The streets of Punta Gorda, Florida, were littered with storm surge debris left behind by Hurricane Milton on Oct. 10. Storm chaser Mike Scantlin is in the area surveying the extent of the damage.
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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.