CNN’s Anderson Cooper was hit by a flying object while covering Hurricane Milton Wednesday night in Bradenton, Florida.
The host of “Anderson Cooper 360°” was live on air just after 9 p.m. shortly after Milton made landfall, Mediaite reported.
“The wind has really picked up,” Cooper said. “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!”
Just when he said “woah,” the 57-year-old reporter was hit in the chest and face by a square object.
“OK, that wasn’t good,” he continued. “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.”
CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins assured viewers that Cooper was OK.
“I do want to note for everyone watching who is very concerned obviously about all of our correspondents and anchors on the ground, Anderson is OK,” Collins said, per People.
“Just obviously understandably difficult to establish a connection when you’re seeing what’s happening with the wind and the rain,” she said. “And obviously the deteriorating conditions by the minute.”
Other reporters in recent years have been injured covering weather-related events, according to Mediaite.
Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was covering Hurricane Ian in 2022 when he was hit by a tree branch.
A Houston reporter was hit by sheet metal while reporting on Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Many viewers turned to X, formerly Twitter, to express their concern for Cooper.
