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  • 3 years ago
On the morning of Aug. 30, AccuWeather's Bill Wadell was in Perry, Florida, where Hurricane Idalia's winds ripped apart signs and roofs of businesses and turned the debris into projectile missiles.
Transcript
00:00 Good morning, Bill, from Perry, Florida.
00:02 Looks like you got some props with you, Bill.
00:04 That's not good news.
00:07 Christina, Bernie, this is not a good morning
00:09 to go grocery shopping.
00:10 Of course, the grocery stores are boarded up.
00:11 They got the metal gates down.
00:13 When we talk about dangerous projectiles,
00:15 you can see these store signs behind me.
00:17 They just shattered.
00:18 And really sharp pieces of plastic,
00:22 all sorts of material here, just flying around.
00:25 I mean, a couple minutes ago, when we had 100-plus mile
00:28 an hour wind gusts with some of these bands,
00:30 we're talking really sharp pieces of plastic,
00:32 other projectiles flying.
00:33 The wind, powerful enough, pushing over some signs.
00:36 A porta potty went flying right across the street,
00:41 ended up by those palm trees.
00:42 And I just want to show you here, over to the left, Mike,
00:45 the Winn-Dixie.
00:46 We are seeing some roof damage to some of these--
00:49 part of the roof, some of the eaves here ripping off.
00:52 And we know these stores closed.
00:54 They wanted their employees to get to a safe place.
00:59 And also here, some of the businesses,
01:03 some of the paneling on the walls, and some roof damage.
01:06 And again, this is a commercial area, one
01:08 of the main intersections in Perry.
01:10 These are well-built, sturdy buildings, some brick
01:13 buildings.
01:13 So we know in some of the residential areas, where
01:16 people have their homes possibly hunkered down,
01:18 they chose not to evacuate.
01:20 We know there are reports of damage coming in.
01:22 So again, guys, power is out, debris flying around.
01:27 Still some pretty powerful gusts.
01:28 We may have seen the worst of it at this point.
01:31 But we still got hours to go of wind and rain.
01:34 And we do have some storm chasers out here
01:36 and a few locals out here taking video.
01:38 But again, with these projectiles and these gusts
01:40 still blowing in, we've got really sharp things
01:42 flying through the air.
01:43 We're behind a safe, sturdy spot.
01:45 There goes the hat.
01:46 You don't want people running out in these conditions
01:49 if you don't have to.
01:50 That must be an extension hat.
01:52 I can't afford any more hats, you guys.
01:55 Yeah, I feel like--
01:56 You notice I don't have any more sunshine hats?
01:58 Are the managers listening?
01:59 I ran out of sunshine hats.
02:01 They've all blown away.

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