MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hurricane Milton is plowing across Florida today with high winds, torrential rain, flooding and tornadoes. The hurricane made landfall last night near Sarasota at Siesta Key as a Category 3 storm with 120 mph winds.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned communities in that part of Florida's west coast to be prepared for a historic storm surge.
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RON DESANTIS: So the storm is here. It's time for everybody to hunker down. I know we've got massive amounts of resources that have been prepared for this storm.
FADEL: Milton is still at hurricane strength today as it moves across the Florida peninsula, bringing damaging winds, heavy rain and flash flooding.
MARTIN: NPR's Greg Allen is here to tell us what he's seeing. He's with us now from Brandon, Florida, near Tampa. Good morning, Greg.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Morning, Michel.
MARTIN: It's still early, but what can you tell us so far about Hurricane Milton's impact?
ALLEN: Well, the first thing I can tell you is that there's at least 3 million people without power all along the coast here. That includes where I am in Tampa Bay, south through Sarasota and Fort Myers, where we have other NPR reporters stationed. Milton delivered the biggest storm surge to communities close to where the landfall is. It's hard to know how much yet, but tide gauges showed a big storm surge in Venice and Sarasota. A creek in Sarasota rose by 8 feet very quickly after landfall yesterday. St. Petersburg also got a stunning 19 inches of rain. So flooding is certainly an issue that we'll all be dealing with in these low-lying areas. But we won't get a good assessment of how bad it is until later today.
We saw a lot of damage and deaths even before landfall, though. Milton brought an unusual number of powerful tornadoes. Governor DeSantis said there was 116 tornado warnings in Florida yesterday with 19 confirmed touchdowns. In St. Lucie County over on Florida's east coast, the sheriff said there were deaths from tornadoes that touched down Wednesday. Search and rescue crews were out there working through the night. So we'll have to keep watching for tornadoes today. In Tampa Bay, we saw a lot of wind damage already. A construction crane toppled into a building in St. Petersburg, and high wind shredded the roof at Tropicana Field.
MARTIN: Wow, that sounds really devastating. You know, the hurricane made landfall a couple of hours earlier than had been forecast. What did that mean for the communities that were in its path?
ALLEN: Well, you know, Governor DeSantis said that he thought it was good because it meant the storm came in before high tide, which could've made the inundation worse, but also presented a challenge for first responders.
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DESANTIS: It's going to mean pretty much all the rescues are going to be done in the dark in the middle of the night, but that's fine. They're going to do that. All of our folks are doing that, and they will be on target.
MARTIN: You know, Greg, one of the things I was wondering about is that hurricanes usually lose power quickly after making landfall, but Milton is still at hurricane strength as it crosses through Florida. What impact could that have?
ALLEN: As of now, it has now moved off the east coast into the Atlantic. But it was so powerful when it came in that even after weakening, it still had hurricane-force winds. So we're going to see a lot of wind damage far from the coast in central Florida, places that don't usually see those kind of wind speeds. There's also expected to be a lot of flash flooding because of the torrential rain, which will cause rivers and creeks to overflow. We've seen that in the past in central Florida. And despite the high winds, Governor DeSantis was cautiously optimistic that there would be less damage to buildings, though, than many feared, because Milton had been a Category 5 storm with 150 mph winds, but it weakened before landfall. And when it arrived, the winds were at a still substantial 120 mph. Here's the governor.
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DESANTIS: It doesn't mean there's not storm surge. It doesn't mean there's not hazards, there is. It's a serious, serious storm. But in terms of some of the damage that we're going to see from wind, there just is a big difference between 140, 150 and 120.
ALLEN: You know, modern buildings in Florida, DeSantis said, are constructed to be able to withstand winds in 120 mph range. So we'll see today.
MARTIN: All right, very briefly, this comes two weeks after Hurricane Helene. Some prominent Republicans, mainly former President Trump, have criticized the federal response. They say it's failed. What are people saying down there?
ALLEN: Well, Governor DeSantis and his team are very complimentary of federal officials for the help and the resources they've provided so far. And Deanne Criswell, the FEMA head, is here in Florida.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Greg Allen in Brandon, Florida. Greg, thank you and stay safe.
ALLEN: Thank you.
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MARTIN: We're going to turn now to the latest from Lebanon. NPR has been reporting from the town of Marjayoun, which is on Lebanon's border with Israel.
FADEL: Southern Lebanon is where the Israeli military is conducting a ground incursion, what it insists are limited raids on Hezbollah targets there. Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon since the war began a year ago. NPR's Eyder Peralta says he spent the night listening to outgoing rocket fire and air raids.
MARTIN: And Eyder is on the line now to tell us more Welcome, Eyder.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: So what does the ground incursion look like from where you are?
PERALTA: Well, you know, Israel has said that this would be a limited ground operation. But from here, it feels like a war. All day, all night, all we hear is the sounds of explosions.
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PERALTA: We hear Hezbollah shooting rockets across the border, and a minute or two later, we hear the roar of Israeli planes and the booms of explosions. On the way over here, one of the roads we were on had been destroyed by a missile. There was a hole in the middle that was so big that two mangled cars fit inside of it. The streets here are desolate. Life has stopped. Stores are closed, schools are closed and the few people who are left seem to just sit on their porches, smoking cigarettes, counting rockets, worrying about what's to come.
MARTIN: Well, I can hear that there are some people behind you, so there are a few people around. And I do understand that you've been able to talk to them. What are they telling you?
PERALTA: I mean, most of the people who have stayed are older folks who think that if they leave, they may never come back. Or they're scared if they leave, their house will be targeted by an airstrike. And they were surprised that we were here and happy to receive visitors, so they've been inviting us into their homes. They've made coffee for us. They've given us chocolates. And everyone told me the same thing - we want peace. This is Namir (ph), who asked us only to use his first name so he could speak candidly.
NAMIR: We are against the war because we are involved in the war not by us.
PERALTA: And he says it feels like Hezbollah has dragged them into a conflict that they want nothing to do with. I also spoke to Nabih Lahoud (ph), who is a teacher here. And what he said is that he's just tired of the constant disruption. He says that growing up, classes were often canceled because of war, and here we are again. At 71, he said he has never lived a good day. So I asked him, do you have hope that one day Lebanon might actually be OK?
NABIH LAHOUD: It depends on the - shall I live till that day (laughter)? Hopefully. I'm hopeful, always.
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LAHOUD: These are rockets from Hezbollah, three. You might hear one - four - count them. Some days ago, I counted 46, 46 after each other.
PERALTA: And that's what life is like here right now. Everyone is worried that things could get worse. A couple of days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that if Lebanese do not turn their back on Hezbollah, Lebanon would turn into Gaza. And that is what everyone here is worried about.
MARTIN: What about sort of the basics of right now, like food, water, medical supplies?
PERALTA: Yeah, I mean, as I said before, a lot of the people who are staying here are older. And right now, there's no hospital, no doctors, not even a pharmacy is open. So I've heard a lot of worry from people. What happens if we get sick? Right now, you know, there is food and there is water. It's hard to come by. But the U.N. says that they haven't been able to create a humanitarian corridor because of the uncertainty they have about any attacks. It means that the roads here are too dangerous, and they worry that if this keeps up, the humanitarian situation here could become dire.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Eyder Peralta in Marjayoun, Lebanon, near the border with Israel. Eyder, thank you.
PERALTA: Thank you, Michel.
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MARTIN: So, Leila, you are in Michigan now, which is a crucial swing state. Every vote really counts there. Who have you been talking with?
FADEL: Yeah, the team and I have been speaking to a lot of people across demographics. And today, we're focusing on Black men, in part because we know the margins matter in close elections like this one. And Black voters helped deliver the 2020 election to Biden, so both the Harris and Trump campaigns are vying for these votes. And last month, the NAACP released a poll showing this really big generational divide among Black men when it comes to who they might choose this fall. The poll found that the vast majority of Black men over age 50 say they support Kamala Harris, but about 1-in-4 Black men under age 50 say they're supporting Donald Trump.
MARTIN: And that might be surprising because for decades now, most Black voters have supported Democrats. So when you were out talking to people, did you hear a lot of support for Donald Trump?
FADEL: Yeah, it's really a mix. And really, most Black voters still do support Democrats. But one of the places I visited was more than a half century old barbershop on the west side of Detroit. And there's where I met John Moore (ph), who's been cutting hair there for more than 20 years. He's a lifelong Democrat, and he finds Trump's rhetoric kind of dangerous.
JOHN MOORE: Make the country great again. You know what I'm saying? What do you mean by that? You want to make the country great again, so you want to bring back the Jim Crow days. You want to bring back antisemitism. We don't need that. We don't need that, baby.
FADEL: He also just thinks Harris is smart and a better candidate.
MARTIN: What about people who say they'll vote for Trump?
FADEL: Well, it's funny, Michel, because Moore is 71. And as soon as I got to men under 50, that tone of excitement I heard from him and others just wasn't as prevalent. Even the barber at the next chair told me he was kind of meh about the two candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED BARBER: You know, I'll to be honest with you, I'm still on the fence. I might just not vote for nobody.
FADEL: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED BARBER: She talking about building the middle class. But I'm like what about the lower class? What are you going to do to help the lower class? I know half the people I see every day are lower tier lower class, not middle class. What's the solution for that?
FADEL: And then I came across a group of longtime friends in their 40s that were hanging out around the corner from the barbershop. Most of them told me they were undecided or voting for Trump. They gave a variety of reasons, and that included a healthy amount of sexism, actually.
MARTIN: Oh, OK. What about some of the issues like abortion that's a big issue for a lot of voters, really has been a big issue this election year?
FADEL: Yeah, I asked one man, who would only identify himself by his first initial, B, because he's worried about sharing his political leanings in this tense time. And here's what he said.
B: It's the civil rights issue and abortion, my daughter having control of her own body.
FADEL: So you really do feel that civil rights will roll back under Donald Trump?
B: Yes, yes, yes. As a people, we won't be able to survive that.
FADEL: He was the one Harris voter in this group. And he says the way Trump speaks about Black people and other minorities is, quote, "horrible." And he's taken a look at some of the language in Project 2025, that conservative wish list for a future Republican president put together by Trump loyalists, and he didn't like what he saw.
MARTIN: Looking forward to hearing the rest of your reporting, Leila.
FADEL: Thanks, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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