A weather reporter was struck by a tree branch while attempting to report on Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda, Florida, with the difficult task of standing, due to the strong winds caused by the storm.
Jim Cantore, a reporter for the Weather Channel, is known for his live-from-the-scenes reports of some of the worst weather in America, and on Wednesday, Southwest Florida was certainly one of his destinations.
Moments after Hurricane Ian made landfall, Cantore was making a report from Punta Gorda, about 20 miles away across the harbor from Charlotte.
Video shared by BNO News showed several storm chasers and weather reporters on the scene, but at one point, a fast-moving tree branch flew up and tripped Cantore.
“You know what, I think I’m just going to stop here for a second,” Cantore said on the Weather Channel broadcast as he struggled to hold on to a street sign. “Just give me a second. I’m fine,” he assured.
According to the broadcast, winds at that location were gusting to 110 mph. Images showed other branches continuing to fly across the intersection, along with at least one street sign that had been blown down by the wind.
“You just can’t stand up,” Cantore snorted, throwing himself back into the studio.
Local emergency managers told residents to evacuate the Punta Gorda area, which also took a direct hit from Hurricane Charley in 2004.
Reporters in the midst of Hurricane Ian
This is not the only reporter who has made the news during the coverage of Hurricane Ian in Florida, and it is that a journalist from South Florida caused a stir on social networks when she broadcast the arrival of the storm live and decided to cover her microphone with a condom to “protect the equipment”.
Kyla Galer, a reporter and anchor for NBC2 in Fort Myers, where Hurricane Ian made landfall today in category 4, broadcast live from outside and with a condom covering her microphone, for which several viewers began to send her messages on her social network accounts.
Unlike Charley, Hurricane Ian was a much larger storm, just shy of Category 5, the most powerful classification for storms. Destructive flooding from storm surge had already inundated Naples and other nearby coastal communities, with parts of central Florida expecting up to 2 feet of rain as the storm moved through the state.