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Florida Braces For Life-Threatening Storm Surge As Ian Nears; CNN Hero: Bobby Wilson. Aired 4-4:10a ET

Aired September 28, 2022 - 04:00:00   ET

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

COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Wonderful Wednesday to you.

I`m Coy Wire. This is CNN 10. And we`ve got a rendezvous with the news so let`s go.

Hurricane Ian made landfall in Cuba early Tuesday morning leaving parts of the island country without power. At the time of the show`s recording,

storm preparations had begun in Florida where FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was deployed.

The latest radar track showed the storm was expected to hit the west coast of the state, posing a dangerous threat to Tampa and Fort Myers. The

government urging some residents in coastal areas to evacuate as dangerous storm surges are expected to hit the area.

A tornado watch was also issued for south Florida on Tuesday morning where starting Wednesday flooding and significant power loss are expected.

If you`re in the impact zone, here are a few tips: stay inside, protect all windows and doors and make sure to have food, water and emergency

preparedness tools like first aid kits on hand. The last major hurricane to make landfall in Florida was a category 5 storm Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Let`s break down Hurricane Ian by the numbers as they stood Tuesday evening. Category 3 storm, winds of about 135 miles per hour, storm surge

between 8 to 10 feet. The hurricane is expected to dump at least two to three months` worth of rainfall by Friday. That`s 12 to 24 inches of rain

with 24 inches in Tampa and West Central Florida. Eight million people live in the hurricane warning zone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It`s been a century since the Tampa area of South Florida has been directly hit by a hurricane, and now,

Hurricane Ian could change history.

BARRY BURTON, PINELLAS COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR: Everyone and I mean everyone in Pinellas County will witness some degree of impact from the storm.

YOUNG: Nearly 170,000 people have already been ordered to evacuate in the Tampa area alone, and schools and universities announcing closures in

preparation for the storm and set up as emergency shelters.

JANE CASTOR, TAMPA MAYOR: We are looking at the possibility of having 10- to-15-foot storm surge and clearly, that would be very devastating for our community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE; That`s five.

YOUNG: Residents here taking this seriously.

MIKE VAN TEEFFELEN, ST. PETERSBURG RESIDENT: Yeah. I wasn`t really worried about it yesterday, but today, you know, you start making your preparations

and doing what you`ve got to do, right? Tie everything down, secure your cars. Make sure you`ve got enough food and water at the house and that`s

all you can do.

ARTHUR GARCIA, FLORIDA RESIDENT: I think we`re taking it pretty seriously. Up until yesterday we were thinking it was going to hit Panama City or

something like that, but right now, I think it`s -- it`s real.

YOUNG: The Tampa area of Florida more vulnerable than other parts of Florida.

GARY MITCHUM, ASSOCIATE DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE OF MARINE SCIENCE: The area around Tampa Bay, there`s just a lot of low-lying areas,

compounded with a lot of development. So, we have a large population that`s built up since the last hurricane, and it`s built up in low-lying areas.

So, we have a lot of exposure, a lot of risk.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: The Florida National Guard has activated 5,000 Florida guardsmen as well as 2,000 additional guardsmen from

Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina.

YOUNG: Every official here with dire warnings to prepare for the very worst.

CASTOR: This is going to be a storm like we have not seen in the past.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Next, we follow up on a story we`ve been tracking with you, NASA`s DART mission or Double Asteroid Redirection Test. It hit its target. The

mission which launched months ago has been called humanity`s first test of planetary defense. And the spacecraft successfully slammed into an

asteroid, one of more than 27,000 near-earth asteroids consisting of all shapes and sizes.

More now from CNN space and defense correspondent Kristin Fisher who was there at mission control when history was made.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDETN: Well, there were big cheers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where I am right

now, the place that is responsible for building and operating the DART spacecraft when it successfully hit its target, the dimorphos asteroid on

Monday night.

This spacecraft had been traveling in space at about 14,000 miles per hour, four miles per second, for 10 months and in the vastness of outer space.

This spacecraft was able to successfully hit an asteroid that`s about the size of the pyramid of Giza.

And this spacecraft is not that big, about the size of a -- of a vending machine. So really just an incredible feat that NASA was able to accomplish

just that. But the big question, of course, is, was NASA able to successfully push that asteroid dimorphos just a little bit off its current

trajectory?

And the reason that`s so important is because this asteroid poses no threat to Planet Earth whatsoever, but the reason this is important is if there

ever were a potential killer asteroid in the future bound to wipe out all of life on planet earth, this type of technology, this type of maneuver

could potentially save all of us, all life on the planet.

And so, this was NASA`s first ever planetary defense test mission. We know half of it was successful. Now we have to wait a few days, perhaps even

weeks, before we`ll know if it was successfully able to bump this asteroid off course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: It`s a big world out here. Lots of humans, lots of animals and lots of -- ants. How many? Well, thanks to a new study, we`re closer to the

answer.

The study published in a scientific journal Monday says there are about 20 quadrillion ants at any given time. That`s a 20 with 15 zeros after it. For

each human on earth, there`s an estimated 2.5 million ants.

Ants are vital to the ecosystem, spreading seeds, supporting the food chain as both predators and prey.

Fifteen thousand seven hundred species and subspecies, the total mass of every ant on the planet exceeds that of every bird and mammal combined.

That`s a lot of bugs, and that`s random.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Next up, we`re introducing you to a CNN hero on a mission to fight hunger across this community.

Bobby Wilson, an urban farmer in the Metro Atlanta area is helping people get access to locally grown food. But not only that, since 2009, he`s

taught thousands of people how to plant and grow their own food.

Meet now, Mr. Bobby Wilson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOBBY WILSON, METRO ATLANTA URBAN FARM: Come on out here little boys and girls.

There is a high demand for agriculture in the Metro Atlanta area. Most of the people in this neighborhood don`t have access to fruits and vegetables

that they can readily get on a regular basis.

I`m Bobby Wilson here in the great state of Georgia. My main goals and objective is to make sure that marginalized and unnecessary communities

have access to locally grown foods that`s free of chemicals.

This is our secret right here, what I call black gold.

We have turned five acres of land right here in the heart of the city into a green oasis that really impact the quality of life of people that lives

around here and visit with us.

On an average, we are growing four to five tons of food per year. We`re teaching people how to grow their own food on small tracks of land. So, you

want to evenly spread them out.

With the price of food right now, you can probably grow about twenty-five hundred dollars` worth of food per year.

It does kind of smell sweet.

We got to get our young people excited about agriculture. We work with the seniors. We work with kids that`s coming out of the juvenile justice court

system. And we have a training program through our community garden, but you can also learn from other community gardeners.

I want folks to see farming in a totally different light and really sends a message to them, without a farmer, you probably wouldn`t have anything to

eat tonight for supper.

We are changing the dynamics of the way people think about food, the way people use food. This work is changing people`s lives.

Thank you so much for coming.

Changing society as a whole.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: All right. Today`s "10 out of 10" is sure to get your seal of approval. This fine fellow had been on the loose in Beverly, Massachusetts,

for days until he turned himself in to police? That`s one of the silliest things I`ve ever heard.

But here he is, video of him waddling up to the police station. Locals nicknamed him Schubert after spotting him in a pond last week. But a group

of officers sealed the deal and safely captured him, sent him off for observation and then released him back into the wild.

Finally, our favorite part of the day. We want to give a special shout out to Miss Venical`s (ph) class at Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy in

Cincinnati, Ohio. We hope you and everyone watching around the world have a wonderful one. I`m Coy Wire. Thanks for watching CNN 10. We`ll see you

later.

END