AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Bradenton, Florida, as Hurricane Milton struck the area with powerful winds.
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00:00Our team coverage continues right now with meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach.
00:06Tony is located right now in Bradenton. Within about 10 miles is the center of circulation,
00:12Tony, of Milton. It's headed right for you. Yeah, Bernie, we're on the south side of Bradenton
00:21right now here. This is West 14th Street and 53rd Avenue is the intersection we're at. We're at one
00:26of the the Wawa gas stations here. You notice we still have power here which is kind of an amazing
00:31thing because really it's just been like the 4th of July all around us here with the power flashes.
00:37You see the big green and blue pops pretty much from everywhere in every direction. That has been
00:42a pretty consistent thing and as we've been driving around there have been certain city
00:47blocks we come across that are completely without power and then you get into areas like this that
00:51are very very well lit. We are kind of I would say in a in a lull so to speak. We're right on the
00:57northern edge of that eye right now. Really it was about 15 minutes ago where we saw some of the
01:02strongest gusts probably approaching 90 miles per hour maybe even 100 miles per hour at times.
01:09Right now we're probably in the sustained I'd say about 35 to 40. As you can see I'm really kind of
01:14standing up with no big issues right now. The rain not very heavy at all. In fact it's hard to really
01:20tell what's rain and what's just kind of water being blown around. Here comes a pretty good gust
01:24right here but this is kind of what we've been dealing with here. We get kind of a lull about 30
01:2940 mile an hour sustained then we hit a gust about 50 or 60. Again that's come down a little bit in
01:35the last 15 minutes from the 90 to 100 we were dealing with. That were winds I wasn't going to
01:39be able to even stand up in early in but right now again we're just getting those occasional gusts.
01:44We're seeing the wind right now. It is blowing from east to west and that is what we see here on
01:50the north side of the eyewall. Again we've had a lot of dry air that's been pulled into this.
01:56That's why it's not raining so heavy here. Off to the north and off to the east or west we're going
02:02to see that rain pick up a little bit so we expect the rain to really start to come down here again
02:07especially as we get maybe a little bit further on the western side of the storm as it works its
02:12way inland. As you mentioned landfall probably going to happen I would say about maybe 10 miles
02:17south of here. We're likely going to hang up in this particular area as obviously it's gotten dark
02:22so we're going to kind of maintain a light mobility not moving around nearly as much
02:28because the hazards especially in the areas that have lost power. We have seen trees down. We've
02:32seen signs down. I haven't seen any substantial structural damage. We have seen a few aluminum
02:38siding pieces. You know the typical things that you see blowing around. That's been about it so
02:43far in terms of damage. This area very hardened. They do a very good job of maintaining the
02:48structural integrity. Tony I want to interrupt you a second. Really quick Tony.
02:53I want to interrupt you a second here. I want to show the radar right now. It's important because
02:58we are watching a rain band. I mean just off to your west. Those are the Doppler radar estimated
03:04wind speeds. There are wind speeds just off to your west now Tony of 87 miles per hour. That
03:11may run a little high but I'm going to turn the radar back on here Tony really quickly here
03:16and we have a rain band coming right towards you that is going to have wind gusts easily. Wind gusts
03:23over 75 miles per hour. This will likely be some of the strongest winds that you're going to see.
03:30So Tony that should start ramping up here momentarily. I want you to finish out here but I do want to let
03:36you know batten down the hatches here within the next 10 minutes. That rain band is headed
03:40towards you Tony. Go ahead. All right well we'll be prepared. Like I said we've already seen those
03:47gusts over 80 90. So this will be our second round. So we'll go ahead and pack it up here
03:51and get ourselves in a safe place. We've got numerous sturdy buildings around us here that
03:55we can hold on to and just kind of sit behind while this works its way in. So we'll toss it
03:59back to you guys. Much calmer there. It's about to go crazy here. All right Tony listen you're also
04:05in an extreme high wind warning and you're going to feel those winds again a second round. Tony
04:10Lawbeck reporting from Bradenton Florida here. We do have that high extreme high wind warning that
04:16does include Tony. I want to take you to the radar. This is the rain band that I was just talking to
04:22Tony about here. I'm going to stop it. So Tony here's Bradenton and this is the rain band coming
04:27on in here between St. Petersburg breach and the Bradenton area. So here it comes and again what I
04:33did before I wanted to show you the base velocity here. So this is the Doppler radar able to detect
04:39the winds and look at these winds here 85 88 75 miles per hour. So that's what we're seeing right now.