- 11 months ago
Talking To Those Affected By Hurricane Ian
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00:00I had people texting me when they knew I was here, and they asked, is the building safe?
00:05And I said, I don't know.
00:06I don't know what it's like to go in this building through a Category 4, really a Category 5 storm.
00:13We were just a mile short of that designation.
00:16That's a pretty powerful storm.
00:19And how long have you lived in Florida for?
00:22So I've been in Florida for about 30 years.
00:24And, you know, I was here when Andrew hit Miami.
00:27I was here when Charlie came through, and that was just horrible.
00:31Five years ago when Irma hit, I thought that was the worst storm I'd ever seen.
00:35And it was nothing compared to Ian.
00:39I mean, it just kicked our butts.
00:41It tormented us for eight hours.
00:45And then when the rain and winds died down and the sun came up, and what we saw, we could never, ever have been prepared for, ever.
00:55We're just, I mean, starting to really see the images now as the Internet connection comes back in the parts of Fort Myers area especially.
01:02I mean, just try to ā where are you from originally, if you don't mind me asking?
01:05I actually am a Florida girl.
01:07I went away and went around the other parts of the country, and then I decided I wanted to come back for the sanded and sun.
01:13I mean, explain it for some of the Las Vegas locals here that may have not ever been in the eye of a hurricane.
01:20What is left over now that the sun is shining where you are?
01:24Piles of debris, piles of people's lives, devastation, giant concrete power poles laid down like toothpicks, entire homes being ripped off their foundation, boats in trees, cars in ditches, dumpsters in the middle of the road, power lines down.
01:47It's like Armageddon.
01:52One of the worst things I saw when we sent drones over was these areas that were flooded, and there was no way to get to them, and homes were catching on fire.
02:00And there's nothing that could be done to save the home.
02:03Someone that we know from here in Las Vegas on Fox 5 for a few years there, she recently went down to Southwest Florida.
02:13Kyla Gaylor is a reporter for NBC2 there in Fort Myers.
02:17How are you, Kyla?
02:18Hey, good. How are you guys?
02:20Hi. We're good. How long have you been in Florida for?
02:23A little over a year and a half now.
02:25Oh, so this is your first big storm you've experienced there?
02:30Yeah.
02:30Yeah, for sure. I think it was a lot of people's, too.
02:33Yeah. Describe it a little bit if you can.
02:37I mean, it was just nothing like I've ever experienced.
02:40We were hunkering down in our NBC2 and ABC7 studios here in Fort Myers, and the building is fortunately built like a fortress, so I felt safe during the storm.
02:51We didn't go outside at all until we felt like it was safe once the thick of it really passed.
02:57But, you know, just seeing the destruction firsthand is truly incredible.
03:02It takes your breath away in all of the worst ways possible.
03:06You never think that you would see entire bridges collapse, communities decimated, leveled, and just so much of it everywhere you go.
03:14I think it was the Sanibel Island, that bridge in particular, and five different spots collapsed.
03:19Jeez.
03:20Yeah, I was out there a couple days ago right at the first break in the bridge, and even the road leading up to it, it looked like an earthquake hit from like a half a mile.
03:32And you can look above, too, because we have a lot of drone video of the bridge, and you can see all of those different sections.
03:38Like you mentioned, five different parts, and one area of it is just absolutely, totally underwater.
03:44You know, it's just incredible.
03:46I am still at a loss for words sometimes when I think about what I've seen over the last few days.
03:51So when you look out your window right now, are people, like, picking things up?
03:55Are they, like, what is everybody's state of mind right now after the storm is gone?
04:00I think a lot of people are still in shock, because this was one of the worst possible scenarios to happen, and it happened.
04:09Right now where I'm at, I'm at my station right now because I'm about to go anchor at noon.
04:15But, you know, we're a little bit more inland.
04:17Really, it's the coastal communities and the barrier islands that just got hit the hardest.
04:22So where I am, you know, there's no traffic lights that work.
04:25Trees are down everywhere.
04:26The gas station across the street from our station, you know, how it has those little overhangs over the pumps that just, you know, on the ground.
04:34So little things like that.
04:35But that's not even anything to compare to what we're seeing in some of the other communities.
04:40I cry a lot.
04:41This weekend was really, really hard because even though both Bud and our, you know, my houses are okay, there's nothing but destruction around us.
04:51Everything is gone.
04:53And, I mean, Vegas is a place that I spend probably the most time outside of Southwest Florida.
04:59And so Vegas has a special place in my heart.
05:01So I want to thank you guys for reaching out to us today.
05:04But picture everything you know about the strip in Las Vegas and now picture it all gone and in piles of debris up and down the strip because that is exactly what our beach looks like right now.
05:16Yeah, we've seen some of the aerial footage of, you know, places like Times Square there in Fort Myers and the bridge going to Centerville Island.
05:25It's like to see this just vanish, like to know the life that was there, the partying that would take place there, to see it all gone.
05:33It must be just like, I'm sure you've done events there for the station.
05:38Your job must drop.
05:38Well, yeah, I mean, I was doing, there's a place called Shuckers on Fort Myers Beach, and I did a happy hour there every month for the last two years.
05:46And to see no sign of it ever existing, it just breaks my heart.
05:52And, you know, Sanibel, that's my beach.
05:54I haven't, I've missed like five Sundays since I moved down here three and a half years ago.
05:59Like, that's my spot.
06:00And so just seeing the destruction is so, so heartbreaking.
06:06The whole landscape has completely changed.
06:10I mean, I live out in Cape Coral.
06:12Which is just south of Fort Myers.
06:14Are gone.
06:15Yeah.
06:17And Cape Coral to Fort Myers would be like a Henderson to Las Vegas, to put that in perspective.
06:22Wow.
06:23So they said that this was the most powerful hurricane that they've seen in decades.
06:29And I think the last number I saw was over 40,600 people displaced.
06:36It's devastating.
06:38And we have a link.
06:40I didn't even see that number.
06:41It's probably far beyond that.
06:43Right.
06:43Yeah.
06:44Joining us now, she is from ABC Action News in Tampa, but she's Bonanza's own, Lydia Vasquez.
06:50Hi, Lydia.
06:50How are you?
06:51Hey, guys.
06:52I'm doing good.
06:53Yeah.
06:53Go Bengals.
06:54Vegas born.
06:56Hurricane Ian had a direct path to Tampa, it seemed, up until like the 36 to 48 hours beforehand.
07:03It seemed like it curved right a little bit.
07:06Yeah.
07:06And this storm was different.
07:07I mean, a week before, when we saw some activity stirring up and, you know, out there, some tropical activity, we just knew this one was different.
07:17The way that it was heading, it looked very similar to what we've seen before.
07:21As Hurricane Charlie, you might have heard of, it had a similar path to where it was supposed to be a direct hit to the bay.
07:28And then it curved again and kind of went similar direction as what Ian did.
07:33So this one we knew was going to be a heavy impact, except we were almost convinced and almost certain that it was going to be a direct hit to the bay area, which is a very vulnerable area.
07:43I mean, that area hasn't gotten hit, you know, for a hundred years, a direct hit for a hundred years.
07:50Yeah.
07:51And it's been out of sheer luck, frankly.
07:53I mean, I was just in Tampa not too long ago, and I don't think we appreciate how low it is to the ocean level that most of Florida, especially along the coastline, is.
08:04I mean, we're talking a matter of only a few feet.
08:07Right.
08:08So when we just get, you know, a steady rainfall, just a couple of weeks ago, before this was even a thing, I was in a low-lying area and, you know, right by South Tampa, kind of by the St. Pete area, talking with residents who already get three feet of flooding just from rainfall.
08:24I mean, if you're talking storm surge that was predicted to be around 10 plus feet for the Tampa Bay area and the coastal areas, I mean, all of that would have just been non-existent.
08:36It just would have been washed away, especially those low-lying areas.
08:40And even then, just, you know, the evacuation A zone was all of South Tampa.
08:45And, you know, I live right on the bay and all of that water would have been pushed in there.
08:48If you look at the map, you can see the coastal areas along the west coast of the state, but you can see where the bay area is, where it was projected to directly hit.
08:58All of that would have had nowhere to go.
09:00And the scenes we saw.
09:01Add on steady rainfall.
09:02Well, and the scenes that we've seen from Fort Myers could have very well been in a higher populated area than it already was, which is brutal.
09:08Right.
09:09So, I mean, forgive my ignorance.
09:11I live in Vegas, obviously.
09:12You know, being from here, nothing happens weather-wise.
09:14So, it wasn't necessarily the wind that did all of the damage.
09:20It was more so the water?
09:23Yeah.
09:23So, I mean, the Hurricane Ian made landfall as close to Category 5.
09:27It was 155 mile per hour of sustained winds.
09:31156, 157 would be a cap 5.
09:33So, while the winds did do damage, those areas like Fort Myers likely saw around 10 feet plus of storm surge.
09:40So, that's the water coming, getting pushed in from the ocean, basically, on top of rainfall and on top of wind.
09:47So, when you get all of that, all of that storm surge is moving at waves coming in at that feet plus the rainfall.
09:54Like, it's just an overwhelming amount of water and a quick amount of time.
09:57So, you're talking 10 foot feet of storm surge and up.
10:02I mean, you know, there's homes that were underwater.
10:06The best way to describe it is you see something on TV and then when you see it with your real eyes and, like, real life, it's like, oh, my goodness.
10:13It's a mess.
10:15It's a real mess.
10:16Yeah.
10:16So, you were saying, we were talking off the air, you know power at your place currently right now?
10:23Yeah.
10:23I live in an area called Cape Coral, Florida that got hit really hard.
10:27And flooding, luckily, wasn't as bad in my block.
10:31I mean, three blocks old was terrible than it could have been.
10:34I was able to get the water out of my apartment quickly and get it all bleached down and cleaned up.
10:38And just waiting for power there and also waiting on power in many, many other places now where my ex-wife lives across the river about 5, 10 minutes from my house.
10:50The storm surge was unbelievable.
10:52Inside of the house, not good at all.
10:54Wow.
10:54And that's a little bit of perspective.
10:57You had flood water go into your apartment, but that's like a nothing burger compared to what you've seen.
11:03Oh, it's amazing.
11:05And, like, you know, Fort Myers Beach is gone.
11:07And Sanibel Island, you can't get to it right now.
11:11And who knows, really, you know, we've seen what the helicopters were doing and, you know, the damage.
11:17But it's hard to get over there right now and really fully assess.
11:22Wow.
11:23You live there by choice.
11:25I mean, you go to Southwest Florida.
11:28You go there because of the beautiful weather.
11:29The views are amazing.
11:31But there's always that feeling like, all right, that next hurricane could come at any moment.
11:36And you guys are kind of battle-hardened for this to the point where some people might have been like, you know what?
11:41Ah, we hear it's going to be a big one all the time.
11:44We'll just stay in.
11:46Oh, no.
11:46It's funny you bring it up, Sean.
11:47I've got to tell you because, like, the true locals down here, they're like, don't bother us until it's a cat five.
11:52Even the true locals are like, okay, lesson learned.
11:54Yeah.
11:55Let's prepare a little bit.
11:56I don't think it caught us completely off guard.
11:58I'll tell you where it caught completely off guard is where the Beasley corporate headquarters are down in Naples.
12:03They weren't expecting anything at all.
12:04And all of a sudden, boom, it came in there hard.
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