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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hurricane Alert: Lili Takes Aim on Louisiana

Aired October 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: We want to check back with Jeff Flock. He's in Morgan City, Louisiana. People there have been ordered to evacuate as Lili gets closer and closer.
Jeff, parish officials have prepared for this, but how effective do you think their efforts will be?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it depends on how bad the storm winds up being. You know as we reported last time we talked to you, they finally did open a shelter of last resort here at the municipal building. We are told now between 30 and 35 people are there as well.

And one other thing I want to show you, I don't want to get in his way, but that's Mark Sudduth who we met earlier this hour. He is mounting a roof mounted and that is a water tight housing that he is putting a camera in because they want to record storm surge where they're headed. They're going to head to New Iberia where they think it's going to be a little bit closer to the -- to the eye.

Also want to tell you about the power situation right now. Those guys from the Hurricane Intercept Research Team about -- well I guess it's maybe two hours ago right now, lost power to this section of Morgan City. Perhaps, I don't know if you can see it off into the darkness, perhaps the darkness tells the tale, no power here. Apparently a transformer has gone out, although they're not sure exactly what went wrong. The whole city has not lost power.

Sometimes, as you know, they'll cut it off in a preemptory fashion to make sure that they do it in an orderly way and they don't have live power lines around. But they are telling us that they have not shut all of the power down, it's just this one area that's lost. So there you go.

COSTELLO: You know it's funny, Jeff, you know when we checked back -- when we checked in with you just a couple of minutes ago, it was raining and the winds were blowing really hard and now it seems relatively calm.

FLOCK: Yes, I know, Mark showed us. He's got the radar up, you know, and from the Hurricane Intercept Research guys, and there is a dry band that is over us right now. And we may be in the next half hour continue to have dry, just, you know, breezy conditions, which is all we've got right now, but it's great because boy that wind -- that rain really gets you wet. Nice to be able to dry out a little bit. So it's a little blow dry effect that we got right now and I'm happy for it. COSTELLO: Yes. Oh, me too for your sake.

Thank you, Jeff Flock, and...

FLOCK: Thanks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: ... you just never know what this storm is going to do.

We want to hear from Steve Rinard who is in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Steve is the head meteorologist for the Lake Charles, Louisiana National Weather Service. He joins us now live on the telephone -- good morning.

STEVE RINARD, HEAD METEOROLOGIST, LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: Good morning to you.

COSTELLO: What are you seeing now? What are your predictions for this storm right now?

RINARD: Well right now the -- Lili has weakened considerably from the category four it was right about midnight and this is certainly good news for this coastal area. Right now it's down to about a category two. It's about 105 -- 500 -- 15 (ph) miles an hour type thing and still moving kind of a northwest direction about 17. We're expecting landfall probably within the next couple of hours right -- just south of Lafayette right -- just a little bit west of Vermillion (ph) Bay.

COSTELLO: Could this storm pick up speed again?

RINARD: Well it's already moving about 17 and that's pretty much what it's been doing the last 12 hours, so I don't really expect it to pick up anymore.

COSTELLO: What about increasing in category again, is that possible or is the worst behind us now?

RINARD: I think at this stage it's so close to (ph) shore and it's moving so fast I think this is what it's going to make landfall at, probably about a category two type of storm.

COSTELLO: And usually when hurricanes make landfall they weaken, right?

OK, we seem to have lost Steve.

RINARD: OK, we're back.

COSTELLO: Oh OK, Steve, did you hear my question?

RINARD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Sorry about that. When hurricanes make land, do they weaken even more? RINARD: Yes, they're going to weaken. This storm is going to rapidly move northward across the central part of Louisiana. It's going to...

COSTELLO: Steve, are you OK.

RINARD: Yes, I came back again. I keep losing you.

COSTELLO: Well we understand it's weather conditions. And you answered my question perfectly, storms do weaken as they hit land. And we hope they weaken even more by the time Hurricane Lili gets to landfall in a couple of hours in 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 - 05:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to check back with Jeff Flock. He's in Morgan City, Louisiana. People there have been ordered to evacuate as Lili gets closer and closer.
Jeff, parish officials have prepared for this, but how effective do you think their efforts will be?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it depends on how bad the storm winds up being. You know as we reported last time we talked to you, they finally did open a shelter of last resort here at the municipal building. We are told now between 30 and 35 people are there as well.

And one other thing I want to show you, I don't want to get in his way, but that's Mark Sudduth who we met earlier this hour. He is mounting a roof mounted and that is a water tight housing that he is putting a camera in because they want to record storm surge where they're headed. They're going to head to New Iberia where they think it's going to be a little bit closer to the -- to the eye.

Also want to tell you about the power situation right now. Those guys from the Hurricane Intercept Research Team about -- well I guess it's maybe two hours ago right now, lost power to this section of Morgan City. Perhaps, I don't know if you can see it off into the darkness, perhaps the darkness tells the tale, no power here. Apparently a transformer has gone out, although they're not sure exactly what went wrong. The whole city has not lost power.

Sometimes, as you know, they'll cut it off in a preemptory fashion to make sure that they do it in an orderly way and they don't have live power lines around. But they are telling us that they have not shut all of the power down, it's just this one area that's lost. So there you go.

COSTELLO: You know it's funny, Jeff, you know when we checked back -- when we checked in with you just a couple of minutes ago, it was raining and the winds were blowing really hard and now it seems relatively calm.

FLOCK: Yes, I know, Mark showed us. He's got the radar up, you know, and from the Hurricane Intercept Research guys, and there is a dry band that is over us right now. And we may be in the next half hour continue to have dry, just, you know, breezy conditions, which is all we've got right now, but it's great because boy that wind -- that rain really gets you wet. Nice to be able to dry out a little bit. So it's a little blow dry effect that we got right now and I'm happy for it. COSTELLO: Yes. Oh, me too for your sake.

Thank you, Jeff Flock, and...

FLOCK: Thanks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: ... you just never know what this storm is going to do.

We want to hear from Steve Rinard who is in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Steve is the head meteorologist for the Lake Charles, Louisiana National Weather Service. He joins us now live on the telephone -- good morning.

STEVE RINARD, HEAD METEOROLOGIST, LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: Good morning to you.

COSTELLO: What are you seeing now? What are your predictions for this storm right now?

RINARD: Well right now the -- Lili has weakened considerably from the category four it was right about midnight and this is certainly good news for this coastal area. Right now it's down to about a category two. It's about 105 -- 500 -- 15 (ph) miles an hour type thing and still moving kind of a northwest direction about 17. We're expecting landfall probably within the next couple of hours right -- just south of Lafayette right -- just a little bit west of Vermillion (ph) Bay.

COSTELLO: Could this storm pick up speed again?

RINARD: Well it's already moving about 17 and that's pretty much what it's been doing the last 12 hours, so I don't really expect it to pick up anymore.

COSTELLO: What about increasing in category again, is that possible or is the worst behind us now?

RINARD: I think at this stage it's so close to (ph) shore and it's moving so fast I think this is what it's going to make landfall at, probably about a category two type of storm.

COSTELLO: And usually when hurricanes make landfall they weaken, right?

OK, we seem to have lost Steve.

RINARD: OK, we're back.

COSTELLO: Oh OK, Steve, did you hear my question?

RINARD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Sorry about that. When hurricanes make land, do they weaken even more? RINARD: Yes, they're going to weaken. This storm is going to rapidly move northward across the central part of Louisiana. It's going to...

COSTELLO: Steve, are you OK.

RINARD: Yes, I came back again. I keep losing you.

COSTELLO: Well we understand it's weather conditions. And you answered my question perfectly, storms do weaken as they hit land. And we hope they weaken even more by the time Hurricane Lili gets to landfall in a couple of hours in 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