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CNN Live At Daybreak
Claudette Cleanup Time
Aired July 16, 2003 - 05:38 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: In Texas, it's Claudette cleanup time. The first hurricane of the season was far more destructive than category one hurricanes usually are.
Joining us on the phone from Corpus Christi, Texas with more on the story is my buddy, meteorologist Jason Gough of KRIS-TV.
Good morning again, Jason.
JASON GOUGH, KRIS-TV METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Carol, good morning to you.
It was a pretty wacky day around here yesterday, to say the least.
COSTELLO: I bet. Can you tell us about the damage to Corpus Christi?
GOUGH: Well, you know what? I hate cliches, but dodging a bullet definitely fits in here. I mean we were just on the southern periphery of the storm and officially at the airport we had about a third of an inch of rain and about an hour to the north we have a weather intern here, like I was at Channel 7 in Washington, and his house was completely destroyed by a tornado. So we were just on the southern cusp of it and it could have been a heck of a lot worse for the City of Corpus Christi. But obviously with all the pictures that you've been showing this morning, it was pretty bad up toward Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca.
COSTELLO: Yes, we're seeing some flooding here. Is there flooding there in Corpus Christi?
GOUGH: Actually, not in Corpus Christi, no. And that was the main concern. I spent a lot of time yesterday with the emergency managers and they were terrified of some big time flooding here, especially along the coast. But it didn't happen. Chad and I talked about it yesterday. A little further to the north, though, there was quite a bit of flooding and especially inland, too, with a lot of rain being dumped in a real short amount of time. And like I said, it could have been a heck of a lot worse, but fortunately the storm is moving pretty fast off to the west now. So it was an eye opener, for sure.
COSTELLO: I bet.
I'm going to bring Chad in, to the surprise of our director.
Mike, can you turn Chad's microphone on?
CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's OK. No, he knows.
COSTELLO: Oh, well, you're on.
MYERS: He saw me coming.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Mike.
MYERS: Hey, Jason, I know you probably have weather spotters and weather watchers out there. We got a couple of reports of wind gusts over 100 mile per hour up there, Point Comfort, Port Lavaca. What did your viewers and your basically your spotters out there tell you yesterday and today?
GOUGH: Well, you know, as I was just saying, here in the city we had a couple that we only had about a 30, officially at the airport we had a 30 mile or 39 mile an hour peak gust of wind. A little further to the north, we had a weather watcher that called in with a 75 mile an hour gust. And then just out of our viewing area, unofficially we had heard about a gust that was 110 miles an hour. And not only that, to add insult to injury, there were a few isolated tornadoes around our weather intern.
MYERS: Right.
GOUGH: His house was about completely demolished by a tornado, as well. He lives about an hour north of here.
MYERS: That's always a problem. You can spin tornadoes out of these storms simply because there's so much rotation in the storm itself, in the tropical depression, tropical storm or a hurricane, whatever it might be when it's over your house. There's so much vorticity, as we call it, so much spinning going on, as soon as that starts to hit the land, you start to get some what we call friction on the land. It slows the thing down and the whole thing wants to spin around on the ground.
GOUGH: Yes, and that...
COSTELLO: And, Jason, thanks so much for joining us again.
I know you're busy.
Once again, we appreciate you taking some time out to talk with us.
My buddy, Jason Gough, worked with me in Washington.
MYERS: Jason, thank you.
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 July 16, 2003 - 05:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In Texas, it's Claudette cleanup time. The first hurricane of the season was far more destructive than category one hurricanes usually are.
Joining us on the phone from Corpus Christi, Texas with more on the story is my buddy, meteorologist Jason Gough of KRIS-TV.
Good morning again, Jason.
JASON GOUGH, KRIS-TV METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Carol, good morning to you.
It was a pretty wacky day around here yesterday, to say the least.
COSTELLO: I bet. Can you tell us about the damage to Corpus Christi?
GOUGH: Well, you know what? I hate cliches, but dodging a bullet definitely fits in here. I mean we were just on the southern periphery of the storm and officially at the airport we had about a third of an inch of rain and about an hour to the north we have a weather intern here, like I was at Channel 7 in Washington, and his house was completely destroyed by a tornado. So we were just on the southern cusp of it and it could have been a heck of a lot worse for the City of Corpus Christi. But obviously with all the pictures that you've been showing this morning, it was pretty bad up toward Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca.
COSTELLO: Yes, we're seeing some flooding here. Is there flooding there in Corpus Christi?
GOUGH: Actually, not in Corpus Christi, no. And that was the main concern. I spent a lot of time yesterday with the emergency managers and they were terrified of some big time flooding here, especially along the coast. But it didn't happen. Chad and I talked about it yesterday. A little further to the north, though, there was quite a bit of flooding and especially inland, too, with a lot of rain being dumped in a real short amount of time. And like I said, it could have been a heck of a lot worse, but fortunately the storm is moving pretty fast off to the west now. So it was an eye opener, for sure.
COSTELLO: I bet.
I'm going to bring Chad in, to the surprise of our director.
Mike, can you turn Chad's microphone on?
CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's OK. No, he knows.
COSTELLO: Oh, well, you're on.
MYERS: He saw me coming.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Mike.
MYERS: Hey, Jason, I know you probably have weather spotters and weather watchers out there. We got a couple of reports of wind gusts over 100 mile per hour up there, Point Comfort, Port Lavaca. What did your viewers and your basically your spotters out there tell you yesterday and today?
GOUGH: Well, you know, as I was just saying, here in the city we had a couple that we only had about a 30, officially at the airport we had a 30 mile or 39 mile an hour peak gust of wind. A little further to the north, we had a weather watcher that called in with a 75 mile an hour gust. And then just out of our viewing area, unofficially we had heard about a gust that was 110 miles an hour. And not only that, to add insult to injury, there were a few isolated tornadoes around our weather intern.
MYERS: Right.
GOUGH: His house was about completely demolished by a tornado, as well. He lives about an hour north of here.
MYERS: That's always a problem. You can spin tornadoes out of these storms simply because there's so much rotation in the storm itself, in the tropical depression, tropical storm or a hurricane, whatever it might be when it's over your house. There's so much vorticity, as we call it, so much spinning going on, as soon as that starts to hit the land, you start to get some what we call friction on the land. It slows the thing down and the whole thing wants to spin around on the ground.
GOUGH: Yes, and that...
COSTELLO: And, Jason, thanks so much for joining us again.
I know you're busy.
Once again, we appreciate you taking some time out to talk with us.
My buddy, Jason Gough, worked with me in Washington.
MYERS: Jason, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
