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Naples Fire Station Flooded After Storm Surge From Hurricane Ian; Powerful Winds, Flooding Threats Remain As Storm Moves Inland; County Official Trapped In Home On Marco Island Without Power. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired September 29, 2022 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: How many rescues did you end up conducting yesterday?

CHIEF PETE DIMARIA, NAPLES FIRE-RESCUE DEPARTMENT (via Webex by Cisco): We conducted about 10 rescues leading up to the surge and then we couldn't get our vehicle down to the -- out of the station. We had about I would guess somewhere between four to seven-foot surge that came up into our stations and we just -- we couldn't get our vehicles out. But we had about six people in our station right now that are held up here until they can get to their homes and see what kind of damage they had.

BERMAN: Oh, four to six feet in the station itself, and the people in your department only now beginning to assess the damage in their own homes.

What are you hearing from people in Naples? Any people trapped?

DIMARIA: Well, we've had a real tough time with communications. A lot of cell towers are down. We've probably dealt with a full 24 hours of tropical-force and hurricane-force winds, so we're having a hard time communicating with the -- with the rest of our area. But we've been pushing out messages the best we can through social media and through internet, so we're hoping they get the message.

We're hoping they stay inside and they stay safe, they'll wait for us to come by and clear the roads, and wait for the rest of the surge to recede so they can get out safely and start to get back to some normalcy.

BERMAN: I don't know if you've been able to step out the door or even look outside, but what does it look like outside this morning?

DIMARIA: Well, we can -- we can certainly see that the -- there's water lines on all the buildings around us. We can see -- where we're situated about a half mile from the Gulf and so there's -- we know that there's been a lot of water and a lot of structures in this area and throughout the city of Naples.

There's a lot of debris. I don't know that there's as much debris as we've seen with some other storms but the surge has certainly caused a tremendous amount of damage in our area.

BERMAN: You said four to seven feet inside the station itself. Can you describe what that was like as the water was coming in?

DIMARIA: It was a little unnerving, to be honest with you. We felt like we had to situate ourselves in a -- with a good plan but the water rose up so quickly on us we had kind of retreated back into the station.

We have a good facility here. It's a cat 5 facility. So we were able to -- our living quarters were above that but our bay and some of our entry areas were lower. They're built that way so they can take a flood and then recede. But it was unnerving because we couldn't get out of the station and we had some rescues to make, and it just became a difficult situation for our personnel wanting to get out there and do their jobs.

BERMAN: Yes, I can't imagine how difficult it was at that moment not knowing how long it would go on.

Pete, any reports of deaths in your area?

DIMARIA: We don't have information right now on any fatalities. We're hoping that number is very low once we start getting out on the streets and doing our search and rescue. But we have no confirmed fatalities right now.

BERMAN: I'm up here in Tampa, Pete. I actually heard a helicopter already flying over me this morning.

What do you need, and what are you hoping for in terms of help from outside Naples this morning?

DIMARIA: Well, thinking about help right now, we really haven't got our finger on that yet. We're really laser-focused in on just getting our apparatus out of our bays and getting out and getting our streets cleared so we can start assessing our damage and how much -- how many people out there really need our help. So, at this moment, we're really focused on getting our apparatus out.

We did a quick (INAUDIBLE) last night. We did a wind sheer assessment. There's a -- there's a sizable amount of damage out there and horticultural debris down. Most -- again, mostly, the issue is the surge. We still have some issues. We have a high tide last night about 2:00 am and there's still a lot of water on the streets in town. So we're hoping this morning to have some different outcomes and we can get out there and see the whole area (PH).

BERMAN: You don't have power, do you?

DIMARIA: No, not anywhere. We're on generator here at the station. But throughout here, there's no power.

BERMAN: Have you had a chance to process what you witnessed? I don't think anyone alive, frankly, has witnessed anything quite like that -- what you saw yesterday -- on the southwest coast of Florida. DIMARIA: Well, I've been -- I've been in this business 33 years. I've

been through every storm since Andrew here in southwest Florida.

The storm surge -- we hear a lot of hype about it, but we were situated in just the right place yesterday and it was something that's going to take a while for me to realize. This really came through. This really happened to us and it was -- it was really difficult to deal with.

[05:35:04]

BERMAN: Pete DiMaria, I'm so glad to hear from you this morning. I'm glad you're doing well. I know what a day you have ahead of you. Please let us know if there's anything we can do.

Is there any message not -- I can't be sure if people in Naples can hear us this morning but is there any message you want to send to the people there?

DIMARIA: If there were anything and they could hear us, I would just say remain calm. Stay in your homes. Let us get the streets cleared. Let us get to a point where the water has receded and we'll get to you today.

We're focused on doing that. We're going to do our very best. And just remain calm and remain safe for now.

BERMAN: All right, Pete DiMaria, Naples fire department. Thank you again for everything you're doing.

DIMARIA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Brianna, it's just remarkable to hear that inside the station itself they were dealing with four to seven feet of water, frustrated that they couldn't get out but, frankly, also just unnerved. Because even though he'd seen and lived through so many storms -- they all have -- they haven't seen anything quite like that before.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It really puts it into context when you realize that he, of all people, is going to have to process, sort of, what they saw here over the last day.

Tropical Storm Ian leaving many Florida streets underwater, unrecognizable. One man who is trapped in his home by flood waters is going to join us just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:41:06]

KEILAR: We are back now following the latest from Hurricane Ian. This morning, Ian has weakened to a tropical storm as it has moved inland toward Orlando, dumping heavy rain and turning streets just into rivers, as you see here. Fourteen million people are now under flood alerts. The detailed images of destruction are going to become clear here as the sun rises and we can see what emerges from these floodwaters.

Right now, more than two million homes and businesses remain without power in Florida. Residents who did not heed the warning to evacuate are now trapped without power, with limited food supplies, and with all of this flooding surrounding them.

Let's get to Conor Powell. He is live for us in Orlando. That is where the storm is hitting right now and also where it's expected to intensify, Conor.

CONOR POWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And I was just about to get ready to tell you that we haven't had these huge wind gusts that you would associate with tropical storms or even category one hurricanes. But really, just in the last couple of minutes, we've started to get these really big gusts, and that's because the center of this storm is starting to move ever closer here to Orlando.

Now, we've had steady rain for about 24 hours. It's been steady and it continues to be steady. It's not that needle-piercing rain that you often get with a hurricane.

But we are starting to get some low-level -- just sort of a buildup of water and drainage here. And even out on the street you can see that, like, it's starting to pool a little bit here.

And the real concern here in central Florida is not as much the wind gusts but it really is the amount of rain we're going to get. And you can see it sort of picking up -- big gusts of wind. And that's really what we're expecting over the next sort of eight to 10 hours is a lot of rain, these huge wind gusts, but not the hurricane-level sustained winds that we would expect to have seen here if it was still a category one or even a two or a three like they saw along the coast.

But Orlando is really a series of lakes and little canals and there's only so many places for all of this water to go. We've already had about 24 hours of rain. We're expected, at least, to have another 12 hours. And so, we're already starting to get some reports of low-level flooding here in Orlando and outside of Orlando -- things like a foot or two. You could still walk across it but it could quickly really build up as these drainage areas on the streets begin to fill up with water.

And Brianna, that's really the concern over the next 12 hours or so is that we're just going to keep getting more and more rain and it's just going to have nowhere to go. And so, we're going to see some of these lakes and canals start to overfill.

And if some of this debris -- it's all pretty low-level debris. It's not big branches and trees that we've seen around Orlando. But that stuff can start to clog up the sewer system here and the drainage system. So flooding is really the concern over the next couple of hours.

KEILAR: Yes. You can see so many leaves have been ripped off the trees, small branches. We can see them at your feet, Conor. And that is going to become an issue. Thank you so much for that report.

POWELL: Yes.

KEILAR: And ahead here, a pilot flying into the eye of the monster storm says this was actually the worst flight of his career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PILOT: Oh, there goes the signs. There go the beds. Holy cow! Oh!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Our special coverage of Tropical Storm Ian continues ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:48:44]

BERMAN: I'm John Berman live in Tampa this morning.

What was Hurricane Ian, mostly passed through this area, now bearing down on Orlando as a tropical storm. As the sun comes up shortly, we will get a much better sense of the damage up and down the southwestern coast.

One of the hard-hit areas -- really hard-hit -- Marco Island.

And I'm joined now by phone with Rick LoCastro, Collier County commissioner who rode out the storm in his home on Marco Island. Rick, if you can hear me, how are you doing this morning?

RICK LOCASTRO, COLLIER COUNTY COMMISSIONER (via telephone): I'm fine, John. I'm well.

BERMAN: Tell me what you're seeing this morning as you're waking up. Rick, can you hear me?

LOCASTRO: Hello? Can you hear me? Hello? Hello?

BERMAN: All right, we seem to have lost --

LOCASTRO: Hello? Hello?

BERMAN: Rick, can you still hear me?

LOCASTRO: I can hear you.

BERMAN: OK, great, Rick.

Tell me what you're seeing this morning if you've had a chance to look outside.

[05:50:00]

LOCASTRO: Well, what I'm seeing is a place that was hit hard by storm surge. This was a totally different hurricane. I mean, we survived Irma and other hurricanes, which were more about the wind. And yes, always water. But storm surge is something that we have not seen here to this intensity ever.

And when everybody was talking about where the storm was going to hit -- as meteorologists were saying the community that was just south of the impact point was also going to experience quite a storm because of the storm surge being on that dirty side of the storm, and they were right. We experienced every inch of that storm surge -- in some areas, well over 12 feet.

So, Marco Island, Naples, and a lot of the surrounding community are part of my district and (audio gap).

BERMAN: Rick, lost you there for a second. If you can still hear me, what was it like as it was happening? You said you've been through hurricanes, obviously, before but not a storm surge like this. What did that feel like?

LOCASTRO: This one was much different because the onset of the storm surge so quickly. I mean, we had wind gusts but nothing like Hurricane Irma back in 2017, which the winds were 140 miles an hour. These were more of gusts. But the ferocity with which the water came in just caused such intense flooding and damage.

We did a great job, I think, evacuating people. So you've got a lot of folks now that maybe are -- have serious damage and are without power. They just don't know it yet because they're not -- they're not back here.

So I decided to stay here. I'm a retired Air Force colonel. I've been through these kind of things before and I work a lot closer with first responders than maybe the average elected official. So I wasn't going to bug out of town.

But we've got a lot of utility problems here because -- not just because of wind and downed poles but you have -- you have some things that have been submerged, and record-setting depths of water that are going to take a lot to replace, not just repair.

BERMAN: Colonel, very quickly -- and I do have to let you go -- are you getting any reports of people trapped? Everyone OK that stayed, as far as you can tell?

LOCASTRO: Well, obviously, we (audio gap).

BERMAN: All right, a tough connection with Col. Rick LoCastro, Collier County executive. We're so glad that we had a chance to have him on. Obviously, he's been through so many hurricanes.

But he said, as we're hearing again and again, it was the storm surge here that was just different, submerging so much of Marco Island in several feet of water. And as the light comes up, he'll be able to get out and get a better sense of what is left and what needs to be fixed.

Most people, he says, did evacuate but they're going to find out that their homes may have been destroyed or seriously damaged as they get a chance to get back.

This is CNN's special live coverage. More right after this.

[05:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL)

BERMAN: I'm John Berman live in Tampa. Brianna Keilar is in Washington. This is CNN's special live coverage of Ian, which is now a tropical storm heading right toward Orlando. They're beginning to get the rain bands and feel the wind picking up. But it has been downgraded over just the last hour from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

Still, much damage possible with these heavy, heavy rains. More than 20 inches have fallen in some places. And then, the winds, which continue and will head into the Atlantic and into Georgia and the Carolinas to come.

Some 2 1/2 million customers in Florida are without power this morning and that gives you just a sense of some of the damage that's been done here. But you have to see the pictures and hear the cries from the southwestern coast of Florida as this storm hit -- the power with which it made landfall -- 140-150 miles per hour.

The storm surge -- we're getting reports now of at least 12 feet in some places. Inundated -- well-known cities -- Naples, Fort Myers, Port Charlotte. We spoke to people on Marco Island who rode out the storm.

I spoke to a fireman who was in Naples during the storm and says he was just unnerved as the water was flowing up into his firehouse four to seven feet. They couldn't get out to help people because they were trapped inside as their building was flooding.

Only now are we beginning to get a sense of how much damage was done in this storm, Brianna. I do believe as the light does come up we're going to see some sights we've just never seen before.

KEILAR: Yes, and that is about to happen here very soon.

Now, Ian may have weakened to a tropical storm -- it's not done, though, with Florida. In fact, far from it. The storm continues to pummel parts of the state on a slow -- and this is really the issue. It is churning on this destructive crawl north. Orlando now in the crosshairs of this historic storm that's produced record rainfall and storm surge.

Power outages are a major problem with more than two million customers in the dark across Florida.

Water is just everywhere in many communities.

[06:00:00]