Tonight on 360, people getting out while they can with Hurricane Milton now cat 5 storm heading straight for Tampa, Florida, which hasn't taken a direct hit since 1921. Also tonight, the latest from hard hit North Carolina and the lies the former president continues to tell about the relief efforts and later on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terror attack. We check back in with the woman still waiting for her family being held hostage to come home. Good evening.
Thanks for joining us. It's okay. In Milton less than 24 hours to go from an 80 mile an hour storm to 180 mile an hour monster, one of the fastest growing hurricanes ever and on the path that it's on. It could also be the first and more than 100 years to directly hit Tampa, Florida city largely at sea level, or even a smaller storm could do serious damage, which is still cleaning out.
From its brush with Hurricane Helene, which may be while people began leaving today and why as many as 600 ambulances today began evacuating patients from area hospitals and nursing facilities. Tampa's airport closes tomorrow morning. 51 Florida counties have now declared emergencies. Evacuation orders have also gone out for some barrier islands.
The National Hurricane Center is just out with a new bulletin. I want to go right now to the West Union meteorologist Chad Myers. So how did this storm intensify so rapidly? And what are the coming hours look like?
Absolutely no shear for it to be torn apart and extremely warm, record warm, watered down there. And now we're into this thing called a loop current. The loop current is water that comes out of the Caribbean just to the east of Cancun, which is the warmest water yet. So we're at 180 miles per hour.
This thing will hit the west coast of Florida. Is it going to be on the south side of the cone to the north? I don't know yet. We're still probably 36 hours away from really getting an idea of where this goes.
But hurricane hunters are in it right now and they found the winds still at 180 miles per hour. An intense storm. I can't imagine being in that aircraft and flying around seeing what's going there and getting bounced around because what was a 50 mile per hour storm just 36 hours ago is now 180. And yes, we will get what's called an eye wall replacement cycle when that inner eye wall right now it's only four miles around.
If you were inside the eye, it's two miles to that side of the eye wall and two miles to that side of the eye wall. That will eventually collapse and a larger eye wall will form around the outside and the pressure will go up and the wind speed will go down. We expect that when you get a big storm like that. That just happens all the time.
But look what's going to happen here. Major hurricane winds in this entire purple area. Hurricane winds all the way past the east coast. There will be a million or more people without power.
Yes, where the power men are. Yes, where the line people are. They're up in the Carolinas trying to get their power back on. This could take a very long time.
Power could be out for weeks if not longer. Now we talked about the storm surge in Tampa with Helene was about seven feet. The forecast right now is 10 to 15 feet. So double the surge that they had from Helene and how much damage was done there.
There will be homes that no longer exist, especially along the coast. That's just obviously going to happen when you get a 10 foot surge and homes are right on the beach. They're going to be missing. We can't have people in those houses that are missing.
This is the problem. That's why you need to go today. The great news about this and unlike what we were in Charlie years ago, this did the rapid intensification days ahead of time. So we have the knowledge that it's going to be a big storm.
Charlie was down here and just went boom. And all of a sudden 12 hours later, it was on shore. This at least is giving us a little bit of time to get out of the way. All the models here obviously on the west coast of Florida.
Some though much farther to the south. If you remember, we were waiting for Charlie in Tampa and it was way down here in Punta Gorda. And so that can happen. It can turn.
They still do when they get close to land. They can turn. Flood watching, in fact, obviously four to eight inches of rainfalls. Some models now predicting probably in the neighborhood of about 15 inches of rainfall.
And that's just the freshwater flooding that's possible. From Alberto to barrel, the very earliest category five in the Atlantic to Milton, very latest category five ever in the Atlantic. Just so clear. When do you expect it to make landfall?
Midnight, Wednesday night, Thursday morning. Okay. So it will be making significant damage by our time on Wednesday night show that you and I will be on. Alright, Jim Myers, thank you very much.
We have more on Hurricane Milton later in the program as well as reporting from the earth's worst hit by Helene in North Carolina where the death toll is still climbing. And to that point, FEMA today said the agency has enough funding to handle the response to her. It's Milton and Helene. The fact that it has to reassure people about that speaks not just to the weather lately, but also the political climate.
That's because in spite of Republican mayors and governors and senators and hurricane affected states saying otherwise, Donald Trump has been lying again about disaster relief. This weekend he falsely suggested $750 was all storm victims can expect to get from the government. They send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations. And you know what they're giving on people?
750 bucks. They're offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away. The $750 is only for immediate needs and only one form of aid among others that the government offers. As we report on Friday, FEMA now has a webpage set up dedicated to addressing false information and rumors, many of which are being amplified by the former president who has a much bigger megaphone.
They've given over a billion dollars to illegal migrants that came in and now they have no money for North Carolina, for South Carolina and Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank. Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars on housing for illegal migrants, almost no money, because they spent it all on illegal migrants. We're missing a billion dollars that they gave to migrants coming into our country.
The federal government is not being responsive. Kamala Wind and Dined and San Francisco and all of the people in North Carolina know helicopters, no rescue. So again, both Democratic and Republican elected officials where Haleen Strzk have openly pushed back against these lies here in North Carolina Republican Senate, Tom Tillers on Sunday. We can have a discussion about the failure of this administration's border policies and the billions of dollars it's costing, but right now, not yet, is it affecting the flow of resources in Western North Carolina?
It is not an factor, to be clear. Not at this time. There's also a new reporting that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis refused to take multiple storm-related phone calls from Vice President Harris. He said today he didn't know that she called.
She had this to say, when asked about it late today. People are in desperate need of support right now. And playing political gains with this moment in these crisis situations, these are the height of the emergency situations. It's utterly irresponsible and it is selfish and it is about political gainsmanship.
It's that he's doing the job that he took an oath to do, so he took the people first. As the Vice President relates today, joining us now, Republican strategist, North Carolina Doug Hye also seen a political commentary list of our griffon. He'll be making the case against the former president Pennsylvania this week, but to not endorse either Kennedy. And seeing as Christian Holmes in Miami where he's holding the former president holding an October 7 commemoration, it's a little bit of your reaction to what Trump has been saying.
It's gross, but it's dangerous. Listen, Donald Trump worked directly with FEMA, and I would actually argue that if all the government agencies I've ever worked with FEMA may be the most effective at executing their job. Pete Gaynor, the former administrator under Donald Trump, was one of the core response efforts behind the COVID response, but also many natural disasters that Donald Trump had to oversee. He knows this information isn't true, and it has real life consequences on the ground.
Volunteers have been depressed because they think that there's not a need or they're not able to get to where they need to be. FEMA's spending resources, as you said, to knock down these lies. And then you have people who desperately need help who are being told there's no help to get when in fact there are quite a lot of federal resources out there. And I would just note America's adversaries love this.
This is a field day for Russia and China who are going to then amplify on social media ahead of the election to just stoke fear and tear apart. This is, listen, everything becomes politicized about that from an election, but this is a step further that I've never really seen something like this when you're dealing with multiple horrible natural disasters at the same time. And it just shows Donald Trump is wanting to go solo. Yeah, I mean, Doug, you're from North Carolina, a lot of your family's still there.
I'm wondering what you're hearing from people on the ground about people hearing these lies, is it impacting things at all? They sure are, and Anderson, I got a call on Thursday from Congresswoman Virginia Fox, who represents one of the districts most affected by the hurricane. It made it very clear to me that FEMA assured her and other North Carolina members on a call that they have more than enough funds for her to lean that they're good there. And look, clearly some of the media attention wasn't where it should have been last weekend, and certainly we didn't know the direction of the storms, so some of the resources weren't on the ground there.
But when you're spreading disinformation, it means all sorts of agencies. It's not just FEMA, right? It's state agencies. It's the small business administration.
It's not just Joe Biden or Donald Trump in this matter. It's a comprehensive federal and state and state's effort. What they have to do is then take their eye off the ball to tell people these things are false, and then these things are true. This is the news you can rely on, and this is what you can.
It takes their eye off the ball and makes it that much harder. And there's also, you know, brass politics in this, as Alyssa mentioned, but it's also stupid politics. The reality is the area of North Carolina that was hit is overwhelmingly Republican. Donald Trump of the of the 25 counties that are under emergency declaration.
Donald Trump won all of them, but two. You know, there are about 185,000 more Republicans than our Democrats in this issue in that area. So by spreading this misinformation, you're hurting your own voters first, and we know Donald Trump takes his people sort of as a special special case. He's damaging them for his own political goods.
That's malicious. Christian, I mean, does the Trump campaign have any explanation for why the former person continues to lie about this response? I mean, it's obvious why he does it, and there's obviously shamelessness, obviously that he's used to, but I mean, do they? Do they have any explanation?
I think there's something I'm forgetting not to quietly because I want to call room here, but what were you guys to do? There's absolutely no change in posture, and that they would disagree with what Doug just said about how this impacts his own voters. He is trying to speak to people to use two-theor tactics that we have seen, he's used before. One, blaming Biden's administration for faults that are happening on the United States.
In this case, it's strong stuff, and two, blaming migrants, and in this case, he can actually merge the two, saying that Biden's administration is using money, and then supposed to go towards his supporters in order to pay for migrants. Obviously, no, this is not true. Again, as opposed to Doug and as I just said, these are falsehoods, these are lies. They are not the way things are playing out on the ground.
We have heard from Republicans who have said that as well. However, this is something that they plan to continue running on, and just keep in mind we are now facing another hurricane. I expect to hear this narrative going forward. Listen, the Santis is saying, you know, Vice President Harris had called.
I guess you could say there's politics that the Vice President Harris wants to be seen as being sort of in command, and therefore is calling to Santis. And there's a role for her that she needs to be calling him. What do you make of that sort of playing out? I think everyone's still being afraid of having that Chris Christie hugging Obama moment, embracing, you know, a different political partisan, but the reality is that I worked for Vice President Pence, and anytime there was a major natural disaster, he would also be calling Governor's members of Congress in the areas that were affected.
It's not just the President, so yes, she's a candidate, but it's also an entirely appropriate thing for the Vice President of the United States to be doing. And it's a moment for him to rise to the occasion of leadership and show, you know, hurricanes don't choose Republicans or Democrats. This is going to be a whole of government effort. And I would just also note that, especially North Carolina, we don't even know what damage Milton is going to cause.
There is going to be years of rebuilding. There's going to need to be congressional supplements to pay for this. Those are things that are done on a bipartisan basis. And Donald Trump, stoking fear lying about it now doesn't exactly bode well for if he is to be reelected.
That he's going to assist those areas and that he's not going to let politics affect it. And he's going to work across the aisle to get people abandoned. It's just a bummer because, I mean, disasters, wars, usually bring people together, brings the country together, brings leaders together, and to, you know, in the midst of this, in this most painful moment, to use people's pain, and to try to manipulate it. It just seems particularly egregious.
I understand that you're also hearing kind of new threads and information that are starting to circulate related to the storm. Yeah, we're starting to hear from folks on the ground that the cases being made, that is being built, that if Donald Trump somehow loses, or to sort of pre-spinal laws in advance, that the state board of elections, the moods that they're making to make it easier for people in these impacted areas to vote, are somehow trying to rig the game, you know, in all the terminology that Trump uses, to set this election for Harris. It's not true, but it's just another way. The problem with conspiracy theories, Anderson, is when you debunk one, there's always another one to come along that sort of proves the previous one's case as well.
And let me just say very quickly as well, look, whether to Santas and Biden or Harris talking, to Santas worked very well with Biden, the last set of hurricanes that came through, what's more important, is that the law is not going to be done. What's more important is that these are not sexy positions, but your regional small business administration, your regional director, is speaking to their state counterpart, the regional FEMA director is speaking to their state counterpart, and that is definitely happening on the ground. And it's why we're seeing the relief efforts now have really ramped up after starting off sort of slowly. Doug, hi, this is our Griffin Christian Holmes.
Thank you. Still to come tonight, the former president has already said that undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of America. Now he's raising concerns about their genetics. Also, one year ago today, Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel, which talks to the relative of a family of four, including two small kids who were kidnapped that day whose fate is still unknown.
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast in terms of service, the idea of riding a car with no driver can feel daunting, and this technology raises questions about safety and the future of transportation. That's why I'm here with Nicole Gable, head of business development and strategic partnerships at Waymo. Waymo, we've always been about safety.
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You can watch the podcast on Spotify. So by now, most of the former president's thoughts on undocumented immigrants are well known, including many of rapist killers and alike. Today, though, that kind of thinking cross streams as it were with another of his well-known beliefs, namely in genetics and breeding. Here's what he told you Hewitt today in the middle of talking about murderous migrants.
You know, now I'm murder. I believe this. It's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.
He also said false legal advice for us in Harris was quote, allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers. That number, in fact, comes from figures which are not specifically about people who entered the country during the Biden-Harris administration. They cover any administration going back decades. In addition, that number includes sites people who are in jail or prison for their crime.
Or who have served their times for crimes. Back to genetics, though, it is as we said something about that subject of his. In this case, in 2020, I'm not murderous bad genes, but Minnesota, nice ones. You're good genes.
A lot of it's about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? The resource theory, I think we're so different. You have good genes in Minnesota. Johnson, Republican, and Harris, support, and Navarro.
Also, for Biden-Wise, communications director, betting field in Trump 2020 campaign, it's the official, er, Preeni. It's obviously, you know, this is what he's done for years. You know, talking about poisoning the blood and genetics, I mean, these are not good. These are echoes of not good historical fact.
Yeah, in 2016, I was Mexican, I was a criminalist on rapists and bad on-brists. In 2024, it's bad genes. Look, you know, it's the kind of thing he's been saying forever, right? He's been peddling, otherizing other people.
We have seen that he blames everything on migrants and immigrants. He makes up stories about Haitians. And you can say to yourself, this is just rhetoric. This is just Trump and the stupid stuff he says continuously.
People who support him say, oh, you know, don't take him literally, don't take him seriously. Here's the problem. Because of the things he says, people get triggered. Because of the things he says, he inspires people like the mass shooter that drove miles and miles and miles to an El Paso Walmart and killed 23 people because he was hunting down Latinos.
Because of the things he said, kids in school, Latino kids in school, get called racial slurs and have that trauma forever. So his words matter. His words matter. And this is just who he is.
I mean, is the sort of language bad genes poisoning the bloodies, that stuff, moderate swing voters want to hear in the winning days of a general election? It's not the most strategic targeted message towards swing voters going into a general election. The voters are being very clear about what they care about right now. It's about the economy and about immigration.
It's about their families and their communities. And the way that politicians of every stripe and color need to be talking to them is on a humanizing level. When they're talking about the economy, it's about affordability. It's about groceries.
When they're talking about immigration, they're talking about their communities and the safety and sovereignty of this nation. Make it something people can relate to and not something you need to fear monger on. We're in the closing days of this election. And every inch matters.
We're seeing young Latino voters in a USA Today poll move more toward young male voters, more toward Donald Trump. You're going to see these demographics continue to break in these late days. The message that is being delivered by both candidates needs to be strategic and smart to make sure that they're getting this done. And right now that is not helping Donald Trump.
I mean, they continue to do this. The campaign continues to do this. So, I mean, they must have some belief that this works for them. I mean, does it appeal to some sort of feral brain part of human beings?
You know, look, I would be afraid to even try to get inside the mind of Donald Trump and who he thinks this is appealing to. But look, does it appeal to moderate voters, to swing voters, to the voters that he needs to win over in the final month of this election? No. I mean, we know that immigration is an issue that does work generally in his favor.
But what people don't like is exactly this kind of language. They don't like the hateful rhetoric. They don't like the divisive language. And so talking in this way, which I think Anna's absolutely right, does, it causes people to behave in really problematic ways.
And also just coarsens our politics. It makes it harder and harder to actually come to solutions, which I think maybe exactly what Donald Trump's trying to do here in some way. I mean, he is the one who took the bipartisan immigration bill off the table because he wanted to keep the issue to campaign on it. He's not looking for solutions.
So, you know, if he thinks, you know, this is connecting with some piece of his base, maybe it is. I'm certainly not the person who could speak to what's working with a MAGA base. But for any general election, when you were trying to reach these voters who were ultimately going to determine the outcome of this election, no, this is not a winning strategy. And it's dangerous.
And you're obviously co-host on the view Vice President Harris is going to be on tomorrow. Clearly, she is now putting herself out there more. She was on the Call of Daddy podcast. She's been doing more TV stuff.
60 Minutes. I'm not going to have to chuckle with you saying call her daddy. But go ahead. It's a very popular podcast.
Anyway, you know, doing 60 Minutes. What do you expect tomorrow? Look, it's going to be her first live interview since she became a nominee. She's been on the view before as Vice President.
I think she needs to be authentic. I think she needs to show who she is. I'm very happy that she's going to be out there. She's doing the view.
She's doing Howard Stern. She's doing Stephen Colbert. She's doing a Univision Town Hall in Las Vegas on Thursday. She's doing podcasts.
She's doing traditional and non-traditional media. We've heard for... No, I don't. She was busy.
You know, I mean, she's been running for a couple of months. She had to pick up Vice President. She had to plan a Democratic National Convention. She had to get herself together.
She had to get her team together. Get the campaign running. And so, like, I know that the media, you know, I know that we like to think that the world revolves around this. She's been doing rallies with thousands and thousands of voters.
She's been talking to voters, going to swing states. Now she's going to, you know, she has this media strategy. And I think it's exactly the right time because I will tell you, yes, I know that we've been moaning about it. But this is when a lot of people are starting to pay attention.
Yeah, this is a good thing that she's doing it. And thanks very much. I will actually... I mean, do you think there's the right strategy at this point for her to be doing this?
Yeah, I do. I think she needs to be out there flooding the zone. I think it's great that she's doing some of these outlets that are reaching people who are not particularly engaged in politics, which is where the majority of these undecided voters live. Not a lot of undecided voters watching CNN every day.
People watching CNN are engaged in politics and probably already know who they're going to vote for. But, you know, some of the people that she's reaching by doing these kind of more non-traditional outlets are exactly the voters who may genuinely still be on the fence. The only thing I would add to this strategy is to really flood the zone with local media when she's in these swing states at a time when people's faith in media continues to decline. People still trust their local, you know, their local evening news anchor the most.
And so that is a great way to reach people who, again, are just, you know, tuning in after work to watch the local news and then turn the TV off. So I would really encourage her to do more of that as well. And you're not going to encourage her to do Anderson Cooper? That's right.
And Aaron, Kate, thank you Mike. Appreciate it. Coming up, my conversation with Yvette Siler, a prominent voice for the family. So those getting up by Hamas during their terror attack on Israel on October 7th, we're going to talk about what happened here at Go Today.
English, heartache, frustration expressed across Israel today, one year after the October 7 terror attack. Mourners remember the more than 1,200 people killed and about 250 who were initially taken hostage. Some demonstrators demanded the Israeli government make a ceasefire deal to get the hostages back, come back, continue in Gaza, we're according to the Hamas run health and stream more than 41,000 people have been killed. You know, it's best for like how many of those people were Hamas fighters.
At the side of the Nova music festival, hundreds were killed. Mourners heard the song that had been playing one year earlier as government stormed the concert slaughtering hundreds. At Kubo Tz near Oz, Mourners remember the close-knit community where about one in four people were murdered or kidnapped. Among those taken from near Oz that day were members of the Beebus family.
Parents Yarden and Sherry Beebus and their children, Ariel, who was four in Kefir, who was nine months old. Fear is the youngest person kidnapped that day. Sherry Babbas' parents were murdered that day last year, just days after the attack, I spoke with Sherry's cousin, Yvette Siler. The only thing that helps me be sane right now is sitting here with you and showing their faces and telling their story.
I want my family back. I want my family back. I try to be strong and strong and speak clearly about how I'm devastated. I'm devastated.
I don't know what else to do. That was a year ago. If I'd either attended the memorial service at Kefir, or Oz today, and I spoke to her earlier. I think about Kefir and Ariel a lot since we talked over the last year, and the idea of them in captivity like this is unthinkable.
I don't think that words to describe how I feel. I feel. A personal fighter. That they're still there.
You heard me talk and ask and play for help. And now a year later, I feel that I'm losing the legitimacy to talk about them to the world. As if what happened to us is justified. I'm worried.
We are in this in-between situation that we don't know. And no one has taken accountability about them. The entire family just vanished. They were taken from us a year ago and we don't know nothing.
You said you feel at times like you don't have legitimacy to talk about them? Why? A year ago, when we sat in the park, it was before the ground invasion. The world changed a lot in the world's opinion, in where they stand, and how they feel towards how my government actions.
This war is horrible. When I talk about our two beautiful boys, I get asked a lot. Okay, but you know there are a lot of children who died on the other side. And my heart is broken.
I don't want to see any child die or being hurt or lose their parents. And I try to remind everyone that we are not here. But October 7th happened to us. And it broke everything that I believe in.
That there are people like me on the other side who just want to live. We've been doing everything we can this past year to talk about my family, to talk about the other than feel, to explain who we are. What happened to us? When we spoke, I thought my aunt and uncle were kidnapped as well.
Two weeks later we found out they were burned alive in their home in Kibbutz, Nils. I mean my darkest times and I can still find compassion but I don't feel that compassion from the world anymore towards us. And you can hate my government. You can criticize their action.
But don't hate us. Don't justify what happened to us. This is a means to free Palestine. I never in my life thought that these words will come out of my mouth.
This is not how you free Palestine by taking a nine month old baby from his home. And no one is saying anything. You feel like the world does not care. I feel it's very complicated.
I understand it's very complicated but at the end of the day we are all people. We are all humans. And the crime was committed against us too. And all sides should be accountable.
I don't hear this in criticism towards Hamas. I'm sorry. We hear. We stand in the street.
We shout. We want to change things here. This is the democratic country. I can say whatever I want.
I feel free. Why don't we hear anything from Gaza? Tots the Hamas leadership towards the Fiyyasinwa. People tell me they are afraid.
These are the voices that you should hear more. I know about every time I died in Gaza. I saw the photos. I looked through the photos that were sent to us because someone thought they saw a little boy with red head.
Countless bodies. I know what's happening over there. I'm asking someone on the other side know about what happened to us. They know about fear and all.
Do they know what Hamas did to us? Do the proper Palestinian rallies in your colleges do they know about fear and all. About white guys and shit or as many of them. They feel like I have to.
So I'll be there to explain my country but I can't explain an entire conflict. But I will never justify violence and the generational effect of one of this. This cycle of vengeance and just now I'm coming out of the shelter because bombs from Lebanon are being fired into the center of Israel. And I have to find a strengthen to do this because we're not over.
And I will never stop until they're back. Thank you for talking to us. Thank you very much. You thought, Siler, we'll be right back.
We just got where the President Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke tonight about the preparations for Hurricane Milton. It's now packing sustained winds of 180 miles an hour with higher gusts expected to hit Florida's west coast possibly in the Tampa area. Officials are warning people not to take this one lightly. Milton is the strongest hurricane in the Gulf in early 20 years.
The strongest storm storm so far this year anywhere on the planet making matters even more ominous. The storm is expected to hit an area still cleaning up from Hurricane Halene nearly two weeks ago. Joining us now is Sheila Alocasano who lives in Longboat, Key, Florida, barrier island near Sarasota. Her community was hard hit during Halene.
Thank you so much for being with us. First of all, what's it been like trying to recover from Halene and now having to deal with this? Halene was a nightmare. I stayed and nobody had any idea of the surge that we were going to encounter.
And the whole island, all the islands around us have struggled. The damage was terrible. Up and down, Anna Maria, Longboat, Siesta, Lido. It's been unbelievable.
We're looking at some of your video which I think is from a resort there. I mean, it just looks awful. And the storm surge for this for Milton is expected to be out there like twice as big. I can't even imagine it.
Are you going to get out? I will be out of here by noon tomorrow. That's the deadline. It's not going to be easy to leave, but I am leaving.
And do you know, I mean, are all your neighbors going to do the same? Yes, this is the first storm that I can't find anybody that's staying. And that's a good thing. Everybody is taking this very seriously.
You saw the destruction that way you see it in the videos that we're facing every day right now. You just can't even imagine staying. Most places are just shells of themselves. People have been working really hard, cleaning their places out.
And the debris that's all up and down the island, all the islands, is just unimaginable. What's the recovery been like? I mean, are you here from authorities? Do you have resources available to you?
Oh, my goodness. Longboat has been just outstanding. They've been giving away water and mop buckets and tarps and different businesses are doing lunches for people. It's just it's a wonderful small town community.
And it's the same for all the barrier islands. Everybody comes together. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. And I don't like I didn't give you the video, but the sand dunes that are up and down the main thoroughfares of all these communities.
The sand dunes are higher than six, eight feet, 10 feet high. You know, I can hear just the emotion in your voice and how I mean, just how difficult this is. Is that based on what you've seen already and just the idea of leaving again? Well, I've never been to the point where I'm literally looking at every item in our home and deciding do I take it or do I leave it and the thought of it just floating in the water somewhere.
It's just it's really hard to bear. How much have you decided what to take? I mean, obviously I photograph things like that, but I mean, making those choices. I'm taking clothes in my clothes and I pick up all paddle.
I appreciate you talking to us. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. And I wish you the best and we'll continue to check in with you as this develop. Thank you so much.
Thank you for getting out there. Just after this, so many communities are going to be in such need. I can't even imagine what 48 hours is going to bring. Yeah.
Well, we wish you the best and we'll check in with you. Thank you. Thank you. As we mentioned earlier, a whole lot of people getting out of harm's way in the back of Florida's west coast.
You see plenty of traffic on the interstate around Tampa. Johnny's right now is Chief of Arvert Ripa, Tampa's Fire Rescue. Chief, I appreciate your time and obisue. You are.
I'm still dealing with stuff from Helene. How much more dangerous does that make the threat of Hurricane Milton now? Well, first of all, thank you for having us. And it's actually definitely a threat which is magnitude of this storm.
Tampa, Tampa Bay Area is definitely going to fill Hurricane Milton. We are just trying to get over a source to clean up with a lot of debris and a lot of devastation. There are a lot of families held and we're still in a cleanup process. And with this storm and with all of the wind and the damage, we're just trying to make it as safe as possible for the community to be able to deal with Milton.
How are evacuation efforts going? What are you most concerned about right now? I can say the evacuation is going. I hate to say going great, but which is good because law enforcement is going door to door and a lot of evacuation areas, which evacuation has been declared by the county and we appear to those orders as well.
So with that being said, the interstate, of course, is definitely packed with everyone heading east or north and it's been great. People are definitely listening this time. That was one of the biggest concern because when we evacuated with Hurricane Helene, a lot of the residents did not leave their residents. And then we had to do a lot of rescue rescue those residents, which put out first responders in danger.
So you feel like most people are are heating this. What is your message to the people at Tampa tonight? My message to people, Tampa is to continue to heed to the local instructions and laws as far as many shelters that are open and we're welcoming all families, friends, pets to come to a safe head in place. We know materialistic stuff.
Some things can be replaced and some things can't, but most important in your life cannot be replaced. And you can't challenge yourself with Mother Nature because she definitely will always win. So we want everyone to definitely hide from the winds and run from the rain. And of course, with this particular storm here, we're expected to have a lot of rain and wind, which is going to be very damaging to the Tampa.
Chief Barbara Tripp, Tampa's Fire Rescue. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Coming next, the rising death toll from Hurricane Helene in an update on the situation in western North Carolina where the storm's destructive power is still so evident, where neighbors are helping out and will take a look at the latest in relief efforts.
As another extremely dangerous storm, Hurricane Milton takes aim at Florida. The death toll from Hurricane Helene is climbed to at least 235 people across six days. Storm calls widespread damage, as you know, from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains. Tonight we have a close, an up close look at the devastation of hard hit western North Carolina.
Here's Miguel Marquez. The Cane River on the way to Bloody Fork, North Carolina. I'm not leaving unless I have to. If our health doesn't hold up or, you know, if the health stops coming.
Diana Murs and her husband William, both in their 70s, wrote out the storm. More than a week later, Diana sits on her front porch with her gun, ready for anything or anyone. And what has the last week been like? Just absolutely unsalable.
I mean, you couldn't imagine how high the water came and what we saw going down the river. You know, one of the graveyards up the river here was compromised and it was casket after casket going down. You know, that house came right off the sound station without making a sound down the river. It went a trailer came down.
I didn't actually see it, but I heard there were people in it. They could not get out. You sound a little traumatized by others. I think we probably all are traumatized.
It doesn't seem real. Their house a bit higher than others survived. Their neighbors. Not so lucky.
So what I'm standing on is what's left of the driveway of the Murs' home. The road that went along here was down here. It is completely gone. That empty lot across the river, that was their neighbors.
That was their house that stood there before. You can see those cement abutments along the river banks. That was a bridge that went across. It is gone, but those people were able to get across to the Murs' home before the flood completely took their home.
Cadaver dogs now sweeping this area, the river, the hope of finding anyone alive, faded. It is a catastrophe beyond belief. I mean, I'm sure they've seen Katrina and Sandy and this is on a par with those. If not worse, because the communities are so isolated and there's nowhere for these people to go.
We're just trying to fill whatever needs they need. For now, neighbor helping neighbor. The only communications word of mouth. This last week we've been just looking for people searching and getting them pre-mualted the day after.
Now I think doesn't need to matter. Miguel Marquez joins us now from North Carolina. You mentioned that hope has faded for finding people alive. Are there search and rescue teams out there still?
Is it mostly recovery effort now? There are search and rescue teams that are even rescue dogs that we saw today, but there's a lot more cadaver dogs moving in. The problem with finding the bodies right now is that it's such a wide spread area and there's so much debris. Just vast amounts of it, both natural and then made.
There's a car covered in natural debris, a tank or a silo back here that's also covered in debris. This is the main highway here in Michaelville, North Carolina as well. It goes through Smoky Mountain. So it is just going to take an enormous amount of time.
A lot's coming back online here, but it's going to take a long time for this part of the United States to cover. Miguel, thank you so for that. The news continues. The source of Caitlin Collins starts now.
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