, the 5 AM update John is in. It is now a tropical storm. That just means it's down below tropical storm winds, there still will be hurricane conditions out there in places, in thunderstorms. So, we are now down below that threshold of where we are a hurricane. But now 65 miles per hour. And you can still see all of the onshore flow coming from the Atlantic into the Florida peninsula. And that's where this rainfall is coming.

In fact, we are going to have to update this as pretty soon because we still have hurricane warnings and don't have hurricane. So that is some good news. We're going to have to start dropping those two tropical storm warnings.

Here's what Ian is going to do right now. It is on the eastern side of Florida, it will eventually emerge back into the Atlantic Ocean and then turn to the left possibly into the low country of South Carolina, maybe as far left even almost as Georgia and as far north as North Carolina, still carrying all of that water and rainfall potential with it. Another four to six inches of rainfall. I've been looking at the radar this morning obviously, in some spots north like toward Deltona, just north of Orlando, they're already at 15 to 18 inches of rain fallen on the ground and there is still in some spots more to come.

Now, I know just from looking at the Internet and Twitter since for the past three hours, that very few of you can get in touch with anyone south and let's say this blue line, Port Charlotte, Fort Myers, comms are out. No one's going to be able to get in or out on a phone call. They're just not - no one's getting through. Maybe try a text. It takes less power, but trying to get through on a phone call probably not going to happen.

There is the rainfall through Orlando, that's already happened. Everywhere that's purple, that's 10 inches of rain or more. So, when you get that wide of a swath, John, of 10 inches, it all has to go somewhere, you're just not going to see 10 inches every spot, it's going to drain into these ditches, it's going to drain into swamps, it's going to drain into lakes. And there will be that significant urban flooding from this rainfall.

Here is though the latest radar rain coming in Orlando. There you go, you just had a gust to 40. And the last hour here coming off the ocean still had a gust in Daytona over hurricane strength. So that's what I was talking about. Yes, it may not be a hurricane at its core, but there will certainly be hurricane force gusts. I can't even tell you what's going on down here because like I said, comms are out, to all of those sources, just not there. I tried to get on to Tampa, just the National Weather Service. weather.com/tpa and there's nothing, there's just nothing coming in or out of South Florida. So, expect that.

We're still seeing some surge. We didn't get that we know of. We didn't get the 18-feet. And that's really great news. I mean, 12-feet is still bad enough, but we didn't get 18. Now there will be east coast surge as the wind comes in here all the way from Fernandina Beach up to the Palm Coast, all the way up to Cinnamon beach and then even up almost probably to Tybee seeing four to six inches of water

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getting pushed back on shore. And we expected that. It's the wind that blows the water. That's where surge comes from. Yes, there's a bubble under the hurricane. But think about your - you are drinking your coffee right now. And you want to just cool it off and you blow on your coffee and you see those little ripples and they all blow onto the other side of the cup. That's what the little ripples are doing right now. They're just blowing higher and higher water amounts on shore. And that's where that new surge will come from, John.

BERMAN: Chad, you said they didn't see the 18-feet, which was the most dire warning, but they saw enough, more than enough to cause devastation in Fort Myers and Naples and Port Charlotte, is there a reading of how high the storm surge was and explain for our viewers, so they understand why, at even seven or eight feet, it was enough to just inundate these well-known cities.

MYERS: Well, you not only had seven or eight feet and in some spots 12. The fact that we don't even have comms down there yet, we haven't seen anything yet, doesn't mean that there wasn't an 18-foot surge anywhere. But all of the gauges went out. So, we don't even know when they stopped going up, they may have kept going. But for now, nobody has reported that 18-feet.

When you have the waves coming on shore and you have the wind pushing those same waters farther and farther inland, that's where the damage comes from. You stand on the beach, you obviously never turn your back on the ocean when you're standing there and a wave can just smash you, those waves - and those are three flares (ph). They are so powerful. Think about what we had out here in the Gulf of Mexico, which were eight to 12-footers, and in some spots, 15-feet waves just pounding and pounding hour after hour after hour. I mean, that's why the power's out. That's why the electricity is out.

The wind too, 2.5 million customers still without power. This is going to take a long time to put back together. Now I move you ahead, this is 10 o'clock this afternoon - this morning. Going to move all this rain into Savannah, into Charleston and then on up the coast, but Florida gets a break. Probably not any more rain for you, John, you're just about done. Yes, it could be blown around a little bit of wind here and there and some showers coming through. But showers, not this heavy stuff that's going to be up here moving into the Carolinas, moving into parts of Georgia over the next few hours.

BERMAN: Alright, Chad, I know you're going to be watching this very closely. We'll check back in with you in a little bit as now Tropical Storm Ian heads toward Orlando bringing more rain, the last thing Brianna that they need.

KEILAR: That's right. And the extent of this damage from Ian is becoming more clear this morning. The view from a storm chaser next, plus dangerous flooding and downed power lines leading to dozens of water rescues in Naples. We have the city's fire chief with us ahead and he rode out the storm on Marco Island. Now he's trapped in his home that is flooded and without power, we'll find out how he's coping.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We did have the iPads over and it was very calm. There was no rain. But right now, we are - we're getting the worst that we've seen. If you look down the street, if you can over here Jerry (ph), look down here you can see there's a little bit of the metal is wrapped around, the power line there, there's a tree down and then on the other side there is that stop sign. The rain is actually painful as it hits you. I'm glad nobody else is out on the street here. Whoa, whoa. Oh, boy, huge gusts.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Clearly the way that we are getting whipped around and battered by this violent wind is enough reason for us and the National Weather Service. to issue those extreme wind warnings. Look, we are on - you've got to bear with me.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Just a few minutes ago, we literally had four people holding this door against these winds. And you can see through there, well, just what's happening and this little hotel pool is white caps on it, even though it's surrounded by a wall and this is much more violent than the front edge of the eyewall.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's just not clear, many of this is recoverable at this point, some of the structures intact but much of the house as you can see is burned out completely. Now the neighbor told us that they were working on the house and - but not home at the time but that that transformer right up there that you see up on the top of that pole that there was a power line just snapped right off of that transformer and then started this fire.

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KEILAR: Those are our CNN reporters on the ground fanned out across Florida right in the middle of Hurricane Ian, they're braving the storm, highlighting some of the destruction that we have seen and continue to see. Ian at this point has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Let's go now to my radar storm chaser Aaron Jayjack has been on the ground tracking this storm. Aaron, you were in Punta Gorda, also Fort Myers yesterday. Can you walk us through what you saw?

AARON JAYJACK, TROPICAL STORM CHASER: Yes, so I started off in Punta Gorda yesterday. Was there through the first, the front part of the storm, the eyewall, it was a vicious eyewall, it was the first time I've seen so much thunder and lightning in an eyewall like that. I mean, it was just an unbelievable thing to have this eyewall ripping everything apart with me within these giant thunderbolts dropping down.

So then - Michael (ph) is out there, the chasers, I'm trying to get him to the center of the storm and so I needed to adjust a little bit to the south and west towards Fort Myers to get into the center of the storm, gotten to the center of that storm, got that data, that pressure reading and I measured a pressure reading of 944 millibars there and then I made my way to Fort Myers before the backside of the storm came through and the worst damage I saw was by far was in Fort Myers, you know, the gas station

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canopies are destroyed, all the power is out here. I probably hadn't had any cell service here. Very, very bad cell service data, power poles down, trees down everywhere, it's pretty bad damage here in Fort Myers and that's where I'm at now. I'm in a hotel here. No power obviously. And lots of people are still here sheltered in. I know there's lots of signs up in the hotel are asking people not to leave the hotel and local officials are telling people stay inside the rooms, very dangerous out there. I had to drive around a little bit last night. And you know, but almost hit a stoplight that was hanging from a pole there over the road. So, it's very, very dangerous out there.

But we are about to get daylight here soon. And I'll be heading out here very shortly to check out the scene.

KEILAR: Yes. And then you'll have a better sense of sort of what they're dealing with there on the ground as well. You mentioned that you'd never seen anything like this. I mean, Aaron, you've been in the middle of many a storm. Tell us I mean; you said this eyewall is different. How many eyewalls have you seen and why was this so different? You mentioned the thunder? Or sorry, you mentioned the lightning. JAYJACK: Yes, I mean, you normally don't. So, I've been in a lot of eyewalls. I've been in Cat 5 Hurricane Michael. And it was intense. It was - that eyewall was definitely more intense than this one. But what stood out the most about the storm was the strength of the convection and the eyewall. You normally - like I said you normally don't get these - the lightning and the thunder and I've never actually heard thunder while I was in a hurricane before and I had a bowl (ph) literally land within a few feet of me instant thunder crack, super loud and it's just - it was the most intense because I think it's a Cat 5 Hurricane Michael was very intense.

But when you've got Cat 4, almost Cat 5 eyewall and you've got thunder and lightning blasting down on top of you, I mean it was - it was an unbelievable, unreal experience.

KEILAR: What did the lightning hit?

JAYJACK: I'm actually not even sure. I think it hit a pole next to me. I was looking down and I saw the flash and the instant cracking. I mean, I looked on radar, using my radar app, you can see where lightning bolts in, you look at - and I have my little (inaudible), you could see my location and that lightning bolt was right smack on top of me. So luckily, I had my hand off the windows. I'm also taking wind measurements. So luckily it didn't hit the vehicle because that would have been really bad, but it was very, very close.

KEILAR: That's I mean - thank goodness that you're fine. And so, as the days is dawning here and you're heading out, what is that going to look like is you're looking for damage Where are you heading?

JAYJACK: Yes, so I know that - there was bad storm surge just south in Naples. I think it was mostly wind damage here in Fort Myers. It was on that right side of the hurricane, that lower right quadrant of the hurricane where you do get the generally the worst winds and the worst surge, but the surge is because of the rotation of the hurricane is piling up the water on shore and Naples was just, it looked like in the right spot. Unfortunately, they get the worst of the surge. So, I'm going to get out here, I've got my drone, fly the drone around a little bit, check out the damage. See if I could find any flooding here, but then I'm thinking about trying to make my way down to Naples to see how they're doing down there.

I know I believe there's no cell service down there, so not a lot of getting out from down there.

KEILAR: No, and we look forward to seeing what you see there in Naples really hit so hard. Aaron, we're so glad that you're OK. What a close call that you had there and we thank you for taking the time with us this morning. Stay safe today.

JAYJACK: Alright, thank you.

KEILAR: Tropical Storm Ian battering Florida with catastrophic wind and rain knocking out power to millions. And here's the thing, it's not over yet, the latest is the monster storm moves inland, next.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm 5-feet, so this water is probably 4-feet at least.

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BERMAN: See and hear and almost feel the force of Ian as it passed through Florida. Ian is now a tropical storm still with wind speeds approaching 75 miles per hour as it moves close to Orlando bringing still so much rain and destruction. I'm in Tampa, which only got a glancing blow. But even here, you can see some of the damage that was caused with siding pulled off buildings. And the like, the worst of the damage was on the southwestern coast. And we're only now getting a real sense as the sun begins to come up of what happened there.

I want to bring in Pete DiMaria, he is with the Fire Department in Naples. And Pete, if you can hear me. We're so lucky to have you on. I'm so happy to hear from you to get a sense of what you are seeing there this morning.

CHIEF PETE DIMARIA, NAPLES FIRE-RESCUE DEPARTMENT: Yes, we had a really strong storm surge that came in yesterday afternoon, affected our entire community. And I would say, fortunately, it's starting to recede right now and we're trying to get our personnel out and take a look at what's going on first thing, first light this morning.

BERMAN: How many rescues did you end up conducting yesterday?

DIMARIA: We conducted about 10 rescues leading up to the surge and then we couldn't get our vehicles out of the stations and we had about, I would guess somewhere between...

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