Power flashes and gusty winds as Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Bradenton, Florida, as Hurricane Milton struck the area with powerful winds.

Transcript

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

00:06Tony is located right now in Bradenton. Within about 10 miles is the center of circulation,

00:12Tony, of Milton. It's headed right for you. Yeah, Bernie, we're on the south side of Bradenton

00:21right now here. This is West 14th Street and 53rd Avenue is the intersection we're at. We're at one

00:26of the the Wawa gas stations here. You notice we still have power here which is kind of an amazing

00:31thing because really it's just been like the 4th of July all around us here with the power flashes.

00:37You see the big green and blue pops pretty much from everywhere in every direction. That has been

00:42a pretty consistent thing and as we've been driving around there have been certain city

00:47blocks we come across that are completely without power and then you get into areas like this that

00:51are very very well lit. We are kind of I would say in a in a lull so to speak. We're right on the

00:57northern edge of that eye right now. Really it was about 15 minutes ago where we saw some of the

01:02strongest gusts probably approaching 90 miles per hour maybe even 100 miles per hour at times.

01:09Right now we're probably in the sustained I'd say about 35 to 40. As you can see I'm really kind of

01:14standing up with no big issues right now. The rain not very heavy at all. In fact it's hard to really

01:20tell what's rain and what's just kind of water being blown around. Here comes a pretty good gust

01:24right here but this is kind of what we've been dealing with here. We get kind of a lull about 30

01:2940 mile an hour sustained then we hit a gust about 50 or 60. Again that's come down a little bit in

01:35the last 15 minutes from the 90 to 100 we were dealing with. That were winds I wasn't going to

01:39be able to even stand up in early in but right now again we're just getting those occasional gusts.

01:44We're seeing the wind right now. It is blowing from east to west and that is what we see here on

01:50the north side of the eyewall. Again we've had a lot of dry air that's been pulled into this.

01:56That's why it's not raining so heavy here. Off to the north and off to the east or west we're going

02:02to see that rain pick up a little bit so we expect the rain to really start to come down here again

02:07especially as we get maybe a little bit further on the western side of the storm as it works its

02:12way inland. As you mentioned landfall probably going to happen I would say about maybe 10 miles

02:17south of here. We're likely going to hang up in this particular area as obviously it's gotten dark

02:22so we're going to kind of maintain a light mobility not moving around nearly as much

02:28because the hazards especially in the areas that have lost power. We have seen trees down. We've

02:32seen signs down. I haven't seen any substantial structural damage. We have seen a few aluminum

02:38siding pieces. You know the typical things that you see blowing around. That's been about it so

02:43far in terms of damage. This area very hardened. They do a very good job of maintaining the

02:48structural integrity. Tony I want to interrupt you a second. Really quick Tony.

02:53I want to interrupt you a second here. I want to show the radar right now. It's important because

02:58we are watching a rain band. I mean just off to your west. Those are the Doppler radar estimated

03:04wind speeds. There are wind speeds just off to your west now Tony of 87 miles per hour. That

03:11may run a little high but I'm going to turn the radar back on here Tony really quickly here

03:16and we have a rain band coming right towards you that is going to have wind gusts easily. Wind gusts

03:23over 75 miles per hour. This will likely be some of the strongest winds that you're going to see.

03:30So Tony that should start ramping up here momentarily. I want you to finish out here but I do want to let

03:36you know batten down the hatches here within the next 10 minutes. That rain band is headed

03:40towards you Tony. Go ahead. All right well we'll be prepared. Like I said we've already seen those

03:47gusts over 80 90. So this will be our second round. So we'll go ahead and pack it up here

03:51and get ourselves in a safe place. We've got numerous sturdy buildings around us here that

03:55we can hold on to and just kind of sit behind while this works its way in. So we'll toss it

03:59back to you guys. Much calmer there. It's about to go crazy here. All right Tony listen you're also

04:05in an extreme high wind warning and you're going to feel those winds again a second round. Tony

04:10Lawbeck reporting from Bradenton Florida here. We do have that high extreme high wind warning that

04:16does include Tony. I want to take you to the radar. This is the rain band that I was just talking to

04:22Tony about here. I'm going to stop it. So Tony here's Bradenton and this is the rain band coming

04:27on in here between St. Petersburg breach and the Bradenton area. So here it comes and again what I

04:33did before I wanted to show you the base velocity here. So this is the Doppler radar able to detect

04:39the winds and look at these winds here 85 88 75 miles per hour. So that's what we're seeing right now.

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