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CNN Live At Daybreak

Dresden Braces for More Water

Aired August 16, 2002 - 05:32   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Those flood waters from the Czech Republic are flowing into neighboring Germany, so the situation there is just getting worse by the hour. The city of Dresden is bracing for more rising water.
CNN's Jim Boulden joins us by phone from Dresden with the latest -- Jim.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson.

Yes, the Dresden residents woke up this morning to a sight that no resident here has ever seen. The water has broken all records. It broke the record from 1845. It's now 29 feet high and it's rising about an inch to an inch and a half every hour.

I can tell you that firemen are screaming up and down the roads. We've got dump trucks full of sand going up and down the roads. Volunteers are moving sand bags to areas where they think they might be able to stop this river as it continues to rise. Unfortunately, it's now going into the basements of some of the very historic buildings here in Dresden. As some of your viewers probably know, Dresden was leveled during WWII. It was part of the old East Germany. But after reunification in 1990, a lot of money was spent on restoring the baroque buildings. And many of those buildings, which are still under renovation, are now facing some serious damage by the water -- Anderson.

COOPER: How is it, how bad is it getting around in the city, I mean, for you right now?

BOULDEN: Well, oddly enough, if you go two or three blocks into the city, it's normal for the most part. Cafes are open, restaurants are open. But the issue is you have a lot of emergency vehicles running around the streets, a lot of, 10 or 12 cars in a convoy, 10 or 12 fire trucks in a convoy and they are screaming up and down this road, moving very quickly.

They've also closed several of the bridges. Just a half an hour ago, one of the main bridges over the Elbe River was closed. It was quite a tense situation as they were quickly moving people off that bridge. So there are parts of the city that continue to close down. Other parts, of course, continue to evacuate just for precautions, because they're not sure when this river is going to crest.

COOPER: All right, Jim Boulden, thanks very much.

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