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CNN Live At Daybreak
Hurricane Ivan Slams Ashore
Aired September 16, 2004 - 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: Hurricane Ivan slams ashore. It hit landfall specifically 3:00 a.m. Eastern time. Your looking at pictures of Mobile, Alabama. Technically, the eye of the storm hit Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's just to the south of Mobile. That's the picture you're looking at.
It's Thursday, September 16.
This is DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
Welcome to the second hour of our expanded three hour coverage of hurricane Ivan.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.
Let's get right to the forecast center and Chad, because this thing is still a category three storm. It's packing winds of up tom, what, 130 miles per hour?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Down to 115 now, Carol. We're just getting the very, very latest here from the Hurricane Center, the 5:00 a.m. advisory, just printing out. If you're keeping track, if you want to write this down, 30.9 north and 87.7 west; 40 miles northwest of Pensacola, Florida and the winds now have decreased to 115.
All that means, though, is anybody here still on the right side of the eye wall -- and I know we always focus on the shore, but anybody on the right side of the eye wall now picking up winds to 115 or better here in the extreme northwestern part of Florida.
Here's Florida. Here's Alabama. Mobile obviously right here. Mobile did get the back side of the eye, the winds coming in from the north here. The right side of the eye, right over Perdido Beach, right over Orange Beach, a lot of devastation, I'm afraid, on those beaches as the winds were gusting to 135 to 140 there.
And over the naval air station in Pensacola, there's Pensacola itself, your winds were probably gusting to 120. And then Fort Walton Beach just had that report there of those winds gusting to about 105, estimated by a viewer. But, boy, that's close enough. And you know when they're howling, those winds are really doing some damage, as well. Doing damage to beaches, as well, Carol, all of this onshore flow. We talked about the storm surge. I don't believe Mobile probably got as much storm surge as they could have because the storm actually went to the right of them, although that probably -- I mean still 10 feet of storm surge is going to put some people under water.
The heaviest part of the storm surge on up toward the Pensacola area and on up into that Pensacola Bay area, as well. So still very dangerous. Every time you see some yellow like this up here, there are potentials all over the place, from Georgia through Alabama and to Florida, for tornadoes this morning. But we'll keep you up to date as that continues.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes. And we've had reports of lots of tornadoes already this morning.
MYERS: Yes, we have.
Thank you, Chad.
COSTELLO: Let's head right to Mobile, Alabama and Bill Hemmer.
Let's see what the weather is there.
I expect, oh, you know, it looks calm there. This is so strange.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, indeed, you're right, Carol, about that. Just listening to Chad really reflects what we're expecting. I can step out -- we're underneath an outcropping here or a deck that's over us -- I can step out. Yes, you're getting a gust right now, Carol, but this is nothing, nothing like we've experienced over the past several hours. It has been a very, very long night here in Mobile.
In a moment here, Carol, you might notice, this will die down. It'll sit down for a little bit and that kind of reflects what Chad is talking about, with Mobile now being at the western edge of that eye.
So we're getting a bit of a reprieve right now before the back end of the storm comes through.
I can tell you what we went through overnight, Carol. We stayed on the north side of this hotel, a multi story hotel, maybe 20 stories high here in downtown Mobile. Thunderous winds just pounding on our windows throughout the night and the walls and the winds rushing up through the stairwell. Oftentimes many of us thought those windows were simply going to give way. They stayed in the frame somehow. I cannot say. But they did stay just that overnight last night.
We can say this, it is dark outside. We have not been out in the area just yet. We've been around the hotel area so far, Carol. There is not much standing water at all, which is a major surprise of all of us, because we had been warned about that storm surge and the flooding that could go 15, maybe 20 feet deep.
That does not appear to be the case where we are here, which is really good news.
But listen, just on the surface, listening to the storm last night and listening to the size of this and the amount of wind it's packing, even at this point, there's going to be an awful lot of damage inland, Carol, when that sun comes up that we're going to see.
COSTELLO: Yes, you can't travel around to really see it. That big pot behind you, 600 pounds, it blew over overnight, didn't it?
HEMMER: Yes. There are, actually, there are four of them in total out here on the deck. Two of them went over. So, indeed, you're right, to give you an indication about how strong these storms were.
We have two reported deaths at last check that I know of in Panama City Beach. If that is the only fatalities that come out of this storm, Carol, I think this place got off lucky, because this one came with a thunderous charge all night long and did not stop for six hours, seven hours running.
COSTELLO: Bill Hemmer live in Mobile, Alabama.
We'll get back to you.
Thank you, Bill.
We've been getting e-mail in and a lot of people have a lot of questions.
This is from Janet. She says: "Can you tell me what's going on at Fort Walton Beach, Florida?" She's up in Tennessee with her sister, where it's safe.
Yes, we just interviewed the emergency management officer from Okaloosa County, Florida, near Fort Walton Beach, in the Fort Walton Beach area, I should say.
She reports there are homes destroyed there. There are businesses destroyed. Seventy-seven thousand people are without electricity this morning. The streets are literally underwater and they're asking people to stay inside their homes until noon tomorrow.
I understand we have the mayor of -- which city, I'm sorry?
GLENDA GLOVER, MAYOR, FORT WALTON BEACH: Fort Walton Beach.
COSTELLO: Fort Walton Beach on the phone.
I'm sorry.
Glenda Glover, thank you for being with us.
GLOVER: Yes, ma'am.
COSTELLO: Mayor Glover, tell us the situation.
GLOVER: Well, we have some heavy gusts. It's been a rough six or eight hours and a lot of rain. We've probably got 24 inches of rain across Highway 98, so being dark as it is and no one's out, we pulled our police and fire in about midnight. And, you know, we really don't know what the devastation is until daylight. But we -- none of us have electricity.
COSTELLO: Oh. We'd heard before that the streets are literally underwater.
GLOVER: Well, it -- that would be along the waterfront and low lying areas. But I don't foresee that, you know, Eggland Parkway (ph) would be underwater. Highway 98 in the low lying areas.
COSTELLO: I understand.
Did most people evacuate as ordered?
GLOVER: You know, I really don't know the percentage. I know there is a lot of people that boarded up and stayed. We have a lot of old homes here that were built to withstand hurricanes and I think most people just wanted to ride it out rather than getting on crowded highways.
COSTELLO: How about you? Did you decide to stay and ride it out, as well?
GLOVER: Yes, ma'am.
COSTELLO: Why?
GLOVER: Well, I've, you know, spent many, many, many hours on the highway with Opal and I just didn't want to go through that again. I'm glad I stayed, because I see a sense of change already in the power of the wind, not that we're through it, by any means. But I just think that there's a -- I have a sense that it's lightened up a pinch. But we've still got a lot of wind to go through.
COSTELLO: Well, Mayor, just to make sure that you are right, we're going to ask our meteorologist, Chad Myers, to give you a weather forecast -- Chad, can you help the mayor out?
MYERS: Yes, that's actually true, what she's seeing and what she's experiencing. And other than firsthand accounts, but Heidi is better than that, we'll draw you in here. What you were experiencing, Mayor, right up through here, you were the outer eye wall. And many times a hurricane will have more than one eye wall. And this actually had concentric eye walls. There's one here. I can probably see on here. And then obviously the one very, very close to Pensacola.
But now the back side of that area, that heaviest squall area, is now coming into Fort Walton Beach. And, in fact, it may actually stop raining here for a little while. And everything time that it stops raining, the winds will die off. And every time another squall comes by you, even if it's this one right down here, way down the south, as that comes by you, your winds will actually pick up again.
But you are now on the good side. You are on the downhill run, as they say. It's getting better from here.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.
And thank you, Mayor, for joining us this morning.
Let's head now to Gulf Shores, Alabama and Gary Tuchman, where it's getting nastier and nastier -- good morning, Gary.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.
And (AUDIO GAP)...
COSTELLO: I knew that would happen. It's tough to get a cell phone signal out of a place where it's getting hit by wind gusts of up to, what, 100 miles per hour?
We're going to try to get Gary Tuchman back on a more secure line.
We're going to take a break.
We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurricane Floyd formed into a powerful category four on September 14, 1999. It ravaged portions of the Bahamas. Watch its destruction as Floyd tore apart a pier as it hit Daytona Beach, Florida.
As Floyd turned north, it weakened a bit, but hitting land again near Cape Fear, North Carolina. The high rainfall created massive inland flooding. Floyd is responsible for one death in the Bahamas, but claimed 56 lives in the United States.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A little hurricane background for you now. Names associated with hurricanes that have brought significant death and/or destruction are retired from the list of hurricane names. Among those retired, Camille, which struck back in 1969; and Andrew in '92; also, Opal in 1995 and Floyd in 1999.
In Mississippi this morning, nearly 300,000 people told to move to higher ground. One who didn't, Susan Candiotti.
She's live in Biloxi, Mississippi, kind of on the outer edge of the storm, but still experiencing some flooding there -- good morning, Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol.
Yes, people here feel very, very fortunate to find themselves on the west side of the storm, the weaker side of the storm here. And authorities still very happy, nevertheless, that they moved everyone to higher ground, ordered those mandatory evacuations, even though everybody did not follow them.
We're happy to report to you, I just got off the phone with civil defense people. And they tell me that Highway 90, that's the road that runs along the Gulf Coast, so far is passable in the three counties here, or, for the most part, at least, I should say, in Harrison County here, which handles, covers Biloxi and Gulfport, as well.
Mississippi Power is reporting power outages of up to 50,000 customers. That's half of the people that they serve in the southern end of the state. And they can't get out there to make any repairs until they begin assessments. And they can't do that until the first morning light, so they can get out there and see how things look and figure out where to begin first.
I am told that there are no reports of any injuries, not in the shelters, not on the road. Again, patrols have been out there all night long. They've still been able to do that despite the fact that they've had wind gusts of up to 66 miles per hour.
Now, here we only clocked it about 30 miles per hour, although we are pretty much buffered by the structure, the hotel where we are staying here. And Interstate 10 we've seen barely any traffic at all during the course of the evening.
We've had some gusts here that have been big enough to, you know, move me a little bit here. But for the most part, it's been periodic squalls that have been heavier at some times other than others. You could hear the wind whistling through the hotel at various times during the course of the night. And, of course, there is a curfew in effect until 8:00 Eastern time.
At that time, authorities are just warning people, please, I know it's tempting to go out and look, but they're advising people to be very careful, because sometimes when you see water in the road -- and there is flooding here, especially in low lying areas -- you never know what could be below that water. It could be a sink hole. It could be downed power lines. They're urging residents to be very cautious.
And, again, they were predicting about 10 inches of rain. It will be interesting to see what kind of a gauge they have on that once we start talking to emergency managers here. They'll be involved in a briefing in about an hour from now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And, of course I know you'll be covering that.
Susan Candiotti, live from Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.
Hurricane Ivan is making its way northwest after pounding the Florida Panhandle. At least two people there are dead after the storm triggered a number of tornadoes in the resort town of Panama City Beach. State officials say both people were inside buildings that were destroyed by strong winds.
Coastal storm surges in Panama City Beach, Florida are topping 16 feet. High winds are overturning cars and damaging buildings, tearing down trees.
CNN's David Mattingly is there. He joins us live on the phone to tell us more -- good morning, David.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
I apologize for being on the telephone, but those high winds forced our satellite dish to come down so we're not able to bring you a live transmission for this hour.
But the winds are quite substantial at this time. Just a couple of hours ago, authorities tell me that they closed the three bridges leading to Panama City Beach. These are the three bridges linking the beaches to the mainland. They do that when sustained winds reach 55 miles per hour.
We've been seeing gusts of clearly more than 60, possibly approaching 70 miles an hour as we've been standing out here. And this is -- the strange thing about this storm, as it's made landfall, you would expect it to start to lose some of its steam. But these winds have been sustained. The rain has been coming in much stronger in the last half hour. It is coming in horizontally. It's coming in strong enough to sting your skin when it makes contact with you.
So this storm not showing any signs of letting up or giving up as it comes ashore here in the southern part of the United States -- Bill.
COSTELLO: David, this is Carol Costello.
I was just wondering, have you heard reports of any damage within Panama City itself?
MATTINGLY: There have been reports of damage from the tornadoes. There have been reports of about 200 homes that have been damaged. There are hundreds of people in shelters tonight. They originally started with two shelters. They had to open up another one to accommodate everyone.
It's just been very difficult to get out and assess all of the damage. But they do know that a large number of people around here are without electricity right now. It's going to take some time for the storm to get through here, so more crews can get out and truly assess the damage.
But, again, they figure at least 200 homes here that have been badly damaged.
COSTELLO: Did most people evacuate?
MATTINGLY: That's something that the authorities here are very proud of. They figure that at least 50 percent of the full-time residents here heeded the evacuation warnings and decided to get out. They've also pointed out that 99 percent of the businesses closed with the evacuation.
So they were very happy with that. They say it's extraordinary the number of people who listened and actually got out of here. Even the long time residents were saying they can't remember seeing this many people who have boarded up their homes and businesses in a long, long time.
So people definitely watching what this storm did to the Caribbean and were showing it a great deal of respect as it came closer to shore.
There was some relief that people were expressing today as the storm was going to the west, putting it onto the west of this area, putting us on the east side of this large storm. But, again, when those tornadoes came through, it was clear that this is a storm that's going to be having an effect, a deadly effect on people, potentially, on a quite wide range.
So, again, people taking this storm -- it's a cliche how many times we've said this, but people are taking this storm very seriously and they're taking their safety very seriously and they're doing everything they can to preserve that.
COSTELLO: And that is good to hear.
David Mattingly, Panama City Beach, Florida, thank you.
We'll get back to you.
Let's go to the forecast center now and talk with Chad.
You know, David mentioned that as the hurricane hit landfall, many people thought it would lose power.
Joining me now right.
COSTELLO: Is it or isn't it?
MYERS: Well, right where the eye is, yes. But he's nowhere near the eye. He's actually in one of these outer bands still blowing onshore. So this part of the hurricane doesn't even know it's onshore. This part of the hurricane could care less. It's still picking up warm Gulf water, warm Gulf moisture here, and blowing it onshore here into Panama City.
So we're still seeing these outer bands of the eye wall. Yes, is the storm losing some intensity right around the eye wall? Yes. But as we talked about earlier, all of the wind speeds, that wind field is just going to spread out now and we're going to get 60 and 75 mile per hour winds in a very large area. And that's what he's seeing now. He wasn't seeing winds to 130 like they were seeing there around parts of the central part of that storm here.
What I want to show you now, Carol, actually, is our fast track with these little spinners going on here. In fact, Barbour County with a tornado warning on it here. And this is going to be the theme for the next few hours as this large band, large outer band -- you see all the yellows -- begins to come onshore here and rotate around the storm. And then you're going to actually see a lot more tornado warnings going on. There will be one after another after another. And then we are going to see that significant weather rotate around that system for most of the morning hours.
I'm going to go back to this radar. I'm going to stop the lopping. And I want to show you a couple of spots that I've zoomed in on. We can actually get a little bit closer and then, too, a little bit closer. And then the next town in the way, Atmore, right here, seeing very, very heavy weather here, coming across.
Pensacola getting a little bit of relief. That big cell away from Pensacola now and now it's moving up toward Atmore and across the I-65.
That is certainly right now the strongest part of the storm moving in here. So now we're starting to stop talking about the shore and now we're starting to talk about the damage that's happening inland. Because we know a lot of folks just left the shore and drove up here and drove up a little bit farther. Well, now they're going to be experiencing what the folks that stayed down there already saw.
COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you a question. Because we've been getting a lot of e-mail this morning about who might be affected and how far up. I mean people here in Georgia are scared.
MYERS: Well, of course. I went out and bought five gallons of water yesterday. And here's something that you can do. If you are scared about losing power and whether its Montgomery or Huntsville or Atlanta, for that matter, here's something I did last night. And I've never heard anybody talk about this.
I looked at my freezer and I'd say what can I do to make this food last longer? I reached in and I turned that freezer knob to coldest. And so I know now my ice cream is going to be rock hard. But if I do lose power, at least what's in my freezer will be frozen longer because it was colder. Maybe you're making the temperature down to 10 below zero and it was only 10 above zero, whatever your knob says or whatever your freezer will do for you. It depends.
But at least if you do lose power for a few hours or even a few days, if your food is much colder than it was, go ahead and turn it down. And then at least it'll last a little bit longer before it thaws. And do that while you still have power, because after you lose power, then you can't do anything about it.
But you can see all these little circles, Carol, all the way up to Tallahassee...
COSTELLO: Oh, yes.
MYERS: ... southward, even moving onshore. This is not all that far from Cedar Key. All those are potential tornadoes in the outside of this system.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
And thank you for that bit of advice. You know, sometimes common sense just works.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: But people don't think of it.
MYERS: You know, I was thinking should I go buy dry ice, should I go buy ice? I go no. I'm going to turn down my freezer and make it colder.
COSTELLO: Yes.
Hey, guess who we have on the line?
We have a storm chaser on the line, Mike Theiss.
He's on the phone.
He's in Pensacola Beach, Florida.
Tell us what you're experiencing, Mike.
MIKE THEISS, STORM CHASER: Well, it's a sigh of relief now as the winds are finally calming down. I experienced winds in excess of 120 sustained for a good couple hours. The storm surge has come up, I'm not sure how much, but the first floor -- the entire first floor of this condo I was in was underwater.
Huge waves, probably 20 foot waves crashing into the building. It was really, oh, man, words can't explain it. It was getting a little bit scary for a while. But I was in a seven story building, actually, it's about a 15 story building with seven of them a parking garage. So I knew I could go up if I had to and just keep going up.
COSTELLO: So where did you stay during these sustained 120 mile per hour winds?
THEISS: Well, the way the parking garage is set up, I was able to move around so I could use the center wall as kind of a buffer zone. So I wasn't actually in the wind myself, but I was, you know, the wind was all around me. And there was a couple of times there was a stairwell that's very strong and I had to get in there a couple of times because there was debris whipping around the parking garage.
But really the bigger story, I've been in a lot of storms and wind. I'm pretty used to the wind. But the thing that was starting to worry me was the storm surge. I've never seen a surge like this and I just looked out, probably at about five minutes ago with a flashlight, and I'm completely underwater. Everything is underwater around me. There's whitecaps. I'm basically sitting in a building with water all around me, so...
COSTELLO: Tell us what was, you know, here comes the storm surge and then you see the water entering the condo building where you are.
What was that like? THEISS: It was scary. But I kept telling myself I knew I was in a really strong structure, solid concrete, and I knew that I was going to be OK here. You know, I fully expected this as I did drive out here to film this. But I was just thinking, to be honest, I was hearing reports on the radio of 50 foot waves measured out in the Gulf. And I wasn't -- I didn't think it was going to be that high when it came in, which I don't think it was. But I would say the surge out here was a good 25, maybe 30 feet. You know, I haven't -- I never really got a really good glimpse at the highest waves because I was in the stairwell. And it's pitch dark out here.
COSTELLO: Well, that is a good thing.
THEISS: Yes.
COSTELLO: Mike, I want to bring Chad Myers in to talk about the storm surge a little more.
Any way to tell right now how big the storm surge was there, Chad?
MYERS: Actually, just from eyewitness accounts, like his right there.
Mike, I'm a little bit concerned, though. You said that this is a strong building.
Do you know when it was built? I mean is this concrete on sand or were there -- are there pilings into the sand here on this building? Because this sand could get eroded from the building that you're underneath and all of a sudden there's nothing for that building to stand on.
THEISS: I hear you.
Well, it's actually, it's still under construction and the building I'm in is finished. There's five buildings around me and it is solid concrete and then there's pillars. I'm sure its reinforced underneath. You know, that's what I've been thinking, I've been hoping the whole time anyway.
MYERS: Yes, right.
THEISS: And I do believe the worst part is over.
MYERS: I agree with that, yes.
THEISS: But you know, I'm not, to be honest, I'm not sure, you know, how this building was built. It looks very strong to me, though.
MYERS: Well, you know, we have heard reports in other hurricanes not even as strong of the entire island being cut in half because of erosion. And that's why I tried to get my people off the island rather than get them on the island here for the hurricane, because you never know where that new cut might be. THEISS: Right.
MYERS: So you certainly have to be watching for that new beach erosion there, because if the water is all the way up to the building, you have no idea where that beach even is right now.
COSTELLO: Hey, Mike, one last question for you.
Where do you go from here as a storm chaser? What do you do next?
THEISS: Well, I go home and get a lot of sleep. But basically I market the video and I help out for research and do different things. I try to help out in any way I can. And from here, there's another storm coming. But I haven't seen the latest on it. So I might be getting ready for that one.
COSTELLO: Oh, you're talking about tropical storm Jeanne.
THEISS: Correct. Yes.
COSTELLO: Chad?
MYERS: Yes, Carol?
COSTELLO: Tropical storm Jeanne.
Where the heck is that storm now?
MYERS: Well, it moved over Puerto Rico and that actually put an awful lot of rainfall down. Some spots in Puerto Rico, we're talking about eight to 10 inches of rainfall. I'm calling up the Hurricane Center Web site now. And if you want to do this at home you sure can. It's called nhc.noah.gov. Put a www in the front of it.
And the tropical advisory for Jeanne at 5:00 a.m. still has it at 70 miles per hour. The numbers there, 18.8 and 68.1, 270 miles from the Dominican Republic. And I'll take a look at the maps and the charts. You have to forgive me here, because I've been worried a lot about Ivan and not about Jeanne. At 8:00...
COSTELLO: I'm sorry. I surprised you.
MYERS: That's all right.
It is live TV. I can do it all. 8:00 -- I can even do sports.
8:00 on Saturday night, it looks like it's now moving into the southern Bahamas, moving over to the Turks and Cacois. The Turks and Cacois are under hurricane watches and also the southeastern Bahamas under hurricane watches.
The only good news is -- except not for the Bahamas -- but this thing looks like it takes a run over the Abacos to the east of Nassau, to the east of Freeport. And then about 200 and 250 miles to the west, we'll call it, of Bermuda, or about 200 maybe so miles east of Daytona.
So the storm system actually does make a right hand turn and does not hit the continental U.S. But here's part of the system here, all of the cloud cover now coming over Haiti.
Some of the latest computer models we were using yesterday out of this Vipir system predicting 16 inches of rain in the mountains of Haiti. And that makes, one, flooding. That makes devastating mudslides. And even though it's not a very large storm system, it's only a tropical storm right now, tropical storm force rains like that, they do a lot of damage in the Dominican Republic and Hispaniola all the time -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
And Mike Theiss, you stay safe in Pensacola Beach.
Our storm chaser joining us this morning on DAYBREAK.
We're going to take a short break.
We'll be back with much more on hurricane Ivan right after this.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: September 12, 1979. Hurricane Frederick swept across the fragile coastal reaches of Alabama and Mississippi. Witnesses say the category three storm leveled parts of Mobile, making it look like a bomb went off. Frederick cause millions of dollars in damage to southern Alabama alone. With the added destruction in Mississippi and parts of Florida, Frederick proved costly, indeed. Damage was more than $2 billion.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired September 16, 2004 - 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: Hurricane Ivan slams ashore. It hit landfall specifically 3:00 a.m. Eastern time. Your looking at pictures of Mobile, Alabama. Technically, the eye of the storm hit Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's just to the south of Mobile. That's the picture you're looking at.
It's Thursday, September 16.
This is DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
Welcome to the second hour of our expanded three hour coverage of hurricane Ivan.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.
Let's get right to the forecast center and Chad, because this thing is still a category three storm. It's packing winds of up tom, what, 130 miles per hour?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Down to 115 now, Carol. We're just getting the very, very latest here from the Hurricane Center, the 5:00 a.m. advisory, just printing out. If you're keeping track, if you want to write this down, 30.9 north and 87.7 west; 40 miles northwest of Pensacola, Florida and the winds now have decreased to 115.
All that means, though, is anybody here still on the right side of the eye wall -- and I know we always focus on the shore, but anybody on the right side of the eye wall now picking up winds to 115 or better here in the extreme northwestern part of Florida.
Here's Florida. Here's Alabama. Mobile obviously right here. Mobile did get the back side of the eye, the winds coming in from the north here. The right side of the eye, right over Perdido Beach, right over Orange Beach, a lot of devastation, I'm afraid, on those beaches as the winds were gusting to 135 to 140 there.
And over the naval air station in Pensacola, there's Pensacola itself, your winds were probably gusting to 120. And then Fort Walton Beach just had that report there of those winds gusting to about 105, estimated by a viewer. But, boy, that's close enough. And you know when they're howling, those winds are really doing some damage, as well. Doing damage to beaches, as well, Carol, all of this onshore flow. We talked about the storm surge. I don't believe Mobile probably got as much storm surge as they could have because the storm actually went to the right of them, although that probably -- I mean still 10 feet of storm surge is going to put some people under water.
The heaviest part of the storm surge on up toward the Pensacola area and on up into that Pensacola Bay area, as well. So still very dangerous. Every time you see some yellow like this up here, there are potentials all over the place, from Georgia through Alabama and to Florida, for tornadoes this morning. But we'll keep you up to date as that continues.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes. And we've had reports of lots of tornadoes already this morning.
MYERS: Yes, we have.
Thank you, Chad.
COSTELLO: Let's head right to Mobile, Alabama and Bill Hemmer.
Let's see what the weather is there.
I expect, oh, you know, it looks calm there. This is so strange.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, indeed, you're right, Carol, about that. Just listening to Chad really reflects what we're expecting. I can step out -- we're underneath an outcropping here or a deck that's over us -- I can step out. Yes, you're getting a gust right now, Carol, but this is nothing, nothing like we've experienced over the past several hours. It has been a very, very long night here in Mobile.
In a moment here, Carol, you might notice, this will die down. It'll sit down for a little bit and that kind of reflects what Chad is talking about, with Mobile now being at the western edge of that eye.
So we're getting a bit of a reprieve right now before the back end of the storm comes through.
I can tell you what we went through overnight, Carol. We stayed on the north side of this hotel, a multi story hotel, maybe 20 stories high here in downtown Mobile. Thunderous winds just pounding on our windows throughout the night and the walls and the winds rushing up through the stairwell. Oftentimes many of us thought those windows were simply going to give way. They stayed in the frame somehow. I cannot say. But they did stay just that overnight last night.
We can say this, it is dark outside. We have not been out in the area just yet. We've been around the hotel area so far, Carol. There is not much standing water at all, which is a major surprise of all of us, because we had been warned about that storm surge and the flooding that could go 15, maybe 20 feet deep.
That does not appear to be the case where we are here, which is really good news.
But listen, just on the surface, listening to the storm last night and listening to the size of this and the amount of wind it's packing, even at this point, there's going to be an awful lot of damage inland, Carol, when that sun comes up that we're going to see.
COSTELLO: Yes, you can't travel around to really see it. That big pot behind you, 600 pounds, it blew over overnight, didn't it?
HEMMER: Yes. There are, actually, there are four of them in total out here on the deck. Two of them went over. So, indeed, you're right, to give you an indication about how strong these storms were.
We have two reported deaths at last check that I know of in Panama City Beach. If that is the only fatalities that come out of this storm, Carol, I think this place got off lucky, because this one came with a thunderous charge all night long and did not stop for six hours, seven hours running.
COSTELLO: Bill Hemmer live in Mobile, Alabama.
We'll get back to you.
Thank you, Bill.
We've been getting e-mail in and a lot of people have a lot of questions.
This is from Janet. She says: "Can you tell me what's going on at Fort Walton Beach, Florida?" She's up in Tennessee with her sister, where it's safe.
Yes, we just interviewed the emergency management officer from Okaloosa County, Florida, near Fort Walton Beach, in the Fort Walton Beach area, I should say.
She reports there are homes destroyed there. There are businesses destroyed. Seventy-seven thousand people are without electricity this morning. The streets are literally underwater and they're asking people to stay inside their homes until noon tomorrow.
I understand we have the mayor of -- which city, I'm sorry?
GLENDA GLOVER, MAYOR, FORT WALTON BEACH: Fort Walton Beach.
COSTELLO: Fort Walton Beach on the phone.
I'm sorry.
Glenda Glover, thank you for being with us.
GLOVER: Yes, ma'am.
COSTELLO: Mayor Glover, tell us the situation.
GLOVER: Well, we have some heavy gusts. It's been a rough six or eight hours and a lot of rain. We've probably got 24 inches of rain across Highway 98, so being dark as it is and no one's out, we pulled our police and fire in about midnight. And, you know, we really don't know what the devastation is until daylight. But we -- none of us have electricity.
COSTELLO: Oh. We'd heard before that the streets are literally underwater.
GLOVER: Well, it -- that would be along the waterfront and low lying areas. But I don't foresee that, you know, Eggland Parkway (ph) would be underwater. Highway 98 in the low lying areas.
COSTELLO: I understand.
Did most people evacuate as ordered?
GLOVER: You know, I really don't know the percentage. I know there is a lot of people that boarded up and stayed. We have a lot of old homes here that were built to withstand hurricanes and I think most people just wanted to ride it out rather than getting on crowded highways.
COSTELLO: How about you? Did you decide to stay and ride it out, as well?
GLOVER: Yes, ma'am.
COSTELLO: Why?
GLOVER: Well, I've, you know, spent many, many, many hours on the highway with Opal and I just didn't want to go through that again. I'm glad I stayed, because I see a sense of change already in the power of the wind, not that we're through it, by any means. But I just think that there's a -- I have a sense that it's lightened up a pinch. But we've still got a lot of wind to go through.
COSTELLO: Well, Mayor, just to make sure that you are right, we're going to ask our meteorologist, Chad Myers, to give you a weather forecast -- Chad, can you help the mayor out?
MYERS: Yes, that's actually true, what she's seeing and what she's experiencing. And other than firsthand accounts, but Heidi is better than that, we'll draw you in here. What you were experiencing, Mayor, right up through here, you were the outer eye wall. And many times a hurricane will have more than one eye wall. And this actually had concentric eye walls. There's one here. I can probably see on here. And then obviously the one very, very close to Pensacola.
But now the back side of that area, that heaviest squall area, is now coming into Fort Walton Beach. And, in fact, it may actually stop raining here for a little while. And everything time that it stops raining, the winds will die off. And every time another squall comes by you, even if it's this one right down here, way down the south, as that comes by you, your winds will actually pick up again.
But you are now on the good side. You are on the downhill run, as they say. It's getting better from here.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.
And thank you, Mayor, for joining us this morning.
Let's head now to Gulf Shores, Alabama and Gary Tuchman, where it's getting nastier and nastier -- good morning, Gary.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.
And (AUDIO GAP)...
COSTELLO: I knew that would happen. It's tough to get a cell phone signal out of a place where it's getting hit by wind gusts of up to, what, 100 miles per hour?
We're going to try to get Gary Tuchman back on a more secure line.
We're going to take a break.
We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurricane Floyd formed into a powerful category four on September 14, 1999. It ravaged portions of the Bahamas. Watch its destruction as Floyd tore apart a pier as it hit Daytona Beach, Florida.
As Floyd turned north, it weakened a bit, but hitting land again near Cape Fear, North Carolina. The high rainfall created massive inland flooding. Floyd is responsible for one death in the Bahamas, but claimed 56 lives in the United States.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A little hurricane background for you now. Names associated with hurricanes that have brought significant death and/or destruction are retired from the list of hurricane names. Among those retired, Camille, which struck back in 1969; and Andrew in '92; also, Opal in 1995 and Floyd in 1999.
In Mississippi this morning, nearly 300,000 people told to move to higher ground. One who didn't, Susan Candiotti.
She's live in Biloxi, Mississippi, kind of on the outer edge of the storm, but still experiencing some flooding there -- good morning, Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol.
Yes, people here feel very, very fortunate to find themselves on the west side of the storm, the weaker side of the storm here. And authorities still very happy, nevertheless, that they moved everyone to higher ground, ordered those mandatory evacuations, even though everybody did not follow them.
We're happy to report to you, I just got off the phone with civil defense people. And they tell me that Highway 90, that's the road that runs along the Gulf Coast, so far is passable in the three counties here, or, for the most part, at least, I should say, in Harrison County here, which handles, covers Biloxi and Gulfport, as well.
Mississippi Power is reporting power outages of up to 50,000 customers. That's half of the people that they serve in the southern end of the state. And they can't get out there to make any repairs until they begin assessments. And they can't do that until the first morning light, so they can get out there and see how things look and figure out where to begin first.
I am told that there are no reports of any injuries, not in the shelters, not on the road. Again, patrols have been out there all night long. They've still been able to do that despite the fact that they've had wind gusts of up to 66 miles per hour.
Now, here we only clocked it about 30 miles per hour, although we are pretty much buffered by the structure, the hotel where we are staying here. And Interstate 10 we've seen barely any traffic at all during the course of the evening.
We've had some gusts here that have been big enough to, you know, move me a little bit here. But for the most part, it's been periodic squalls that have been heavier at some times other than others. You could hear the wind whistling through the hotel at various times during the course of the night. And, of course, there is a curfew in effect until 8:00 Eastern time.
At that time, authorities are just warning people, please, I know it's tempting to go out and look, but they're advising people to be very careful, because sometimes when you see water in the road -- and there is flooding here, especially in low lying areas -- you never know what could be below that water. It could be a sink hole. It could be downed power lines. They're urging residents to be very cautious.
And, again, they were predicting about 10 inches of rain. It will be interesting to see what kind of a gauge they have on that once we start talking to emergency managers here. They'll be involved in a briefing in about an hour from now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And, of course I know you'll be covering that.
Susan Candiotti, live from Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.
Hurricane Ivan is making its way northwest after pounding the Florida Panhandle. At least two people there are dead after the storm triggered a number of tornadoes in the resort town of Panama City Beach. State officials say both people were inside buildings that were destroyed by strong winds.
Coastal storm surges in Panama City Beach, Florida are topping 16 feet. High winds are overturning cars and damaging buildings, tearing down trees.
CNN's David Mattingly is there. He joins us live on the phone to tell us more -- good morning, David.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
I apologize for being on the telephone, but those high winds forced our satellite dish to come down so we're not able to bring you a live transmission for this hour.
But the winds are quite substantial at this time. Just a couple of hours ago, authorities tell me that they closed the three bridges leading to Panama City Beach. These are the three bridges linking the beaches to the mainland. They do that when sustained winds reach 55 miles per hour.
We've been seeing gusts of clearly more than 60, possibly approaching 70 miles an hour as we've been standing out here. And this is -- the strange thing about this storm, as it's made landfall, you would expect it to start to lose some of its steam. But these winds have been sustained. The rain has been coming in much stronger in the last half hour. It is coming in horizontally. It's coming in strong enough to sting your skin when it makes contact with you.
So this storm not showing any signs of letting up or giving up as it comes ashore here in the southern part of the United States -- Bill.
COSTELLO: David, this is Carol Costello.
I was just wondering, have you heard reports of any damage within Panama City itself?
MATTINGLY: There have been reports of damage from the tornadoes. There have been reports of about 200 homes that have been damaged. There are hundreds of people in shelters tonight. They originally started with two shelters. They had to open up another one to accommodate everyone.
It's just been very difficult to get out and assess all of the damage. But they do know that a large number of people around here are without electricity right now. It's going to take some time for the storm to get through here, so more crews can get out and truly assess the damage.
But, again, they figure at least 200 homes here that have been badly damaged.
COSTELLO: Did most people evacuate?
MATTINGLY: That's something that the authorities here are very proud of. They figure that at least 50 percent of the full-time residents here heeded the evacuation warnings and decided to get out. They've also pointed out that 99 percent of the businesses closed with the evacuation.
So they were very happy with that. They say it's extraordinary the number of people who listened and actually got out of here. Even the long time residents were saying they can't remember seeing this many people who have boarded up their homes and businesses in a long, long time.
So people definitely watching what this storm did to the Caribbean and were showing it a great deal of respect as it came closer to shore.
There was some relief that people were expressing today as the storm was going to the west, putting it onto the west of this area, putting us on the east side of this large storm. But, again, when those tornadoes came through, it was clear that this is a storm that's going to be having an effect, a deadly effect on people, potentially, on a quite wide range.
So, again, people taking this storm -- it's a cliche how many times we've said this, but people are taking this storm very seriously and they're taking their safety very seriously and they're doing everything they can to preserve that.
COSTELLO: And that is good to hear.
David Mattingly, Panama City Beach, Florida, thank you.
We'll get back to you.
Let's go to the forecast center now and talk with Chad.
You know, David mentioned that as the hurricane hit landfall, many people thought it would lose power.
Joining me now right.
COSTELLO: Is it or isn't it?
MYERS: Well, right where the eye is, yes. But he's nowhere near the eye. He's actually in one of these outer bands still blowing onshore. So this part of the hurricane doesn't even know it's onshore. This part of the hurricane could care less. It's still picking up warm Gulf water, warm Gulf moisture here, and blowing it onshore here into Panama City.
So we're still seeing these outer bands of the eye wall. Yes, is the storm losing some intensity right around the eye wall? Yes. But as we talked about earlier, all of the wind speeds, that wind field is just going to spread out now and we're going to get 60 and 75 mile per hour winds in a very large area. And that's what he's seeing now. He wasn't seeing winds to 130 like they were seeing there around parts of the central part of that storm here.
What I want to show you now, Carol, actually, is our fast track with these little spinners going on here. In fact, Barbour County with a tornado warning on it here. And this is going to be the theme for the next few hours as this large band, large outer band -- you see all the yellows -- begins to come onshore here and rotate around the storm. And then you're going to actually see a lot more tornado warnings going on. There will be one after another after another. And then we are going to see that significant weather rotate around that system for most of the morning hours.
I'm going to go back to this radar. I'm going to stop the lopping. And I want to show you a couple of spots that I've zoomed in on. We can actually get a little bit closer and then, too, a little bit closer. And then the next town in the way, Atmore, right here, seeing very, very heavy weather here, coming across.
Pensacola getting a little bit of relief. That big cell away from Pensacola now and now it's moving up toward Atmore and across the I-65.
That is certainly right now the strongest part of the storm moving in here. So now we're starting to stop talking about the shore and now we're starting to talk about the damage that's happening inland. Because we know a lot of folks just left the shore and drove up here and drove up a little bit farther. Well, now they're going to be experiencing what the folks that stayed down there already saw.
COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you a question. Because we've been getting a lot of e-mail this morning about who might be affected and how far up. I mean people here in Georgia are scared.
MYERS: Well, of course. I went out and bought five gallons of water yesterday. And here's something that you can do. If you are scared about losing power and whether its Montgomery or Huntsville or Atlanta, for that matter, here's something I did last night. And I've never heard anybody talk about this.
I looked at my freezer and I'd say what can I do to make this food last longer? I reached in and I turned that freezer knob to coldest. And so I know now my ice cream is going to be rock hard. But if I do lose power, at least what's in my freezer will be frozen longer because it was colder. Maybe you're making the temperature down to 10 below zero and it was only 10 above zero, whatever your knob says or whatever your freezer will do for you. It depends.
But at least if you do lose power for a few hours or even a few days, if your food is much colder than it was, go ahead and turn it down. And then at least it'll last a little bit longer before it thaws. And do that while you still have power, because after you lose power, then you can't do anything about it.
But you can see all these little circles, Carol, all the way up to Tallahassee...
COSTELLO: Oh, yes.
MYERS: ... southward, even moving onshore. This is not all that far from Cedar Key. All those are potential tornadoes in the outside of this system.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
And thank you for that bit of advice. You know, sometimes common sense just works.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: But people don't think of it.
MYERS: You know, I was thinking should I go buy dry ice, should I go buy ice? I go no. I'm going to turn down my freezer and make it colder.
COSTELLO: Yes.
Hey, guess who we have on the line?
We have a storm chaser on the line, Mike Theiss.
He's on the phone.
He's in Pensacola Beach, Florida.
Tell us what you're experiencing, Mike.
MIKE THEISS, STORM CHASER: Well, it's a sigh of relief now as the winds are finally calming down. I experienced winds in excess of 120 sustained for a good couple hours. The storm surge has come up, I'm not sure how much, but the first floor -- the entire first floor of this condo I was in was underwater.
Huge waves, probably 20 foot waves crashing into the building. It was really, oh, man, words can't explain it. It was getting a little bit scary for a while. But I was in a seven story building, actually, it's about a 15 story building with seven of them a parking garage. So I knew I could go up if I had to and just keep going up.
COSTELLO: So where did you stay during these sustained 120 mile per hour winds?
THEISS: Well, the way the parking garage is set up, I was able to move around so I could use the center wall as kind of a buffer zone. So I wasn't actually in the wind myself, but I was, you know, the wind was all around me. And there was a couple of times there was a stairwell that's very strong and I had to get in there a couple of times because there was debris whipping around the parking garage.
But really the bigger story, I've been in a lot of storms and wind. I'm pretty used to the wind. But the thing that was starting to worry me was the storm surge. I've never seen a surge like this and I just looked out, probably at about five minutes ago with a flashlight, and I'm completely underwater. Everything is underwater around me. There's whitecaps. I'm basically sitting in a building with water all around me, so...
COSTELLO: Tell us what was, you know, here comes the storm surge and then you see the water entering the condo building where you are.
What was that like? THEISS: It was scary. But I kept telling myself I knew I was in a really strong structure, solid concrete, and I knew that I was going to be OK here. You know, I fully expected this as I did drive out here to film this. But I was just thinking, to be honest, I was hearing reports on the radio of 50 foot waves measured out in the Gulf. And I wasn't -- I didn't think it was going to be that high when it came in, which I don't think it was. But I would say the surge out here was a good 25, maybe 30 feet. You know, I haven't -- I never really got a really good glimpse at the highest waves because I was in the stairwell. And it's pitch dark out here.
COSTELLO: Well, that is a good thing.
THEISS: Yes.
COSTELLO: Mike, I want to bring Chad Myers in to talk about the storm surge a little more.
Any way to tell right now how big the storm surge was there, Chad?
MYERS: Actually, just from eyewitness accounts, like his right there.
Mike, I'm a little bit concerned, though. You said that this is a strong building.
Do you know when it was built? I mean is this concrete on sand or were there -- are there pilings into the sand here on this building? Because this sand could get eroded from the building that you're underneath and all of a sudden there's nothing for that building to stand on.
THEISS: I hear you.
Well, it's actually, it's still under construction and the building I'm in is finished. There's five buildings around me and it is solid concrete and then there's pillars. I'm sure its reinforced underneath. You know, that's what I've been thinking, I've been hoping the whole time anyway.
MYERS: Yes, right.
THEISS: And I do believe the worst part is over.
MYERS: I agree with that, yes.
THEISS: But you know, I'm not, to be honest, I'm not sure, you know, how this building was built. It looks very strong to me, though.
MYERS: Well, you know, we have heard reports in other hurricanes not even as strong of the entire island being cut in half because of erosion. And that's why I tried to get my people off the island rather than get them on the island here for the hurricane, because you never know where that new cut might be. THEISS: Right.
MYERS: So you certainly have to be watching for that new beach erosion there, because if the water is all the way up to the building, you have no idea where that beach even is right now.
COSTELLO: Hey, Mike, one last question for you.
Where do you go from here as a storm chaser? What do you do next?
THEISS: Well, I go home and get a lot of sleep. But basically I market the video and I help out for research and do different things. I try to help out in any way I can. And from here, there's another storm coming. But I haven't seen the latest on it. So I might be getting ready for that one.
COSTELLO: Oh, you're talking about tropical storm Jeanne.
THEISS: Correct. Yes.
COSTELLO: Chad?
MYERS: Yes, Carol?
COSTELLO: Tropical storm Jeanne.
Where the heck is that storm now?
MYERS: Well, it moved over Puerto Rico and that actually put an awful lot of rainfall down. Some spots in Puerto Rico, we're talking about eight to 10 inches of rainfall. I'm calling up the Hurricane Center Web site now. And if you want to do this at home you sure can. It's called nhc.noah.gov. Put a www in the front of it.
And the tropical advisory for Jeanne at 5:00 a.m. still has it at 70 miles per hour. The numbers there, 18.8 and 68.1, 270 miles from the Dominican Republic. And I'll take a look at the maps and the charts. You have to forgive me here, because I've been worried a lot about Ivan and not about Jeanne. At 8:00...
COSTELLO: I'm sorry. I surprised you.
MYERS: That's all right.
It is live TV. I can do it all. 8:00 -- I can even do sports.
8:00 on Saturday night, it looks like it's now moving into the southern Bahamas, moving over to the Turks and Cacois. The Turks and Cacois are under hurricane watches and also the southeastern Bahamas under hurricane watches.
The only good news is -- except not for the Bahamas -- but this thing looks like it takes a run over the Abacos to the east of Nassau, to the east of Freeport. And then about 200 and 250 miles to the west, we'll call it, of Bermuda, or about 200 maybe so miles east of Daytona.
So the storm system actually does make a right hand turn and does not hit the continental U.S. But here's part of the system here, all of the cloud cover now coming over Haiti.
Some of the latest computer models we were using yesterday out of this Vipir system predicting 16 inches of rain in the mountains of Haiti. And that makes, one, flooding. That makes devastating mudslides. And even though it's not a very large storm system, it's only a tropical storm right now, tropical storm force rains like that, they do a lot of damage in the Dominican Republic and Hispaniola all the time -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
And Mike Theiss, you stay safe in Pensacola Beach.
Our storm chaser joining us this morning on DAYBREAK.
We're going to take a short break.
We'll be back with much more on hurricane Ivan right after this.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: September 12, 1979. Hurricane Frederick swept across the fragile coastal reaches of Alabama and Mississippi. Witnesses say the category three storm leveled parts of Mobile, making it look like a bomb went off. Frederick cause millions of dollars in damage to southern Alabama alone. With the added destruction in Mississippi and parts of Florida, Frederick proved costly, indeed. Damage was more than $2 billion.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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