Page 5 - Simon Brewer News Today

You find this all the way up and down the coast. the air assessments and the ground assessments. at some point theyll reopen this area. right now its still not open. the bridges are safe. theres damages to the bridges. theyre passable. they have to get here and clear the roads and the power lines are down. they have to clear that out before they let locals back in. at this point, we dont know the casualties. they still havent had a chance to go door-to-door yet. back to you in new york. >> neil:...

In this case, we got irma. we wanted the eye to measure the lowest pressure it has. in order to do that, we had to head further to the east. in all those locations where it was ground zero where it was the worst, we were the only ones there. >> neil: do your families think youre crazy? i mean that with great respect. >> yes. our families are around us as little toddlers and planting our faces to the screen of the window when a storm would come by. they knew our passion. maybe at first they thoug...

>> i watched that video over and over yesterday. its justin drake braving 117-mile-per-hour winds, nearly getting blown away. this was not a prank. hes gathering data on the storm. >> thats and mom ter what hes holding in his hand. its a hand wind thing. >> perfectly positioned himself into the eye to see what the highest wind recording he could get. >> justin joins us along with simon brewer who shot the video. guys, that was kind of incredible. justin, you were trying to get an accurate wind m...

Seen it. >> rhule without velshi. simon, you were gathering and photographing this but youre also a meteorologist. >> yes, were both meteorologists. and were both documenting the storm. this is what we do. were extreme weather journalists and both meteorologists so that helps us to do our job much better. and justin and i at the time were taking turns going outside and getting wind measurements. we were getting incredible wind gusts. even if we wanted to, it would be almost impossible to drive a...

The miami area. we were able to explore each one of the keys after the hurricane had hit so we could document what type of damage was done by the hurricane itself. and then we were able to get off of those islands and now were back on the islands. >> what did you learn? >> learned that irma was a very powerful hurricane. just two weeks ago, simon and i were chasing harvey over there in the corpus christi, houston area. at the time, that was the strongest hurricane i had ever chased and irma even...

Are seeing right now, this is something that i saw last night in melbourne as well as the drive of these downed stoplights. simon, officials spent the better part of three or four days encouraging or if not begging people to stay out of harms way to evacuate and get the heck out of town and you go in and you have been doing it for 17 years. why? >> i have a deep passion for weather, really the science and the dynamics that have played and going on, hurricanes are probably my favorite to document...

Live for since i was a child. >> we thank you for your work and we appreciate it, sir. be careful out there, okay? >> simon brewer at bapalm beach florida. a look at the storm. tracking its path and power, up next, well take you live to daytona beach city and taking a beating format few rig matthew. governor rick scott is making it clear that the coast is far from clear. >> when everybody survives and when we get our people back to normal lives, i am appreciative of hard work of our national gua...

And staying inside. as the weather is picking up here in downtown jacksonville, craig. >> reporter: thank you, jacob, well come back to you in a bit. joining now by simon brewer, hes a meteorologist whos been chasing storms for 17 years. you are in palm coast, as i understand, what are you seeing there? >> the biggest problem is wind damage. i cannot get to the coastline because there is trees blocking all the roads, just like the one behind me, it is crossing two lanes going from the end of the...

>> reporter: there were multiple injuries. drivers who remained in cars and trucks that were tossed and turned. meteorologists juston drake and simon brewer were working the danger zone and say it is simple physics, get out of the car, run to the closest ditch, lie at the lowest spot and cover your head and neck. >> because cars are death traps whenever a tornado is coming toward you and hits it. >> the winds are rushing by. as they are hitting the car, they are going under the car and it could ...

Time of year but theyre not unheard of. there have been f-5 tornado in october. in fact, there was an f-5 tornado in the state of iowa. quite a few years ago, i believe it was in the 1960s, if my memory serves me correctly. so theyre not unheard of, but theyre very rare. and they have to have a special situation, kind of like yesterday, to occur. >> wow. all right. meteorologist and storm chaser simon brewer. good to have you with us this morning. >> thank you. >> as we look at some of these pic...