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CNN Live At Daybreak
Interview with Mitch Kokai
Aired December 05, 2002 - 05:19 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: Now for more on today's storm, icing in North Carolina is causing major power outages.
Reporter Mitch Kokai of News-14 Carolina is in Raleigh.
Good morning, Mitch.
I understand something like 200,000 people are without power today?
MITCH KOKAI, NEWS-14 CAROLINA: That's right, even more than that. The latest numbers we have from one of the major utilities in the area, Carolina Power & Light, 376,000 customers, including about 318,000 in this area. Now, North Carolina ice storms can cause problems typically in two ways. One, making the roads treacherous, and two, causing the tree branches to fall on the power lines, knocking out that power.
The good news is the roads aren't that bad. You can pass along them fairly easily. But the bad news is the power. We're at a location where just a half hour ago there was power all around, but we saw what looked like the cloud to ground lightning just about 20, 25 minutes ago. It was actually a transformer blowing, knocking out power to much of this area.
Raleigh, the capital city, of course, getting a lot of the power outages, 80,000 plus at last report.
COSTELLO: And when do you expect the power to be turned on? Sometimes it takes a week or more.
KOKAI: Well, the folks who are working on this have been working since the storm started and they say they've made some progress, but they really won't know what they have to work with in terms of getting all power restored until the storm stops knocking those branches onto the power lines. It looks as if it may be later this morning before we have a good idea how much longer it will last.
But as you said, sometimes with hundreds of thousands of outages, it can take upwards of a week to get that done.
COSTELLO: And it's very cold in those homes without electricity at this time of year.
Mitch, thanks for the update from Raleigh.
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 December 5, 2002 - 05:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now for more on today's storm, icing in North Carolina is causing major power outages.
Reporter Mitch Kokai of News-14 Carolina is in Raleigh.
Good morning, Mitch.
I understand something like 200,000 people are without power today?
MITCH KOKAI, NEWS-14 CAROLINA: That's right, even more than that. The latest numbers we have from one of the major utilities in the area, Carolina Power & Light, 376,000 customers, including about 318,000 in this area. Now, North Carolina ice storms can cause problems typically in two ways. One, making the roads treacherous, and two, causing the tree branches to fall on the power lines, knocking out that power.
The good news is the roads aren't that bad. You can pass along them fairly easily. But the bad news is the power. We're at a location where just a half hour ago there was power all around, but we saw what looked like the cloud to ground lightning just about 20, 25 minutes ago. It was actually a transformer blowing, knocking out power to much of this area.
Raleigh, the capital city, of course, getting a lot of the power outages, 80,000 plus at last report.
COSTELLO: And when do you expect the power to be turned on? Sometimes it takes a week or more.
KOKAI: Well, the folks who are working on this have been working since the storm started and they say they've made some progress, but they really won't know what they have to work with in terms of getting all power restored until the storm stops knocking those branches onto the power lines. It looks as if it may be later this morning before we have a good idea how much longer it will last.
But as you said, sometimes with hundreds of thousands of outages, it can take upwards of a week to get that done.
COSTELLO: And it's very cold in those homes without electricity at this time of year.
Mitch, thanks for the update from Raleigh.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
