"Keep going!": Sunrise cameraman sprints off to help rescue families
An Aussie cameraman has dropped his camera to help people through rising flood waters, as the US state of Florida is battered by Hurricane Ian.
After causing fatalities in Cuba, the hurricane hit the US overnight, with “catastrophic” winds of up to 240 km/h - making it the fifth-strongest hurricane to hit the US - leaving millions without power and destroying hundreds of homes.
During a live cross to the city of Naples in southwest Florida on Thursday morning’s episode of Sunrise, cameraman Glen Ellis abruptly stopped filming, rushing to aid people wading through the floodwaters, including one person holding a child’s hand and carrying belongings.
In dramatic scenes, a Channel 7 cameraman has dropped his camera to assist people fleeing fierce winds and rising waters as Hurricane Ian smashes the US state of Florida.#Sunriseon7 pic.twitter.com/e9bk6wsWgr
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) September 28, 2022
US correspondent Tim Lester continued describing the harrowing conditions as Ellis ran over to help.
“Keep going, keep going,” Lester tells Ellis.
Sunrise host David ‘Kochie’ Koch then asks if the team are okay.
“It’s an enormous storm, yeah no we’re fine,” Lester replies.
“We are just helping some people through the water here, that is our camera operator, Glen Ellis, out there. I think you can see he is trying to help people who are wading away from their homes.”
While Lester continues reporting, Ellis can be seen helping more hurricane victims carry their belongings to higher ground.
“We have spoken to a couple of them and they tell us already that their houses have been lost in the water, they’re flooded right through and they’ve had to abandon them,” Lester says, as another crew member picks up the camera and zooms in on Ellis.
“They’ve just had no other way of doing it. But they are trying to get out and obviously what we’ve got here, is a relatively high ground, so we are lucky enough to be able to talk to you and this is a place where people in Naples, Florida, to try and get away from the water essentially.”
The Sunrise team aren’t the only reporters helping out or even seeing the effects of the Category 4 storm for themselves.
Among the footage circulating on social media of reporters fighting the elements, one clip shows meteorologist Jim Cantore being hit by a flying tree branch and struggling to keep himself upright while reporting for The Weather Channel in Punta Gorda, about 100 kilometres north of Naples.
It comes after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned citizens in an address on Wednesday evening that the worst may be yet to come.
“This storm is doing a number on the state of Florida,” DeSantis said, urging residents who were braving the storm to stay in their homes or emergency bunkers.
With the hurricane expected to turn into a tropical storm as it moves across the US, the governors of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have all pre-emptively declared states of emergency.
The US government has also sent 300 ambulances with medical teams and will send in 3.7 million meals and 3.5 million litres of water to the state once the storm passes.
“We’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, to help Florida get moving again,” President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.
“And we’ll be there every step of the way. That’s my absolute commitment to the people of the state of Florida.”
Image: Sunrise