state of emergency tonight, it comes as florida is dealing with catastrophic damage from in, at least 17 people dead tonight. there are fears that that number will go up. cnn s chief climate correspondent is bill weir, and he joins me now. bill, hello once again to you. you say this is some of the worst damage you ve ever seen in your career. covering these disasters. tell us what you saw? well, by that i mean, don, there are certain sort of moments and scenes in storms that are just burned into your brain, katrina for a lot of the reasons that we all know. that was such a man made disaster in so many ways, same with maria in puerto rico. you think about those comedians. michael which took apart the panhandle. but i will always remember, i will equate even with what i saw today in st. james city. that s on pine island. and this is a tight little community, a lot of manufactured homes, mobile homes, people whose vote might be worth more than their home, and all of it complet
potential direct hit, wilma, and over those years we ve had lessons learned, where we reinforce our plans are severe weather plans. and we ve just, it s sad to say that we ve gotten good recovery. but we ve gotten better at becoming a tight community and supporting each other with our different agencies, and great communication, whether it s the state of florida or the federal government, that reaches down and brings the resources. if you could be here at our eoc operations building you could see folks from from our county, other cities the fire departments, the sheriff, the police. but also state representatives with the emergency services group, providing fuel, resources, food, water. and then of course fema representatives here helping us through the different paperwork in project work sheet in order to get the heavy muscle down here that we need as well. dan, you ll be well.
as well as our firefighters, they were gone building to building, complex to complex, through the different areas to ensure that anybody was in need of of help, they got the help they needed. so, that ended this evening. then, sadly peoples entire lives have been uprooted, and officials in naples have said that the recovery will take weeks, if not months. what is being done to take your people until then? absolutely, with our eoc operation, we re in close coordination with the red cross and many other agencies, as you know, here in collier county, government as well as the naples florida, we have different organizations that provide support and help, whether it s temporary housing, or meals or things like that. it s a robust community that comes together during this, as you know, this isn t our first hurricane. we ve had irma, which was
state of emergency tonight, it comes as florida is dealing with catastrophic damage from in, at least 17 people dead tonight. there are fears that that number will go up. cnn s chief climate correspondent is bill weir, and he joins me now. bill, hello once again to you. you say this is some of the worst damage you ve ever seen in your career. covering these disasters. tell us what you saw? well, by that i mean, don, there are certain sort of moments and scenes in storms that are just burned into your brain, katrina for a lot of the reasons that we all know. that was such a man made disaster in so many ways, same with maria in puerto rico. you think about those comedians. michael which took apart the panhandle. but i will always remember, i will equate even with what i saw today in st. james city. that s on pine island. and this is a tight little community, a lot of manufactured homes, mobile