In videos posted to social media, WESH2 reporter Tony Atkins can be seen wading through floodwaters in a street and removing a woman who was stuck in her car. Atkins then carries the woman on his back while holding her purse out of the waist-deep floodwaters.
When Atkins eventually reaches a safe area, he is seen letting the woman down on the ground and giving her purse back.
Tom Durian of TMJ4 News shared a clip on Twitter and wrote: “Hats off to former @tmj4 News reporter @TonyAtkinsTV for his heroic efforts this morning near Orlando rescuing a nurse stranded in her car by flood waters.”
The video comes shortly after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm, bringing widespread property damage, flash flooding and heavy rainfall.
On Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center downgraded Ian to a tropical storm.
“Tropical-storm-force winds are expected to spread northward across northeastern Florida, Georgia, and the Carolina coasts through Friday,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update. “Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flooding, with major to record river flooding, will continue today across portions of central Florida with considerable flooding in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and eastern South Carolina expected today through the end of the week.”
Prior to being downgraded to a tropical storm, Ian brought wind speeds of over 130 miles per hour and heavy rainfall that resulted in widespread flooding.
While speaking with ABC’s Good Morning America on Thursday, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno spoke about possible deaths caused by the hurricane and said: “While I don’t have confirmed numbers, I definitely know fatalities are in the hundreds.”
“There are thousands of people that are waiting to be rescued…this will be a life-changing event for the men and women who are responding. They’re going to see things they’ve never seen before,” Marceno added.
On Atkins’ rescue of the woman, WESH2 reported that the reporter and other crew members were aware of how deep the flood waters were, and noted that “it is extremely dangerous to drive through floodwaters and should not be attempted.”
One of Atkins’ WESH2 colleagues, Marlei Martinez, applauded the rescue and said: “Incredible. I also love how he carried her purse the whole way too.”
Newsweek reached out to Atkins and WESH2 news for further comment.
Dozens of photos and videos showing the widespread flooding and property damage from Hurricane Ian were posted on social media.
“We were in the eye wall of Cat. 4 #Hurricane #Ian for over 5 hours and the back side was the worst. I haven’t experienced anything close to this in over 30 years,” Mike Seidel of the Weather Channel tweeted.
Twitter user BirdingPeepWx shared a time-lapse video of Hurricane Ian impacting Florida’s Sanibel Island, with floodwaters quickly filling the streets.
