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CNN Live At Daybreak
Hurricane Isabel: Waiting on the Storm
Aired September 18, 2003 - 05:42 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: Want to take you live now to Morehead City, North Carolina. Katie Marzullo of CNN affiliate News 14 is there. She's been there for the last couple of days. She joins us live this morning.
Good morning -- Katie.
KATIE MARZULLO, NEWS 14 TV REPORTER: Good morning, Carol.
Well, it's just been a day at the beach until now.
COSTELLO: Oh no.
MARZULLO: It's raining. We're getting wet, but it's very, very moderate, all things considered. Of course steady rain, it's coming down. Moderate wind, although every now and then you'll get a gust that will sort of knock you off your feet a little bit and of course smack you with the rain that much harder, but not that bad considering what is to come.
Now speaking of which, you can see the lights on behind us across the water there is Atlantic Beach. That, of course, was evacuated yesterday and the bridge shut down at 7:00 last night. That means there are a whole lot of folks over here with us on this side of the bridge, of course trying to seek shelter from the storm. Hundreds of those doing so with the Red Cross.
And we've been over to one of their shelters and caught up with some folks who decided that was just the only place that they truly felt safe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOMMY BARNETT (ph), HURRICANE REFUGEE: Say thank you.
KATIE MARZULLO, NEWS 14 TV REPORTER (voice-over): Tommy Barnett is staying at the shelter with her husband and four kids, ages 2 to 13.
BARNETT: It's going to be uncomfortable, but we just thank the Lord that there is a place that's open.
MARZULLO: They can't stay at home. She says their place is a prime candidate for flooding and for damage.
BARNETT: We have real big pecan trees around our house and the limbs are pretty old. MARZULLO: Renee Merrill Harkley (ph) didn't hesitate to take her family here either.
RENEE MERRILL HARKLEY, HURRICANE REFUGEE: I live in a trailer, and you know I just didn't want the -- want them safe in a trailer so I seen how bad it would be, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was very upset, which I understood, I mean, you know.
MARZULLO: So here she's safe, even a little entertained, but her thoughts aren't far from the storm.
HARKLEY: Most of the time I'm praying, you know, praying that it will come over, that everybody will be all right.
MARZULLO: Everyone here will be. Even the youngest camper knows that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to stay in here all day long so I could look up the upstairs. If this floods, I'm going to go upstairs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARZULLO: See, we all need to be taking lessons from 4 year olds. That kid has the right idea. All those folks, of course, safe and dry in that shelter. They have just over 300 checked in now, but they expect maybe more than a 1,000 by the time this is all said and done.
COSTELLO: You know, Katie, I guess the best thing is this storm has been so long in coming everyone has had time to prepare. There are no excuses, are there?
MARZULLO: No, you're right, there is not. And I think anyone who decided to stay knows what they're in for, but everyone else has certainly found friends or family or shelter as places to go.
COSTELLO: Yes, we hope so.
Katie Marzullo, many thanks, live from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
And, Chad, as you saw there, it is beginning to rain there now.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And I'm looking over at a live shot that Jeff Flock is trying to get up right now, and it is really coming down where he is -- where he is. And you know what, it's just going to keep getting worse now.
We talked about this. We talked about the eyeball coming on shore about noon to 2:00, depending on whether it speeds up or not. It's now moving northwest at 14 miles per hour.
You can clearly, here on the very last frame, see the center of the eyewall there, right there, circulating it down there for you, and it is moving still to the northwest and it's going to continue to do that. It's going to make its way right into the Morehead City area. Here is Topsail Beach and right up over here is Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge.
The good news is for a lot of folks is that from Cape Hatteras right on down to Cape Lookout, 95 percent of this is a national wildlife refuge. There are no roads on that island. There are no homes on that island, for the most part. A couple of ferries will take you over there or you need your own boat to get over to that island, so not a huge, not multibillion-dollar hotels on this barrier island here. They are all over here from Corolla, down to Duck, to Cape Hatteras, Kill Devil Hills and obviously right there on up into Virginia Beach.
This storm does make it's way on to North Carolina, makes a big right hand turn, heads over Petersburg, just to the west of Richmond. Richmond's west end, and also let's say Goochland and Ashland and Glenn Allen, you will have much worse conditions than the east side over by the airport of your city as you will be closer to the eyewall itself.
There's where the eye is 33.1 North, 74.7 West. We'll get another fix on this. Another airplane is flying out to this and the winds now still at 105 miles per hour. But the last hurricane hunter aircraft did find a much higher gusting wind in the storm aloft, almost 120 to 125 miles per hour in the storm aloft.
Hurricane warnings still all the way from Cape Fear, North Carolina, right on up into the Chesapeake Bay at Smith Point.
Now what's new today for you in New York and Long Island, tropical storm warnings have been extended from what was Sandy Point. They have made a right hand turn all the way over to Moriches Inlet in New York City or in Long Island in New York on Long Island. And so you are going to see tropical storm conditions, which is between 39 and about 70 miles per hour. I would say probably you guys up here are in the mood for maybe 40 to 50 miles per hour.
The eye of the center of this storm moves very close to Morehead City right now. The storm surge between 7 and 11 feet, and it's coming in at high tide, Carol. We are expecting this storm to come in at high tide. High tide is 2:00. What time did we say it was coming in? Two o'clock.
COSTELLO: It just doesn't -- yes.
MYERS: So not only 7 to 11 foot storm surge, but you have to add in that 3 foot high tide as well. Now we're talking 10 to 14 foot for a storm surge as you run that into Morehead City and even Elizabeth City going to get some surge as well on up here into some of the bays and some of the estuaries of Pamlico and Alamaro Sound.
COSTELLO: What a mess.
MYERS: It is going to be a mess. And a lot of folks inland are going to see a lot of trees down as well. This has been very, very saturated up here, as you know. D.C. is now 15 inches of rain over what they should have for this time of year. And obviously those trees in some kind of rocky ground, some soft ground, you get a 60 mile per hour wind, guess what those trees are going to do? Knock them all down.
COSTELLO: Yes, a lot of shallow root trees in Washington, too. They come down just when it rains normally.
MYERS: Yes, and you know what...
COSTELLO: Hey, we have Jeff Flock -- Chad.
MYERS: All right, good, good. Yes, I see him there.
COSTELLO: You were watching him. He's in Atlantic Beach having a little trouble. We have him now.
MYERS: Sure, just told me to be quiet. Go, Jeff. Look at him.
COSTELLO: Oh my!
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I should be quiet, Jesus.
MYERS: No, I should be quiet. You should go.
FLOCK: Thanks, Chad.
It's really not that bad yet, believe it or not.
COSTELLO: It looks bad -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Well, yes, you know I'll do this if we got a minute here...
COSTELLO: We knew that would happen, because you know when the wind blows that satellite signal...
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: ... digital signal goes all over the place.
It isn't that bad yet, but it looks that bad. Chad, how strong are the winds now in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina?
MYERS: You know I had -- just had wind gusts there about 43 miles per hour in the last half hour. And every time one of these little brighter areas, these little bright yellow areas comes by, that's a thunderstorm, and then the winds come back again.
COSTELLO: Hey, Chad, we got...
MYERS: I see Jeff is back here.
COSTELLO: Yes.
MYERS: I can see him again, so let's go back to him. COSTELLO: OK, Jeff, try it again.
FLOCK: Sorry, well we were trying there. You know let me do, let me go over to a hurricane hunter and a hurricane intercept research team.
I'm going to get you wet -- Jesse (ph).
JESSE: That's all right.
FLOCK: Hey, we're on early, guys. How's it going?
MARK SUDDUTH, HURRICANE INTERCEPT RESEARCH TEAM: All right.
JESSE: A little windy.
SUDDUTH: A little windy.
FLOCK: What do you got, Mark? What's it looking like to you? This is Mark Sudduth who heads this team.
SUDDUTH: We're live on CNN too, Mike (ph), here we are. Look, we're in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, watching this eye come in. They say the eye is basically going to be defused (ph) with the strongest winds, some 50 to 60 miles away from the actual center of the storm. So we're going to get those 100 mile an hour winds earlier than we would if it was a tight, compact storm.
FLOCK: Well let me talk to you, continue, Mark, and I know you're probably talking to somebody else on here. It's like go ahead and come on out here and show them what you got up there. What are you getting for a maximum gust here?
SUDDUTH: Well we're in a little bit of a sheltered area here with that building, but lately we've seen wind gusts at 52 miles per hour. The pressure continues to fall rapidly, now down to 1,001 millibars and that will just keep going, pressure down, wind goes up as this thing gets closer.
FLOCK: So we're going to be in the soup here soon?
SUDDUTH: Very soon. This is thick soup now, that's for sure.
FLOCK: All right, I'll get out of your way for now. We'll be back to you later, Mark.
And I don't know, Chad and Carol, if you can see out to this pier. Hey, Spike (ph), come on with me out real quick here. Hope we won't lose the signal again here. Take a look out on this pier. Boy, I'll tell you, this picture is incredible with these crashing waves out here.
Can you see that reasonably well, Spike?
I'm going to ask Spike, my cameraman, talk to him.
MYERS: Yes, we can get that. We can get that -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Can you see it there?
MYERS: Sure.
FLOCK: Yes, there were even bigger breakers before. That one's really -- the breakers are really coming in right now so.
COSTELLO: Wow!
MYERS: Hey, Jeff, what's out on the end of that pier?
FLOCK: It'll be gone today (ph). They've got like a little restaurant thing out there. You can fish out on the end of the pier so, and we're going to try to get out there as far down we can a little bit later.
COSTELLO: You know it's always frightening when the lights go out, because you know the electricity is going to be knocked out very soon -- Jeff.
FLOCK: I'm guessing that we'll lose power at some point eventually here. The bathtubs are filled up. And of course we're going to be hunting and running with these hurricane research intercept research team folks. So at some point (INAUDIBLE) and hopefully get the eye over us here.
And, Chad, you can tell me better what you think that we're any -- got any hope of getting the eye here. Once we get that, we want to move and try to get up ahead of the (INAUDIBLE) as near as we can tell.
MYERS: Yes, Jeff, you will definitely have the northern eyewall, not the eastern eyewall, but you will definitely be in the northern section as it goes on by. In fact, you may actually feel the calm of the storm right in the middle of the eye and then feel the south side of the eye as well. So you guys are positioned pretty well or pretty badly, depending on your point of view, right.
FLOCK: Suits me.
COSTELLO: All right, Jeff.
MYERS: All right, be safe.
COSTELLO: Yes, Jeff, we'll get back to you.
FLOCK: Thanks, guys.
COSTELLO: Thank you -- Jeff.
FLOCK: All right.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.
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 September 18, 2003 - 05:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Want to take you live now to Morehead City, North Carolina. Katie Marzullo of CNN affiliate News 14 is there. She's been there for the last couple of days. She joins us live this morning.
Good morning -- Katie.
KATIE MARZULLO, NEWS 14 TV REPORTER: Good morning, Carol.
Well, it's just been a day at the beach until now.
COSTELLO: Oh no.
MARZULLO: It's raining. We're getting wet, but it's very, very moderate, all things considered. Of course steady rain, it's coming down. Moderate wind, although every now and then you'll get a gust that will sort of knock you off your feet a little bit and of course smack you with the rain that much harder, but not that bad considering what is to come.
Now speaking of which, you can see the lights on behind us across the water there is Atlantic Beach. That, of course, was evacuated yesterday and the bridge shut down at 7:00 last night. That means there are a whole lot of folks over here with us on this side of the bridge, of course trying to seek shelter from the storm. Hundreds of those doing so with the Red Cross.
And we've been over to one of their shelters and caught up with some folks who decided that was just the only place that they truly felt safe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOMMY BARNETT (ph), HURRICANE REFUGEE: Say thank you.
KATIE MARZULLO, NEWS 14 TV REPORTER (voice-over): Tommy Barnett is staying at the shelter with her husband and four kids, ages 2 to 13.
BARNETT: It's going to be uncomfortable, but we just thank the Lord that there is a place that's open.
MARZULLO: They can't stay at home. She says their place is a prime candidate for flooding and for damage.
BARNETT: We have real big pecan trees around our house and the limbs are pretty old. MARZULLO: Renee Merrill Harkley (ph) didn't hesitate to take her family here either.
RENEE MERRILL HARKLEY, HURRICANE REFUGEE: I live in a trailer, and you know I just didn't want the -- want them safe in a trailer so I seen how bad it would be, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was very upset, which I understood, I mean, you know.
MARZULLO: So here she's safe, even a little entertained, but her thoughts aren't far from the storm.
HARKLEY: Most of the time I'm praying, you know, praying that it will come over, that everybody will be all right.
MARZULLO: Everyone here will be. Even the youngest camper knows that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to stay in here all day long so I could look up the upstairs. If this floods, I'm going to go upstairs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARZULLO: See, we all need to be taking lessons from 4 year olds. That kid has the right idea. All those folks, of course, safe and dry in that shelter. They have just over 300 checked in now, but they expect maybe more than a 1,000 by the time this is all said and done.
COSTELLO: You know, Katie, I guess the best thing is this storm has been so long in coming everyone has had time to prepare. There are no excuses, are there?
MARZULLO: No, you're right, there is not. And I think anyone who decided to stay knows what they're in for, but everyone else has certainly found friends or family or shelter as places to go.
COSTELLO: Yes, we hope so.
Katie Marzullo, many thanks, live from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
And, Chad, as you saw there, it is beginning to rain there now.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And I'm looking over at a live shot that Jeff Flock is trying to get up right now, and it is really coming down where he is -- where he is. And you know what, it's just going to keep getting worse now.
We talked about this. We talked about the eyeball coming on shore about noon to 2:00, depending on whether it speeds up or not. It's now moving northwest at 14 miles per hour.
You can clearly, here on the very last frame, see the center of the eyewall there, right there, circulating it down there for you, and it is moving still to the northwest and it's going to continue to do that. It's going to make its way right into the Morehead City area. Here is Topsail Beach and right up over here is Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge.
The good news is for a lot of folks is that from Cape Hatteras right on down to Cape Lookout, 95 percent of this is a national wildlife refuge. There are no roads on that island. There are no homes on that island, for the most part. A couple of ferries will take you over there or you need your own boat to get over to that island, so not a huge, not multibillion-dollar hotels on this barrier island here. They are all over here from Corolla, down to Duck, to Cape Hatteras, Kill Devil Hills and obviously right there on up into Virginia Beach.
This storm does make it's way on to North Carolina, makes a big right hand turn, heads over Petersburg, just to the west of Richmond. Richmond's west end, and also let's say Goochland and Ashland and Glenn Allen, you will have much worse conditions than the east side over by the airport of your city as you will be closer to the eyewall itself.
There's where the eye is 33.1 North, 74.7 West. We'll get another fix on this. Another airplane is flying out to this and the winds now still at 105 miles per hour. But the last hurricane hunter aircraft did find a much higher gusting wind in the storm aloft, almost 120 to 125 miles per hour in the storm aloft.
Hurricane warnings still all the way from Cape Fear, North Carolina, right on up into the Chesapeake Bay at Smith Point.
Now what's new today for you in New York and Long Island, tropical storm warnings have been extended from what was Sandy Point. They have made a right hand turn all the way over to Moriches Inlet in New York City or in Long Island in New York on Long Island. And so you are going to see tropical storm conditions, which is between 39 and about 70 miles per hour. I would say probably you guys up here are in the mood for maybe 40 to 50 miles per hour.
The eye of the center of this storm moves very close to Morehead City right now. The storm surge between 7 and 11 feet, and it's coming in at high tide, Carol. We are expecting this storm to come in at high tide. High tide is 2:00. What time did we say it was coming in? Two o'clock.
COSTELLO: It just doesn't -- yes.
MYERS: So not only 7 to 11 foot storm surge, but you have to add in that 3 foot high tide as well. Now we're talking 10 to 14 foot for a storm surge as you run that into Morehead City and even Elizabeth City going to get some surge as well on up here into some of the bays and some of the estuaries of Pamlico and Alamaro Sound.
COSTELLO: What a mess.
MYERS: It is going to be a mess. And a lot of folks inland are going to see a lot of trees down as well. This has been very, very saturated up here, as you know. D.C. is now 15 inches of rain over what they should have for this time of year. And obviously those trees in some kind of rocky ground, some soft ground, you get a 60 mile per hour wind, guess what those trees are going to do? Knock them all down.
COSTELLO: Yes, a lot of shallow root trees in Washington, too. They come down just when it rains normally.
MYERS: Yes, and you know what...
COSTELLO: Hey, we have Jeff Flock -- Chad.
MYERS: All right, good, good. Yes, I see him there.
COSTELLO: You were watching him. He's in Atlantic Beach having a little trouble. We have him now.
MYERS: Sure, just told me to be quiet. Go, Jeff. Look at him.
COSTELLO: Oh my!
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I should be quiet, Jesus.
MYERS: No, I should be quiet. You should go.
FLOCK: Thanks, Chad.
It's really not that bad yet, believe it or not.
COSTELLO: It looks bad -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Well, yes, you know I'll do this if we got a minute here...
COSTELLO: We knew that would happen, because you know when the wind blows that satellite signal...
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: ... digital signal goes all over the place.
It isn't that bad yet, but it looks that bad. Chad, how strong are the winds now in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina?
MYERS: You know I had -- just had wind gusts there about 43 miles per hour in the last half hour. And every time one of these little brighter areas, these little bright yellow areas comes by, that's a thunderstorm, and then the winds come back again.
COSTELLO: Hey, Chad, we got...
MYERS: I see Jeff is back here.
COSTELLO: Yes.
MYERS: I can see him again, so let's go back to him. COSTELLO: OK, Jeff, try it again.
FLOCK: Sorry, well we were trying there. You know let me do, let me go over to a hurricane hunter and a hurricane intercept research team.
I'm going to get you wet -- Jesse (ph).
JESSE: That's all right.
FLOCK: Hey, we're on early, guys. How's it going?
MARK SUDDUTH, HURRICANE INTERCEPT RESEARCH TEAM: All right.
JESSE: A little windy.
SUDDUTH: A little windy.
FLOCK: What do you got, Mark? What's it looking like to you? This is Mark Sudduth who heads this team.
SUDDUTH: We're live on CNN too, Mike (ph), here we are. Look, we're in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, watching this eye come in. They say the eye is basically going to be defused (ph) with the strongest winds, some 50 to 60 miles away from the actual center of the storm. So we're going to get those 100 mile an hour winds earlier than we would if it was a tight, compact storm.
FLOCK: Well let me talk to you, continue, Mark, and I know you're probably talking to somebody else on here. It's like go ahead and come on out here and show them what you got up there. What are you getting for a maximum gust here?
SUDDUTH: Well we're in a little bit of a sheltered area here with that building, but lately we've seen wind gusts at 52 miles per hour. The pressure continues to fall rapidly, now down to 1,001 millibars and that will just keep going, pressure down, wind goes up as this thing gets closer.
FLOCK: So we're going to be in the soup here soon?
SUDDUTH: Very soon. This is thick soup now, that's for sure.
FLOCK: All right, I'll get out of your way for now. We'll be back to you later, Mark.
And I don't know, Chad and Carol, if you can see out to this pier. Hey, Spike (ph), come on with me out real quick here. Hope we won't lose the signal again here. Take a look out on this pier. Boy, I'll tell you, this picture is incredible with these crashing waves out here.
Can you see that reasonably well, Spike?
I'm going to ask Spike, my cameraman, talk to him.
MYERS: Yes, we can get that. We can get that -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Can you see it there?
MYERS: Sure.
FLOCK: Yes, there were even bigger breakers before. That one's really -- the breakers are really coming in right now so.
COSTELLO: Wow!
MYERS: Hey, Jeff, what's out on the end of that pier?
FLOCK: It'll be gone today (ph). They've got like a little restaurant thing out there. You can fish out on the end of the pier so, and we're going to try to get out there as far down we can a little bit later.
COSTELLO: You know it's always frightening when the lights go out, because you know the electricity is going to be knocked out very soon -- Jeff.
FLOCK: I'm guessing that we'll lose power at some point eventually here. The bathtubs are filled up. And of course we're going to be hunting and running with these hurricane research intercept research team folks. So at some point (INAUDIBLE) and hopefully get the eye over us here.
And, Chad, you can tell me better what you think that we're any -- got any hope of getting the eye here. Once we get that, we want to move and try to get up ahead of the (INAUDIBLE) as near as we can tell.
MYERS: Yes, Jeff, you will definitely have the northern eyewall, not the eastern eyewall, but you will definitely be in the northern section as it goes on by. In fact, you may actually feel the calm of the storm right in the middle of the eye and then feel the south side of the eye as well. So you guys are positioned pretty well or pretty badly, depending on your point of view, right.
FLOCK: Suits me.
COSTELLO: All right, Jeff.
MYERS: All right, be safe.
COSTELLO: Yes, Jeff, we'll get back to you.
FLOCK: Thanks, guys.
COSTELLO: Thank you -- Jeff.
FLOCK: All right.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
