The Coast Guard Commander for the Atlantic Coast was in Clearwater Saturday for a plane tour of Hurricane Matthew damage.
- Coast Guard surveyed FL/GA coastline Saturday
- Vice Admiral says 'Florida was quite lucky'
- Crews are mobilizing in Miami now preparing to help
"It’s important to come down here and get the eyes on and make sure we are fully supporting our coast guard entities so they can support various fronts and we have good visibility for the states involved,” Vice Admiral Karl Schultz said.
The crew left the Clearwater Coast Guard station on a C-130 and headed to Daytona. From there, the plane dropped to 1,000 feet and surveyed the damage on the Florida and Georgia coasts.
"They will feed that information back to the Coast Guard district in Miami and they have folks there coming in behind us to figure out what needs to be done,” Schultz said.
The plane traveled as far as Brunswick, Georgia before having to turn around because of the high winds caused by Hurricane Matthew.
"We were up to about 80 knot winds and the visibility got down to zero, that’s when they decided to turn back and do assessments along the Georgia and Florida coast,” Schultz said.
The crew surveyed submerged docks, damaged homes and high waters along the coast, but Schultz said the damage wasn’t as bad as expected.
"I think Florida was quite lucky in terms of damage,” Schulz said.