AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Tampa on the evening of Oct. 8 as the residents who didn't evacuate made sure their supplies were ready.
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00:00This is going to be a spectacularly dangerous storm only in the Sunshine State.
00:05Our team coverage continues now with meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach.
00:09Tony joins us live from Tampa, Florida.
00:11Tony, we've got a serene scene behind you right now.
00:15What's your game plan for tomorrow, and what are you experiencing out there?
00:19Is it a ghost town right now?
00:23Actually, Jeff, it's quite busy.
00:26A lot of folks here, we've been at a hotel kind of stationing here.
00:29This is where we're kind of setting up our base of operations,
00:32just outside of the Tampa area near the town of Brandon,
00:35so kind of right there on the lines.
00:37And a lot of folks just taking in an evening.
00:40A lot of them evacuees from nearby.
00:42We've been talking to several folks who are still dealing with the losses from Helene.
00:46We've been mentioning that name quite a bit because this was an area that was heavily impacted,
00:50although not with a direct hit.
00:52And that just goes to show how widespread and reaching some of these are.
00:55We'll show you some of the video out of Clearwater Beach
00:57because this was an area that was hard hit by the surge from Helene just a couple of weeks ago,
01:02and we are still dealing with the cleanup from that.
01:04We've been seeing crews out loading up trucks, getting a lot of this debris out of here.
01:09We talked to the Florida Department of Transportation,
01:11talking about how much of that they've cleared out just in the last 48 hours.
01:15A lot of it, though, still left behind and unfortunately is going to become added debris
01:19when that surge comes up in the Tampa area tomorrow night as Helene makes landfall.
01:23We've been talking to many of the residents and folks that are still dealing with that two weeks later.
01:27We're not quite finished preparing for the next storm, so we've still got a lot of cleanup.
01:33As you can see, it's still everywhere, so we're not even halfway done yet.
01:38Making sure you've got clean clothes, water supply, and food and a way to cook it.
01:44A grill is helpful and coolers.
01:49You know, and Jeff, it's amazing, too. You heard her mention a grill.
01:52So many people talking about that is kind of one of those necessities for many people.
01:56Propane was a big thing we saw at a lot of the gas stations
01:59with people talking about how they were going to be not only stocking up gas for generators and vehicles,
02:04but also getting propane so that they can keep grills going.
02:08Of course, charcoal grill is another thing.
02:09But that was kind of one of those weird pieces of equipment
02:12that I wouldn't have really associated with hurricane preparedness.
02:15But between talking to a lot of people from Helene and here in Milton,
02:18that has been kind of one of those odd-ended kind of things
02:21that a lot of people are saying is almost a necessity,
02:24so they have a way to cook food when the power's out for several days,
02:27maybe even longer in some areas.
02:29So generally speaking, those that are behind,
02:32I'm not going to say joyous by any stretch of the imagination,
02:35but certainly more in the way of beat for us there.
02:38And we're just getting the emergency alerts on our phone there,
02:40so if you heard some of the background noises,
02:42obviously we are dealing with the hurricane warnings and storm surge warnings in this area.
02:46So those will be something that will probably be beeping us over the next 36 hours.
02:50All right, Tony, you bring up some good points.
02:51And whenever we are disrupted in our lives,
02:54and the typical routine of cooking, bathing, lighting our home there is disrupted,
02:59sometimes we do see an increase in fire danger and carbon monoxide,
03:03such a deadly killer.
03:04There's a lot of research, Tony, I know you're dialed into this,
03:06indirect fatalities tied to storms.
03:08We saw this a lot in 2020 in Louisiana.
03:10Long-term power outages and the deaths that followed,
03:13not the wind, not the storm surge,
03:15but the carbon monoxide-related fatalities from the misuse of generators.
03:18You've got to keep them outside.
03:19Some of you are going to lose electricity.
03:21Keep the generator outside.
03:22Tony, thanks so much for your reporting.
03:24I know the nature of Tony's reports will be very different tomorrow evening
03:28when we have a tenacious storm surge and destructive wind moving in.