Floridians brace for Hurricane Milton's landfall

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Tampa on the evening of Oct. 8 as the residents who didn't evacuate made sure their supplies were ready.

Transcript

00:00This is going to be a spectacularly dangerous storm only in the Sunshine State.

00:05Our team coverage continues now with meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach.

00:09Tony joins us live from Tampa, Florida.

00:11Tony, we've got a serene scene behind you right now.

00:15What's your game plan for tomorrow, and what are you experiencing out there?

00:19Is it a ghost town right now?

00:23Actually, Jeff, it's quite busy.

00:26A lot of folks here, we've been at a hotel kind of stationing here.

00:29This is where we're kind of setting up our base of operations,

00:32just outside of the Tampa area near the town of Brandon,

00:35so kind of right there on the lines.

00:37And a lot of folks just taking in an evening.

00:40A lot of them evacuees from nearby.

00:42We've been talking to several folks who are still dealing with the losses from Helene.

00:46We've been mentioning that name quite a bit because this was an area that was heavily impacted,

00:50although not with a direct hit.

00:52And that just goes to show how widespread and reaching some of these are.

00:55We'll show you some of the video out of Clearwater Beach

00:57because this was an area that was hard hit by the surge from Helene just a couple of weeks ago,

01:02and we are still dealing with the cleanup from that.

01:04We've been seeing crews out loading up trucks, getting a lot of this debris out of here.

01:09We talked to the Florida Department of Transportation,

01:11talking about how much of that they've cleared out just in the last 48 hours.

01:15A lot of it, though, still left behind and unfortunately is going to become added debris

01:19when that surge comes up in the Tampa area tomorrow night as Helene makes landfall.

01:23We've been talking to many of the residents and folks that are still dealing with that two weeks later.

01:27We're not quite finished preparing for the next storm, so we've still got a lot of cleanup.

01:33As you can see, it's still everywhere, so we're not even halfway done yet.

01:38Making sure you've got clean clothes, water supply, and food and a way to cook it.

01:44A grill is helpful and coolers.

01:49You know, and Jeff, it's amazing, too. You heard her mention a grill.

01:52So many people talking about that is kind of one of those necessities for many people.

01:56Propane was a big thing we saw at a lot of the gas stations

01:59with people talking about how they were going to be not only stocking up gas for generators and vehicles,

02:04but also getting propane so that they can keep grills going.

02:08Of course, charcoal grill is another thing.

02:09But that was kind of one of those weird pieces of equipment

02:12that I wouldn't have really associated with hurricane preparedness.

02:15But between talking to a lot of people from Helene and here in Milton,

02:18that has been kind of one of those odd-ended kind of things

02:21that a lot of people are saying is almost a necessity,

02:24so they have a way to cook food when the power's out for several days,

02:27maybe even longer in some areas.

02:29So generally speaking, those that are behind,

02:32I'm not going to say joyous by any stretch of the imagination,

02:35but certainly more in the way of beat for us there.

02:38And we're just getting the emergency alerts on our phone there,

02:40so if you heard some of the background noises,

02:42obviously we are dealing with the hurricane warnings and storm surge warnings in this area.

02:46So those will be something that will probably be beeping us over the next 36 hours.

02:50All right, Tony, you bring up some good points.

02:51And whenever we are disrupted in our lives,

02:54and the typical routine of cooking, bathing, lighting our home there is disrupted,

02:59sometimes we do see an increase in fire danger and carbon monoxide,

03:03such a deadly killer.

03:04There's a lot of research, Tony, I know you're dialed into this,

03:06indirect fatalities tied to storms.

03:08We saw this a lot in 2020 in Louisiana.

03:10Long-term power outages and the deaths that followed,

03:13not the wind, not the storm surge,

03:15but the carbon monoxide-related fatalities from the misuse of generators.

03:18You've got to keep them outside.

03:19Some of you are going to lose electricity.

03:21Keep the generator outside.

03:22Tony, thanks so much for your reporting.

03:24I know the nature of Tony's reports will be very different tomorrow evening

03:28when we have a tenacious storm surge and destructive wind moving in.

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