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CNN Live At Daybreak

Lili Takes Aim

Aired October 03, 2002 - 06:00   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have dispatched several news teams all along the Gulf Coast to bring you coverage of this powerful hurricane. From Port Arthur, Texas east to New Orleans, we have crews standing by live.
We'll talk live with Ed Lavandera, Jeff Flock, Eric Philips, Kimberly Osias and DAYBREAK meteorologist Chad Myers.

In fact, it is in New Orleans with Chad where we begin our storm coverage this hour.

Chad has returned to his post of a week ago, and we can see it's still raining and windy there -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. It's still windy. In fact, Carol, if you look over there, you can see the banana palms over there. You can see the banana trees that are really blowing in the wind now. Right at Lakefront Airport, wind gusts of 52 miles per hour.

But I heard you say, and I heard Jacqui say, the tornado warning for New Orleans, I didn't hear a siren. No idea. If I wasn't watching CNN, I would have had no idea, although the storm now has moved up toward Metairie and also up toward Kenner, where the airport is, of course. Still, we literally had no idea that there was a tornado warning for the parish here.

Otherwise, let me show you what was going on yesterday. Folks were getting ready. They were in good spirits. They were throwing hurricane parties at the same time they were boarding up their windows, though. Hurricanes were $3, which is like half price. But otherwise, folks were kind of revelous (ph), I guess, but probably as they wake up this morning, they are seeing a storm that's a little bit more severe than they were thinking.

I was sitting at a TGI Friday's yesterday, which has now turned out to be my favorite hangout here in New Orleans, and I was talking to a couple of folks. And as we were watching Fox 8 News, a local news station here, the folks were saying -- the guys on TV were saying, "Look at this, the storm has turned to the right." The entire place was -- you could hear a pin drop as soon as we heard that the storm was turning to the right. And the goods news is, it didn't continue really to turn much more to the right, because the folks here at 7:00 last night literally had nowhere to go.

By nightfall, you can't evacuate New Orleans. It was just way too late. So I guess they were happy, and we're all happy of that. We're seeing winds now to about 60, maybe 65 knots here, especially if you get along Lake Pontchartrain to the west of there, because you have a long stretch of open water. But here in the city, we're talking about 35 miles per hour or so.

It's going to be a decent day here. And the producer was in my ear saying, you know, "What's it like?" And, Carol, you know what? It's better than standing in a snowstorm, because it's a lot warmer.

COSTELLO: That's very true.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: So, the big danger now is those tornado warnings. You know, you laugh about people holding hurricane parties, but they really should take cover.

MYERS: Yes. They should be taking cover, especially if you hear the warning siren. But the warning that was in effect for New Orleans expired at 6:00, and obviously, Jacqui Jeras -- or at the top of the hour, 5:00 local. Jacqui Jeras will have the latest for you there in Atlanta.

COSTELLO: OK. Thank you, Chad. You try to stay dry, although I think that's impossible now.

In the neighboring state of Texas, hurricane warnings are posted from just east of Galveston to the Louisiana border. Storm warnings have uprooted thousands of people from homes along the Gulf Coast.

Brad Watson of CNN affiliate WFAA has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRAD WATSON, CNN AFFILIATE WFAA REPORTER (voice-over): The stream of storm refugees from the Beaumont-Port Arthur area flowed into the night. The drive to flee Lili, a test of patience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was slow, packed. Yes, sometimes bumper to bumper -- everything.

WATSON: The aggravation magnified when people arrived to find all of Lufkin's 1,700 hotel rooms full.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to keep searching for maybe a little one on the side of the road.

WATSON: Some of those who got rooms booked them Monday, as Lili loomed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband is on dialysis, and if we lost power in Port Arthur, he wouldn't be able to go and have his dialysis.

WATSON: Hundreds of people made the trip north on Port Arthur School District's buses. Regardless of how they came, as these thousands of refugees swarmed into Lufkin, the city's emergency management team began opening 31 shelters in schools and churches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we're surprised. We haven't had this happen to us in about eight or nine years. It's been a long time since we had this many actually leave from the upper Texas coast.

WATSON: The First Christian Church of Lufkin took in 220, and started feeding them and checking on health needs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We open our churches and our hearts, and we make a home for them in Lufkin, Texas.

WATSON: Katrice Young (ph) of Port Arthur and her 4-year-old daughter came to the church, fearing the deadly storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a pretty big one. It's better than staying out there in Port Arthur near all of the water and getting flooded in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: A lot of people chose to stay instead of leave, though.

We want to go to Lake Charles, Louisiana now, where Ed Lavandera is standing by.

Ed -- what are things like there?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, actually things here, at least, are doing really well. We haven't really seen the brunt of this storm by any means.

We're along -- in Lake Charles here along Interstate 10, and this is where the Harrah's Riverboat Casino is. You might see it there in the background. That casino was shut down yesterday.

The winds are picking up slightly, nothing major to be honest. It's just a little bit of rain that you can see falling at this point.

We've been talking to emergency officials here in Lake Charles, who say that this storm -- they've been on conference calls with the state emergency's office, and they've been told that the storm has been downgraded, that the water surges won't be as bad as originally anticipated at this point.

So, that is obviously good news for many of the folks here in Lake Charles who have been boarding up windows and putting out sandbags at many of the businesses and homes in this area. And many of the businesses shut down early here yesterday, as folks made the -- were flocking to stores and packing up water and food and that sort thing, anticipating the worst of this storm.

Many of the communities that are south of Lake Charles along the Gulf Coast, many of those folks evacuated in many of those towns. We've spoken with officials down there, say they are about 85 percent empty, as many of the folks heeded the warnings and sought shelter. About two parishes north of here of Lake Charles, we heard reports of one shelter that has about 2,300 people in it this mornings, so the folks waiting out this storm as far north inland as possible, so a lot of people taking the warnings seriously.

Now the emergency officials here in Lake Charles say that even though the storm has been downgraded a little bit at this point, and that perhaps it's not going to be as bad as Hurricane Lili once was, but they still don't want to back away from any of the emergency plans that they had already put in place. They want to maintain the same level of alertness for folks here, so they don't want to -- anyone to let their guard down at this point, and they want people still to remain vigilant, and that the storm can cause a lot of damage quickly, possibly. So, they want folks to remain alert at this point -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I think that's good advice. Thank you, Ed Lavandera, reporting from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

We want to head to Houma, Louisiana. I guess technically, it's Gray, Louisiana. Upwards of 850,000 have been evacuated along the Gulf Cost, and about 89 shelters are set up along the way.

Jason Bellini is at one of them in Gray, Louisiana.

Jason -- is it filling up, is it full?

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not full yet, but it's interesting, I was just speaking with the pastor here at the church where the shelter is located. He was telling me that most people arrived at 2:30 in the morning. That's when the bulk of people started coming in. They started coming at that hour, he says, because that's when the rain started really to pick up, and people became nervous. They came running to the church in their raincoats.

Now, it seems it's getting a bit too late, because the wind has picked up, the rain is starting to pound down. It looks like it would be very difficult to drive here or to walk into this shelter at this hour.

COSTELLO: You know, it's really strange, Jason, because we're taking live shots all along the Gulf Coast. Everything is within about 200 miles of New Orleans, and the weather is drastically different in each location. So, it's nasty where you are.

BELLINI: It's nasty a little. I have to say it fluctuates for several minutes. It was very quiet, it was just sprinkling outside, and then it started to roar again.

So, the storm has been pretty unpredictable that way. Whenever the storm seems to simmer down a bit, people poke their heads outside the church and take a look around.

But people are bracing themselves for what's to come. They are expecting the worst of the storm to hit here in about an hour-and-a- half -- Carol. COSTELLO: Yes, and the winds could be very strong, and I understand one of the concerns where you are is many people live in mobile homes, and some of them are refusing to leave.

BELLINI: That's exactly it. And I had spoken with a neighborhood watchman, who walked around his neighborhood last night, and he was very concerned, because he saw over 75 trailers where people were staying. He said, "Those are not places that people should be in;" that they're putting themselves at very serious risk.

The people who are here at this shelter, many of them came from those trailers, and there is a possibility that more people will be arriving here in the morning as the storm gets worse -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We hope so. Thank you, Jason Bellini, for filling us in from Gray near Houma, Louisiana.

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 October 3, 2002 - 06:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have dispatched several news teams all along the Gulf Coast to bring you coverage of this powerful hurricane. From Port Arthur, Texas east to New Orleans, we have crews standing by live.
We'll talk live with Ed Lavandera, Jeff Flock, Eric Philips, Kimberly Osias and DAYBREAK meteorologist Chad Myers.

In fact, it is in New Orleans with Chad where we begin our storm coverage this hour.

Chad has returned to his post of a week ago, and we can see it's still raining and windy there -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. It's still windy. In fact, Carol, if you look over there, you can see the banana palms over there. You can see the banana trees that are really blowing in the wind now. Right at Lakefront Airport, wind gusts of 52 miles per hour.

But I heard you say, and I heard Jacqui say, the tornado warning for New Orleans, I didn't hear a siren. No idea. If I wasn't watching CNN, I would have had no idea, although the storm now has moved up toward Metairie and also up toward Kenner, where the airport is, of course. Still, we literally had no idea that there was a tornado warning for the parish here.

Otherwise, let me show you what was going on yesterday. Folks were getting ready. They were in good spirits. They were throwing hurricane parties at the same time they were boarding up their windows, though. Hurricanes were $3, which is like half price. But otherwise, folks were kind of revelous (ph), I guess, but probably as they wake up this morning, they are seeing a storm that's a little bit more severe than they were thinking.

I was sitting at a TGI Friday's yesterday, which has now turned out to be my favorite hangout here in New Orleans, and I was talking to a couple of folks. And as we were watching Fox 8 News, a local news station here, the folks were saying -- the guys on TV were saying, "Look at this, the storm has turned to the right." The entire place was -- you could hear a pin drop as soon as we heard that the storm was turning to the right. And the goods news is, it didn't continue really to turn much more to the right, because the folks here at 7:00 last night literally had nowhere to go.

By nightfall, you can't evacuate New Orleans. It was just way too late. So I guess they were happy, and we're all happy of that. We're seeing winds now to about 60, maybe 65 knots here, especially if you get along Lake Pontchartrain to the west of there, because you have a long stretch of open water. But here in the city, we're talking about 35 miles per hour or so.

It's going to be a decent day here. And the producer was in my ear saying, you know, "What's it like?" And, Carol, you know what? It's better than standing in a snowstorm, because it's a lot warmer.

COSTELLO: That's very true.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: So, the big danger now is those tornado warnings. You know, you laugh about people holding hurricane parties, but they really should take cover.

MYERS: Yes. They should be taking cover, especially if you hear the warning siren. But the warning that was in effect for New Orleans expired at 6:00, and obviously, Jacqui Jeras -- or at the top of the hour, 5:00 local. Jacqui Jeras will have the latest for you there in Atlanta.

COSTELLO: OK. Thank you, Chad. You try to stay dry, although I think that's impossible now.

In the neighboring state of Texas, hurricane warnings are posted from just east of Galveston to the Louisiana border. Storm warnings have uprooted thousands of people from homes along the Gulf Coast.

Brad Watson of CNN affiliate WFAA has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRAD WATSON, CNN AFFILIATE WFAA REPORTER (voice-over): The stream of storm refugees from the Beaumont-Port Arthur area flowed into the night. The drive to flee Lili, a test of patience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was slow, packed. Yes, sometimes bumper to bumper -- everything.

WATSON: The aggravation magnified when people arrived to find all of Lufkin's 1,700 hotel rooms full.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to keep searching for maybe a little one on the side of the road.

WATSON: Some of those who got rooms booked them Monday, as Lili loomed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband is on dialysis, and if we lost power in Port Arthur, he wouldn't be able to go and have his dialysis.

WATSON: Hundreds of people made the trip north on Port Arthur School District's buses. Regardless of how they came, as these thousands of refugees swarmed into Lufkin, the city's emergency management team began opening 31 shelters in schools and churches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we're surprised. We haven't had this happen to us in about eight or nine years. It's been a long time since we had this many actually leave from the upper Texas coast.

WATSON: The First Christian Church of Lufkin took in 220, and started feeding them and checking on health needs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We open our churches and our hearts, and we make a home for them in Lufkin, Texas.

WATSON: Katrice Young (ph) of Port Arthur and her 4-year-old daughter came to the church, fearing the deadly storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a pretty big one. It's better than staying out there in Port Arthur near all of the water and getting flooded in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: A lot of people chose to stay instead of leave, though.

We want to go to Lake Charles, Louisiana now, where Ed Lavandera is standing by.

Ed -- what are things like there?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, actually things here, at least, are doing really well. We haven't really seen the brunt of this storm by any means.

We're along -- in Lake Charles here along Interstate 10, and this is where the Harrah's Riverboat Casino is. You might see it there in the background. That casino was shut down yesterday.

The winds are picking up slightly, nothing major to be honest. It's just a little bit of rain that you can see falling at this point.

We've been talking to emergency officials here in Lake Charles, who say that this storm -- they've been on conference calls with the state emergency's office, and they've been told that the storm has been downgraded, that the water surges won't be as bad as originally anticipated at this point.

So, that is obviously good news for many of the folks here in Lake Charles who have been boarding up windows and putting out sandbags at many of the businesses and homes in this area. And many of the businesses shut down early here yesterday, as folks made the -- were flocking to stores and packing up water and food and that sort thing, anticipating the worst of this storm.

Many of the communities that are south of Lake Charles along the Gulf Coast, many of those folks evacuated in many of those towns. We've spoken with officials down there, say they are about 85 percent empty, as many of the folks heeded the warnings and sought shelter. About two parishes north of here of Lake Charles, we heard reports of one shelter that has about 2,300 people in it this mornings, so the folks waiting out this storm as far north inland as possible, so a lot of people taking the warnings seriously.

Now the emergency officials here in Lake Charles say that even though the storm has been downgraded a little bit at this point, and that perhaps it's not going to be as bad as Hurricane Lili once was, but they still don't want to back away from any of the emergency plans that they had already put in place. They want to maintain the same level of alertness for folks here, so they don't want to -- anyone to let their guard down at this point, and they want people still to remain vigilant, and that the storm can cause a lot of damage quickly, possibly. So, they want folks to remain alert at this point -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I think that's good advice. Thank you, Ed Lavandera, reporting from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

We want to head to Houma, Louisiana. I guess technically, it's Gray, Louisiana. Upwards of 850,000 have been evacuated along the Gulf Cost, and about 89 shelters are set up along the way.

Jason Bellini is at one of them in Gray, Louisiana.

Jason -- is it filling up, is it full?

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not full yet, but it's interesting, I was just speaking with the pastor here at the church where the shelter is located. He was telling me that most people arrived at 2:30 in the morning. That's when the bulk of people started coming in. They started coming at that hour, he says, because that's when the rain started really to pick up, and people became nervous. They came running to the church in their raincoats.

Now, it seems it's getting a bit too late, because the wind has picked up, the rain is starting to pound down. It looks like it would be very difficult to drive here or to walk into this shelter at this hour.

COSTELLO: You know, it's really strange, Jason, because we're taking live shots all along the Gulf Coast. Everything is within about 200 miles of New Orleans, and the weather is drastically different in each location. So, it's nasty where you are.

BELLINI: It's nasty a little. I have to say it fluctuates for several minutes. It was very quiet, it was just sprinkling outside, and then it started to roar again.

So, the storm has been pretty unpredictable that way. Whenever the storm seems to simmer down a bit, people poke their heads outside the church and take a look around.

But people are bracing themselves for what's to come. They are expecting the worst of the storm to hit here in about an hour-and-a- half -- Carol. COSTELLO: Yes, and the winds could be very strong, and I understand one of the concerns where you are is many people live in mobile homes, and some of them are refusing to leave.

BELLINI: That's exactly it. And I had spoken with a neighborhood watchman, who walked around his neighborhood last night, and he was very concerned, because he saw over 75 trailers where people were staying. He said, "Those are not places that people should be in;" that they're putting themselves at very serious risk.

The people who are here at this shelter, many of them came from those trailers, and there is a possibility that more people will be arriving here in the morning as the storm gets worse -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We hope so. Thank you, Jason Bellini, for filling us in from Gray near Houma, Louisiana.

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