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CNN Live At Daybreak

The Coming Storm: Hurricane Season Underway

Aired June 03, 2002 - 05:48   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: This summer marks 10 years since Hurricane Andrew. Of course that storm turned out to be the costliest hurricane ever to hit the United States, at least so far. Hurricane season has kicked into high gear. It did that on Saturday.

And as CNN's John Zarrella reports, scientists are watching and waiting for the big one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heads up.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): When the big one is bearing down on you...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be one of the big natural disasters in our nation's history.

ZARRELLA: ... what will you do? If you stay to ride out the storm, will you live to cry about it? Do you have any idea the terror you will experience?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You ever heard the devil breathing down your neck?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had the devil here.

ZARRELLA: And the devil is coming again, perhaps sooner than you think.

CHRIS LANDSEA, NOAA SCIENTIST: I think we will see a $50 billion hurricane in the next 10, 20 years. That's almost without a doubt.

ZARRELLA: The reason, during the past 50 years, the population living on or near the coast from Maine to Texas has nearly doubled to 83 million people. Coastal development has boomed. In 20 years, property value has increased six fold to more than $6 trillion. And during the same period of exploding growth, major hurricanes rarely hit the U.S.

BILL GRAY, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY: I think this is a powder keg waiting to go off.

ZARRELLA: Now after 30 years of relative quiet in the tropics, scientists say the climate has cycled back to an era of more frequent, powerful hurricanes. And in the U.S., at least 85 percent of the people living in harm's way have never experienced a major hurricane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people do not really know what a major hurricane can do and that really concerns me.

ZARRELLA: Max Mayfield (ph) directs the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's why we were agonizing here over...

ZARRELLA: Mayfield (ph) overseas a team of forecasters. The tools of their trade: orbiting satellites, hurricane hunter aircraft,...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) copy (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZARRELLA: ... computer models.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guidance shows tracks in all direction.

ZARRELLA: Forecasters can track a storm across the ocean. They can tell when it becomes a hurricane.

(on camera): But two of the most critical questions, questions that may mean the different between saving thousands of lives or losing them they simply can't answer with confidence -- where exactly is the hurricane going and how powerful will it be when it gets there?

(voice-over): Because of this uncertainty, the forecasters worry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it's moving very slowly.

ZARRELLA: Worry they will be caught off guard,...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tropical storm warning for Belize.

ZARRELLA: ... ambushed,...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's definitely becoming much better organized.

ZARRELLA: ... as they were by Hurricane Keith. In a mere 12 hours, it morphed from a weak hurricane to a brute killer, then it slammed into Belize in Central America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If that had happened anywhere along the United States coastline, it would have been a disaster.

ZARRELLA: The ingredients are all there.

MICHELE BAKER, EMERGENCY MANAGER: People ignoring the evacuation order, the cry wolf syndrome, insufficient transportation network, shelter deficit, you name it, these things are all compounding. When you put that on top of this population explosion in the coastal areas, we're building a case for catastrophe, no question about it.

ZARRELLA: John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Having heard that, are you ready for the coming storm? Make sure to catch CNN's series of special reports this week on "Hurricane: When the Big One Hits."

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