Anderson Cooper, was struck by an unidentified object while covering Hurricane Milton in Bradenton, Florida.
CNN, like numerous other networks, dispatched a portion of its staff to report on the storm while standing outside, despite the torrential rain and violent wind surges.
The practice is consistent with a long-standing tradition of exposing reporters to danger in order to report on one of the most potent phenomena in nature.
“The wind has really picked up. The water’s really moving. You can get a sense of just how fast the wind is moving there. You can see it in the light there. It is now just whipping off the Manatee River. It’s coming from kind of the north, I guess northeast. And the water now is really starting to pour over. If you look at the graph–whoa!” Cooper said.
The moment Anderson Cooper gets hit by flying debris in Bradenton, FL.
WTF 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/2mrLbQpgGZ— Nick Danger, Third Eye 🕵️♂️ (@Farjar138) October 10, 2024
“Ok, that wasn’t good. I’ll probably go inside shortly. But you can see the amount of water here on the ground. This is water from the Manatee River. It’s also water coming from the land as well.” he continued.
Cooper was conducting a live strike shortly after Milton made landfall, shortly after 9 p.m. ET.
Cooper is not the first correspondent to be struck by an object while reporting in the midst of a storm. Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was struck by a tree branch in 2022 while reporting on Hurricane Ian.
While covering Hurricane Florence in 2018, a correspondent in Houston was struck by sheet metal.
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