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CNN Live Today

Lili Makes Landfall

Aired October 03, 2002 - 11:02   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.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: As we understand it, the eye is now making landfall. We've gotten some reports moments ago, we had the live shot coming up from New Iberia.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Fifty-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

HARRIS: And we have now our Chad Myers who is standing by. I believe Chad still is in New Orleans.

From what I understand there, totally different picture there -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we had 50-mile-per-hour winds about an hour ago or so. But now we have sunshine here, and that's really strange because over to the right is absolutely gray. Back that way is black, and behind me gray skies. So it comes and it goes.

And when you're caught off guard, this is what your umbrella ends up looking like. Kind of a piece of debris, if nothing else. A lot of folks have been trying to travel with these. As they go inside out, they don't work all that well.

The eye of the storm itself is still back to our west. I've heard a lot of folks talk about how it's onshore now and it's dying off. But the fact is it's on swamp; onshore is really a relative term here in Louisiana. And that swamp area there, the Bayou, if you will, still very wet. The water's very warm. And just because there are some weeds in that swamp, or basically in that water, you're not really holding down the moisture very much, and so the storm still has more energy. And I bet New Iberia is going to see wind gusts to at least 100 miles per hour, if not more, as that eastern eye wall does move on by.

Of course, Jacqui Jeras will have more on that, because she knows exactly where that eye is moving at this point.

HARRIS: As a matter of fact, Chad, I've got some more for you right now.

We're now getting word, the National Hurricane Center makes its updates at 11:00 every day. We're just crossing that time Eastern time now. The storm is now officially a category 1 storm.

You're familiar with that Fujita scale.

You're familiar with that scale. What's that mean? MYERS: Well, an F-scale -- not to correct you on air, Leon, but the Fujita scale is actually for tornadoes.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Thank you for the correction.

MYERS: That's OK. Don't want to get anybody else confused.

Category 1, category 2, category 3, 4, and 5. Same numbers. So you don't have a category zero, like you do on an F-scale -- you can get an F-0.

But a category 1 down below 95 miles per hour. So the winds have been spinning around.

The great news, a lot of government agencies take heat on things, but let me tell you the National Hurricane Center has done such a fabulous job getting Air Force recon out there into this storm. I have never seen planes continuously in a storm like I have with this one. That's how we knew it was a category 4 in the first place, because they had planes in that thing the entire night, the entire day yesterday, and obviously, they have them now down to 100 miles per hour.

HARRIS: You can't see any of those planes from where you are right now, can you?

MYERS: Oh, no, of course not. They're actually in the eye wall. They're trying to punch the eye wall, something that our Valerie Voss did so many years ago, before she retired here at CNN. Not an assignment that I'd volunteer for, I don't think. I'll stay out of that eye wall, thank you very much.

HARRIS: A second ago, you were thinking New Iberia might see 100-mile-per-hour winds. Now Jacqui Jeras is now telling us National Hurricane Center is saying they're down at 90 now. So that could be...

MYERS: Ninety, great. Great news.

But those are sustained winds, 90 sustained. That doesn't mean that you couldn't be 105 or 108, 110 with a wind gust. So there's still damage going on down there for sure.

HARRIS: That's a good point. That's a good point.

Good deal. Well, I'm glad to see you're at least in a more mild part of the storm, Chad.

MYERS: Yes, we're in good shape.

HARRIS: Enjoy it while you got it. OK? We'll check back with you in a little bit, then -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And our Max Mayfield is also going to be joining us a bit later from the National Hurricane Center to give us a sense of the up-to-date numbers.

Our hurricane veteran Jeff Flock is riding out the storm in Morgan City, Louisiana, just to the east of where Lili made landfall. He joins us live with a look at the storm's impact there.

How are things looking right now, Jeff? It looks a little calmer.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Certainly could have been worse. This sign was really shaking on us a little earlier. It's not quite so bad right now, although we're still getting some pretty decent wind. They just shut this road down where they had the problem with the telephone poles.

I want to bring you down -- what is this -- Allison Street, here in Morgan City, just to kind of give you some indication of what we're seeing. Pretty minor damage. Take a look up on that guy's roof. You see a tree branch come down. He's got obviously a big tree out in his yard. That's a lot of what we're seeing on both sides of the street: A lot of branches are down. This one over here, this guy on the other side -- I don't know if you're going to be able to see it -- is losing some roof tiles up on that one.

But really, when it comes right down to it, this thing could have been a whole lot worse. Last night, we were really sweating it here because they were talking about a storm surge with a category 4 and the kind of winds that a category 4 were going to push and water that was going to push, a storm surge would have been washed right through here.

We've got folks -- hey, how are you -- look at these guys here. What are you, shooting pictures yourself?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we're just riding around looking to see what we can do.

FLOCK: Ride up with me a little bit. My cameraman's out of cable here. Cable News Network. What are you seeing so far out here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw a few trees down and a bunch of shingles ripped off. But it hasn't been really too bad.

FLOCK: You expected worse than this, didn't you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, big time.

FLOCK: What possessed you to stay here and weather this out when you heard it was going to be category 4 -- what did you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we went through Andrew, so we figured if we went through that one, we sat it out, we can handle this one.

FLOCK: It could have been worse, couldn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, definitely, definitely. But we're glad it calmed down, though. FLOCK: No kidding. Good deal

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worked out good.

FLOCK: Worked out good. All righty.

We'll let you go and do your thing. Appreciate it.

I think that's the bottom line. Worked out good. Could have been worse. That's the latest from Morgan City -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, it's a good thing it didn't get worse there, because those folks and a few others decided to stick it out.

FLOCK: A lot of people in Morgan City -- surprisingly -- we're talking to the mayor -- a lot of people decided to stay, because they've been through Andrew, and they figured, Well, (EXPLETIVE DELETED), if we did Andrew, we can certainly do this.

WHITFIELD: That's the danger of that false sense of security: Folks feel like, Oh, I've been through a much more serious hurricane, i can ride out the next one -- but you never know, strange things happen. Thanks a lot, Jeff. Appreciate it.

Let's find out how Ed Lavandera is making out in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where there, not long ago, it was dry.

And it looks now to be still dry for you there, Ed. Lucky you.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very lucky to be here on the western side of this storm. The eye of the storm passing 50 to 60 miles east of where we are in the New Iberia area, between where Jeff Flock is and where I am here.

But just before we came on air, another little gust of rain started falling here. The wind's picked up slightly. But when you consider what this storm was 24 hours ago, a category 4 storm, bringing 145-mile-per-hour winds, and that this is what ends up washing up onshore, I think a lot of people in this area will gladly take this kind of storm.

Speaking with emergency officials here in Lake Charles, and they're gathering here this morning just to kind of reassess everything that's going on. The mayor says that his inclination was to say that perhaps they'd seen the worst of this storm.

So folks here feeling very lucky. Although win of the major problems they're dealing with now is massive power outages throughout between here and Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. We understand about 126 people without power. But there are teams that are ready to go in. Last week, when we were heading out of Louisiana after covering Tropical Storm Isidore, you'd see on the side of the roads electrical crews just parked on the side of the roads like Army tanks, just ready to go in, ready for the call to go in. We understand that's happening as we speak already. For 126,000 folks without electricity -- so those crews will be quickly working to get everyone back up to speed here. And they anticipate that perhaps by the end of the day most things will be back to normal here -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, that is good news, indeed.

Thanks a lot, Ed, appreciate it.

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 - 11:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: As we understand it, the eye is now making landfall. We've gotten some reports moments ago, we had the live shot coming up from New Iberia.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Fifty-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

HARRIS: And we have now our Chad Myers who is standing by. I believe Chad still is in New Orleans.

From what I understand there, totally different picture there -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we had 50-mile-per-hour winds about an hour ago or so. But now we have sunshine here, and that's really strange because over to the right is absolutely gray. Back that way is black, and behind me gray skies. So it comes and it goes.

And when you're caught off guard, this is what your umbrella ends up looking like. Kind of a piece of debris, if nothing else. A lot of folks have been trying to travel with these. As they go inside out, they don't work all that well.

The eye of the storm itself is still back to our west. I've heard a lot of folks talk about how it's onshore now and it's dying off. But the fact is it's on swamp; onshore is really a relative term here in Louisiana. And that swamp area there, the Bayou, if you will, still very wet. The water's very warm. And just because there are some weeds in that swamp, or basically in that water, you're not really holding down the moisture very much, and so the storm still has more energy. And I bet New Iberia is going to see wind gusts to at least 100 miles per hour, if not more, as that eastern eye wall does move on by.

Of course, Jacqui Jeras will have more on that, because she knows exactly where that eye is moving at this point.

HARRIS: As a matter of fact, Chad, I've got some more for you right now.

We're now getting word, the National Hurricane Center makes its updates at 11:00 every day. We're just crossing that time Eastern time now. The storm is now officially a category 1 storm.

You're familiar with that Fujita scale.

You're familiar with that scale. What's that mean? MYERS: Well, an F-scale -- not to correct you on air, Leon, but the Fujita scale is actually for tornadoes.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Thank you for the correction.

MYERS: That's OK. Don't want to get anybody else confused.

Category 1, category 2, category 3, 4, and 5. Same numbers. So you don't have a category zero, like you do on an F-scale -- you can get an F-0.

But a category 1 down below 95 miles per hour. So the winds have been spinning around.

The great news, a lot of government agencies take heat on things, but let me tell you the National Hurricane Center has done such a fabulous job getting Air Force recon out there into this storm. I have never seen planes continuously in a storm like I have with this one. That's how we knew it was a category 4 in the first place, because they had planes in that thing the entire night, the entire day yesterday, and obviously, they have them now down to 100 miles per hour.

HARRIS: You can't see any of those planes from where you are right now, can you?

MYERS: Oh, no, of course not. They're actually in the eye wall. They're trying to punch the eye wall, something that our Valerie Voss did so many years ago, before she retired here at CNN. Not an assignment that I'd volunteer for, I don't think. I'll stay out of that eye wall, thank you very much.

HARRIS: A second ago, you were thinking New Iberia might see 100-mile-per-hour winds. Now Jacqui Jeras is now telling us National Hurricane Center is saying they're down at 90 now. So that could be...

MYERS: Ninety, great. Great news.

But those are sustained winds, 90 sustained. That doesn't mean that you couldn't be 105 or 108, 110 with a wind gust. So there's still damage going on down there for sure.

HARRIS: That's a good point. That's a good point.

Good deal. Well, I'm glad to see you're at least in a more mild part of the storm, Chad.

MYERS: Yes, we're in good shape.

HARRIS: Enjoy it while you got it. OK? We'll check back with you in a little bit, then -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And our Max Mayfield is also going to be joining us a bit later from the National Hurricane Center to give us a sense of the up-to-date numbers.

Our hurricane veteran Jeff Flock is riding out the storm in Morgan City, Louisiana, just to the east of where Lili made landfall. He joins us live with a look at the storm's impact there.

How are things looking right now, Jeff? It looks a little calmer.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Certainly could have been worse. This sign was really shaking on us a little earlier. It's not quite so bad right now, although we're still getting some pretty decent wind. They just shut this road down where they had the problem with the telephone poles.

I want to bring you down -- what is this -- Allison Street, here in Morgan City, just to kind of give you some indication of what we're seeing. Pretty minor damage. Take a look up on that guy's roof. You see a tree branch come down. He's got obviously a big tree out in his yard. That's a lot of what we're seeing on both sides of the street: A lot of branches are down. This one over here, this guy on the other side -- I don't know if you're going to be able to see it -- is losing some roof tiles up on that one.

But really, when it comes right down to it, this thing could have been a whole lot worse. Last night, we were really sweating it here because they were talking about a storm surge with a category 4 and the kind of winds that a category 4 were going to push and water that was going to push, a storm surge would have been washed right through here.

We've got folks -- hey, how are you -- look at these guys here. What are you, shooting pictures yourself?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we're just riding around looking to see what we can do.

FLOCK: Ride up with me a little bit. My cameraman's out of cable here. Cable News Network. What are you seeing so far out here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw a few trees down and a bunch of shingles ripped off. But it hasn't been really too bad.

FLOCK: You expected worse than this, didn't you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, big time.

FLOCK: What possessed you to stay here and weather this out when you heard it was going to be category 4 -- what did you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we went through Andrew, so we figured if we went through that one, we sat it out, we can handle this one.

FLOCK: It could have been worse, couldn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, definitely, definitely. But we're glad it calmed down, though. FLOCK: No kidding. Good deal

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worked out good.

FLOCK: Worked out good. All righty.

We'll let you go and do your thing. Appreciate it.

I think that's the bottom line. Worked out good. Could have been worse. That's the latest from Morgan City -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, it's a good thing it didn't get worse there, because those folks and a few others decided to stick it out.

FLOCK: A lot of people in Morgan City -- surprisingly -- we're talking to the mayor -- a lot of people decided to stay, because they've been through Andrew, and they figured, Well, (EXPLETIVE DELETED), if we did Andrew, we can certainly do this.

WHITFIELD: That's the danger of that false sense of security: Folks feel like, Oh, I've been through a much more serious hurricane, i can ride out the next one -- but you never know, strange things happen. Thanks a lot, Jeff. Appreciate it.

Let's find out how Ed Lavandera is making out in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where there, not long ago, it was dry.

And it looks now to be still dry for you there, Ed. Lucky you.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very lucky to be here on the western side of this storm. The eye of the storm passing 50 to 60 miles east of where we are in the New Iberia area, between where Jeff Flock is and where I am here.

But just before we came on air, another little gust of rain started falling here. The wind's picked up slightly. But when you consider what this storm was 24 hours ago, a category 4 storm, bringing 145-mile-per-hour winds, and that this is what ends up washing up onshore, I think a lot of people in this area will gladly take this kind of storm.

Speaking with emergency officials here in Lake Charles, and they're gathering here this morning just to kind of reassess everything that's going on. The mayor says that his inclination was to say that perhaps they'd seen the worst of this storm.

So folks here feeling very lucky. Although win of the major problems they're dealing with now is massive power outages throughout between here and Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. We understand about 126 people without power. But there are teams that are ready to go in. Last week, when we were heading out of Louisiana after covering Tropical Storm Isidore, you'd see on the side of the roads electrical crews just parked on the side of the roads like Army tanks, just ready to go in, ready for the call to go in. We understand that's happening as we speak already. For 126,000 folks without electricity -- so those crews will be quickly working to get everyone back up to speed here. And they anticipate that perhaps by the end of the day most things will be back to normal here -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, that is good news, indeed.

Thanks a lot, Ed, appreciate it.

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