Citbank campus shooting & Peace River flooding

Good morning, everyone. And thanks so much for joining us here on Fox Tampa Bay Live on this Thursday, November 5th. I'm your host and executive producer Regina Gonzalez at the helm here controlling the show for the next hour, getting you all up to speed on the stories that matter most across our community. And I want to let you know that we are devoting the first portion of today's show surrounding the latest details on yesterday's horrific, deadly Citibank. Park, I should say campus in Brandon, that deadly shooting that we were on the air for three plus hours with in the midst of breaking news coverage and then continued that coverage throughout the night. We've already seen this video, but we're going to continue to break stuff down. We do have new body camera video from the first Hillsborough County deputies on scene. So momentarily, we're going to chat with Fox 13's Kelly Cowan about the police response. She is at the sheriff's office as we speak. And we are also later on gonna hear from an employee, Stephanie Ura, who was making her way toward the cafeteria as the gunman entered the property. I wanna note she shared her experience on TikTok and has given us permission to share those videos with you. She will not be joining us for an interview, but she did give us permission to share her experience because that was what she was doing when she was finally settled and kind of just decompressing after everything that happened yesterday. And then, of course, we saw just incredible moments of reunification, so many emotions out there on that campus in Brandon. So what happens after the crime scene tape comes down? We're actually gonna talk to a crisis expert on the investigation about campus security. Obviously, the security guard being hailed a hero for ultimately shooting that suspect and killing him. Pretty much preventing him from possibly hurting more people. So we're going to talk to an expert about that. And then also coming up on our show in some conversations, we've got planned for you a deadly helicopter crash in Biscayne Bay and questions about aviation safety overall. Former Marine One commander going to put those concerns in perspective. We're also still monitoring any details coming from Sunday's horrific plane crash in the West Palm Beach Each area that killed nine people and then come. Coming up more towards the end, Kim Cuyzon actually heading out there as we speak, but the Peace River is expected to crest tonight. So she's going to join us with what that means for families along the river in DeSoto County. We've gotten reports that some folks have had to literally canoe on kayaks back and forth from their properties. So, you know, and this is not just happening near the Peace River. We've been monitoring flooding all across West Central Florida and to our south. We've got some video from Port St. Lucie. So we are going to tackle some weather news with Kim in just a bit. But first, we're also going to do that with FOX 13 meteorologist Jim Weber, who's got a check of our forecast and talking a little bit about that flooding that we are expected to see later in DeSoto County. Jim, good morning to you. Good morning. The conditions obviously continue to improve across the area with more sun. We're not seeing the rain, but it's still that period of time where we're watching these rivers, which have really swollen across. I saw Hardy, DeSoto County and the Polk County as well. Those are still coming down. The conditions are continuing to improve, but look out there right now. And what we continue to see is just beautiful conditions. Lots of clear skies, lots of sun. These temperatures are still on that warm side, running right around those lower 80s right now. We're going to top out into those mid-80s as we head through the afternoon. But still, we're watching a couple of areas with some flooding as far as the rivers. Now, parts of the Peace River near Huachula, that is now starting to go back below flood stage. But the Peace River near Arcadia. Is not expected to crest until tomorrow evening. And then the water will continue to recede, Horse Creek near Arcadia. That will be actually going back below flood stage at right around one o'clock this afternoon. So basically this afternoon, so conditions continue to improve. The good news is no significant rain heading in our direction and that means those rivers they will continue to go down. Look at the drought index. The one thing All this rain is done. It's made a big, big improvement over the state. You look at last week and we've been seeing some nice improvements where you're still seeing a larger area of that abnormally dry. You notice how much of that is basically gone. We're only looking at 1%, of the state still in severe drought. You want to know where that is? It's well down to our south, down across the Florida Everglades. So here locally, No severe drought, we do have some moderate drought, southern Hillsborough County into eastern Manatee, a little bit of that down into southern Sarasota County, but really a big, big improvement. Of course, that all makes sense with all the rain that we have seen. Now, what we're going to watch as we go through the next couple of days is quiet conditions, just a few random showers, 10% chance of a shower as we go through the afternoon. But then we're going to start to turn our attention as we head towards the end of the week up front. Which is moving across the southeast, moving into the state, that arrives in our area Saturday morning. You notice as this front moves through, you see a wind shift, you're not seeing any rain. So there's no big weather with this front, but as it pushes to the south, it's going to drop that humidity. It's going to bring in some cooler temperatures much drier air. So we get rid of a lot of that humidity as we go into the latter part of the weekend and into the first part of next week. So you notice that temperature trend. Notice what's happening next week. We're seeing those temperatures instead of those mid 80s. We're heading back towards the 70s for daytime highs and eventually maybe even some cooler temperatures where we see some of these overnight lows dipping down into the 50s. So the seven day forecast It looks really nice as we head through the rest of the week, partly cloudy skies. A couple more days of this more humid air, and then that lower humidity, really pleasant air pushes in our direction as we head into, say, Sunday and into next week. Now, I want to talk about the tropics because, believe it or not, we still have the hurricane season underway. One area that we're watching, about a 30% chance over the next couple of days, 50% chance. Over the next, say, five to seven days of something developing. If something happens with this, it's probably in that, say, two to three day range. This is just a broad area of low pressure. The Fox Weather model indicating maybe a little bit of maybe subtropical development with this. Good news is, regardless of whether it develops or not, it's not heading in our direction. So the question is, do we get one more name? Out of this list, the next name up on the list is Kyle. So we'll wait and see if we get subtropical storm Kyle before the end of the season here. Remember the hurricane season goes until November 30th. That's wild. I feel like we were past that. Yeah. We might not be. Yeah, they might squeak out that one extra little storm out there that is at this point, it's almost like we're padding the stats on this because it's not gonna affect any land areas. All right, well, that seven day forecast was looking nice, Jim. So we appreciate, we'll check in with you again soon. Sure. All right, everyone. And as always, as we continue on with our coverage and we welcome on different guests and reporters to the show, we do want you to scan the QR code on the screen. Give us your latest questions. Do you have questions for any of these guests? Or just feel free to join in on the conversation, that's why we're here. All right, everyone, we are going to continue as promised with the latest surrounding the deadly Citibank campus shooting in Brandon yesterday as investigators continue working to determine Herman, what- Led to this, still a lot of unanswered questions right now. I know Fox 13's Kelly Cowan has been working this story all morning long and she is actually joining us here on Fox Tampa Bay Live in the 11 o'clock hour. Kelly, good morning to you. I know you're at the sheriff's office right now. I wanna start with the most recent body cam footage we got overnight and just the What's the law enforcement response overall? What stands out to you about, I mean, what we We saw as deputies arrived. Well, what stands out is just how quickly they arrived. So within one minute, according to the sheriff's office, of getting that 911 call. Now, when you look at that body camera footage, you hear the officer kind of calling out to those who are streaming by him, employees streaming by him away from the scene. And he's asking them, where's the shooter? What does the shooter look like? Important information. We've actually gone through some active shooter drills with different sheriff's offices before. And this is exactly what they need, the kind of They need to be asking I'm asking from those who are fleeing from the scene, even if, as you'll see in some of the video, you have people that are walking away from the scene at that point. They didn't feel like they were under threat, like the threat had been nullified. But that is important information because the sheriffs of course are going to the problem. They're going to the shooter. That's what they're there to do. So that's important information. The sheriff's office also tells us that every single deputy that was on duty yesterday when this call came in was swarmed to that scene. 367 deputies on scene at the height of it because every single person from the top down was responding to this scene. Now, we know that this situation was over very quickly because as soon as that gunman entered the cafeteria of the Citibank facility, well, there was an armed security guard. That armed security guard exchanged fire and ended up killing the shooting. And then eventually the shooter himself died at the hospital. I know that a lot of information is fluid at this point. I know there's a lot surfacing online. So I guess now in this 11 o'clock hour, my question to you is where do things stand this morning? What questions do we still have? Well, we still don't know the identity of either the victim or the shooter, and we don't know the motive behind this. We don't know if the shooter, for instance, may have been a former employee there. Is this someone who's disgruntled? Is this somebody who knew the actual person that they shot and were targeting that person? Or were they there because they were targeting someone else? We just don't know that at this point. So we're waiting for a lot more information to come out about that. But this is a massive campus. It's a very secure campus. You can't get on. One campus, according to employees, unless you have a badge, you can't get access to the parking garages. As I said, it's a really big campus, 3,200 employees working there yesterday. And so this was a big challenge for law enforcement to get everyone out safely, get everybody back reunited with their loved ones, to clear some six or seven buildings that were there, multiple rooms that they had to go through one by one, and make sure that people had been released and that also there was no other threat potentially behind one of those doors. Yeah, and I mean, we have heard from people who ran, people who hid, families wanting to know whether their loved ones were safe. We're playing some of this video right now during our breaking news coverage, Kelly reunifications live on television. I know you kind of were following this through the night and watching those later on. I mean, I know I'm not even a mother. But I know that there is a daycare center when I saw so many little children. What has stayed with you from those accounts? Yeah, it's exactly that. It's not only the tearful reunifications that we saw between husband and wives or fathers and daughters, but definitely seeing those as a mom, seeing those parents carrying their children out to safety, that definitely will stick with me. I know my child is medically complicated. And so when I receive a call from his daycare during the day, your heart just seizes. You can't think of anything else and you're willing to break traffic laws to get over Over there, whatever needs to be done. So that's what was going through my mind when I saw these parents getting their children for the first time after I'm sure there was an extensive extended period of lockdown. But I can't imagine what was going through their minds when they were given a notice about an active shooter on the campus. I know. And speaking of the campus, I know we heard yesterday that employees certainly didn't have work today. But I think at this point they're not going back for a couple of days, right? That's right. So that's what I am hearing from employees that Citibank has given them the rest of the week. They'll have time today to go back at a designated time to gather any belongings that they may need immediately. But otherwise, they have the week off and they're just being allowed to kind of sit with their thoughts, sit with their feelings and mourn what has happened and And, you know, Come back as as they're able to. But we also know that this is very likely an active crime scene because, as I mentioned, 3200 people working there. There's a lot of work now for the detectives to interview so many different witnesses or so many different people that might know something about this gunman. So a lot of work out for detectives. Definitely. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for your continued coverage this morning. We appreciate you hopping on with us and we'll talk to you later. All right. Anytime. All right, everyone. Like Kelly said, we have been in active contact with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office at this point on this Thursday. No word of any planned press conferences just yet. They said they're just going to keep the information flowing as they get it. But I mean, Kelly, putting it really into perspective, 3,200 employees that they wanted to talk to. So they said that that crime scene was going to be an active crime scene at least through Maybe right now. Now, maybe a couple of hours into the day, we do have Fox 13's Aaron Mesmer and Evan Axelbank actively continuing this coverage for Fox 13 News. So we're going to check in with them later in the afternoon and we're going to take a break. But when we come back, we're actually going to speak with an expert about what happens when this is no longer a crime scene. How do the employees go back and feel safe? We've been in contact with some of them. They're just, as you can imagine, Imagine just utterly shocked. And devastated and traumatized. So we'll be right back with that in depth conversation. Stay tuned. All right, everyone, welcome back to Fox Tampa Bay Live. As we continue our coverage of this deadly Citibank campus shooting that happened yesterday in Brandon, it doesn't end when the crime scene tape comes down. So how do investigators work through a scene this large, 3,200 employees, multiple buildings, three stories high? How does an employer support their staff during an unprecedented time like this and determine when it's safe? To bring people back or you know, just for their mental state, you know, should you allow people back when the time is right? Well, joining us live right now to continue this conversation is Dr. Matthew Mattalia, a founder of Crisis Leadership Preparedness Solutions and a former police officer. He's here to walk us through what we could see next. Dr. Mattalia, thank you so much for joining us. How are you today? I'm doing well, how are you? We're good, we're good. We feel so sad for this entire business community. There were college campuses near this area that were on lockdown, other businesses. And then, of course, you've got 3,200 employees who are just so confused right now. So I want to start with the scene itself, a large corporate campus, thousands of employees and evidence both inside and outside. That was a really big point that deputies honed in on in that process, in that press conference yesterday, that this process is just going to take so long. So how do investigators organize something of this scale? Yeah, so investigations like this are not. Unusual, so there's going to be a team of investigators. First and foremost, they're going to make sure that the grounds, the facility, the property, the buildings is safe for people to return. Obviously, the incident resulted in one fatality. It could have been much more, but this is going to be an ongoing investigation. Management at the facility is going to decide when employees are to return, and they may not be able to return to some parts of the campus. Yeah, and Dr. Mattalia, I want to ask, so many employees may have seen or heard different pieces of what happened. So how do investigators bring those accounts together with security video, body cam footage, and then even physical evidence to build a clearer timeline? There's gonna be multiple personal statements taken from witnesses, but we know from history that not all eyewitnesses are 100% accurate. People are under extreme stress during these situations. So what they're gonna do is they're gonna take the statements, they're gonna look at video footage, they're gonna corroborate, and they're gonna piece together what happened here. And ultimately, they'll come to a Pretty valid conclusion, but there's gonna be a lot of misinformation at first. And that's the nature of any dynamic investigation like this. Again, there's extreme stress on the witnesses, there's panic. And so they're gonna take a few days to piece it together, but I'm very confident in the sheriff's office and the investigators that will be performing the investigation. I wanna talk about the employer-employee relationship in a shocking situation like this. What we learned from yesterday is that this was a Citibank regional corporate center. I know their global offices are in New York. We have heard reports that a couple of executives came down. But what should communication and support look like in the first 24 to 48 hours And as you move forward. So again, I mean, these employees, they're going to be anxious. So it's going to be management's job to make people feel comfortable coming back to work. I heard your reporter earlier talk about that employees did go through active assailant training. There are things that the company can do to make their employees feel more comfortable. For example, equipping them with a panic app. So during an emergency like this, they can communicate and find out what's happening. Because there's a lot of panic, a lot of unknown in these kind of situations. And there's gonna be services offered through the company, employee assistance programs and things. So this is gonna be an ongoing process. So it's multifaceted, but I'm sure they're gonna do the right thing. And I mean, there's a difference between a building being cleared to reopen and people feeling ready to return. How should a company approach that, especially for employees who may have, they may have to walk past the area where this happened? Yeah, that's gonna be difficult. To judge because each employee is gonna be different. Obviously, it may become very sensitive. If you remember the Parkland massacre at the high school back in 2018, they ended up demolishing that building never to use it again because. Students and parents felt uncomfortable even being in that building and in a case like this, more information is going to come out. Thank goodness that that security officer was there to be able to neutralize the shooter. It could have been much worse. It's just a few weeks ago in that school shooting in Oregon, a parent went into the school and was able to put the shooter down or that could have been much worse. So there's a lot of moving parts here. And they're gonna really take a good look at this at the macro level and I'm sure they're gonna come up with good solutions for all their employees. Yeah, and beyond the employees going back to that security guard. I mean, like you said, thank God he put his training to use and likely prevented a lot more people from getting hurt. But then you also hear that this suspect rammed the gate with his car. So How do you take a situation like this and establish security-wise, especially for a massive business park, what worked and what didn't? Does something need to change? What does that conversation look like? Yeah, it's gonna require probably a security vulnerability audit of the property and buildings. And I could tell you right from the get go, the fact that this individual is able to drive a vehicle through a fence into a crowded areas is very dangerous. We've seen ramming incidents in the past where terrorists run people over. I think the company is gonna have to consider putting up blockades and they can be cement plant holders. They can be, there's things that can go around buildings or public spaces to prevent vehicular access. We cannot allow vehicles to get into areas like this, cuz it could have been a lot worse. So a fence alone is just not adequate. Yeah, you know, we still have a lot of questions about the shooter and his motive, a lot of information that we still need here. So without speculating about this case, Dr. Natalia, what does the next phase of an investigation typically involve to establish connections and actions before the attack? Investigators are gonna turn over every stone. They are going to probably get warrants for social media, for computer analysis and audits to see if this individual was maybe planning this in advance. We don't know right now, but they're gonna look at all avenues. Was this a domestic violence that came into the workplace? It doesn't seem that way because he then made his way into the cafeteria looking to cause more harm. But we want to find out, was this individual? On what we call the pathway to violence. Did he have a grievance against Citibank or an employee or management? Was this planned in advance? How much planning went into it? We don't know this yet, but I assure you investigators will find out all that information in the course of their investigation. Yeah, and we'll certainly wait for that information. Dr. Matthew Mattalia, we really appreciate your insight and expertise. I'm sure throughout the course of this investigation we'll be talking to you again soon, but right now we wish you the best. Have a great day Thank you so much. All right, everybody, we are going to take a quick commercial break on the other side of that. We are going to get into some other newsmaking headlines across Florida, but this is going to remain a huge part of our coverage throughout the day. Like we said, we've got two different reporters working different storylines, and we are actually going to later on play for you some employee accounts of what happened. Some of them talking Talking with Ariel and Kylie on scene, others comfortable posting on social media. A little bit of what they saw yesterday. So we'll get back to this towards the end of our show. But right now, we're going to continue with some different news coverage when we return. Welcome back into Fox Tampa Bay Live, almost 11:30 here on the East Coast, and we are following another. Deadly aircraft crash in Florida. This is footage from the Coast Guard saying one person is dead and two others are injured after a helicopter crash in Biscayne Bay. And it's another incident that has people asking questions about aviation safety. It really does seem like we've been hearing about a lot of different small aircraft and helicopter crashes more and more lately. So is there actually a trend here or are these incidents getting more attention? So joining us live to continue this conversation is Ron Alvarado, a pilot and former Marine One commander to help us break it all down. Ron, first of all, thank you for your service and thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. How are you doing today? Doing very well, thank you for having me. Of course, I wish it were under better circumstances. But I wanna talk about this helicopter crash because it happened yesterday. We were in breaking news coverage here on Tampa Bay Live. But I mean, when you hear of something like this and you look at this footage, what went through your mind? What stands out to you about what happened? Well, this was an accident that occurred very quickly, obviously the pilot didn't plan on flying into the water. But I do believe that weather was a factor, that's the first thing that came to my mind. And also, this R44, it's a smaller helicopter, single pilot, very capable. There's about 5,000 that have been made all over the world. But when I heard that there was weather in the area, this pilot could have suffered spatial disorientation. And something to keep in mind is when you're flying over the water, it is very hard to distinguish depth perception. So if you're looking down at the water from a helicopter or any aircraft, it is hard to distinguish if you're at five feet or 500 feet. So if this pilot was yanking and banking, taking video. With his fellow crew members, it is easy to quickly impact the water and I hope that's not what happened here, but the investigators will find out what occurred. I wanna talk about, I feel like when we hear of something like this, oftentimes the make model, the type of aircraft it was, is obviously investigated. I know this was a Robinson R44, three people on board. So I guess, what can you tell us about this type of helicopter? Does that matter a lot in this investigation? Well, it's actually a very safe helicopter made in Torrance, California, and they've been producing helicopters, this one specifically, since 1991. So the R-22 is a trainer helicopter, fits two people. The R44 fits four people, it's a piston engine helicopter, six cylinder, and it's very safe. However, they are involved in a lot of accidents, 63 over the last several years. The reason being is because it. It's such a economical helicopter to buy that you have novice pilots, pilots with not a lot of experience, not a lot of flight hours. And experience will keep you from doing something amateur, if you will, inside the cockpit there. So I'm not pointing any fingers, not speculating anything about this pilot. But all I'm saying is, in this helicopter, there are usually a lot of associated accidents because of the Inexperience in the pilots flying the helicopter. And we obviously don't know what caused this crash yet. And you make a lot of great points. I do wanna preface for people who did not know prior to this interview that the helicopter was in the area filming boats before it went down, according to reports. But what are some of the first things, Ron, that investigators will be looking at here? Well, there are three elements that the NTSB and the FAA investigators will be looking at. The first one is going to be meteorological, so the weather. They're going to be looking at the weather, and as mentioned, there were storms rolling through. We're going to go through this. Visibility could have been an issue, but the investigators will look at that. The second is going to be human factors, so the pilot. They're going to look at the pilot's training records, amount of hours, background. Thank They might look at his health, physical, etc. The third element that the investigators will be looking at is the aircraft, the systems of the aircraft. you They'll be looking at maintenance records, they'll be looking at was there any recall items, any items very or defects that are associated with this type of airframe. So those are the three elements that the investigators will be looking at initially. much. Ron, I can't believe we are even able to do this, but I do also want to talk to you about that horrific plane crash that happened in West Palm Beach. Everything you just said, I feel like I already know because I have just asked experts what- Investigations like this look like when you talk about we've been getting more and more increments of information as the days have gone on. Here's a look at that scene from earlier, massive crater in the road. But not even really a scene anymore because of how rough the impact was. And the most recent update that struck me was that they found a part of the tail located really far, like miles away from the impact crater, which was an indication the plane was likely breaking up before it hit the ground. Is that. I don't know how to word this, is that usual? If you're descending at that speed, would the plane start to break apart? What did you think of when you heard that? Well, obviously, it's a horrible way to die. And unfortunately, the pilots knew this was a unrecoverable situation. And this aircraft, this Learjet 60, was in an overspeed condition. So how did that happen? Right now, they're suspecting weather, they're suspecting icing. I've got friends who fly Learjets, and they've seen me on TV already. And they said, hey, you might wanna think about this, think about that. We can't really speculate anything until the investigators are done concluding. Bringing all the factors together, but the jet departed flight, in other words, it lost lift and it was essentially screaming for the Earth. It was in excess of 400 knots, it departed flight and because it was in an overspeed condition, there were parts of the aircraft that came apart. It was structurally. Coming apart because this airframe was not rated to perform in those type of circumstances in that type of a situation. So therefore, the first thing that departed was more than likely the horizontal stabilizer, the elevator. And once that occurs, recovery is almost impossible. Yeah, you just- We have covered several plane crashes over the course of the last few months. And I mean, I mean, it's, it's. is this because it's getting more media attention? Have you as an aviation expert now feel like there's been a lot more crashes than usual? Walk me through what a lot of people are thinking is, why is this happening? And are we really seeing more plane crashes these days and helicopter After crashes. Well, unfortunately, you're correct. I do believe there have been a lot of aviation accidents and I think it has to do with accessibility. I believe that a lot of Americans are doing very, very well with the top. Earners obviously doing very, very well, so they have access to private jets, they have access to helicopters. So therefore, there are more people in the skies, even airliners are doing very well throughout the world, even though fuel costs are very expensive. So there are more people flying and therefore statistically there's going to be incidents like this that do occur. And also think about this, a lot of senior pilots are retiring, a lot of military pilots Like myself, I've retired from the airlines, retired from the military. There are a lot of airline pilots retiring. So therefore, who's gonna fill those ranks? The military does not produce pilots like they used to. During Vietnam, during all the wars, they produced hundreds and thousands of pilots who immediately went to the airlines or flew corporate jets. And that market is going away because we don't have the experience anymore. So I believe the accessibility to airframes, to jets and aircraft, By people who have the money to pay for these type of assets and then also the lack of experience in the skies. I do believe that there are a lot of young pilots and even pilots moving up the rank. They might not have the experience that Bruce is required to fly high performance jet aircraft like the Learjet 16. Yeah, and I mean for someone watching these headlines, I know and no matter what the situation The situation is we always stress that. Even though it seems like it's happening more and more often, it is still very rare. But for someone watching, you know, all of this coverage right now of these different aircraft crashes and might be getting a little hesitant to fly, what would your best advice be, especially coming from someone like you? I would recommend just do your homework, if you're going to fly a corporate charter company, do your research. Look at the background of the pilots if you're able, look at the web page. Same with the airlines. Typically, American owned airlines are very, very safe. And that's because the airliners that we're flying are smarter than sometimes human beings. Human beings are up there in the aircraft, up in the flight deck to monitor the systems. And I was telling my wife the other day, jets will tell you if you're messing up, it'll wake you up and say, what are you doing? And the alarms and bells will go off to remind the pilot, hey, get back to your job. That is with airliners. Now, a lot of aircraft that are being flown today, they're older corporate jets, older helicopters, they don't have the advanced systems that these modern jets do have. But for the flying public, they should be Be aware that it is very, very safe to fly. In our skies and if you're going to fly corporate, just do your homework. If you're going to fly private again, investigate or look at the background of the pilots and inspect what you expect is what I always say. Absolutely. Ron Alvarado, we really appreciate all of your insight and expertise. So we could do a whole segment just on you alone. I know that as a Marine One commander, you were responsible for flying the president around. So we really appreciate having you on and talking about a scary time, but also reassuring us that that flying really is and can be safe. Thank you so much. We will talk to you again soon. Have a wonderful day, Ron. Thank you, Susan. Have a good day. All right, well, everyone, we are going to continue on on Fox Tampa Bay Live after this next commercial break, heading out to DeSoto County, where residents are monitoring the Peace River. There's already active flooding as we speak for the last couple of days. We've gotten reports that people are taking kayaks to go, you know, so from house to house to try to get to dry land. So we're actually gonna touch base live with Fox 13's Kim Cuison, so she can give us a look at what's going on out there. All right, everyone, as promised, we are back here on Fox Tampa Bay Live, out to another big story that we are monitoring in the Tampa Bay area, the Peace River, expected to crest. Some time between tonight and tomorrow, as Jim was saying, it could possibly even crest tomorrow night. And overall, though, this could create a disaster for families in DeSoto County who live along the Peace River. So I want to waste no time. I'm heading out to Arcadia live right now, where FOX 13's Kim Cuison is joining us live via Zoom, I believe, with incredible women named Daphne and London, who have welcomed you onto their property to show you what they've How's it going out there? Yeah, Regina, so I actually met Daphne through her TikTok account. She's been posting a lot about what's been going on. And the reason why I saw her was they've been taking, if you can see behind me right here, a kayak and a john boat. So this should be a driveway that they're able to get up on their property. But it's clearly underwater, anywhere from 10 to about 17 feet of water here. I'm gonna go ahead and flip around the camera. So this This is Daphne and her daughter London, so this has been their mode of transportation. They have their cars parked up on higher ground and live in the country lifestyle. You kind of know the drill here. This is river life for you, for sure, this is quite the experience. For sure, it's a beautiful disaster. Yeah, Regina, that's perfectly phrased the way that they keep saying it. So we're gonna show you a little bit of their setup here because there's a chicken coop on property which is basically underwater now. Danny, go ahead and show us what you've been doing with the chickens. Now we got the chickens in a Rubbermaid container. We did three trips on the kayak to get 16. Chickens up to dry ground and they're just hanging out on the deck with everybody. And I think that's been the biggest challenge is the animals, especially the dogs, trying to get the dogs to tell them that they have to go potty on the patio. But the coop is out there. That's definitely, we got them just in time. My gosh, as a chicken mom, this warms my heart. You guys are the best chicken moms. Got to make sure they stay dry. So we were going to move around and show you some more, but I think I started to see that the signal was dropping out a little bit. Yeah, I can see all the stuff from underneath the house. We had a workshop underneath the house, Everything got caught in that hedge line. tools and everything, all the lumber. There's stuff properties away. We had to go get the kayak from three properties away. Yeah, and London, what's this been like for you too? Because the rain kind of came and then the water just started to come up. Yeah, so I wasn't in town for the first little bit, like the first two, three days. And it was crazy because my mom was sending me videos and it was like only a foot of water or so. And I come home and it's literally like. Probably 20 feet in some areas and it's crazy because just like how fast it came up. It's definitely what used to be like a one minute car ride to the end of the driveway is now a 10 minute kayak ride, so. Yeah, it is crazy too and you were telling me your husband at one point dove into the water. lost water and there's a pump underneath the house and he had to go up underneath the water and unplug something to plug it into higher ground. We had to plug it in up here actually so that we could get water back. Because the well runs on electricity, so without that, we wouldn't have water. I mean, we have plenty of water, as you see, but. Yeah, and that's crazy. When, Daphne in London, when was the last time it flooded like this? Is it a hurricane? Does this happen regularly? Hurricane Ian was the last time it flooded and then since then the house was actually raised seven feet. There was four feet of water in the house during Ian. Wow. So that was the last time it flooded out here. Yeah, and Regina, it's kind of interesting to note too. One of the neighbors across the way actually built a raised- They built a raised golf cart path. So it comes right out of their house and goes up to the road, straight across the road so that everybody can, they can get out with their stuff. Wow. And they don't have to boat like we do. Yeah. It seems like you have to get- We've made it fun. Yeah. I got obviously the flamingo raft. So I guess. Is it a thing to ask you how far or how many neighbors of yours, how many miles of people are affected by this in your area? Well, we're probably about four to five miles away from Peace River Campground, and I would say there's a house every three to five acres, so however many houses you want to say that is, plus you've got the other side of the river, which I hear is worse on the other side. Mm-hmm. And, uh... Peace River Campground is shut down right now. Yeah, and actually, when I drove through 72 to get to you all, the Peace River campground, there's those food trucks over there. There were food trucks still on the little last patch of dry land serving up food. Yeah, it's really crazy, Regina. I mean. Everyone here kind of knows the drill too. Yeah, it is part of living on the river. If you wanna live and this is to be your lifestyle, this is part of what comes with the territory. And I wanna correct myself because Jim Weber, our meteorologist, did say that the Peace River is supposed to crest tomorrow night. So I guess my question now is, as that's slowly happening, is the water gonna continue to rise? Could this be it? What do you guys expect to happen over the next 24 hours? Well, I've been counting it by steps. If you see the steps over there, when we first started, it was to, you know, at the platform when I first started videoing and now it's to almost to the ninth step. So that's, I'm going to suspect it goes up another step. Okay. That's how I, in girl measurements, it's going to go up another step. You know what, that's- And she did post a video of herself down there too, where just barely your fingertips were sticking out. I submerged myself to the ground and- Put my arms up and you can see how deep it is down there. My God, so now have you been able, I'm assuming have you used these kayaks to go? Have you been able to go and get groceries and at least get out of there? We did that yesterday. We went and got supplies. We took the kayak up to the road up higher where we have our cars and went into town and got all the things that we needed. And then Put it on the boat and came on back. Do you feel, ladies, that a lot of your neighbors, did anybody ever evacuate or since you guys have dealt with this before? I don't think anybody did. I think everybody just hunkers down out here. Yeah. Everybody just hunkers down. Nobody wants to leave their spots. You gotta be, you wanna know what's going on at all times. Yeah. And the house is on stilts, allow you to do that too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, definitely being raised up is where it's at. Well, ladies, we so appreciate you showing us around. Our hearts are with you. And anything else you want people watching this to know who may not be familiar with this area? Anything you want viewers to know right now? And also anything anybody can do to help people living in this area? I mean, I guess, I mean, because we do have access to dry land, it doesn't make it as horrible. I mean, you just gotta be careful, watch out for the red ants, for sure. The fire ants that are floating are insane. That would be, I mean, over the gators, over anything else, the water, I would say that the fire ants are the worst because they come in these huge rafts of just fire ants. And they will tear you, they will destroy you. That's a really good point. They do anything they can to get to higher ground. So the fire ants would, I would have to say, be one of the worst parts about this. Does anything, now I know you just said fire ants, but does anything creepy crawly swim in this river, slithery? Do you have to worry about that too? There's all the things. Last night we saw an armadillo go by. And there's been some No gators, we haven't seen any gator grounds ever now, a lot more river to sit in. But we saw some alligator bar the other day over there. There's definitely water moccasins, gators, there's a lot of different things. Wow, well ladies, we are so grateful for you. Thank you so much, I'm Kim Daphne London. For coming on our show, please stay safe out there. We appreciate you all and we'll talk to you guys again soon, Kim, I'm assuming you're in your boots. Bye. Bye. Actually, I'm in flip-flops right now, the boots, I only am using the boots for the fire. Smart. I saw those mail pass me yesterday. Be careful. Yeah. They're no joke. No joke at all. My gosh. All right, well, we love you guys. Stay safe out there. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Boy, wow, that was some visuals of that and you know what, that's the whole purpose of our show. Shout out to Kim just flipping the zoom around and shout out to Daphne in London for welcoming her onto their property. Kim is gonna continue that coverage and have more on that story throughout the course of the day. So stay tuned for that. We're gonna take our last quick commercial break of the hour and we'll be with you after that. Welcome back to Fox Tampa Bay Live, everyone. As we wrap up our coverage, in the beginning, we spent a lot of time trying to bring you the latest developments on the deadly Citibank campus shooting that happened in Brandon yesterday. And I mentioned that we were in touch with an employee who she, for very obvious reasons, did not want to do a live interview, but was very sweet enough to give us permission to share some of the videos she posted on TikTok. Explaining her recounts of everything that happened. It is 15 minutes long, we are obviously not gonna have time for that. But I wanted to let you listen to it for just a little bit to just even grasp what this was like for some of these folks. Same time I'm like telling people run, there's a shooter, run, there's a shooter. And I'm running down the hallway to where the elevators are. I noticed a lot of people weren't. Running, moving, and in a lot of those situations, it's a very big place. There's a lot of people. You can hear something over here and not hear it over here because there's so many things. I didn't even hear the car crash. I didn't hear people screaming. One of my coworkers said she heard someone screaming and stood up and then heard me say that there was a shooter. Then that's what made her run. But she heard screaming and was like, wait, what's that noise? I didn't hear that. And she was like a little few rows down from me, so I'm like, it's a big place. You can't hear absolutely everything and see everything. Okay, so you can't hear everything everywhere you are, right? Like I said, I pulled the fire alarm, which got people getting up, which another coworker of mine told me she didn't hear anything. She didn't hear the screaming. She didn't hear me, which I thought was crazy because I was screaming. What do you mean? She didn't hear or see anything, but the fire alarm made her get up and leave, which at one point I was like, should I have pulled it? Because I didn't want people to think it was just a fire alarm. I don't know, I just was trying to save everyone. You know what I mean? That was my thought, I'm not gonna sit here and literally protect you guys. But I'm gonna run and try to protect as many people as I can. Because I clearly have kids and I have a husband. I can't just survive, protect everyone, but that was just my thought. As my mind running while thinking all this, I pulled the fire alarm. Pulled the doors open and I immediately start running down the stairs. And at the time I was running a female coworker of mine and a male coworker of mine were running alongside. All right, so like I said, this clip in total is about almost 15 minutes long. But Stephanie here saying that she was headed down to the cafeteria, saw the commotion happening outside, heard that there was a shooter on campus, This actually pulled the fire alarm to To try to get her co-workers out of the building. So these are just the stories that are coming out. 3200 employees that are now going to have to, you know, find a way to decompress. They have the rest of the week off. We are actively trying to figure out how Citibank is handling this and our coverage of this is going to continue throughout the day.