00:00Yesterday evening, right as things started to deteriorate,
00:03I was standing in the same spot here at about 6 p.m.
00:06And you can see the water here up against the seawall
00:09is about four feet lower than it was
00:11when it started coming over yesterday.
00:12We're at about the same point in the tide cycle.
00:15So I'm gonna call it an even four feet higher than it was.
00:18And I talked about this YMCA building here
00:19that has been abandoned
00:21because of the damage from Hurricane Ian.
00:22Now, there was no surge damage here yesterday,
00:25but there were some roof panels missing.
00:27Just a few hours after we did that live shot,
00:29the water came up.
00:30It looks like it was at least five feet deep right here
00:32and gutted what was left of the Bayfront YMCA Center
00:35here in Gilchrist Park,
00:37along the Peace River,
00:38where the Peace River meets Charlotte Harbor here.
00:40So this building was already abandoned,
00:43but it has now been gutted.
00:44More roof panels missing.
00:46All these front windows are missing
00:47and side windows are missing.
00:48And we're gonna pan around and show you
00:50the rest of this park is littered with boats and debris.
00:54And we definitely reached
00:56at least a 10 foot storm surge here
00:58at Gilchrist Park in Punta Gorda.
01:01And then unfortunately the neighborhood right here,
01:03just beyond the park,
01:05many homes had water up and into the homes
01:08and they also had water up and into the home
01:09just about two weeks ago with Hurricane Helene.
01:13This storm surge a little bit more than Hurricane Helene,
01:15probably two or three feet higher,
01:17but about the same amount of reach here in this neighborhood.
01:20We're gonna continue scouring the area
01:23for more damage for you guys.
01:24And I got some drone video coming up of this whole park,
01:27just littered with big boats and people out checking it out.
01:31Mike, you talked about that building being damaged by Ian.
01:33I'm curious and you might not know the answer to this.
01:35What was the storm surge like with Ian?
01:38Obviously Helene, this is worse than Helene
01:40for that particular spot.
01:43Do we know what that was like there with Ian?
01:50Oh, absolutely.
01:51Me and Bill Waddell intercepted Hurricane Ian
01:53just right here at this hotel, right on this corner here.
01:56So we did not actually get a storm surge
01:58with Hurricane Ian, I'm sorry, two years ago.
02:02Maybe just a couple of feet,
02:03but it was not up and into this park.
02:05The storm surge actually went out
02:07because we had the really strong offshore flow winds.
02:10So we were seeing mud here in the harbor
02:12instead of a storm surge,
02:13just because the position we had in that front eye wall
02:16and then once it passed, we got more onshore flow,
02:18but it was much weaker.
02:20We might've had water up and into this park,
02:21but not much storm surge in this area from Ian.
02:24Definitely not anything close to what we saw
02:26with Helene or with Hurricane Milton last night.
02:29Mike Scantling, we appreciate your reporting.
02:31Also your sharp memory of what you were dealing with in Ian.
02:34You've chased so many storms and hurricanes,
02:36so probably sometimes hard to keep them straight,
02:37but excellent information.
02:38We'll be checking back in with you shortly.
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