'Not a building untouched' in small Florida communities slammed by Idalia

Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby recounts his experience with Hurricane Idalia and its destructive aftermath in Florida's Big Bend.

Transcript

00:00 do want to turn things over to storm chaser Aaron Rigsby, who was in Florida

00:04 during Hurricane Idalia. And Aaron, it's good to see you again. Aaron and I have

00:07 known each other for about a decade or so since we were in northwest Ohio.

00:11 You've seen a lot of storms, Aaron. So what's going on right now in Clearwater

00:15 Beach, Florida?

00:15 So here in Clearwater Beach, Florida, even all the way down here, about 60

00:20 miles away from where the main core of that storm passed by, we're still seeing

00:24 some of those residual effects from the hurricane along Highway 60, which is

00:29 just north of Tampa. That main route that goes across the bay there. I've

00:32 seen several big piles of debris where you can see where the waves had come

00:36 crashing over there, spilling a lot of that water onto the roadway. And at a

00:40 brief time, it was actually shut down because the waves were too big. There's

00:43 too much debris on the road. It became dangerous for motorists to continue

00:47 driving across that. And those big impacts that we saw earlier that we've

00:51 talked so much about with the storm surge in Horseshoe Beach on those wind

00:55 impacts up to Perry, Florida. The story of today is those long gas lines and

01:00 then those people waiting to get back to their home and starting the pickup

01:03 process and wondering where to begin. And Aaron, we could see the evidence

01:08 there of what's left behind after that nasty storm surge. So I know that

01:11 you've tracked a lot of storms, whether they be tornadic or in this case, a

01:15 tropical system. What are you gonna remember the most out of this land

01:18 falling storm?

01:19 The thing I'm gonna remember most about this land falling storm is more or

01:24 less the behavior of it. It was very interesting. It was kind of like how

01:28 we've seen before. Early on, there was a lot of questions regarding the

01:31 intensity on what it would be up to landfall. And then so many times we've

01:35 seen again about that rapid intensification. But the storms winds

01:38 were so compact in this hurricane before the actual eye wall made land

01:42 fall. We were getting maybe winds of 30 to 50 MPH, and I even talked to a

01:47 couple of the people there in Perry, and they were kind of wondering if the

01:50 storm is gonna be as bad as what they were talking about. And then as that

01:53 inner core moved inland and those vicious winds of 80 to 100 plus miles

01:58 an hour started and debris started flying everywhere, it was one of those

02:02 instances where even I was kind of wondering if this was gonna live up to

02:05 the expectations. They were just so confined to that core. And

02:08 unfortunately, the thing about this event is that, like last year, we had

02:12 that storm surge go into a big city, and we saw all that devastation with

02:16 this one. When you put that kind of storm surge in these small communities,

02:20 the effects are really put into perspective because there's almost not

02:25 a building untouched from the storm surge. All of them have some damage to

02:29 some degree. All right, well, we appreciate your reporting as always.

02:32 Good to see you, my friend. Thanks again. Aaron Brigsby in Clearwater

02:35 Beach, Florida.