October 6th a Thursday afternoon hours before Ft Lauderdale - Miami area was suppose to feel the effects of the category 4 Hurricane Matthew, I receive a call from my New York Photo Agent Verbatim. CNN wanted me to cover the Hurricane Matthew from South Beach, Florida and I needed to book a room and get down there ASAP. So quickly, I found a suite with kitchen at the W hotel with a oceanfront balcony view ,so I could capture the storm from a cool vantage point. I sent all the info to the client and they approved it, so I was just about to head down to South Beach just as the first bands were reaching us... then I get a call from CNN that I needed to change directions and head North. I recall my original conversation saying that I should head North originally, but now it was to late in the game to do a 180 degree turn and still be Safe.
I quickly headed north to the beach before they closed the roads at 3pm and I would supposedly be trapped in my neighborhood without the shoot. Driving down to the beach it was like a ghost town just a few cars out on the road (mostly news trucks) and no one outside...very erie! As I get prime parking at commercial pier to photograph the waves hammering the pier I start to see the first signs of life... a group of people having a hurricane party tucked into a sheltered nook of the Aruba Restaurant that was closed. Closer to the beach I saw the brave few taking selfies and catching the huge surf enjoying mother nature's pounding rain and wind. I traveled up A1A to Pompano Pier where I found a mother and son who wanted to see the beach, but got caught in torrential rain and a few people walking their dogs... I guess Nature was really calling!
Made it home just as it was getting dark so I can upload my images to the CNN newsdesk while I still had power and internet. Around 6 pm I received a call from CNN to see if I could goto Melbourne tonight ;-) ... I explained that wasn't going to happen because it would be to dangerous to travel without having shelter prearranged, put I would wake up at 4am to head on up for sunrise at 7am. 4 am arrives and the Hurricane was just reaching the area and I had to wait an extra hour so I would have a little bit of daylight when I reached the Melbourne area for the morning deadlines.
My car was my shelter and work area for the rest of the day’s I could be on location. I didn’t know if I would be in the area covering the destruction for days or just a few hours. I was prepared, as a Eagle Scout should be, I had water, swiss army knife, extra cloths, Red Bull and every adapter to plug in all the computer and camera in my car. I wasn’t realy sure what I would find on my drive up US-1 north to Melbourne and beyond. I was torn emotionally between being happy it didn’t look like Hurricanne Andrew (which I was in FLA for) and it didn’t look like Hurricane Andrew. I was happy most people made it through the storm, but that lack of disaters make harder to find subject matter to shoot.
The worst hit of the area I was traveling was closer to Daytona Beach. I was slowly getting closer to and catching up to the eye there. In the town of Live Oak, US-1 was down to one lane because of all the fallen trees and the storm was intensifying as I drove towards it. Just before I had to turn around because I wasn’t to far from the Storm Eye and the weather was getting worst I found this trailer park that 50% of the homes were damaged. Trailer parks always seem to have the most destruction in any storm and this was no exception. I was happy that I didn’t see mass devastation like I saw in 1992 during Hurricane Andrew.
Man of my images through out the day were featured on CNN.com landing page and Flash banners. It was a interesting assignment that I got to break in my new car and camera with some extreme elements!
