Irma Batters Florida with Torrential Rain, Wind; Death Toll rises to At Least 26 in Caribbean; Irma Slamming Florida with Violent Wind, Heavy Rain
COOPER: Hey, welcome back our continuing coverage of Hurricane Irma. Again, I just can't get over that sweep of the water and the way this river has gone down so much throughout the day and still remains low despite the fact all this water pouring on it. Again, the amount of storm surge in Tampa, that is the big variable here at this hour. You know, you heard the good news from Miguel Marquez saying they are not expecting the storm surge in Punta Gorda, so all that water that Miguel saw moving out of the marina, they say that's going to come back because they're not going to be getting those winds coming back in, sweeping the water in, it's going to come back fill in more naturally and more slowly. So that's certainly good news there. Alex Marquardt saying in Sarasota, they're expecting one to three feet of storm surge, it would still could do some damage, but it's less than anticipated. Again, the big question is, for Tampa, what kind of storm surge this city which even on a day of heavy rain has problems with flooding and getting that water off the street, so that's something to watch in the hours ahead and we'll know more of that in the late hours this morning. Let's go to Ryan Young who's over in Clearwater, just west of here. Ryan, last time we checked in with you, I mean, the conditions were really bad. I think you're in a particularly windy area. I think we got some of our wind, thankfully, has blocked by some of these big hotels, Sheridan and others that were around, but it's still pretty bad where you are.</s>RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely. The wind, that's why it really takes you literally almost off your feet. And just to kind of show you this, if you have anything sort of blocking you, it changes the whole conversation. I'm going to walk over here and then I'll talk once I'm ready for this. Well, look, you don't hear as much as the wind if we're standing over here, we have concrete kind of surrounding us. But as soon as you step outside and as soon as you get into the direction of the wind, it's brutal on you, and the wind keeps shifting. So the last time we were talking, it was kind of moving in a circular direction. Now, it is sort of blowing that direction there. And we've actually seen some of these cars kind of almost like they're inching closer and closer together depending on the gusts. Now, the real conversation here is when you have as much saturation as we're getting and then you have trees because that's the whole idea here. Sometimes, it's the days afterwards when trees will fall. Of course, palm trees can deal with the wind, but there'll be other tress that will certainly fall, especially when people come out to survey their damage. Now, as we talked about before, the lights are still on in this area, but what's dangerous about this when people decide to come outside and kind of survey the damage -- (00:25:00.5)</s>YOUNG: -- what could happen then? So it's best obviously to wait until light. That was the benefit about what happened in Miami because of the fact that it was some sunshine outside. Right now with this darkness, you really have no idea sort of what's coming in your direction or what's going on around you. So maybe the surge is getting worse in some places, but I can tell you, this wind that we've been dealing with for quite some time, it has been not only powerful, but it's been unrelenting in terms of the power that we've been feeling and the forces right on cue in terms of this wind, Anderson.</s>COOPER: The other thing, you know, you don't think about, Ryan, in a storm like this is just the cold. I mean, for anybody -- and that's one of the reason -- another one of those reasons that first responders are thankfully off the streets. You know, if you're out in this rain, if anybody is out, if there's homeless people who were out in this rain, just over the hours, the accumulation of the rain hitting you, it's impossible not to just start shivering, not to kind of feel it seep into your bones. It gets just very, very cold out here.</s>YOUNG: You know, that is the one thing that we felt, the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees. And you talk about homeless people, we saw a few people trying to walk and beat the storm a little earlier, not sure of their direction. You know, this conversation, some people don't want to go to shelters, they rather try to brave this themselves and the people understand that. But at the same time, you know, people are making some life or death decisions here, and sometimes the least of these people who don't have any things are just hoping to pray on God and quite honestly to avoid some of these situations. Some people do not want to go to shelters and I understand their kind of thought process when it comes to that, but the idea of being out here stuck in the storm for several hours and having to deal with this, I couldn't imagine that. And you have to -- your heart goes out to people who make that decisions. At the same time, I'm going to step out of this at some point and get dry for a little bit. Of course, right? We have that availability, but for other people, they might not have that experience and that's what they think about in a situation like this or even someone who losses their home because I can tell you, it's a long process to get your house back together and something that you don't forget in terms of when you have hurricane damage. This is not a storm that you just forget about, you think about the folks in Harvey, they're dealing with the aftereffects of the hurricane. And look, if you cover Katrina so you know the idea of how this has just a mental effect on people when it comes to what storms do to you. There are some kids somewhere tonight that hearing this wind hitting a house or maybe a tree hitting a house, they will never forget that sound, it is something when you live through a storm. Like I said earlier, you will mark your life by this storm. This storm will never be forgotten by the people who live in the area because the impact it will have on their life, because sometimes this is the most terrifying night that you'll experience when you live in the State of Florida.</s>COOPER: Yes, and of course, you know, when you talk about an area like perhaps Sarasota or Punta Gorda not getting the kind of storm that they had anticipated, obviously, any deviation of the storm, it can be good for one city, for one town, but it can mean tragedy for another town. We certainly saw that with Charley back in 2004 when it was coming up, people thought it was going to make a direct hit on Tampa, it swerved in the last minute. And I think it was just a four- degree change and that means it hit and decimated Punta Gorda. There's a lot -- you know, the other thing about this storm and we've been covering this now for days, just the sheer size of it is extraordinary. And we continue even now at this hour, at this stage of the storm, we continue to get a sense of just the size of it. The fact that we have reporters on the West Coast where we are here in Tampa, but also still have reporters on the East Coast, Brian Todd, still in West Palm Beach, still in the midst of the storm, still seeing bad conditions out there, wind and rain. Let's check in with Brian. How is it now? Because, Brian, I feel like you had been on, I don't know for how many hours and I'm just pointing that out just to give a sense of the length of the storm, the length of the time that people in West Palm Beach and Miami and elsewhere have just had to deal with some level of Hurricane Irma.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Anderson. We've been on the air for 14 hours. This storm has been of this intensity, hurricane force winds for about nine hours. You mentioned that Punta Gorda dodged a bullet, didn't get the storm they anticipated, well, Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, where I'm standing, they got much more of the storm than they anticipated. Palm Beach County has just been -- just pounded unrelentingly by this wind. And now the rain has ceased here, the wind has certainly not ceased and it's gone in a circular motion at times making it even more threatening. We saw three transformers blow up just a few yards away from us here, an intense kind of blew concussive blast into the sky. (00:30:00.4)</s>TODD: So it's still very intense and very dangerous here. There are so many projectiles flying. And now that, you know, we've been in darkness for a couple of hours that makes it even more dangerous. You cannot see something flying at you, so we have to -- our team here has to very cognizant of that. What we can also report to you tonight from this county, Anderson, is that the intensity of this wind has prompted a rescue and a pretty significant one. The mayor of Riviera Beach, Florida, in this county, Palm Beach County, has told us, his name is Thomas Masters, he has told us that the Stonybrook Apartment complex in Riviera Beach had the roofs ripped off. Two units, two apartment units of that complex, they had to get first responders in there in these conditions and rescue at least 50 people. Fifty people pulled out of those apartment units, the Stonybrook Apartments in Riviera Beach. Thomas Masters said that he himself went over there along with the fire and the police department and went door to door -- excuse me, to get people out of there. Luckily, they got at least 50 people out, they got them safely to a shelter, including several small children and there were no injuries. But again, the intensity of this wind, people thinking in this county that they can ride it out and it's just been pounding for several hours and those people at that apartment complex maybe thought it wouldn't last this long. Well, it certainly did and this evening, they had to be rescued where Palm Beach County official said, "Our message is clear, the curfew is still on. You can be arrested if you're out here." And they want people -- they want people to get inside, stay inside, stay hunkered down, stay in shelters. This is just not letting up, Anderson. It is not letting up here at all.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and that -- yes, and that's the message from the chief of police here in Tampa I spoke to a short time ago who was saying, "Look, you may think that this isn't as bad as it might have been, but these are still -- this is still a deadly storm. There is still a potential for an awful lot of bad things to happen in the hours ahead. So, please, stay at home, stay in the shelter you're in, and just keep riding this out. You've gotten this far, just push through the night and let's get to tomorrow safely." Brian, we'll continue checking with you. Another short break here. We'll be right back.