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CNN Live Saturday

28 Texas Counties Declared Federal Disaster Area

Aired June 09, 2001 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has declared 28 counties in southeast Texas a federal disaster area, after deadly flooding. The remnants of tropical storm Allison have dumped more than two feet of rain on the region since Tuesday. In Houston, roads are washed out, and in many cases, helicopters and even boats have swept in to lift people off the roofs of their houses and cars. The floodwaters have played havoc with emergency operations.

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MAYOR LEE BROWN, HOUSTON, TEXAS: Our fire department is holding over its shift to make sure we have plenty of people to respond to the problem that exists today. In this area, we have about 30 hospitals. Eight hospitals are closed, and no ambulance or pedestrian traffic is being taken at our medical center. The reason is that there's no power.

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SAVIDGE: Mayor Brown says that one person in a bank in downtown Houston died as a result of the flooding. As many as 17,000 families have been forced to leave their homes.

Taking a look now at the weather situation not just there at the moment, but in the future, Jacqui Jeras joins us -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not looking good, Martin, unfortunately. We are talking about more torrential downpours.

The worst of it came into the Houston area through the overnight, where you had a good 10 to 11 inches of rain. As you take a look at our current picture off our Doppler radar you can see mainly the south side of town still getting the rain. Though it is light to moderate showers right now, the heaviest is off to the east of there, but travel will be treacherous. Parts of I-45 and I-10 are closed.

We are also looking for heavy rain in parts of Louisiana, especially south central parts of the state. In New Orleans, you can see those thunderstorms to the south there, heading right in your direction, so we are looking at problems in that area as well.

Now, flash flood warnings remain in effect for the Houston area, as well as Lake Charles and flash flood watches in effect for much of Eastern Texas and southern Louisiana.

Now, this storm system has been sitting here and spinning for five days. Why haven't we been able to get rid of it? Well, our jet stream pattern -- you can see the jet stream is way up to the north. So, the upper-level winds on top of this system are very, very light. Low pressure storm systems rotate counterclockwise, so it will continue to pump in all of that moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and until we get a good steering mechanism here, that means torrential rain will continue.

Now, we have been seeing some drifting of this low to the south. And that's actually a concern, because it's about 50 miles away from the coastline right now. If it continues to drop in that direction, we're talking about the potential for this to reinvigorate and strengthen again, if it gets over those warm gulf waters.

SAVIDGE: All right, we'll keep in close touch with you. Thank you, Jacqui.

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