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10 10 24 Tampa's WFLA Reporter Brittany Muller on the impact of Hurricane Milton
Jeana Ghandek and Marty Lenz on Colorado's Morning News as we're continuing to follow the latest in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. As we mentioned, Governor DeSantis held a press conference earlier this morning. And it really sounded like he was saying that it wasn't as bad as what they expected. Obviously, storm surge, the tornadoes were a big one, especially on the East Coast, which was fascinating to see because Hurricane Milton made landfall on the West Side, but spun a bunch of tornadoes at least 19 confirmed touching down mainly on the East Side of the state as well. And we go to Florida right now to get a firsthand look at some of the damage with WFLA reporter at Spritney-Muller. Britney, thanks for carving out some time with us this morning. I'm sure you're very busy. What are you seeing right now? What have you seen over the past couple of hours? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear us, Britney? Yes, I'm here. Do you have me? Yes. It's the services. I totally get it. Just roll with it and go. Right. We're in Manatee County right now on the local reporter down here and we're connecting with a governor's Task Force team who's taking us to the barrier islands of Manatee County. We haven't heard of any water rescues in this county at this point, but other parts of Tampa Bay, they are currently underway. It's devastating to see for those people who did not heed those evacuation orders. We just drove through a mobile home park, which is always so vulnerable to those strong winds. This area was under a mandatory evacuation order. We saw a mobile home roof tangled in the down power lines, home after home, street after street, insulation was scattered everywhere. Traffic lights are literally hanging down in the middle of the street and there's no power in this area. In Pinellas County, just north of us, the roof of our ballpark, Tropicana Field, tore off. That's located in St. Petersburg, downtown. The truck had been turned into a shelter where you staging to help us restore power after Hurricane Milton and those images are stunning to see this morning as the sun came up. It's just devastation with back-to-back storms from Hurricane Helene and now Milton. We've seen down trees everywhere, roofs blown off, down power lines. I mean, it's just everywhere at this point, but one thing we're also seeing is the community coming together. Neighbors are helping neighbors. We rode up a storm last night in a hotel in Manatee County and at one point, we were actually in the eye of Hurricane Milton. I've never been in the eye of a storm and it was so eerie. It was so calm and I mean, the palm trees weren't even swaying. It was unbelievable to see, but once that eye passed and we were on the other side of the eyeball, it intensified very rapidly and that's when the winds changed direction. We just rode out the storm inside. We could hear the wind howling. We didn't have power. Now we're just, we just woke up. We're heading out to meet that task force team and they're going to take us out to see the devastation. We were out on the barrier islands after Hurricane Helene swept through. We're talking about Annamaria Island, home speech and Bradenton Beach and we were talking to the mayor as well as the police and we saw homes that were swept off the foundation. And so we're seeing reports and hearing reports that it fared better than expected, but we haven't laid eyes on it just yet. We're on our way there. It's been quite the journey trying to navigate around all of the debris and one of the major concerns for this storm was, you know, a lot of these homes after Helene had massive piles of debris everywhere. I mean, taller than I am and I'm five foot seven. We're talking about furniture, mattresses, appliances, just on the side of the road and the county did their part trying to haul all of that debris out, but they just couldn't get to every street in time. So obviously the fear was that those items were going to become projectiles, but we'll see what it looks like. We're going out there and we just pray for everyone right now because they're in a really dire situation. Everyone's fearful and the message down here from local officials is just shelter in place right now. Let the first responders go out and do what they can to make the roadways safe. We know down power lines, trees are uprooted. We're looking at them right now, massive. And so we're just taking it, you know, minute by minute down here. Yeah, Brittany, I know the damage and the debris is going to be hard to decipher what came from Helene and what came from Milton. But when you're looking at what you've seen so far, I know at least when it was leading up to it in the aftermath, now looking at it now, when it comes to just what contributed to it, do you think the storm surge, the tornadoes, the rain, the wind, what do you think was the greatest of the damage that we've seen so far? That's a really good question. I think it was really a wind event for this area right now. The major concern was the storm surge. Minity County officials had been predicting in some areas that tend to foot, tend to 15 foot storm surge. I don't believe that happened. I do believe some areas got flooded out, but they never saw that high water, water event as predicted. It was really a wind event down here. And we're just, we're seeing that devastation right now with trees, horizontal debris scattered everywhere. So that's what the situation is at this hour. And Brittany, you've done some great reporting. Just curious, are you seeing folks out milling around service people to help they need? And what are the first priorities? Is it getting the power back on or at least preventing people getting hurt by downed power lines? Yeah, for sure. That's always a they're out here. They were staged last night ready to work. So at one point last night, we kept getting emergency notifications saying shelter in place that emergency responders are not able to go out and rescue people. And that priority calls were being queued. And once they could be released from their safe positions, they would be out there. And that happened overnight. But at some point, everyone had to be secured down. Bradenton police also had to evacuate. They're located along the river. And so everyone was just sitting put because it was just not safe to be out. And now that the sun is up, things have died down. First responders are out there. Utility crews are out there. Everyone is all hands on deck in Florida right now. But the latest on the aftermath of Hurricane Milton live from Bradenton area. It's WFLA reporter Brittany Mueller. Brittany, thank you so much for your coverage on this and taking some time out of your busy day to be on with us this morning. We appreciate it. Of course, thank you so much.