'You feel for all these people:' Storm chaser recounts his experience with Hurricane Milton

AccuWeather

Going straight from covering Helene's devastation in North Carolina to covering Milton in Florida, storm chaser Aaron Rigsby has been extremely busy telling the stories of the people affected by each storm.

Transcript

00:00So, to get a closer look at the aftermath of Milton in Florida, we're now joined by

00:03storm chaser Aaron Rigsby, joining us live from Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

00:07Aaron, this storm had the whole spectrum of hurricane-related impacts. We had an

00:13EF3 tornado confirmed already, among many others that will soon be confirmed. We had

00:18storm surge, we had a lot of wind out there, and some rainfall-related flooding. So,

00:22what sticks out to you among what you experienced with this storm that was the nastiest part of it?

00:27Yeah, good evening, Jeff. Honestly, we got a little bit of a mix of everything. We were

00:31originally targeting the storm surge, and Hurricane Milton kind of took a little bit

00:34further of a southern track than what we were expecting. So, we actually got a bulk of the

00:40winds where we were in southern, or excuse me, western Florida. And also, on the back

00:46side of that, we had the storm surge come roaring in, up to about five feet through

00:51the bottom of the structure that we were in. Now, thankfully, there wasn't a substantial

00:55Now, thankfully, there wasn't a substantial amount of damage to our structure that we

00:58were taking shelter in. But the same can't be said for a variety of other places, including

01:03in Grove City, Florida, where there was a trailer park that was hit extremely hard by that storm

01:08surge and damaging winds. And unfortunately, it's kind of a bit of a deja vu because I'm

01:13back here on Fort Myers Beach, Florida, and they had upwards of five feet of storm surge

01:18here as well. And this is the fourth time in two years that they have had to deal

01:24with storm surge here as they still recover from Hurricane Ian that unfortunately did

01:28a big amount of damage here. I know that we've been dealing with a lot of difficult times here

01:34for many in Florida. Three landfalls in Florida just in the past few months among hurricanes,

01:40tying a record actually. And for you, you've been through a lot of these as well, and you've

01:44been up in North Carolina with the damage and the flooding there. Is this difficult to report on

01:52time after time? I know you tell some very emotional stories, especially if you talk to

01:55some of the people in Western North Carolina. How are you holding up through all this?

02:01Well, I can tell you this is one of the most tiring stretches of severe weather that I have

02:06been a part of, but there has been an astronomical amount of positive feedback and comments just kind

02:11of thanking everyone here at AccuWeather and thanking me for covering these events in such

02:16great detail, especially with the aerial photographs that I've been able to provide

02:20and a lot of that awareness to how fast storm surge can come in. So it kind of keeps you

02:25motivated to keep going after it, no matter how tired that you get. But doing this for 14 years,

02:32you see a lot, but it never makes it easier to see and report on because you just feel for all

02:36of these people and you want to help every single one of them. But at the end of the day, you just

02:40can't. But playing just a small role and giving a lot of these folks from Southwest Florida all

02:44the way up to North Carolina a little bit of hope, even if it's just as simple as giving them

02:48a case of water, it really goes a long way and makes me feel like I'm doing my job right and

02:52keeps motivating me to chase after the next storm and be able to help out those people afterwards.

02:57And absolutely well said there, Aaron, and giving people a chance to tell their own story. And

03:01if you hadn't told the stories for people, especially in maybe Western North Carolina,

03:06the rest of the country wouldn't know exactly what they're dealing with. We haven't forgotten

03:09about that. We've shifted our focus into Florida for the past week or so with this storm the past

03:14few days. But again, when it comes to loss of life and families that have no resources up there

03:21in Western North Carolina, a voice that you and others like Bill Waddell and Allie Reed and others

03:26have provided, very important for the rest of the people in our country to know what's going on.

03:31Thanks again for your reporting with this one as well, Aaron, as we begin the recovery and wrap up

03:35for Milton. AccuWeather preliminary estimates on economic damage and loss from historic hurricane

03:43Milton will be between $160 billion and $180 billion. So after making landfall as a category

03:50three hurricane, Milton will go down as one of the most damaging and impactful storms in Florida

03:54history.

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