Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Americas Newsroom 20220929

Were taking risks. You have power lines down, trees down. You have a lot of hazards right now. We do anticipate a lot of the water will subside in some of the Barrier Islands and some of the coast. Some of those inland places off rivers and off these inlets you are likely to have standing water there throughout all of today and even in the days ahead. So thats a hazard and just be aware that is something that if you with weathered this storm we want to minimize any harm to any one. We have had 26 states provide support. We really appreciate that. It will be put to use. This is i dont think weve ever seen an effort mobilized for this many rescues this quickly. We appreciate it and will make good use of it. We want people to be safe. Those who have are in need of life support right now, help is on the way. What they were able to do is look to see where the areas that were the hardest hit and theyve been focusing assets there. So obviously the Barrier Islands but you also have places along these different inlets and rivers where people said the water was rising, they were calling in to the county or calling 911. So they have a pretty good sense of where those calls were coming from and they are focusing their rescue efforts on those areas that were most hard hit. Again, i want to thank the urban search and rescue teams, National Guard, the state resources and the coast guard for not waiting around but going in there and understanding that time is of the essence and we have a lot of people we need to help. For those looking to help, people say what can we do . Well, the first lady is spearheading efforts with volunteer florida to activate the Florida Disaster Fund where people can donate. It is better to donate financially rather than sending items. We have a lot of items and that resource Financial Resources can really help people get their unique needs met. We have everything we need in terms of supply, but if you go to Florida Disaster Fund. Org or text disaster to 20222 you can provide some muchappreciated assistance. If you want to volunteer there is an official volunteer portal to find volunteer opportunities at the volunteer portal. The impacts of the storm are historic. The damage that was done has been historic. This is just off initial assessments. There will be a lot more assessing that goes on in the days ahead. But i think weve never seen a flood event like this. Weve never seen storm surge of this magnitude. It hit an area where there is a lot of people and a lot of those lowlying areas and it will end up doing extensive damage to a lot of peoples homes. So there will be a lot of work to do. Today is about identifying the people that need help who may still be in harms way but also beginning the process of rebuilding some of the things that we need to have services restored, to have fuel, and to have the things that people need in terms of communications. I want to thank Kevin Guthrie for having these assets ready to go. Were going to use every bit of them and be there until all the tasks are completed. So kevin, you want to come up and give an update . Thank you, governor and first lady for your leadership across the state. Going into a little more detail this morning Tropical Storm ian continues to move across Central Florida this morning. We have damaging winds and extreme rainfall expected throughout the northeast florida and Central Florida area. I want to emphasize the storm still poses a major threat to the state, including Central Florida right now and northeast florida. Orange county fire rescue is actively conducting nine wide area search responses on the water for rising water in the Central Florida area thats happening right now as we speak. At this time the division has received more than 1500 resource request from our impacted partners and filled and in the process of filling 1300. As the governor said there are 300 plus truck loads of food and water and mobilizing to leave to the southwest florida area right now. In addition to portable to the issues with cell phones, we are deploying cell phone towers as the governor mentioned, over 100 assets in that arena alone. We want to reinforce and appreciate the fact that we have received over 15,000 inputs to our shelter in place system so we want to encourage you, if you are sheltering in place or know someone who has sheltered in place and we need to check on them, please register that individual or yourself at florida disaster. Org report. Florida disaster. Org report. We have made it more specific. Yesterday it was info. We made it specific so you dont have to hunt around for that site. Florida disaster. Org report to complete the shelter in place survey. I want to reiterate that is not a replacement for 911. If youre in an emergency situation you need to call 911 in your local area. Logistical staging areas in Central Florida have all the Additional Resources that we need to respond. We have tarps, we have medical supplies if needed in those warehouses. We want to make sure that all the available resources can get to the residents as quickly as possible. We are obviously in a situation now where we are starting our 72hour clock and that 72hour clock is that we search first, we secure, and then we stabilize. Its search, secure, and stabilize. I want to thank the governor and first lady for their leadership and support. Theyve been here nonstop around the clock. I thank you for that. Okay. First lady. I want to say on behalf of the governor and myself and everyone working at the Emergency Operations center. All the men and women who have not left since this disaster began, to all those people across the state, our First Responders i want to say thank you. The people across the state and country have stepped up big to support our Florida Disaster Fund. So far in less than 24 hours since we launched the fund weve raised 1. 6 million. I am in Constant Contact with two folks, one the people of volunteer florida to pledge that we are going to remove any red tape and bureaucracies have getting those funds deployed to the people who need them immediately. And then also were working with a lot of businesses across the state to continue to build upon that. Thank you to the people across this country and this state for stepping up to help wonderful people who are in need. Again there are a couple of ways go to Florida Disaster Fund. Org or text disaster to 20222. On behalf of so many wonderful people, thank you for stepping up and please continue to do so. We will be having all assets marshaled until the job is done on this initial phase. I may be able to get down today to help to survey and talk to some of the folks down in lee and charlotte counties. Those were massive impacts so were looking at kevin said these 72 hours very important for safety for folks and rescuing people that need that. Eventually bringing some stability. You are looking at a storm that has changed the character of a significant part of our state and this is going to require not just Emergency Response now in the days or weeks ahead. This is going to require years of effort to be able to rebuild and to come back. These are fantastic communities down in southwest florida with a lot of fantastic people and they are very tough and resilient. Of course they didnt ask for this but they need our help now. Were going to be there for them and we understand this will be a very long process. We also understand that these effects are going to go throughout the state today and you will continue to see effects from flooding and these other ailments not just today but in the days ahead. So thanks for the support, for everyone around the country who has donated and for everyone who volunteered their time and the other states who have leant their support to us. Okay. There have been reports there were maybe hundreds of fatalities in lee county. Any clarification . None of that is confirmed. What that is there were 911 calls for people saying the water is rising in my home. Im going to go up in the attic but im worried. Those folks are now going to be checked on and so i think youll have more clarity about that in the next day or so as they are able to go to those locations and determine whether people need services or are able to be rescued. My sense is that water was very, very high but my hope is that if folks did go higher, if they were there. It is not comfortable but now were in a situation if you are there, they want to come get you and so hopefully well be able to see a lot of those people brought to safety. I can tell you in the Barrier Islands there have been a number of people that have been taken to safety. Its great. These folks sprung into action and theyre doing it. We have had two unconfirmed fatalities in the sense that we dont know they are linked to the storm. Our assumption is it likely is. Basically fdle will make that assessment and it will be reported. Thats what we have. That number that was put out by lee is basically an estimate of these people were calling, the water was rising on their home, they may not have ended up getting through. So were hoping that they can be rescued at this point and i know the folks there locally, those were the areas they wanted to spring into action to and they really used the information that was coming not just through those emergency calls, but also through signing up on the website to see. I think there is a pattern that developed about where the calls are coming from and where those people are signing up from. You can see the areas. No one wants to see you see three feet of water in a road. Thats bad. That will do damage. But you see the places where the water was 4, 5, 6 feet in a residential area and thats really the life threatening situation. Can you tell us what you are hearing from Central Florida as far as flooding, other damages . This morning at 5 45 a. M. I received a phone call from Orange County Emergency Management director. She is actually assigned to the Fire Department as a division chief over the department of Emergency Management there. She called to let me know they were actively responding to nine widespread areas along the Colonial Drive area, i four, state road 46 area of Central Florida and they were requesting assistance for stuff we may have staged in orlando. Quickly this morning our overnight crew sprung into action and started moving National Guard high water vehicles as well as other assets that were staged there for urban search and rescue elements, swift water elements and started moving into action this morning. I do not have a total number of potential saves that they have done. But what is linked to is the massive amounts of rainfall that are happening there. We were receiving reports that some creeks, tributaries, around the st. Johns area unconfirmed rose to four feet in a matter of hours. Lots of rain in the area. Lots of instant action, water rise. There is a lot of lakes in Central Florida in the Orlando Kissimmee area. It appears the lakes were filling up and overflowing into the neighborhoods around them. So thats what is going on in the Central Florida region. I will say as a part of Central Florida and also as a part of southwest florida, do not come in and tour the area for damage. We have 20,000, 30,000 responders coming into an area that need access to those roads. Stay at home. Do not get on the roads. Let the First Responders have the roadways. Let the power crews have the roadways. Well get things opened up quicker if we dont have to maneuver around individuals just coming into the area to look around. Please, stay out of the area both in Central Florida as well as southwest florida. Let the crews get in there and do what they need to do. Were coming in full force and have lot of people coming in and need you out of our way so we can get our job done. Note as this exits the state it will go into the Atlantic Ocean and impact other states in our country. You are looking at georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina may be having impacts. It is a lot of water and you will have flooding in those other states as well. They wont have to deal with the catastrophic impact that florida suffered on the southwest coast but this thing is not done creating damage. It will continue to move. So i know theyve declared state of emergencies in many of those states and they will have to deal with this storm, which is wreaking havoc across our state but will wreak havoc in other areas. Comment about a pattern for the 911 calls and the surveys . Is there an area you are looking at that you can share . Kevin can come in. I would say this places that got the catastrophic storm surge. You would be looking at the Barrier Islands, lee, charlotte counties, some of the coast even in Collier County and as you go inland in kind of that fort myers, Charlotte County juncture where you have these inlets and the harbor. Those areas, because the storm surge can come at a barrier island. It is there. The water is just building up. And so you see that. They were absolutely consistent with kevin posted. We have it in our room the inundation map from 24 hours ago. What reprojected and what you will see is some of those areas you go inland even many blacks and massive i think if you look whats going on it will be the communities in lee and charlotte counties that are close to those bodies of water that probably suffered the most severe flooding. And there are people that had the coast guard has had people that were in their attic and got saved off their rooftop in those areas because of the flooding. So thats pretty clear that was really you also have normally we would say having 3 or 4 feet of flooding was a big deal. You see that in north port, southern parts of sarasota. Thats just a different degree than what weve seen in lee and charlotte counties. Well be back likely later today but well be down in southwest florida as well. Bill Governor Desantis, 32 minutes, First Press Conference of the day. Im bill hemmer with dana perino here in new york. We were watching that and waiting to see whether he would clarify the report that came out of lee county two hours ago when the sheriff said there could be hundreds of dead in southwest florida. His quote is none of that is confirmed. If that stands up thats a best news of the day. Dana he was explaining that he thought what the sheriff was talking about was the number of calls that had come in. There were a lot of calls for people asking to be rescued and people who had seen water rising in their homes and gone to their attics and had called for rescue. Those calls do come in. There were a lot of rescues. We dont have all the numbers on that. One of the things the emergency leader said there were 1500 requests and they are fulfilling 1300 of them right now. Bill whats remarkable how florida is getting ready for this. They have the experience to deal with a storm like this unfortunately. Based on experience. 28 charge Helicopter Air assets. 100 portable cell towers critical in the technology age. 2. 2 million customers without power. Most of interstate 75 is open which is important. They want to move these assets up and down the west coast of florida. And then this quote, dana, a 500year flood event talking about flooding hundreds of miles from landfall. Thats important. It is still a big storm and still moving across Central Florida. It will exit out into the Atlantic Ocean and this time tomorrow well be talking about georgia and South Carolina. Were waiting now for brian kemp to give a press briefing out of atlanta. Dana one of the things the governor said, the president of the United States had granted the request for a disaster declaration for nine of the counties but the governor had told the president this morning in a phone call theyll have to expand it to additional counties because of the storms path as the ferocity went across the Central Florida area. Bill i want to say it was 45 minutes ago we first received our daylight images that were suspended above the ground. Thats important for us to gauge and for you to see what is left over from some of these Barrier Islands. Well share that with you throughout the morning. Governor desantis will join us in a few moments. We have a great team across florida. Janice dean has not left. She is in our fox extreme weather center. Brandi campbell is live in orlando. Robert ray has been up for hours, robert. Good morning and based on what Governor Desantis said a moment ago, how do you assess your situation there . I am thrilled to hear the governor and officials make that statement about the phone calls that were coming in and that is not necessarily a declaration of people losing their lives. Weve been very clear on that this morning. In the after math we have to stress that. Weve been doing that. Numbers get floated around and people dont mean to cause panic or havoc but it is true, until you get out there and the search and rescue teams are there on the ground assessing, its very important to be cautious about the numbers when you are talking about fatalities and injuries. Im glad he clarified that. Great news, guys. And yet you look at this here this morning. This is fort myers and the marina and these boats that were pushed around like toys from the wind and the surge yesterday. Some of these vessels are very large and they take a lot of force and energy to move them. They are piled up. Some on their sides and the debris field here with the giant concrete slabs, the piers, the wood surrounding. Inner tubes, clothes, the smell of diesel in the breeze. On top of that the sounds of alarms coming from inside of these vessels. Many of the people down here perhaps didnt have time to get these vessels out of water as the track of the storm kept changing. And this is a fourseasons region meaning people usually dont take the vessels out. So this is a very bad situation and not only that, in downtown fort myers yesterday the streets full of businesses were literally turned into rushing rivers as the water just kept flowing through there and the winds kept pushing the water up from this body of water, this river in there and debris flying around, rooftops flying off. Palm trees decimated. Power out. Still over 2 Million People out of power across the state of florida up and down the peninsula. You heard Governor Ron Desantis talk about all the crews beginning to come down to repair all of that, at least here in southwest florida. Meanwhile, the search and rescue in full force from the air, from the ground, boats, cajun navy, the volunteer groups will be coming in. The hope is, as weve been hearing from officials and as i can tell you on the ground, the folks that stayed and did not evacuate on the shorelines like Sanibel Island. The causeway is decimated. Fort meyers beach and cape coral. We hope theyre okay and need to be helped and rescued and brought to a safe area as the waters recede. This historic hurricane thereth rashing the sunshine state. It will be retired and remembered. Dana i wondered about something that the emergency manager just said. He said their approach is to search, secure, stabilize. How long will that take given what you are seeing right now . Well, it depends on how many search and rescue teams and bodies they can get into these areas right now. I think i have i have to think theyll use helicopters and drones. Some of these areas likely will not be accessible at this point. I think thats what he refers to as secure meaning you get in and you figure out whether or not you can get people out. And that likely will start right now for the next 2 or 3 days, dana. Dana robert ray, thank you so much in fort myers, florida. Tropical storm ian is heading toward georgia and the carolinas. Janice dean is standing by. It was a ferocious storm and there is the impact. You see that in robert rays shot right there. It is devastating. It always shocks you, as someone who forecasts these storms the day after, sometimes days to see the devastation. I look at hurricane katrina, it took days to realize the levies broke and we saw the rescues and people on top of their homes. Well see those pictures. It is never going to get old. It will be completely devastating. What we do know about the storm its historic for this region, florida top four of alltime with almost 157 mileperhour winds sustained. Thats almost a category 5. There is still the chance theyll upgrade it to a category 5. Weve only had that four times category 5 make landfall across the u. S. Coastline. There is a big deal and well start to see the damage now that the sun has come up and it will be heart breying. No doubt. Were not out of the woods. We still need to be vigilant across northeast florida and georgia and the carolinas, heavy rain and hurricane watches up and down the northeast coast of florida, georgia, carolinas, 2 Million People are without power. It could be a situation. We tell you to have water and food for a matter of a week just in case you have Power Outages for a week. Thats certainly a big concern especially when we had all the storm surge damage along the coast of southwest florida. Here is the track right now, guys, as we go out further in time. Friday its in the atlantic. Close to a hurricane making a second landfall somewhere along the northeast georgia coastline up towards South Carolina and were dealing with a heavy rain event. Still storm surge up and down the coast. 3 to 5 feet. Can your residents take that . Listen to your local officials for the next few days if you live on the south coast. Bill Brandi Campbell watching the damage from kissimmee, florida, up from where we were talking with robert. How are things . Good morning, brandi. Well, the flooding is pretty bad out here. Im in a community, we have the fox weather also showing images of flooding where water rescues [inaudible] as you guys can tell. Well show you whats going on. So if we look down this road you can see there is a lot of flooding. There was actually just an air boat right here. I just spoke to someone with the rescuers out here saying theyve rescued about 120 people. Well get official numbers soon. You can see people on this tractor right here being taken out of this area where there is a lot of flooding happening. So this is actively happening. Lots of people in the neighborhoods watching, making sure the people they know in this community are okay. This has been happening all morning and again over 100 people in this community being rescued because of the waters. You see someone further down here walking through it. This is above their knees, up the their thighs. That water is very deep. Cars flooded. We take a look over here and you can see that in this community as well. Lots of loss and damage to property in this area in co kissinger im a, florida. Remarkable to see the water on the grounds. Youre hundreds of miles from fort myers, florida. She was south of orlando. Thats what is happening in various parts of florida and were joined by the governor. Dana ron desantis you finished your press conference and appreciate your time here. What do you think as you assess the damage now what are the most important things you need to do this morning . Well, the most important thing is the safety of the folks who are in difficult circumstances. That began in the wee hours of the morning. Coast guard rescues and urban search and rescue teams, National Guard down in southwest florida. People have been being rescued on a minute by minute basis and it will continue to go. Obviously when you have Barrier Islands like sanibel where the bridge has been knocked out, the only way to get there right now is through air operations and were running helicopters into those Barrier Islands rescuing residents who are there. On the local level they had folks in the evacuation zones who chose not to evacuate. Then as the water started rising they would make calls for emergency and they werent able to send people out in the middle of a hurricane because that would be hazardous for First Responders. They do have a sense of some of the parts of lee and charlotte suffering from the most flood risk. So those communities are also being attended to. It is really about safety of the people who may still be in harms way, bringing them to a safer environment and stabilizing the situation. Lee and charlotte counties have no power. It is pretty much 100 out. There is also other counties that suffered significant impacts, sarasota, manatee, collier, the hope that those powers can be restored quicker. I think lee and charlotte is probably going to have to rebuild some of the underlying infray structure. That is not as simple as taking a downed power line and reconnecting it. There are massive amounts of supplies and food and medical. A monumental effort. The next 72 hours are about securing peoples safety and stabilizing the situation. Bill is it safe to take that report about hundreds of fatalities . Can we take that off the board right now and remove that from our reporting . Here is what well, i think there is the potential for significant fatalities. That was based on an estimate of the people that were calling in from areas that were suffering severe flooding and they looked at the number and thinking whether those folks ended up being able to survive that. We dont know. There are rescue attempts that are being made. I can tell you, if you look at some of those communities in kind of the northern part of lee county and part of charlotte in some of the rivers and inlets and harbors, they had massive, massive flooding. It wasnt just a couple feet. They had 5, 6 feet of flooding. Thats clearly a life threatening situation. Its too soon to put any type of numbers on that and those numbers have not been confirmed at this point. It is my hope that some of those folks called in are going to be able to be rescued today if they havent already. Dana governor, you mentioned you spoke to the president this morning and youll be expanding the number of counties that you are asking for the disaster declaration. How important is it for you to get the disaster declarations signed by the president to get funds flowing into the counties . Well, there is obviously issues with the response and the mitigation of the damage. But then there is also need for individual assistance for individual residents. So people have been displaced. They will need to go to fema which is how weve done it in this country to be able to get help with temporary housing, with food. Were also doing a lot in the private sector. We have a fund, Florida Disaster Fund. Org which people are donating to and raised 2 million in 24 hours. We anticipate being able to do more. Were seeking to expand it because you had someone from Central Florida. People focus on the cat 4 and 5 impacts of southwest florida. There is catastrophic damage. But it was such a major weather event it is producing 500 year floods in places like seminole and orange counties. There are lakes, rivers, things that are overflowing. Those folks will need some assistance, too. People that live close to that are likely to experience significant damage to their homes. Bill can you give us numbers on the rescues whether its from rooftops or whether its from those who were stranded off of the islands from the mainland, how many rescues have happened . I cant give you the exact number but i will tell you that these began in the wee hours of the morning. They have benon going and its a good number. I know that the coast guard just i think before it got light out had already rescued 19 people. We have our urban search and rescue teams on the ground in these areas. This is happening minute by minute. My hope is that number gets as high as possible because when they are being rescued that means that they are safe, they may be in difficult circumstances. We can bring them to a more stable environment. Thats the goal to find anybody who is in need of the assistance. I said at the beginning of this once those evacuation orders are issued, we wanted people to heed those. At the same time, once the storm passes, we have a responsibility to help people who may be in harms way. Thats whats being done. Dana are you able to end some of those evacuation orders today . Well here is the thing where we are today. What were asking people to do is i know the people that have evacuated want to go in and see what happened to their home. These are by and large people that were in the zone a and b which are the ones that are at most risk for storm surge and flooding. Were asking people to hold off on that. We really want the roads open for the First Responders, for the power workers who will come to help with the electrical, with people that are bringing some of the food and water. So stand pat, dont rush into the area now. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are there assisting in this response and fortunately the interstates have held up pretty good. Well have to clear a lot of other roadways particularly in lee and Charlotte County. It becomes more difficult if everyone is getting on the road to go back to their homes. Were also saying the same people that are in charlotte and lee, stay home as much as you can. First of all there are a lot of hazards out there. When you look at recent storms there have been more fatalities after the storm than due to direct impact in many of these storms. You have standing water, you have downed power lines, people will start using generators and if you dont use that properly that can be life threatening. There is a lot of hazards out there now that the storm has passed. From a logistical perspective and the hazards that still remain it is best to stay off the roads and just stay pat for the time being. Bill were grateful for your time. Thank you. Your next briefing is when, do you know . For my next briefing will probably be in southwest florida. Well head down there late morning, early afternoon. Well survey the damage and meet with people and do another briefing. Bill well catch up with you then. Thank you. We want to go north of you to atlanta, georgia, Governor Brian Kemp about to hold his own press conference in anticipation of that storm. Salve savannah will be the target. Be prepared to have any kind of insurance policies together and take necessary steps to be storm ready. Were doing the same when it comes to price gouging, potential price gouging and other type things. Consumer protection issues with the attorney general chris carrs office to meet all the challenges of the storm. I just appreciate so many members of the General Assembly that are great supporters of this team being here. Appreciate majority leader john burns specifically for his leadership in the house. I did want to acknowledge representative ron stevens. He had a death in the family and couldnt be with us today. Tyler harper, who has been a great champion for Public Safety in the Georgia State senate, along with a lot of other legislators that are here. Also want to thank director dennis jones, the ema director and greg callie here with the savannah airport. Wanted to give you a quick timeline. As you all know, the state of emergency issued tuesday went into effect this morning at 7 00 a. M. Thats continuing to make state Resources Available to local governments and entities within the hurricanes impact area. The state Operations Center is at level one, full scale activation. Teams from every relevant state agency are standing by to deploy to any potential affected counties when and if appropriate. We were there yesterday morning and everybody is ready to go and were in Constant Contact with our friends at the local level. I know we have folks from Georgia Power here this morning. Were continuing to coordinate with our utility providers. Theyve been staging equipment, also inspecting rightofway pass and preparing to respond to any Power Outages. Currently the savannah airport remains open and operational. Griff lynch is here with the port authority. He gave me a quick update. The Port Terminal is being cleared of any waiting vessels last night and operations are currently scheduled to continue through 6 00 p. M. Enter there are normal activities on the port with containers going out. All the vessels have been moved to safe locations. I will be having a call later in the morning with rear admiral mcphearson of the United States coast guard to talk about the status of the port and what they are seeing and any actions that they may or may not take. We want to make sure we can continue to control whenever possible. Bill brian kemp letting the people of his state know whats on the way. We wanted to show you some of these live pictures were getting above Sanibel Island, florida. One of the many islands that has seen really been the beneficiary of Enormous Growth over the past 50 years and there is a reason why you build there. There is a reason why you live there. Now we are starting to get a sense how we can best assess what has been left behind. Dana there was a huge water event in terms of the enormous amount of rain that fell on this area and it was a pretty saturated ground any way because of rain they had in the past few weeks. There is a little activity on a road there. One of the roads we had seen in sanibel was completely washed out and have to be rebuilt. Bill thats the causeway that leads you onto the island. The only way to access if you need help or assistance is by boat now. It is essentially blocked off from mainland florida. No telling, dana, how many people stayed behind. I think the concern would be if you were listening to the Weather Forecast on saturday into sunday, this thing took a righthand turn unexpectedly. I would say it came onshore sooner than a lot of people thought. If you had a lastminute idea to get out it might have been too late. Dana it strengthened from tuesday night at a category 3 to waking up wednesday morning and a cat five. Hit the land just below a cat five at 155 milesperhour. Bill some of that as we were looking at the google maps a moment ago. A state park there and another town in the distance. What well be looking for from the helicopters whether or not anybody needs help. Are they on the roof or is that even necessary in a situation like Sanibel Island . So well monitor that. This is really a big part of our coverage trying to get an idea and image as to what is left behind. I dont know what that is but it is obviously something that was the source of a fire. Dana all of these images are helping us understand why there are over 2 Million People without power today. Peter robbins is a spokesman for Florida Power and light. Welcome to the program. Thank you for your time. Could you assess the situation as you see it . Thank you for having us. Were definitely actively working to restore power already. Weve railroad stored 700,000 of our customers in south florida in the miami, dade and tri county area who felt the Severe Weather yesterday and were coming full force into the hardesthit areas that were seeing images of where there is extensive damage and outrages. We have a workforce of 20,000 people we prepositioned ahead of the storm to hit the hardesthit areas first. Were out restoring power and we have a lot of work in front of us but wont stop working until everybody is reconnected. Dana one of the things i want to ask you. You may not be the right person to ask. If people are without power and they have a generator there are cautions they should take. Are you able to speak to that . Yeah, i can, dana. Safety is critical post storm. We actually do see fatalities after the bad weather has gone. We never want to see that. We want everybody to stay safe. Generators, the best advice is get out the owners man yell. Follow the instructions and make sure you use it safely. You want it to be very wellventilated. Never bring it indoors, close to a window or in a garage. It has to be wellventilated so folks dont get exposed to carbon monoxide. Also damaged power equipment. If you see power lines on the ground or any of our equipment, stay away from it. Assume it is energized. It could hurt or kill you if you touch it. We ask folks to prioritize safety. It is very important. Bill i dont know if you can see our screen but the Helicopter Shot is going into various homes. There are some here and there on fire. What could possibly cause that if the possible is out and there is no electricity going to that home . Its difficult for me to say, bill. It could be a situation inside where somebody is using a portable cooking device. Be difficult for me to say. Yeah, certainly we have widespread Power Outages in those areas and a lot of homes you see submerged have been without power for 24 hours or so. Bill the governor said 100 portable cell towers are being moved in. Do you know much about the mobility of those powers . I spoke to some of our crews in the southwest florida this morning and its tough on the roads. It will be difficult for folks to travel. There is still a lot of flooding. Even in the areas where you didnt have severe storm surge you have localized flooding and trees down and a lot of debris. It will be slow going. Our best advice to folks, stay off the roads, stay inside. Let our crews, emergency vehicles, the portable cell phone towers. They need access to bring in help. Help is on the way but we have to get in there. Hopefully folks will stay off the road and get into the areas. Bill i satisfied most of i 75 is open. Because you know that, you know you can move into these areas that need it, correct . Yeah, bill. Were doing that this morning. We had a convoy of folks stationed in the miamidade area who crossed i 75 to come behind the storm and start helping there and we position our people so we can chase the storm from south to north and restore power as the bad weather lifts out of the area. Dana peter robbins, Florida Power and light spokesperson. Thank you for your expertise and wish all of your people good luck here in the massive amount of work youll have ahead of of you. Bill rescue crews call it a lifethreatening situation. Dan drummers joins us by phone. You are by the naples area. Naples, marco island, ever glade situation. All our emergency crews are working very hard. Our Emergency Operation center has full up now for a couple of days. Were making good progress. Were certainly concerned about our neighbors in lee county and fort myers, as well as Charlotte County that took the brunt of this. Storm surge inundation as weve all discussed was just incredible, quite frankly. Wind speeds were not that bad but the storm water inundation is still generating flood rescue for us. However, there is a good chance that we will have everyone secured probably by dark tonight. So thats a little bit of good news. Great work with partnership with Florida Power and light and our partners there and still in the very early phases of some Damage Assessment and a lot of that is because weve got some roadblocks that bill can you tell us about fatalities . We have some. We are still investigating, still researching and certainly we are very concerned. But were going to get that information out once the medical examiner releases that. I dont want to put any of that in comparison do we have fatalities, yes, certainly not probably to the magnitude of other parts of the state. Dana as you work on this, do you think the prepositioning of support and help has allowed you to rescue people that needed help to the greatest extent possible . Well yes, remember, this is not new business for us. We were direct impact for hurricane irma, we have a good working replationship with the Emergency Management agency. Team works with Public Safety agencies. We were able to ramp up pretty quickly. Like everybody else we need partnerships to engage. Assistance from miamidade and just a whole host of state agencies. So, you know, we were able to go to work quickly. The skill set was there to manage large task forcetype operations and they are moving along and going pretty well at this early stage. Bill dan, earlier today we were told parts of naples is still under water. Is that the case now . That is the case but here is the challenge. When we had that onshore flow generating the storm surge. You would expect any way in a Tidal Community we have to wait for tides to subside to drain. We had the onshore flow from the residual effects of ian. Our canals and drain acknowledges we drew those down low prelandfall to give us some storm water retention but frankly we have to let all of our weather and Water Systems stabilize in order to go back to predisaster and let the drains continue to work. Dana its really interesting about the tides needing to have a couple of cycles. You are talking about a couple more days as well. Thats correct. Dana did you feel that you had a good amount of people obey the evacuation orders . Well, we did. You have to remember, a parallel event to us, which is kind of how we mapped this particular track, we had been talking days about voluntary pre cautionary evacuations several days before landfall parallel storm event. We see wobbles in the forecast. This was another case where just a few miles of East West Movement made a big difference in to storm surge inundation and wind in Collier County. As this storm matured and increased in intensity and got closer to us, we were getting that onshore flow. Winds really not a big deal. Nothing sustained hurricaneforce winds. So structures did well but this has certainly been an incredible level of storm surge just because of the angle of the approach of those onshore winds really backed up the water into Collier County and into naples. Bill you have been great. Get back to work. What do you need right now . What is your number one priority . We need to remind residents right now to be patient. We are all hands on deck. Allstate and federal partners working together and most importantly, this is going to be a marathon recovery event. Lets take good care of ourselves and neighbors and we are going to work on this incremently and get Collier County back to beautiful predisaster position before you know it. Dana thank you so much. Bill Collier County there. Naples, marco island. Beautiful parts of america really suffering right now. We want to share with you we talk so much about this part of the country how beautiful it is. The extent of flooding left by ian in southwest florida. Want to show you a resort on an island west of fort myers. The first picture shows a pool and several nearby houses north shortly before the storm. The pool is completely submerged. A third photo taken a few hours later it is unrecognizable. Houses are totally submerged. Thats what they were going through in a 3hour period from 11 00 a. M. To 2 00 p. M. In the afternoon. Dana by tomorrow well have photographs from Central Florida as well. Also Tropical Storm ian battering eastern florida. They expect to see strong winds and heavy rain. We are live in st. Petersburg. What are you seeing today, lauren . Thankfully this area having a little sigh of relief today after they were for the most part spared the worst of ian. We do have quite a few power lines down here. They say the police say there are a number of traffic lights that are out but thankfully this area doesnt have that much damage. Talking with the owners of the hotel were at here, the island grand you can feel the relief they feel with only looking around the property there is minor wind damage. We dont have power at this point. Police are asking people to stay in their homes in this area until they are able to get out and check power lines and check the roads for downed trees because obviously those can present a danger to people. But this area, which was really bracing for the worst of ian, is just waking up now able to see what their homes look like and thankfully this area doing all right. The weather so far holding. Were expecting a little more rain today. Some of the winds, the skies are a little gray at this point. But honestly, dana, this place again bracing for the worst and they are quite relieved this morning. Dana i would imagine so. Lauren, thank you so much. We appreciate your support and good news there for the people of st. Petersburg. Bill Collier County said it will be a marathon event. Once it hits you, you realize okay, a long haul ahead of us. There is a chance this time tomorrow that we could be back into hurricane strength as it moves into the atlanta and gathers enough steam. 60 to 70 milesperhour. 75 youre back to a cat one and brian kemp was out in atlanta and why well see the governor of South Carolina sometime soon tell us what they are getting ready for also. Dana that part of the world is not strangers to hurricanes. How impressive the leadership is in florida in terms of their coordination. They all seem to have good communication with each other. And they said they need your patience if you are patience and that help is on the way. Please dont go touring the damage. They need to be out there doing that for you. Bill we have a 500year flood event in Central Florida moving to the northeast part of the state. We have all our reporters up and down the coast checking in with them and in touch with a lot of Emergency Management folks who are the best source of information for us at this moment. You will hear from a lot more of them as we get a commercial break. The governor said its the real deal and he was right. Back after this. t easy. But when your mouth says its time, you listen. So do we. Aspen dental was built around your life. So come on in, no matter how long its been. Were not just on your corner. Were in your corner. With smarter, more affordable care. Thatll bring more life to your smile. And more smile to your life. Think hes posting about all that ancient roman coinage . No, hes seizing the moment with merrill. 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The powerful storm trapped millions in their homes and knocked out power to more than 2 Million People across the region. Before and after video from fort meier shows complete devastation. They saw a storm surge of six feet that leveled buildings and flooded roads. Welcome to a new hour of americas newsroom, im dana perino. Bill im bill hemmer. Good morning, dana. Devastation staggering. Wait until you see the images were about to show you. The threat far from over