Irma bringing disruption, fear to millions in Florida: Varney
A biblical flood in Texas, and now a catastrophic and terrifying hurricane about to hit Florida. Unprecedented.
This is not some distant event. This is the whole state of Florida, and then perhaps Georgia and South Carolina. Millions of people are on the move, ordered out. It is indeed an exodus.
Think of the disruption here. I'm not talking about the economic effect. I'm talking about the impact on real people.
My daughter and her husband left their house in south Florida at midnight: pets, boat and all. They are trying to make it to Nashville. There's no way they will be back until at least the end of next week.
There are 20 million Floridians; there must be 100 million Americans who have family, friends or property down there. We are connected, personally, to this impending disaster.
Television brings home the terror of a monster hurricane. These days, there is video from the eye of the storm; there's video of thrashing palm trees, surging seas, as it happens. No wonder people look at it and decide to flee.
Super computers now track the storm with extraordinary accuracy. [Fox News meteorologist] Janice Dean was right when, three days before the flood, she predicted 25 inches of rain for Houston. And now, those same computer models let us know where Irma is headed, again with surprising accuracy. Last night, when Irma's track showed it ploughing up the entire state, that was the moment my daughter decided to leave.
We are a financial program, and we will try to figure out the cost of all this, and who pays for it. But at this moment, we're concentrating on people....the disruption of millions of lives and the fear that’s arrived for an entire state.
And I predict this: We will soon be bringing you stories about the American spirit. It is alive and well, in Florida.