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Hurricane Isidore: Sustained Winds Now Clocked at 105 MPH

Aired September 20, 2002 - 12:20   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Gaining strength and speed, Hurricane Isidore is on a collision course with Cuba. In fact, its winds already are buffeting one small island. Residents are busy stocking up, boarding up, and tying boats down.
Keeping watch on Isidore's every move, the folks at the National Hurricane Center, and that's where we find our Miami bureau chief, John Zarrella.

He's probably got a cot there already, right John?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, I can tell you right now they've just come out with the latest forecast. A little bit of good news right now for the United States in that the watches for the Florida Keys that were issued yesterday have been discontinued. That's discontinued. They do not expect any tropical storm-force wins, maybe a little bit of sqaully weather, but nothing of any significance down in the Keys now, and the reason for that is that Isidore is beginning to pull a little bit more to the left, in other words to the west and they believe in the next couple of days, very, very slow movement. The storm will probably be in the southeastern or south central Gulf of Mexico, even as we enter next week into Monday.

But Cuba is getting pounded right now. We can take a look at the actual radar coming out of Havana, Cuba there, and you can see how all of those strong rain bands are just coming in over Cuba. They expect upwards of at least 20 inches of rain because the storm is only moving at 8 miles an hour. And storm surge of 8 to 10 feet on the southern side of the island there, where you can see the eye -- the eye wall spinning around there and the storm is expected to pass over the western tip of Cuba later on this evening and then re-emerge into the Gulf of Mexico some time tomorrow and by Sunday they expect Isidore to have sustained winds upwards of 120 miles an hour gusts of course would be stronger than that.

Right now winds sustained at 105 and this hurricane, forecasters, Miles, they say, is the real deal, not a lot of this other trash, as they call it, that we have seen during the course of the last couple of years. Small -- a lot of small storms that have threatened the United States. This is potentially a major hurricane. Folks need to be wary and watchful of this storm.

Now, tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. CNN presents "Hurricane: When the Big One Hits." It's a one hour documentary, deals with everything from evacuations to sheltering, where you are going to go if you live anywhere on the Gulf of Mexico side of the United States, you probably need to watch -- to watch this documentary. You're going to want to watch this documentary. If you don't get to see it tomorrow night, it reairs on Sunday at 7:00 and again at 11:00, those are Eastern times. And it gives you lots of information because there are some things out there that you may be thinking, Well I'm going to go to this shelter if we have a problem, but that shelter may not be opened. The evacuation route you may want to go on may be closed or clogged, so definitely worthwhile for anyone that lives from Texas to Florida to perhaps tune in for that documentary.

This is a major hurricane that in the next week could potentially threaten some place in the United States -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. The man we call Mr. Hurricane around here, John Zarrella thank you very much. We'll check in with you later as Isidore makes its progress toward our shores.

Next hour, we plan to take you live to Cuba for a firsthand report on the approaching storm from our Havana bureau chief, Lucia Newman. That's at 1:00 Eastern time. You'll want to tune in for that one.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 20, 2002 - 12:20   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Gaining strength and speed, Hurricane Isidore is on a collision course with Cuba. In fact, its winds already are buffeting one small island. Residents are busy stocking up, boarding up, and tying boats down.
Keeping watch on Isidore's every move, the folks at the National Hurricane Center, and that's where we find our Miami bureau chief, John Zarrella.

He's probably got a cot there already, right John?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, I can tell you right now they've just come out with the latest forecast. A little bit of good news right now for the United States in that the watches for the Florida Keys that were issued yesterday have been discontinued. That's discontinued. They do not expect any tropical storm-force wins, maybe a little bit of sqaully weather, but nothing of any significance down in the Keys now, and the reason for that is that Isidore is beginning to pull a little bit more to the left, in other words to the west and they believe in the next couple of days, very, very slow movement. The storm will probably be in the southeastern or south central Gulf of Mexico, even as we enter next week into Monday.

But Cuba is getting pounded right now. We can take a look at the actual radar coming out of Havana, Cuba there, and you can see how all of those strong rain bands are just coming in over Cuba. They expect upwards of at least 20 inches of rain because the storm is only moving at 8 miles an hour. And storm surge of 8 to 10 feet on the southern side of the island there, where you can see the eye -- the eye wall spinning around there and the storm is expected to pass over the western tip of Cuba later on this evening and then re-emerge into the Gulf of Mexico some time tomorrow and by Sunday they expect Isidore to have sustained winds upwards of 120 miles an hour gusts of course would be stronger than that.

Right now winds sustained at 105 and this hurricane, forecasters, Miles, they say, is the real deal, not a lot of this other trash, as they call it, that we have seen during the course of the last couple of years. Small -- a lot of small storms that have threatened the United States. This is potentially a major hurricane. Folks need to be wary and watchful of this storm.

Now, tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. CNN presents "Hurricane: When the Big One Hits." It's a one hour documentary, deals with everything from evacuations to sheltering, where you are going to go if you live anywhere on the Gulf of Mexico side of the United States, you probably need to watch -- to watch this documentary. You're going to want to watch this documentary. If you don't get to see it tomorrow night, it reairs on Sunday at 7:00 and again at 11:00, those are Eastern times. And it gives you lots of information because there are some things out there that you may be thinking, Well I'm going to go to this shelter if we have a problem, but that shelter may not be opened. The evacuation route you may want to go on may be closed or clogged, so definitely worthwhile for anyone that lives from Texas to Florida to perhaps tune in for that documentary.

This is a major hurricane that in the next week could potentially threaten some place in the United States -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. The man we call Mr. Hurricane around here, John Zarrella thank you very much. We'll check in with you later as Isidore makes its progress toward our shores.

Next hour, we plan to take you live to Cuba for a firsthand report on the approaching storm from our Havana bureau chief, Lucia Newman. That's at 1:00 Eastern time. You'll want to tune in for that one.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com