Anderson Cooper was hit by hurricane debris during a live recording

Anderson Cooper was hit by flying debris during a live broadcast Wednesday while covering Hurricane Milton in Florida.

Reporting from the banks of the Manatee River in Bradenton, Florida, south of Tampa, the CNN anchor described the scene as fierce winds passed him and heavy rains drenched him and his gear.

“The water is really starting to flow now,” Cooper said as he trudged through the water flowing over the bank he was walking on.

“If you look at the ground, whoa…” he said, stopping abruptly as a white object smashed into his torso. “OK, that wasn’t good.”

The “Anderson Cooper 360” host resumed his reporting and noted that he will likely be going inside soon. “But you can see the amount of water here on the ground. This is water from the Manatee River.”

The footage was then edited into the CNN studio and “The Source” anchor Kaitlan Collins reassured viewers about her colleague.

“I want to tell all viewers who are obviously very worried about all of our correspondents and presenters on site that Anderson is doing well,” she said. “Of course it's understandably difficult to make the connection when you see what's happening with the wind and the rain. And of course conditions are getting worse by the minute.”

Cooper, who joined CNN in 2001, repeatedly reported from crisis scenes and spent much of September 2005 traveling to the Gulf Coast to deliver emotional reports on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's destruction.

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key — a barrier island near Sarasota — around 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. It left a path of destruction with waves up to 10 feet high and winds of 120 miles per hour that hit communities across the state, flooding homes, toppling trees and knocking out power to 3 million Floridians. Milton is the third hurricane to hit Florida this year; It comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene ripped through the rural Big Bend region in the state's panhandle and then moved on to Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, killing more than 230 people in several states.

As Milton left the coast and headed toward the Atlantic Ocean Thursday morning, it weakened to a Category 1 hurricane, but officials warned that much of the state's east coast was still at risk. In St. Petersburg, the hurricane tore off most of the roof from Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays. A construction crane was also pushed from the roof of a partially completed luxury high-rise onto an office building that houses the offices of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper.

Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie and intern Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.