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CNN Live At Daybreak

Lili Heads for Louisiana

Aired October 03, 2002 - 05:00   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've got the hurricane coverage from all angles for you this morning, live reports the way from, all the way along the Gulf Coast. Our CNN weather team is hard at work tracking this storm. Plus, we'll talk to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center.
Forecasters right now are saying Lili may be one of the two or three strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana in the last 150 years. We will find out whether that prediction holds, with the Category 3 storm expected to make landfall later this morning. For some Louisiana residents who have yet to evacuate it may too late, though. Officials may stop evacuations shortly to prevent motorists from being trapped on escape routes.

Residents of low lying areas prepared for the storm by filling and piling sand bags and now many of those people are staying in hotels with friends or family, or in 39 shelters set up statewide.

We want to go now southeast from Lake Charles to Morgan City, Louisiana. That's where one of our veterans of hurricane coverage, Jeff Flock, is right now.

I'm sorry, we're still trying to get that signal up from Jeff.

So we're going to go up to our weather center and check in with Jacqui Jeras, who is tracking the storm -- Jacqui, this was a Category 4 storm just a short time ago, just a couple of minutes ago. Now it's a Category 3.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right.

COSTELLO: Tell us what that means.

JERAS: It means that it's starting to weaken, that this hurricane has already peaked. So we'll watch for some gradual weakening before it makes landfall. But we still think it will stay at Category 3 status, meaning this will still be a major hurricane as it makes landfall.

Now, the five o'clock advisory is still coming in so we're still sorting through that information. This is kind of a breaking situation here throughout the day. But there you can see the outer bands already reaching parts of Louisiana, and this is going to be a very rough go of it for today.

Here are your statistics. Hey, they did get updated in time. Thank goodness. Ninety-five miles per hour, that's the exact location right now, south of New Iberia, Louisiana. If you're tracking it at home it's 28.7 north and 91.7 west. There are your winds, 120 miles per hour. That's maximum sustained winds and we are going to be seeing gusts beyond that. And hurricane force winds are likely going to be moving in, possibly up to 150 miles from the shoreline as it makes landfall. So this is going to be a very large area that's going to be dealing with it.

It's moving north-northwest at 17 miles per hour so in the last 24 hours it has been picking up forward speed quite a bit. So the timing of landfall has changed. We're anticipating that it will be making landfall later on this morning rather than midday or this afternoon. We're talking about anywhere between maybe eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock this morning Eastern time.

There is a tornado watch in effect for all of southern Louisiana and southern parts of Mississippi, as well. Very common when you have a hurricane making landfall that we get isolated tornadoes in it. So that is another threat in addition to the very heavy rainfall, and, of course, the damaging winds.

So this will be a very serious situation into the afternoon and all interests still on the Gulf Coast really need to heed warning and pay attention here, because the exact landfall location still could change just a little bit between now and then.

We have tropical storm warnings in effect from Freeport, Texas over to High Island, Texas, and then over here from the mouth of the Mississippi on over to the Alabama-Florida state line, and then hurricane warnings all in between here, including the entire coast of Louisiana. It includes New Orleans and also includes the Lake Charles area.

Also want to show you the forecast track here with Lili, where we're expecting it to go even after it makes landfall. We're expecting it to continue on a northerly track and then it's going to get caught up with a trough that's in the upper atmosphere, the same one that's been causing all the severe weather in the upper Midwest the last couple of days. They're going to kind of work together and it will be moving on a more northeasterly track. Of course, after hurricanes make landfall they start to weaken significantly, so we're talking about tropical storm status even late tonight and into early tomorrow morning.

But still, tropical downpours are going to be very heavy. Rainfall estimates likely somewhere between six and 10 inches within the path of Lili, and then lesser amounts the farther away that you get from the center of the storm. But flooding will be a major concern, as well as storm surge, which may be reaching a good 12 feet above normal for today. And the storm surge could spread out about 25 miles from the coast line. So that's quite a ways out where we may see this massive wall of water raise up and move over the inland.

We're going to talk more about the rainfall totals and what you can expect in the forecast of Lili over the next couple of days, what it's going to do even after it hits Louisiana. That's all coming up in just a little bit -- Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, Jacqui, we'll let you get back to your computer models up there.

Of course, as you know from watching yesterday's DAYBREAK show, our Chad Myers is in New Orleans. But right now we want to go to Morgan City, Louisiana. That's west of New Orleans, about, within 200 miles, I think.

Jeff Flock is there -- good morning, Jeff. What's it like there now?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Carol, we're in the good fun here this morning. Perhaps you can see one of these feeder bands is on us right now. Awful lot of rain at this moment and just beginning to pick up with some wind. Perhaps you can see up against the trees right here right now.

This is Morgan City, Louisiana. Mandatory evacuation, although a lot of people have not left. They did not even establish a shelter here because they wanted to make sure people got out. But then this morning, early this morning as a last resort they did open the municipal auditorium to make sure somebody that was here who had a problem had somewhere to go to.

Now, I've got right here with us, these members of the Hurricane Intercept Research team. Mark Sudduth, a veteran of many hurricanes. These are the guys, if they come to your town, you know it's not a good thing.

MARK SUDDUTH, HURRICANE RESEARCHER: That's right.

FLOCK: What are you thinking right now? Last night we were talking about a very serious storm that we thought might really give a surge here that could drown us. What are we thinking right now?

SUDDUTH: Well, the threat is diminished a little bit, only a little bit. It was looking really dangerous last night. It's still dangerous but we don't have that life threatening sense of urgency right now that we had earlier.

FLOCK: So we may try to get you into the eye.

What have you got here? Scott, if you could back off and see what you've got. You've got a wind -- this is like the movie "Twister" almost.

SUDDUTH: That's right.

FLOCK: And you're chasing hurricanes.

SUDDUTH: Well, at least for hurricanes, we don't have to deal with big hail stones, right? But we have a nice 15 foot high mounted anemometer so we can record the wind without giving the blast off the windshield. And we get a wind reading every second right here on the dashboard. And it's a very accurate, very good anemometer. FLOCK: Can you real quick take me in there, because I know you've got your radar off in there. I don't want to hose the inside of your truck. It looks like I'm going to walk in front of you there if you're all right. Yes, go ahead. What do you got?

SUDDUTH: There's the latest radar and we can see the eye right there coming in. Here's Morgan City sitting over here. So that eye is coming right on in. We're going to go West on 90 and that'll be nice, fairly high ground so we can record the wind, get some data and avoid that storm surge.

FLOCK: And that's a wireless radar so you can see exactly where you've got to go right?

SUDDUTH: Yes, we're really lucky in that regard. Let me close the door so we don't rain on it.

FLOCK: Yes, I don't want to try to get it wet on you.

SUDDUTH: Yes, that wireless Web is great. We can keep track of that radar anywhere we go.

FLOCK: Yes. All righty. Well, you're going to be up against it, though. What do you think you're going to be looking at before we're done?

SUDDUTH: Well, I think we, we're expecting to get at least 100 mile per hour winds on the anemometer here and the pressure should drop close to the pressure that the center of the storm is showing now, about 957 millibars. And at least the sun will be coming up. That'll help. That's also a good safety issue there. We can at least see what we're doing.

FLOCK: That's right. We're getting a land falling storm in the day time, which is a real treat for those that like to look at it.

SUDDUTH: That's right.

FLOCK: But it also helps because if you've got problems, you can see what you're doing.

SUDDUTH: That's right. A little bit of a benefit there.

FLOCK: Yes. I'm going to get out of your way because I know you and your team need to get on the radio.

SUDDUTH: Check in with you later.

FLOCK: I appreciate it very much.

Mark Sudduth, Hurricane Intercept Research Team -- Carol, as you can see, a pretty good feeder band on us right now. It's going to be a fun morning. Back to you.

COSTELLO: A fun morning? You be careful out there, you hear? We're going to get back to you in a bit. FLOCK: I will.

COSTELLO: We want to switch to New Orleans right now, where Chad Myers is standing by -- Chad, we're hearing all sorts of weather terms. And boy, is it raining in New Orleans. You're going to have to explain...

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you see, can you hear me?

COSTELLO: I can hear you.

You're going to have to explain what a storm surge is for our audience and those weather bands that Jeff was talking about.

MYERS: Weather bands are actually part of the storm system. It's the little fingers or the arms that will come around the hurricane and that band actually feeds the center. So it all kind of turns into one big vortex as it all comes into the eye itself. And this storm obviously has an eye, with this type of wind speed here at the eye. And even here in New Orleans, we're over 100 miles from the eye right now, we just literally had a wind gust over 45 miles per hour. It almost knocked me off my feet because I wasn't ready for it.

And that's that surging effect that you get with these storms, very squally, where all of a sudden it's just blowing like you can't believe and then the next minute it's almost calm. So you have to really be ready for it.

Storm surge itself, Carol, is the storm, because it's such a low pressure, it actually sucks in water. It sucks in ocean water or Gulf of Mexico water, if you will, this time. And as it starts to raise that water up, we're talking just maybe a foot or two of water, a bubble of water under this low pressure system, kind of like a vacuum cleaner sucking in dirt, this low pressure system makes a bubble of water. And that's OK if it's two feet high and it's in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. But then you throw that two feet of water into a very shallow area and then that water just comes up and up and up.

And then on top of that we've heard between 14 and 20 foot waves on buoys this morning and bigger than that waves yesterday in buoys in the Gulf of Mexico.

But I'll tell you what, although it's blowing here, folks just really wanted to party. They got the hurricanes up, they got their beers up and they were just really rocking and rolling last night. Literally 15 minutes ago I walked down to a bar here, Johnny White's, and they're still drinking. They're still ready to go. And, in fact, all the folks there, some of the locals are there, but I found two guys, believe it or not, that were from Scotland.

COSTELLO: Scotland?

MYERS: Yes, I've got them on tape here. Here they are. I don't hear them, though.

COSTELLO: I don't hear them either. We see people in a carriage, though. It looked so calm in New Orleans at that time.

MYERS: I'm sorry, say that again?

COSTELLO: It looked so calm just a few hours ago in New Orleans and now look at it.

MYERS: Yes, literally the winds have picked up. We're getting east winds here because we're on the east side of the storm itself, to the northeast. So we have that spin around. It depends on where you are. We've had so many live shots today. Everybody's wind is from a different direction because we have reporters on each side of the storm. So one storm moves on one side and then the reporter that's on the north side will get east winds.

If you get somebody on the west side, they're going to get north winds while I'm getting southeast winds this morning. And they're coming in this morning pretty good, at a pretty good clip, at least 45 miles an hour here. And we have begun to see now the lights flicker here in New Orleans, and that's probably the biggest concern, is that they will lose power down here. We're in the French Quarter, Jackson Square right here, the big church, if you know where it is, and Cafe Dumond closed again. I've been to New Orleans twice. Cafe Dumond has been closed five times in the lifetime of...

COSTELLO: Oh, he's breaking up. He's breaking up. We're going to get back to Chad when we can.

Again, Lili has been downgraded now to a Category 3 storm, which means there is sustained winds of about 120 miles per hour, still a monster storm. And CNN is tracking the path of hurricane Lili and we'll be doing that throughout the morning here on DAYBREAK.

Continue coverage of this huge storm is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Fourteen minutes past the hour. We are tracking hurricane Lili this morning. Get this, in Louisiana 20 percent of the population is now under mandatory or voluntary evacuation. That's 850,000 people being told to leave their homes all at the same time.

Our Frank Buckley looks at how one Louisiana parish prepared for hurricane Lili.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While Louisiana residents braced for impact and bought out stores of some supplies, emergency management officials in places like Lake Charles, Louisiana grappled with life and death decisions, and fast moving developments.

STEVEN RINARD, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: I just got paged from our staff here.

BUCKLEY: As National Weather Service meteorologist Steven Rinard was briefing the news media, he learned that Lili was no longer a Category 3, but was now a Category 4 hurricane.

RINARD: A Category 3 is nothing to sneeze at. A Category 4 is really nothing to sneeze at.

BUCKLEY: The news meant officials had to quickly decide if residents preparing to weather out the hurricane should be told they must leave.

(on camera): On the prime notice as far as Category 4, there's concern that pressure dropping and all that kind of stuff, what's your advance take on that?

(voice-over): Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach huddled with other officials to quickly decide how to proceed.

(on camera): Are you worried that people are going to say to you afterward, hey, you told us that we had to leave?

RANDY ROACH, LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA: Oh, I can tell you that no matter what decision we make, there will always be those who will say either you should your shouldn't have. There's always going to be somebody to second guess the decision that you make. And all you can do is make the decision based on the best information that you have available to you at the time you make that decision.

BUCKLEY: The director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Dick Gramillion, moved to make the evacuation parish wide.

(on camera): How crucial is this moment for you before this hurricane comes?

DICK GRAMILLION, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: Well, we have been telling people all along as forcefully as we can, we've asked them to use common sense. We're past the common sense stage now. The National Weather Service is telling us this is a dangerous situation now.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Moments later, Gramillion is at a local TV station to get out the new information.

GRAMILLION: After consultation actually during our press conference today, the National Weather Service advised us that this storm is intensifying quickly. It has become a lot more dangerous.

BUCKLEY: And a lot more nerve wrecking for Gramillion, who knows that his decisions could make the difference between life and death for the more than 180,000 residents of Calcashu Parish.

(on camera): Are you nervous?

GRAMILLION: Hell, yes, I'm nervous. I mean I'd be stupid if I wasn't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That's for sure. A lot of people are nervous. And just to make sure you know, Lili has been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane. That just happened about a half hour ago. Of course, it could go back up to a Category 4 hurricane. You just never know. Storms are unpredictable sometimes.

We're going to keep following this storm. You stay with us. We'll be right back here on DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Take a look at these live pictures. Hurricane Lili producing some strong winds in Lafayette, Louisiana. We believe wind gusts there are up to 45 to 50 miles per hour. Hurricane Lili is now a Category 3 storm, which means sustained winds of 120 miles per hour.

As I told you before, 850,000 people from Texas all the way through Louisiana and along the coast told to evacuate. Where are they all going to go?

Well, there are 89 shelters set up across the area.

Jason Bellini is at one of them, in Gray, Louisiana. That's near Homa, Louisiana.

But Jason, can you be more specific for us? Where exactly are you?

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm in a shelter at First Baptist Church in Gray, Louisiana. I can tell you, really in just the last 10 minutes the storm has picked up significantly. I'm in a, the gymnasium at this church. It's a tin siding. And so you hear the pounding of a rain against the walls.

I spoke with the pastor here. He's expecting more people to be coming in from this community because many of the people in this area live in trailer parks and he's afraid that they are going to discover that they can't weather the storm inside of their trailers. I also spoke to a neighborhood watch person who's staying here and he told me he saw over 75 people who are still staying in their trailers.

So they've very concerned here right now about their neighbors and what's going to happen to those who decided to stay in their homes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jason, why can't they be convinced to leave?

BELLINI: Many people decided they just wanted to wait and see what happened, figuring that with a shelter nearby that they, if they had to run at the last minute, they could. But if they're going to come over here, they're going to have to run through some horizontal rain and some really fierce winds to get here.

COSTELLO: Yes, and it might be too late. I mean when do you decide to leave your mobile home?

BELLINI: It's a very good question. And this neighborhood watch person I spoke with, he said he was going around even at three in the morning urging people to come over to the shelter and to get out of their homes, knowing that they're just not, there's a strong possibility that they won't hold up in this storm.

COSTELLO: Are there enough shelters for all of the people who've been ordered to evacuate, Jason?

BELLINI: I'm told that in Homa right now they're over capacity. It, they have 1,650 people at their shelter in Homa. So there's overflow spots that have been developing over the night. I've been listening to the radio as I was driving around this evening and I kept hearing of new shelters that were being opened to meet the needs of this overflow capacity, as more and more people are deciding to come in seeking shelter, leaving their homes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And I can only imagine the scene inside that church, people sleeping on floors, on cots. Are they just everywhere?

BELLINI: Well, most people really aren't sleeping. Now that storm has picked up, people are walking around, drinking coffee, listening to the storm, peering outside of one of the windows watching the storm. A lot of nervous people. I can tell you that no one is sleeping, even though it's about 4:20 in the morning here.

COSTELLO: Got you.

OK, Jason Bellini.

Oh, by the way, Gray, Louisiana, what big city is that near, just so we can get a sense of exactly where you are? BELLINI: Well, it's near Homa and it's about six miles to the west of Homa. And from New Orleans it's about, approximately, I would say, 50 or 60 miles.

COSTELLO: OK. We got that.

Jason Bellini, thank you very much. We'll get back to you in a bit.

BELLINI: You bet.

COSTELLO: We want to head up to the weather center now.

Jacqui, this storm has been downgraded to a Category 3, but this is nothing to sneeze at, is it?

JERAS: Right. Yes, you have to be careful when you say downgraded, because we don't want people to kind of let down their guard at all. A Category 3 hurricane, that is still a major hurricane. So classified as major and a very serious situation. I mean 120 mile per hour winds can cause a lot of damage, a lot of devastation. And actually coming up in our next weather head, I'm going to try and get some of those points and spell them out for you and show you the difference between a Category 3 and some of the other category storms and the exact type of damage that it can do.

I do want to tell you right now that there is a tornado warning in effect for northern Jefferson Parish in southeastern Louisiana and also for St. Charles parish. That will be in effect until 4:30 local time there, and this is a Doppler radar indicated tornado. So you need to be taking cover. Get to an interior room in your home away from doors and windows. Get to the basement if you have a basement. You need to seek shelter now. And a tornado watch remains in effect for all of southern Louisiana through a good portion of the morning. It also includes southern parts of Mississippi. And we're likely going to continue to see these watches kind of stack up throughout the day today as we watch for Lili to be making landfall.

You can really see the eye picked out here. It's starting to broaden a little bit, which is another sign of weakening. So, you know, the best news is that it is weakening a little bit, even though it will still be major. It could have been worse, as we saw the Category 4 on this yesterday.

Now, rainfall amounts are going to be very heavy. We're expecting anywhere between six and 10 inches in the bright orange bulleted area, which is going to be a little bit farther inland. Storm surge will be more of a problem along the coastline and then we'll watch for the heavy rain, the tropical downpours and all the flooding.

You get a little farther out into central parts of Mississippi, into central Louisiana and we're talking about maybe three to six inches of rainfall. And then you get into the exterior bands, maybe one to three inches, which includes over into the Galveston and Houston areas for today. That's not to mention what we're going to be expecting possibly tomorrow because we have our trough, which is going to be bringing this a little bit more rapidly up to the north and to the east after it makes landfall.

Wind will be a big deal, hurricane force winds expected to extend out about 150 miles from the shoreline. And there you can see the kind of outer bands. And then 65 miles an hour up towards the Shreveport area, maybe even heading up towards Dallas/Fort Worth. We're expecting to see some very strong winds today.

These are current wind gusts across the area, not the sustained speeds, the gusts that we're seeing. Alexandria, 20 miles per hour, 25 miles per hour in Lake Charles, New Iberia 40 miles per hour and Boothville, 44 miles per hour. So that's the highest thing that we could find right now. And 39 miles per hour in New Orleans. So those are some very strong gusting winds.

If you are going to be out and about today, if people still decided not to evacuate, if you live in New Orleans and you're heading out this morning, really use a lot of caution with those winds because they will likely be gusting well beyond the 45 mile per hour that we're seeing now and could really throw you off guard and cause some problems here with your travel for today.

And, of course, airport delays are going to be up there. You're probably not going to be able to get into many of the airports in the lower Mississippi River Valley for today.

Our forecast, we want to show you this upper, this big system in the mid section of the country. This is what's going to be combining with Lili later on for today and shoot it up to the north and to the east. If you remember, Isidore, for all the heavy rain and flooding into parts of Tennessee and then into the Ohio Valley, we're probably going to be seeing a very similar situation with Lili and her track of bringing the very heavy rainfall, as well. But likely extending a little farther northward.

So eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky probably not going to be as bad as what we'll see later on into parts of Arkansas, maybe over into southeastern parts of Missouri and then up into parts of the Ohio Valley. And there you can see our forecast. On Friday, really getting caught up with this strong cold front. And we'll have the chance of strong to severe thunderstorms from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf Coast for tomorrow. So we will be dealing with the effects of Lili yet for another couple of days. It will likely be the weekend before the storm is totally out of here altogether. And, again, we'll be watching it to make landfall, we think, later on this morning.

It has been picking up speed very rapidly. Even though it's been weakening a little bit, it's moving much faster. So that means the timing of landfall is going to be earlier in the day rather than later in the day. We'll be watching for maybe mid morning for it to be making landfall -- Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: OK, when you say mid morning, and I know you can't pin it down exactly, but are you talking eight this morning, nine this morning?

JERAS: I think between eight and 10 is probably a reasonable period of time.

COSTELLO: OK, thank you, Jacqui.

We'll get back to you in a bit.

You know, we've been wondering about the people who decided to stay and not evacuate. If you are watching television and you have your computer up, e-mail us, daybreak@cnn.com. daybreak@cnn.com. And tell us why, why you've decided to stay and stick out that storm.

Of course, we are tracking the path of hurricane Lili this morning on CNN DAYBREAK. Our reporters are on the front lines, bringing you up to the minute coverage as the Gulf Coast braces for the Category 3 hurricane.

But believe it or not, things can get worse. In 1992, hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc on the coasts of Florida and Louisiana. The hurricane was a rare Category 5, packing winds up to 160 miles per hour and storm surges 18 feet above normal. Hurricane Andrew was the last of the three Category 5 hurricanes to ever hit the United States coast.

You are watching CNN DAYBREAK for Thursday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: We want to get back to the horrible hurricane Lili. The Category 3 storm is just off the Gulf Coast. We've got our correspondents posted all along the expected target area to bring us live reports.

Right now we want to check in with Ed Lavandera, who is in Lake Charles, Louisiana -- what's it like there, Ed? It looks pretty calm right now.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It actually is. It has started to pick up a little bit in the last half hour. This is probably the strongest rain we've seen since we've been out here this morning, actually, since yesterday. And the wind is starting to slightly pick up, as well. But by no means what this storm is expected to bring toward this area.

Just to give you an idea of where we're at, we're in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This is the Harrah's Casino boat that you might see, a riverboat casino that you might see behind me. This casino was shut down yesterday. The hotel here has also been shut down. Many businesses here in Lake Charles shut down early yesterday, as well. Many of the restaurants around town were closed as people prepared and then started seeking shelter for this storm.

The emergency officials here in Lake Charles just wrapped up a conference, a statewide conference call with state emergency officials where they were told, given the information about the downgrading of this storm. But what all, what they were also told is to maintain the levels of emergency preparedness that they've put into effect over the course of the last 24 hours.

So the folks here in Lake Charles, for example, say that they will continue to operate as if this were still a Category 4 hurricane and still set all of those motions into effect. They don't want people to let their guard down. And we have been told that evacuation orders were issued throughout this area. Many of the people who live south of Lake Charles along the Gulf Coast waters evacuated yesterday. We spent the day yesterday in Cameron, Louisiana, and by the time we left there yesterday, that town seemed like a ghost town.

We were also told about 2,300 people from this area have moved about two parishes to the north of Lake Charles, seeking shelter. So there are about 2,300 people in shelters tonight up there in the early morning hours, as well.

But here, Lake Charles still waiting to see the effects of hurricane Lili. We're told that the stronger parts of this storm will perhaps start arriving here about six or seven o'clock this morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So, have people prepared? Have levees been repaired? Have sand bags been put into place, Ed?

LAVANDERA: You can see that in a lot of places, especially a lot of the businesses that we had a chance to see yesterday, a lot of the storm, a lot of the businesses were putting up boards on the windows, the Wal-Marts and the Lowe's home improvement places, and as well as restaurants all over town, as well.

Here at the Harrah's Casino, they put up also sand bags around the doors, as well, as this hotel has been cleared out, as well. So you do see a lot of that around town as people have gotten ready for the storm here. COSTELLO: All right, Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

Reporting live from Lake Charles, Louisiana. We'll get back to him in a couple of minutes.

We want to hear now from Robert LeBlanc, who is right on the Louisiana coast in Vermilion Parish.

Robert is with the Vermilion Emergency Management Agency.

He joins us now live by telephone.

Good morning.

ROBERT LEBLANC, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: Good morning. How are you this morning?

COSTELLO: I'm fine. But the bigger question is how are you?

LEBLANC: Well, the biggest news I can give you right now is the fact that the National Weather Service has downgraded this storm and that's outstanding news for us here in Vermilion Parish, who are supposed to be the, taking the brunt of this hurricane, because most of our land area is between five foot elevation and 15 foot elevation. And the fact that the storm surge has gotten down from 20 to five is a great event in our area. And also the fact that six hours ago we were facing 140 mile an hour winds and we're now looking at 60 to 70.

So this is great news.

COSTELLO: Yes. Are you still worried about the big storm surge and the ensuing rain even with a Category 3 hurricane, though?

LEBLANC: Yes, but I don't think we're going to have a Category 3. I think this thing has dropped down to below two.

COSTELLO: Oh, I hope you're right. We're going to check in with our weather people. But it has not...

LEBLANC: That would make a great difference along the coast.

COSTELLO: Oh, you're not kidding. Tell me about the evacuations. Were most people willing to go and did you have things like traffic jams and trouble getting people out of town?

LEBLANC: We didn't have any serious problems with evacuation. However, as usual, in most evacuations, you can't get everybody to leave. And you really don't force them to leave. We try to encourage them to leave. And we must have gotten about 90 percent compliance.

COSTELLO: Why don't you force them to leave? LEBLANC: Say again?

COSTELLO: Why don't you force them to leave if it's so dangerous?

LEBLANC: Well, it's not worth the time and effort because you're going to put them in handcuffs. What are you going to do with them? Try to find a jail space to put them?

COSTELLO: Oh, that's true.

LEBLANC: We would rather, we would rather just get their names, addresses and a telephone number of the next of kin and let 'em know that at least we'll be able to take, tell that next of kin where we left them and they didn't want to move.

COSTELLO: Got you.

I know that the evacuations have taken place. Have you stopped the evacuations now? I mean have the evacuation routes been closed down?

LEBLANC: No, because the evacuation was completed and the routes, things went a lot better this time than they did for Andrew. As you know, Andrew it took about eight or nine hours to get to Alexandria. This time you could get up there in three and a half hours.

COSTELLO: Well, that is good news and we're happy that the storm has been downgraded to a Category 3 now.

Robert LeBlanc, thank you for joining us live this morning.

You can keep up with hurricane Lili on our Web site, as well. Just click onto cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.

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 - 05:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We've got the hurricane coverage from all angles for you this morning, live reports the way from, all the way along the Gulf Coast. Our CNN weather team is hard at work tracking this storm. Plus, we'll talk to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center.
Forecasters right now are saying Lili may be one of the two or three strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana in the last 150 years. We will find out whether that prediction holds, with the Category 3 storm expected to make landfall later this morning. For some Louisiana residents who have yet to evacuate it may too late, though. Officials may stop evacuations shortly to prevent motorists from being trapped on escape routes.

Residents of low lying areas prepared for the storm by filling and piling sand bags and now many of those people are staying in hotels with friends or family, or in 39 shelters set up statewide.

We want to go now southeast from Lake Charles to Morgan City, Louisiana. That's where one of our veterans of hurricane coverage, Jeff Flock, is right now.

I'm sorry, we're still trying to get that signal up from Jeff.

So we're going to go up to our weather center and check in with Jacqui Jeras, who is tracking the storm -- Jacqui, this was a Category 4 storm just a short time ago, just a couple of minutes ago. Now it's a Category 3.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right.

COSTELLO: Tell us what that means.

JERAS: It means that it's starting to weaken, that this hurricane has already peaked. So we'll watch for some gradual weakening before it makes landfall. But we still think it will stay at Category 3 status, meaning this will still be a major hurricane as it makes landfall.

Now, the five o'clock advisory is still coming in so we're still sorting through that information. This is kind of a breaking situation here throughout the day. But there you can see the outer bands already reaching parts of Louisiana, and this is going to be a very rough go of it for today.

Here are your statistics. Hey, they did get updated in time. Thank goodness. Ninety-five miles per hour, that's the exact location right now, south of New Iberia, Louisiana. If you're tracking it at home it's 28.7 north and 91.7 west. There are your winds, 120 miles per hour. That's maximum sustained winds and we are going to be seeing gusts beyond that. And hurricane force winds are likely going to be moving in, possibly up to 150 miles from the shoreline as it makes landfall. So this is going to be a very large area that's going to be dealing with it.

It's moving north-northwest at 17 miles per hour so in the last 24 hours it has been picking up forward speed quite a bit. So the timing of landfall has changed. We're anticipating that it will be making landfall later on this morning rather than midday or this afternoon. We're talking about anywhere between maybe eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock this morning Eastern time.

There is a tornado watch in effect for all of southern Louisiana and southern parts of Mississippi, as well. Very common when you have a hurricane making landfall that we get isolated tornadoes in it. So that is another threat in addition to the very heavy rainfall, and, of course, the damaging winds.

So this will be a very serious situation into the afternoon and all interests still on the Gulf Coast really need to heed warning and pay attention here, because the exact landfall location still could change just a little bit between now and then.

We have tropical storm warnings in effect from Freeport, Texas over to High Island, Texas, and then over here from the mouth of the Mississippi on over to the Alabama-Florida state line, and then hurricane warnings all in between here, including the entire coast of Louisiana. It includes New Orleans and also includes the Lake Charles area.

Also want to show you the forecast track here with Lili, where we're expecting it to go even after it makes landfall. We're expecting it to continue on a northerly track and then it's going to get caught up with a trough that's in the upper atmosphere, the same one that's been causing all the severe weather in the upper Midwest the last couple of days. They're going to kind of work together and it will be moving on a more northeasterly track. Of course, after hurricanes make landfall they start to weaken significantly, so we're talking about tropical storm status even late tonight and into early tomorrow morning.

But still, tropical downpours are going to be very heavy. Rainfall estimates likely somewhere between six and 10 inches within the path of Lili, and then lesser amounts the farther away that you get from the center of the storm. But flooding will be a major concern, as well as storm surge, which may be reaching a good 12 feet above normal for today. And the storm surge could spread out about 25 miles from the coast line. So that's quite a ways out where we may see this massive wall of water raise up and move over the inland.

We're going to talk more about the rainfall totals and what you can expect in the forecast of Lili over the next couple of days, what it's going to do even after it hits Louisiana. That's all coming up in just a little bit -- Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, Jacqui, we'll let you get back to your computer models up there.

Of course, as you know from watching yesterday's DAYBREAK show, our Chad Myers is in New Orleans. But right now we want to go to Morgan City, Louisiana. That's west of New Orleans, about, within 200 miles, I think.

Jeff Flock is there -- good morning, Jeff. What's it like there now?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Carol, we're in the good fun here this morning. Perhaps you can see one of these feeder bands is on us right now. Awful lot of rain at this moment and just beginning to pick up with some wind. Perhaps you can see up against the trees right here right now.

This is Morgan City, Louisiana. Mandatory evacuation, although a lot of people have not left. They did not even establish a shelter here because they wanted to make sure people got out. But then this morning, early this morning as a last resort they did open the municipal auditorium to make sure somebody that was here who had a problem had somewhere to go to.

Now, I've got right here with us, these members of the Hurricane Intercept Research team. Mark Sudduth, a veteran of many hurricanes. These are the guys, if they come to your town, you know it's not a good thing.

MARK SUDDUTH, HURRICANE RESEARCHER: That's right.

FLOCK: What are you thinking right now? Last night we were talking about a very serious storm that we thought might really give a surge here that could drown us. What are we thinking right now?

SUDDUTH: Well, the threat is diminished a little bit, only a little bit. It was looking really dangerous last night. It's still dangerous but we don't have that life threatening sense of urgency right now that we had earlier.

FLOCK: So we may try to get you into the eye.

What have you got here? Scott, if you could back off and see what you've got. You've got a wind -- this is like the movie "Twister" almost.

SUDDUTH: That's right.

FLOCK: And you're chasing hurricanes.

SUDDUTH: Well, at least for hurricanes, we don't have to deal with big hail stones, right? But we have a nice 15 foot high mounted anemometer so we can record the wind without giving the blast off the windshield. And we get a wind reading every second right here on the dashboard. And it's a very accurate, very good anemometer. FLOCK: Can you real quick take me in there, because I know you've got your radar off in there. I don't want to hose the inside of your truck. It looks like I'm going to walk in front of you there if you're all right. Yes, go ahead. What do you got?

SUDDUTH: There's the latest radar and we can see the eye right there coming in. Here's Morgan City sitting over here. So that eye is coming right on in. We're going to go West on 90 and that'll be nice, fairly high ground so we can record the wind, get some data and avoid that storm surge.

FLOCK: And that's a wireless radar so you can see exactly where you've got to go right?

SUDDUTH: Yes, we're really lucky in that regard. Let me close the door so we don't rain on it.

FLOCK: Yes, I don't want to try to get it wet on you.

SUDDUTH: Yes, that wireless Web is great. We can keep track of that radar anywhere we go.

FLOCK: Yes. All righty. Well, you're going to be up against it, though. What do you think you're going to be looking at before we're done?

SUDDUTH: Well, I think we, we're expecting to get at least 100 mile per hour winds on the anemometer here and the pressure should drop close to the pressure that the center of the storm is showing now, about 957 millibars. And at least the sun will be coming up. That'll help. That's also a good safety issue there. We can at least see what we're doing.

FLOCK: That's right. We're getting a land falling storm in the day time, which is a real treat for those that like to look at it.

SUDDUTH: That's right.

FLOCK: But it also helps because if you've got problems, you can see what you're doing.

SUDDUTH: That's right. A little bit of a benefit there.

FLOCK: Yes. I'm going to get out of your way because I know you and your team need to get on the radio.

SUDDUTH: Check in with you later.

FLOCK: I appreciate it very much.

Mark Sudduth, Hurricane Intercept Research Team -- Carol, as you can see, a pretty good feeder band on us right now. It's going to be a fun morning. Back to you.

COSTELLO: A fun morning? You be careful out there, you hear? We're going to get back to you in a bit. FLOCK: I will.

COSTELLO: We want to switch to New Orleans right now, where Chad Myers is standing by -- Chad, we're hearing all sorts of weather terms. And boy, is it raining in New Orleans. You're going to have to explain...

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you see, can you hear me?

COSTELLO: I can hear you.

You're going to have to explain what a storm surge is for our audience and those weather bands that Jeff was talking about.

MYERS: Weather bands are actually part of the storm system. It's the little fingers or the arms that will come around the hurricane and that band actually feeds the center. So it all kind of turns into one big vortex as it all comes into the eye itself. And this storm obviously has an eye, with this type of wind speed here at the eye. And even here in New Orleans, we're over 100 miles from the eye right now, we just literally had a wind gust over 45 miles per hour. It almost knocked me off my feet because I wasn't ready for it.

And that's that surging effect that you get with these storms, very squally, where all of a sudden it's just blowing like you can't believe and then the next minute it's almost calm. So you have to really be ready for it.

Storm surge itself, Carol, is the storm, because it's such a low pressure, it actually sucks in water. It sucks in ocean water or Gulf of Mexico water, if you will, this time. And as it starts to raise that water up, we're talking just maybe a foot or two of water, a bubble of water under this low pressure system, kind of like a vacuum cleaner sucking in dirt, this low pressure system makes a bubble of water. And that's OK if it's two feet high and it's in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. But then you throw that two feet of water into a very shallow area and then that water just comes up and up and up.

And then on top of that we've heard between 14 and 20 foot waves on buoys this morning and bigger than that waves yesterday in buoys in the Gulf of Mexico.

But I'll tell you what, although it's blowing here, folks just really wanted to party. They got the hurricanes up, they got their beers up and they were just really rocking and rolling last night. Literally 15 minutes ago I walked down to a bar here, Johnny White's, and they're still drinking. They're still ready to go. And, in fact, all the folks there, some of the locals are there, but I found two guys, believe it or not, that were from Scotland.

COSTELLO: Scotland?

MYERS: Yes, I've got them on tape here. Here they are. I don't hear them, though.

COSTELLO: I don't hear them either. We see people in a carriage, though. It looked so calm in New Orleans at that time.

MYERS: I'm sorry, say that again?

COSTELLO: It looked so calm just a few hours ago in New Orleans and now look at it.

MYERS: Yes, literally the winds have picked up. We're getting east winds here because we're on the east side of the storm itself, to the northeast. So we have that spin around. It depends on where you are. We've had so many live shots today. Everybody's wind is from a different direction because we have reporters on each side of the storm. So one storm moves on one side and then the reporter that's on the north side will get east winds.

If you get somebody on the west side, they're going to get north winds while I'm getting southeast winds this morning. And they're coming in this morning pretty good, at a pretty good clip, at least 45 miles an hour here. And we have begun to see now the lights flicker here in New Orleans, and that's probably the biggest concern, is that they will lose power down here. We're in the French Quarter, Jackson Square right here, the big church, if you know where it is, and Cafe Dumond closed again. I've been to New Orleans twice. Cafe Dumond has been closed five times in the lifetime of...

COSTELLO: Oh, he's breaking up. He's breaking up. We're going to get back to Chad when we can.

Again, Lili has been downgraded now to a Category 3 storm, which means there is sustained winds of about 120 miles per hour, still a monster storm. And CNN is tracking the path of hurricane Lili and we'll be doing that throughout the morning here on DAYBREAK.

Continue coverage of this huge storm is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Fourteen minutes past the hour. We are tracking hurricane Lili this morning. Get this, in Louisiana 20 percent of the population is now under mandatory or voluntary evacuation. That's 850,000 people being told to leave their homes all at the same time.

Our Frank Buckley looks at how one Louisiana parish prepared for hurricane Lili.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While Louisiana residents braced for impact and bought out stores of some supplies, emergency management officials in places like Lake Charles, Louisiana grappled with life and death decisions, and fast moving developments.

STEVEN RINARD, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: I just got paged from our staff here.

BUCKLEY: As National Weather Service meteorologist Steven Rinard was briefing the news media, he learned that Lili was no longer a Category 3, but was now a Category 4 hurricane.

RINARD: A Category 3 is nothing to sneeze at. A Category 4 is really nothing to sneeze at.

BUCKLEY: The news meant officials had to quickly decide if residents preparing to weather out the hurricane should be told they must leave.

(on camera): On the prime notice as far as Category 4, there's concern that pressure dropping and all that kind of stuff, what's your advance take on that?

(voice-over): Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach huddled with other officials to quickly decide how to proceed.

(on camera): Are you worried that people are going to say to you afterward, hey, you told us that we had to leave?

RANDY ROACH, LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA: Oh, I can tell you that no matter what decision we make, there will always be those who will say either you should your shouldn't have. There's always going to be somebody to second guess the decision that you make. And all you can do is make the decision based on the best information that you have available to you at the time you make that decision.

BUCKLEY: The director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Dick Gramillion, moved to make the evacuation parish wide.

(on camera): How crucial is this moment for you before this hurricane comes?

DICK GRAMILLION, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: Well, we have been telling people all along as forcefully as we can, we've asked them to use common sense. We're past the common sense stage now. The National Weather Service is telling us this is a dangerous situation now.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Moments later, Gramillion is at a local TV station to get out the new information.

GRAMILLION: After consultation actually during our press conference today, the National Weather Service advised us that this storm is intensifying quickly. It has become a lot more dangerous.

BUCKLEY: And a lot more nerve wrecking for Gramillion, who knows that his decisions could make the difference between life and death for the more than 180,000 residents of Calcashu Parish.

(on camera): Are you nervous?

GRAMILLION: Hell, yes, I'm nervous. I mean I'd be stupid if I wasn't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That's for sure. A lot of people are nervous. And just to make sure you know, Lili has been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane. That just happened about a half hour ago. Of course, it could go back up to a Category 4 hurricane. You just never know. Storms are unpredictable sometimes.

We're going to keep following this storm. You stay with us. We'll be right back here on DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Take a look at these live pictures. Hurricane Lili producing some strong winds in Lafayette, Louisiana. We believe wind gusts there are up to 45 to 50 miles per hour. Hurricane Lili is now a Category 3 storm, which means sustained winds of 120 miles per hour.

As I told you before, 850,000 people from Texas all the way through Louisiana and along the coast told to evacuate. Where are they all going to go?

Well, there are 89 shelters set up across the area.

Jason Bellini is at one of them, in Gray, Louisiana. That's near Homa, Louisiana.

But Jason, can you be more specific for us? Where exactly are you?

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm in a shelter at First Baptist Church in Gray, Louisiana. I can tell you, really in just the last 10 minutes the storm has picked up significantly. I'm in a, the gymnasium at this church. It's a tin siding. And so you hear the pounding of a rain against the walls.

I spoke with the pastor here. He's expecting more people to be coming in from this community because many of the people in this area live in trailer parks and he's afraid that they are going to discover that they can't weather the storm inside of their trailers. I also spoke to a neighborhood watch person who's staying here and he told me he saw over 75 people who are still staying in their trailers.

So they've very concerned here right now about their neighbors and what's going to happen to those who decided to stay in their homes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jason, why can't they be convinced to leave?

BELLINI: Many people decided they just wanted to wait and see what happened, figuring that with a shelter nearby that they, if they had to run at the last minute, they could. But if they're going to come over here, they're going to have to run through some horizontal rain and some really fierce winds to get here.

COSTELLO: Yes, and it might be too late. I mean when do you decide to leave your mobile home?

BELLINI: It's a very good question. And this neighborhood watch person I spoke with, he said he was going around even at three in the morning urging people to come over to the shelter and to get out of their homes, knowing that they're just not, there's a strong possibility that they won't hold up in this storm.

COSTELLO: Are there enough shelters for all of the people who've been ordered to evacuate, Jason?

BELLINI: I'm told that in Homa right now they're over capacity. It, they have 1,650 people at their shelter in Homa. So there's overflow spots that have been developing over the night. I've been listening to the radio as I was driving around this evening and I kept hearing of new shelters that were being opened to meet the needs of this overflow capacity, as more and more people are deciding to come in seeking shelter, leaving their homes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And I can only imagine the scene inside that church, people sleeping on floors, on cots. Are they just everywhere?

BELLINI: Well, most people really aren't sleeping. Now that storm has picked up, people are walking around, drinking coffee, listening to the storm, peering outside of one of the windows watching the storm. A lot of nervous people. I can tell you that no one is sleeping, even though it's about 4:20 in the morning here.

COSTELLO: Got you.

OK, Jason Bellini.

Oh, by the way, Gray, Louisiana, what big city is that near, just so we can get a sense of exactly where you are? BELLINI: Well, it's near Homa and it's about six miles to the west of Homa. And from New Orleans it's about, approximately, I would say, 50 or 60 miles.

COSTELLO: OK. We got that.

Jason Bellini, thank you very much. We'll get back to you in a bit.

BELLINI: You bet.

COSTELLO: We want to head up to the weather center now.

Jacqui, this storm has been downgraded to a Category 3, but this is nothing to sneeze at, is it?

JERAS: Right. Yes, you have to be careful when you say downgraded, because we don't want people to kind of let down their guard at all. A Category 3 hurricane, that is still a major hurricane. So classified as major and a very serious situation. I mean 120 mile per hour winds can cause a lot of damage, a lot of devastation. And actually coming up in our next weather head, I'm going to try and get some of those points and spell them out for you and show you the difference between a Category 3 and some of the other category storms and the exact type of damage that it can do.

I do want to tell you right now that there is a tornado warning in effect for northern Jefferson Parish in southeastern Louisiana and also for St. Charles parish. That will be in effect until 4:30 local time there, and this is a Doppler radar indicated tornado. So you need to be taking cover. Get to an interior room in your home away from doors and windows. Get to the basement if you have a basement. You need to seek shelter now. And a tornado watch remains in effect for all of southern Louisiana through a good portion of the morning. It also includes southern parts of Mississippi. And we're likely going to continue to see these watches kind of stack up throughout the day today as we watch for Lili to be making landfall.

You can really see the eye picked out here. It's starting to broaden a little bit, which is another sign of weakening. So, you know, the best news is that it is weakening a little bit, even though it will still be major. It could have been worse, as we saw the Category 4 on this yesterday.

Now, rainfall amounts are going to be very heavy. We're expecting anywhere between six and 10 inches in the bright orange bulleted area, which is going to be a little bit farther inland. Storm surge will be more of a problem along the coastline and then we'll watch for the heavy rain, the tropical downpours and all the flooding.

You get a little farther out into central parts of Mississippi, into central Louisiana and we're talking about maybe three to six inches of rainfall. And then you get into the exterior bands, maybe one to three inches, which includes over into the Galveston and Houston areas for today. That's not to mention what we're going to be expecting possibly tomorrow because we have our trough, which is going to be bringing this a little bit more rapidly up to the north and to the east after it makes landfall.

Wind will be a big deal, hurricane force winds expected to extend out about 150 miles from the shoreline. And there you can see the kind of outer bands. And then 65 miles an hour up towards the Shreveport area, maybe even heading up towards Dallas/Fort Worth. We're expecting to see some very strong winds today.

These are current wind gusts across the area, not the sustained speeds, the gusts that we're seeing. Alexandria, 20 miles per hour, 25 miles per hour in Lake Charles, New Iberia 40 miles per hour and Boothville, 44 miles per hour. So that's the highest thing that we could find right now. And 39 miles per hour in New Orleans. So those are some very strong gusting winds.

If you are going to be out and about today, if people still decided not to evacuate, if you live in New Orleans and you're heading out this morning, really use a lot of caution with those winds because they will likely be gusting well beyond the 45 mile per hour that we're seeing now and could really throw you off guard and cause some problems here with your travel for today.

And, of course, airport delays are going to be up there. You're probably not going to be able to get into many of the airports in the lower Mississippi River Valley for today.

Our forecast, we want to show you this upper, this big system in the mid section of the country. This is what's going to be combining with Lili later on for today and shoot it up to the north and to the east. If you remember, Isidore, for all the heavy rain and flooding into parts of Tennessee and then into the Ohio Valley, we're probably going to be seeing a very similar situation with Lili and her track of bringing the very heavy rainfall, as well. But likely extending a little farther northward.

So eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky probably not going to be as bad as what we'll see later on into parts of Arkansas, maybe over into southeastern parts of Missouri and then up into parts of the Ohio Valley. And there you can see our forecast. On Friday, really getting caught up with this strong cold front. And we'll have the chance of strong to severe thunderstorms from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf Coast for tomorrow. So we will be dealing with the effects of Lili yet for another couple of days. It will likely be the weekend before the storm is totally out of here altogether. And, again, we'll be watching it to make landfall, we think, later on this morning.

It has been picking up speed very rapidly. Even though it's been weakening a little bit, it's moving much faster. So that means the timing of landfall is going to be earlier in the day rather than later in the day. We'll be watching for maybe mid morning for it to be making landfall -- Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: OK, when you say mid morning, and I know you can't pin it down exactly, but are you talking eight this morning, nine this morning?

JERAS: I think between eight and 10 is probably a reasonable period of time.

COSTELLO: OK, thank you, Jacqui.

We'll get back to you in a bit.

You know, we've been wondering about the people who decided to stay and not evacuate. If you are watching television and you have your computer up, e-mail us, daybreak@cnn.com. daybreak@cnn.com. And tell us why, why you've decided to stay and stick out that storm.

Of course, we are tracking the path of hurricane Lili this morning on CNN DAYBREAK. Our reporters are on the front lines, bringing you up to the minute coverage as the Gulf Coast braces for the Category 3 hurricane.

But believe it or not, things can get worse. In 1992, hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc on the coasts of Florida and Louisiana. The hurricane was a rare Category 5, packing winds up to 160 miles per hour and storm surges 18 feet above normal. Hurricane Andrew was the last of the three Category 5 hurricanes to ever hit the United States coast.

You are watching CNN DAYBREAK for Thursday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: We want to get back to the horrible hurricane Lili. The Category 3 storm is just off the Gulf Coast. We've got our correspondents posted all along the expected target area to bring us live reports.

Right now we want to check in with Ed Lavandera, who is in Lake Charles, Louisiana -- what's it like there, Ed? It looks pretty calm right now.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It actually is. It has started to pick up a little bit in the last half hour. This is probably the strongest rain we've seen since we've been out here this morning, actually, since yesterday. And the wind is starting to slightly pick up, as well. But by no means what this storm is expected to bring toward this area.

Just to give you an idea of where we're at, we're in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This is the Harrah's Casino boat that you might see, a riverboat casino that you might see behind me. This casino was shut down yesterday. The hotel here has also been shut down. Many businesses here in Lake Charles shut down early yesterday, as well. Many of the restaurants around town were closed as people prepared and then started seeking shelter for this storm.

The emergency officials here in Lake Charles just wrapped up a conference, a statewide conference call with state emergency officials where they were told, given the information about the downgrading of this storm. But what all, what they were also told is to maintain the levels of emergency preparedness that they've put into effect over the course of the last 24 hours.

So the folks here in Lake Charles, for example, say that they will continue to operate as if this were still a Category 4 hurricane and still set all of those motions into effect. They don't want people to let their guard down. And we have been told that evacuation orders were issued throughout this area. Many of the people who live south of Lake Charles along the Gulf Coast waters evacuated yesterday. We spent the day yesterday in Cameron, Louisiana, and by the time we left there yesterday, that town seemed like a ghost town.

We were also told about 2,300 people from this area have moved about two parishes to the north of Lake Charles, seeking shelter. So there are about 2,300 people in shelters tonight up there in the early morning hours, as well.

But here, Lake Charles still waiting to see the effects of hurricane Lili. We're told that the stronger parts of this storm will perhaps start arriving here about six or seven o'clock this morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So, have people prepared? Have levees been repaired? Have sand bags been put into place, Ed?

LAVANDERA: You can see that in a lot of places, especially a lot of the businesses that we had a chance to see yesterday, a lot of the storm, a lot of the businesses were putting up boards on the windows, the Wal-Marts and the Lowe's home improvement places, and as well as restaurants all over town, as well.

Here at the Harrah's Casino, they put up also sand bags around the doors, as well, as this hotel has been cleared out, as well. So you do see a lot of that around town as people have gotten ready for the storm here. COSTELLO: All right, Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

Reporting live from Lake Charles, Louisiana. We'll get back to him in a couple of minutes.

We want to hear now from Robert LeBlanc, who is right on the Louisiana coast in Vermilion Parish.

Robert is with the Vermilion Emergency Management Agency.

He joins us now live by telephone.

Good morning.

ROBERT LEBLANC, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: Good morning. How are you this morning?

COSTELLO: I'm fine. But the bigger question is how are you?

LEBLANC: Well, the biggest news I can give you right now is the fact that the National Weather Service has downgraded this storm and that's outstanding news for us here in Vermilion Parish, who are supposed to be the, taking the brunt of this hurricane, because most of our land area is between five foot elevation and 15 foot elevation. And the fact that the storm surge has gotten down from 20 to five is a great event in our area. And also the fact that six hours ago we were facing 140 mile an hour winds and we're now looking at 60 to 70.

So this is great news.

COSTELLO: Yes. Are you still worried about the big storm surge and the ensuing rain even with a Category 3 hurricane, though?

LEBLANC: Yes, but I don't think we're going to have a Category 3. I think this thing has dropped down to below two.

COSTELLO: Oh, I hope you're right. We're going to check in with our weather people. But it has not...

LEBLANC: That would make a great difference along the coast.

COSTELLO: Oh, you're not kidding. Tell me about the evacuations. Were most people willing to go and did you have things like traffic jams and trouble getting people out of town?

LEBLANC: We didn't have any serious problems with evacuation. However, as usual, in most evacuations, you can't get everybody to leave. And you really don't force them to leave. We try to encourage them to leave. And we must have gotten about 90 percent compliance.

COSTELLO: Why don't you force them to leave? LEBLANC: Say again?

COSTELLO: Why don't you force them to leave if it's so dangerous?

LEBLANC: Well, it's not worth the time and effort because you're going to put them in handcuffs. What are you going to do with them? Try to find a jail space to put them?

COSTELLO: Oh, that's true.

LEBLANC: We would rather, we would rather just get their names, addresses and a telephone number of the next of kin and let 'em know that at least we'll be able to take, tell that next of kin where we left them and they didn't want to move.

COSTELLO: Got you.

I know that the evacuations have taken place. Have you stopped the evacuations now? I mean have the evacuation routes been closed down?

LEBLANC: No, because the evacuation was completed and the routes, things went a lot better this time than they did for Andrew. As you know, Andrew it took about eight or nine hours to get to Alexandria. This time you could get up there in three and a half hours.

COSTELLO: Well, that is good news and we're happy that the storm has been downgraded to a Category 3 now.

Robert LeBlanc, thank you for joining us live this morning.

You can keep up with hurricane Lili on our Web site, as well. Just click onto cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.

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