Cameraman Drops Camera to Run to Help People Fleeing Hurricane Ian
An Australian camera operator covering Hurricane Ian in Naples, Florida, on September 28, dropped his camera in the middle of a live cross and ran to help families fleeing the storm.
During the live coverage for Australian breakfast show Sunrise, on Channel 7, cameraman Glen Ellis noticed a family struggling to carry their belongings through rising floodwaters in the background of his shot.
Ellis is seen running into the floodwaters to assist, as the camera continues to roll.
Sunrise host David Koch can be heard through the live cross asking if everything is OK.
7NEWS US correspondent Tim Lester confirmed the crew was fine, adding that it is “an enormous storm”.
“We’re 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 moving away from their homes,” Lester says.
“We’ve spoken to a couple of them and they tell us that already that their houses have been lost in the water.
“They have flooded right through and they have had to abandon them."
The National Hurricane Center said Ian had developed into an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane on September 28. The National Weather Service warned of extreme flooding and potential winds up to 110 mph in the area. Credit: Sunrise via Storyful
Video Transcript
- A hurricane is to Americans what cyclones are to Australians, isn't it? But this one is as big as Florida, that is massive.
TIM LESTER: Keep going. Are you OK? It's an enormous storm here. No fine. We're just helping some people through the water here.
That's our camera operator, Glenn Ellis out there, I think you can see, trying to help people who are wading away from their homes. We've 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, they've just had no other way of doing it.
But they're trying to get out. And obviously what we've got here is relatively high ground. So we're lucky enough to be able to talk to you. And this is a place where people in Naples, Florida are now coming to try to get away from the water essentially.
- Tim, have those people got anywhere to go? Is there an evacuation center nearby? Is Naples and the whole state set up for this?
TIM LESTER: Well, in fact, the state is. But the problem they've got is that water like this quickly isolates patches of land, like the one we're on. We're on essentially a little block with a service station on it.
And people, if they get to here, can't necessarily get off and go anywhere. I'm not even sure we're going to be doing a lot of moving, we're just a bit tangled up with our courts there. Good job Glenn. Glenn rushing out there and helping some people in.
