Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Ivan Makes Presence Known in Gulf Coast States
Aired September 16, 2004 - 06:00 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: Ivan makes his presence known on the Gulf Coast states.
It is Thursday, September 16.
This is DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
Let's get right to the forecast center to get you some specifics on hurricane Ivan, when it made landfall and how strong the sustained winds are now -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.
I'll start out wide so you can actually see where the storm is now and then we'll get a little technical.
At 3:00 a.m. officially, the center of the eye came right over Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is a little bit to the east of the center of Mobile Bay. And that's why Mobile Bay did not take a direct hit from it. Direct is a relative term. But Pensacola really did. The areas here east of Mobile and west of Pensacola were, by far, the hardest hit areas. And I'm going to zoom in here for you, to show you where the hardest hit areas really were.
We can back this up and show you that these big red zones through here, the yellows and the reds were right to the west of Pensacola.
Now it's going to get a little blocky here. But I'm going to zoom in even a little bit more and run it right through again and the areas right through here -- and we talked about these, we've talked about Perdido Beach, we talked about Orange Beach, the areas just to the west of Pensacola.
Look at that as it was coming onshore -- the big reds, the yellows and the oranges. And it continued for hours and hours and hours. And as we get a lot closer, we begin to actually see some of the towns, Perdido Heights, Perdido Beach, Perdido Key, Fort McRee, Warrington, and also just anything, anything to the west of Pensacola. Now we'll get you back out so you can actually see the storm itself. That's the storm, still not moving up into parts of southern Alabama. We are worried now about something going on over here. You see this long line of cells? Follow my little pointer all the way from eastern Alabama all the way down now into western Florida. And as I zoom in here, you're going to see these little things start to spin around. The little spinners there are shear markers here, indications from the winds that there is enough spin to some of these storms to actually make tornado warnings on them.
I have one right now of Macon County in southeastern Alabama, including the city of Tuskegee, and that storm has been spinning for a while, in fact, right up here. I'll zoom into the area there and you can see the spin itself, the last frame, the spin just to the southwest of Tuskegee. And that areas of rain and moisture and thunderstorm activity is moving to the northwest.
Tuskegee, you are in the tornado warning right now. Hopefully you're haring the sirens. If you are not and you're hearing me, get into an interior room or get into the basement if you have one.
Carol, it's been a busy night here in the Weather Service office. It's going to be a busy morning, as well. And this area of moisture is going to run up into Alabama and cause significant flooding in many areas, as well, some spots predicted of 10 inches of rain before this thing finally moves away.
COSTELLO: OK, so let me ask you a question, because you do need to heed these tornado warnings, Chad.
But where do you go when there's a danger of flooding and the danger of a tornado?
MYERS: Well, an interior room on your first floor would be best. If you are in the flood prone area, I would not go into the basement. A lot of folks do have sump pumps and the like. But guess what? As soon as the power goes out, the sump pump stops working and the water can actually start getting into your basement. So stay on the first level. Certainly do not get into the second level until the water is already in your first level, because the second level, the wind speed of a tornado is actually significantly higher the higher you go, and the third floor and the fourth floor and the fifth floor, winds could go from about 100 miles per hour down at the surface to possibly 120, 130 or 140 on the fourth floor. So you don't want to get yourself into wind gusts, for sure.
COSTELLO: It's tough, isn't it, though?
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
We're going to get back to you, of course.
The hurricane Ivan actually made landfall about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. That's where Bill Hemmer is live this morning -- Bill, bring us up to date. BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Carol, listening to Chad talk, I can tell you I think we can reflect exactly what Chad's talking about. We get a little bit of gust here right now, Carol, but listen, this is nothing compared to what we went through overnight last night. It gives us an indication yet again that we are on the western edge of that eye as the storm continues to move onshore and upland inland here in Alabama.
The mayor says almost 200,000 without power, which accounts for roughly 75 percent of the people that live in this city. Luckily, no fatalities reported at this point here in Mobile, but we are not out of the woods yet. The lee -- the back edge, rather, of the storm still to come through here, Carol, possibly within the next hour. And that's going to last for a number of hours again, through the morning hours here.
Sunup is about 90 minutes away and then we expect the skies to be lightning somewhat. Just to give us an idea, to look around better around the area where we are herein downtown Mobile.
Overnight last night, Carol, a very long night. We stayed on the northern side of our hotel here, which we thought was pretty much the best guess in terms of trying to protect ourselves from the most fierce some and the most intense edge of that storm and those winds. But those winds just pounding our windows all night long. It makes you wonder how the windows stayed in their frame.
Throughout the morning, we will continue to gauge the area here. I can tell you, I was out on the street about an hour ago. There are trees down, light posts down. There is damage throughout the area. But talking with city officials already tornado, they've been up all night taking in various reports from the area. They say there is millions of dollars in damage already.
But overall, they figure with the category three storm, category four storm that came through here, they got pretty lucky at this point -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes, especially with no deaths reported. We don't know about injuries yet, but it is good news no deaths there.
HEMMER: That's right.
COSTELLO: Bill Hemmer live in Mobile, Alabama.
There were deaths, though, due to hurricane Ivan. At least two people in the Florida Panhandle have been killed by those tornadoes spawned by hurricane Ivan.
We want to go live on the phone right now to Panama City Beach, Florida.
Rick Sanchez is on the line -- Rick, what's the situation there?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we do know a little bit more now about those deaths that you were just mentioning. As a matter of fact, we were on the air yesterday some time in the late afternoon when we suddenly looked up and saw what was beginning to look to us like the formation of a tornado or tornadic activity just behind us.
It's almost as if the sky becomes real dark and then starts to come and almost kiss the actual shoreline. There's no space between the surf and the clouds. Well, shortly after that, about 45 minutes later, some two blocks from where we were standing, we got reports that the first tornado had actually struck. And that is where, as we reported at the time, a man had, in fact, lost his life.
We do have a little bit more information on that. They're telling us now that he was trying to ride out the storm at his daughter's business, a real estate business. The official cause of death is trauma as a result of structural damage from the building.
Then shortly after that, there was a report of yet another man who had also died, the same cause, another tornado on the north side of town, also died as a result of structural problems with the building where he as staying in.
COSTELLO: Oh, just so tragic.
SANCHEZ: So, you know -- go ahead, Carol.
COSTELLO: No, it was so tragic. I mean, you know, we always hear about people like braving the storm and most of them make it through. But you should really obey those evacuation orders when you get them.
SANCHEZ: Well, and think about this. We're about 120 miles from the eye of the storm in terms of where it made contact there, between Pensacola and Mobile. So you would think that this would not be the place where we would be getting the first reports of fatalities.
But what people don't consider or sometimes forget when you deal with this type of hurricane is the outer band is oftentimes where you find the heaviest tornadic activity. And that's exactly what, you know, came to fruition in this case.
Here you have a situation where we were furthest from the storm in terms of some of the folks that you've been talking to so far tornado. We were the first to get hit with that very, very heavy tornado activity.
Let me run down some of the other details that we're getting for you this morning here in the Panama City area.
Shelters up to 11,000 people. By the way, seven people have been hospitalized now. They have opened a brand new shelter just a little while ago. We're waiting for daybreak to see if we can get out and get some more pictures.
But we're told there's some more tornado damage somewhere in the area of Mariana and also in the area of Blountstown. And a lot of power outages. Aside from the tornado activity, what we're getting here in Panama City, Carol, is your typical category one hurricane damage, lots of signs down, lots of trees down, some structural damage. But nothing catastrophic.
We also have been getting some pretty good waves coming off the shore, as high as 30 feet. But they're breaking before they actually hit, the surf. So that's the situation here.
COSTELLO: All right.
Rick Sanchez, thanks for bringing us up to date from Panama City Beach, Florida.
There has been tornadoes reported also in Pensacola and there is heavy damage reported there. We're still efforting. We understand a hospital has been hit. We're still trying to get exactly which hospital, because there are three in Pensacola.
We want to get to Biloxi, Mississippi now and Eric Philips to see how people are faring there -- good morning.
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.
People here are faring pretty well, actually. They were expecting it to be a lot worse than it actually go there. Of course, in some low lying areas, there is flooding. And you've got about 50,000 people who are without power here in the Biloxi area. But by and large they're looking at their other neighbors on the Gulf Coast and they know it could have been much worse here.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS (voice-over): Ivan barely missed a beat as he marched onshore early this morning near Gulf Shores, Alabama, his winds slowing from 140 to 135 miles per hour. The sheer damage and destruction left in his path was evident. Hundreds of thousands in Alabama alone wop power.
GOV. BOB RILEY (R), ALABAMA: Now is the time still, if you have a neighbor that may need some help, go over and offer to help. We've all got to work together and if we do, we'll come through this.
PHILIPS: Though the storm centered on Alabama, the brunt of it may have been felt in the Florida Panhandle. At least two were killed in Panama City as a result of tornadoes spawned by Ivan. And officials in Pensacola reported catastrophic damage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got huge impacts in terms of wind and tidal surge. So I think the effects of this are going to be just pretty horrendous.
PHILIPS: Shelters on the Panhandle filled with people hoping for the best, wishing they could be elsewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's too expensive to leave. I mean if you leave, you've got the hotel expenses, you've got the food expenses, you've got the gas. PHILIPS: In New Orleans, officials say the storm impact was not nearly as great as they once feared, though they opened the Superdome as a shelter for those who could not or did not flee as recommended.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS: Officials are telling us that at first light, they'll have an opportunity to go out and make a more accurate assessment of the damage. But they say in many areas, the cleanup will be measured in weeks, not days -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And also in dollars.
Eric Philips live in Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.
Some perspective for you regarding hurricanes. Thirty-six percent of all U.S. hurricanes hit Florida. Seventy-six percent of category four or higher hurricanes have slammed into either Florida or Texas. And about half of the hurricanes to hit the middle Gulf Coast, southern Florida and even New York have been major hurricanes.
Back with more Ivan coverage after this.
This is DAYBREAK for a Thursday morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: September 18, 2003, hurricane Isabel lashed the East Coast with punishing winds and rain. CNN crews were there as she pounded the Carolina shelters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The gusts we are seeing now are easily up to 70 miles an hour and I will tell you, it is becoming increasingly dangerous by the minute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn't the fiercest storm on record, but hurricane Isabel was still strong enough to cause more than a billion dollars in damage across six states.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Let's talk about hurricane Ivan some more.
We have rolling live coverage for you. We've been on the air, what, how long now, Chad, about 12, 13 hours?
MYERS: I'm not sure. I slept through some of it and I've been in here since 2:00, Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. You have some warnings for people.
MYERS: I do. In fact, a new tornado warning for Elmore County in east central Alabama. That's a storm now. It's north of Montgomery. It's up here in this area. And I know it doesn't look that impressive, but the Weather Service is finding rotation now on the Doppler radar.
I'm going to zoom into the area north of Montgomery, right in through here. The storm is very close to Kent and some other areas here, across Eclectic. The entire area as its spinning now, that is Tallahassee, Alabama and just to the north of Tuskegee. This entire area is sliding to the northwest at about 30 to 45 miles per hour depending on the cell. And a lot of cells now are beginning to rotate. And, in fact, Carol, we have a new tornado watch. I haven't even got it on the box yet. A new tornado watch box for the eastern sections here of Florida and also southern Georgia. I'll have that for you here in just a few minutes.
COSTELLO: And, of course, hurricane Ivan made landfall near Mobile, Alabama.
We want to bring you up to date about what's happening there. About 200,000 people now without power. That's about 75 percent of the population. The eye of Ivan, as I said, made landfall on the east coast of Mobile Bay. That's very close to Gulf Shores. It made landfall at 2:50 a.m. Eastern. Gulf Shores, by the way, about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama.
Despite the Alabama landfall, the Florida Panhandle appears, appears to be bearing the brunt of the storm, although we hear reports of widespread flooding and also damage with trees down and homes destroyed. Of course, the Red Cross has its supplies and volunteers ready to go as soon as Ivan dies down.
Marty Evans is the president of the American Red Cross.
She joins us live now from Washington.
Good morning.
MARTY EVANS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: So as you're watching the coverage this morning, what are you looking for?
EVANS: Well, first of all, we're looking to suggest that people not go outside. We don't want to see anybody out until the authorities have given the go ahead, because it's not safe at all. We're also going to be looking for, in the aftermath, the areas where, that are most severely hit, where we're going to need to open additional shelters for people who have lost their homes or their homes have been severely damaged.
We're also going to be looking for those areas where people aren't going to be able to cook. And we know the power outages are widespread. So we'll be providing meals. We'll actually be sending our Red Cross trucks out on routes once again, once the roads are clear, to deliver food to neighborhoods.
We're going to be providing mental health counselors. That's a very, very important feature of the aftermath. People need to get some support from Red Cross trained professionals and also just from their neighbors to make it through the aftermath, to regroup, to figure out what's next.
COSTELLO: Well, this is such a wide area of damage.
How do you deal with something like that?
EVANS: Well, the Red Cross has a network of chapters. So each area, each county is supported by a Red Cross chapter, either in the county or in a neighboring county. So we have an extensive network of volunteers who have disaster training, disaster response training. They've been on the job for several days now in that -- in the areas that you've seen, setting up shelters so people had a place to go to get out of harm's way.
Now those same volunteers and additional volunteers will be providing support in the aftermath of the disaster relief phase.
COSTELLO: And from what I understand, you've already moved supplies into Little Rock and into Atlanta and they're ready to go.
EVANS: Well, that's right. Of course, you know, we've exercised our supply chain with Charley, with Frances, and now we have the same system that brings disaster relief supplies and additional people and equipment into the area as soon as possible.
Of course, the issue for us is how soon can we get on the roads. And we work very closely with the state and the counties involved so that we can get on the roads as soon as possible because we know that people need the help now.
COSTELLO: Well, finally, if people want to help, what do you need from them?
EVANS: We need financial donations. This is a third very, very costly storm, as you can see from the coverage you've had. Extensive damage. It's going to be a big job. People can go online at redcross.org or they can call 1-800-HELP-NOW and make a contribution. And truly no amount of money is too little to help some of the people that have been through an extraordinary experience.
COSTELLO: You'll take $0.50, you'll take a dollar, you'll take five bucks. All right, Marty...
EVANS: Well, we will.
Thank you.
COSTELLO: Definitely.
Marty Evans, president of the American Red Cross, joining us live from Washington this morning.
Let's head back to the forecast center. Chad has some new information to share.
MYERS: Carol, she was just talking about getting to places. And here's going to be the problem. Obviously right up here near Atmore, very strong winds still, probably 120, 130 miles per hour. Now the winds have moved farther north, even out of the Florida Panhandle. But there are more winds here through the Florida Panhandle at about 85 to 90 miles per hour.
I want to toggle this now over to the storm total. Here are some of the numbers now. Here are some of the rainfall totals -- eight inches, seven inches, even back over toward Mobile eight inches in the bay.
COSTELLO: Wow!
MYERS: Now I'm going to zoom into this area here that's not that far west of Pensacola and look at some of the numbers here -- 10 inches of rain already on the ground, Doppler estimated. These are not people on the ground measuring that. Gulf Shores, Alabama, nine inches of rain since the storm started. And so getting back to your house or getting back to anywhere is not going to be as easy as it sounds -- Carol.
COSTELLO: No, in some places, they're advising people to stay in their homes until noon today because the streets are so flooded and so dangerous they don't want them anywhere near the roads.
MYERS: Well, Carol the winds are still blowing, as well. And I was down in Charley and Frances and, you know, Bonnie and all that, and I'll tell you what, that aluminum siding and that stuff that comes off the mobile homes, that doesn't stop blowing around until the winds slow down to about 30 or 40. And the winds are going a whole lot faster than that still in a lot of this area, especially right through here, from Pensacola eastward all the way over to Panama City.
Some of the wind gusts coming on shore here still at about 60 to 80 miles per hour, even though the storm is already onshore. And, yes, it's losing punch, but it's not losing that much just yet.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
MYERS: Sure.
COSTELLO: We're going to take a short break.
We'll be back with much more on hurricane Ivan on DAYBREAK.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over the last 100 years, there have been only three category five hurricanes to hit the United States. In 1935, an unnamed storm slammed the Florida Keys, killing 423 people. These pictures are from Camille in 1969 as she roared ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi. Property damages were so severe that sections of the Mississippi coast seemed to vanish. Twenty-three years later, Florida was pounded by hurricane Andrew.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: And welcome back to DAYBREAK and our special coverage of hurricane Ivan.
Just to bring us up to date in case you're just joining us, Ivan made landfall about 2:50 a.m. Eastern. It came ashore at Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. Two hundred thousand people in Mobile without power right now. There is rain. There is extensive damage, although we can't see it yet because, of course, it's still dark. But we do have reports of trees down, homes damaged. No deaths to report in Alabama, but we do have deaths to report in Florida. At least two people have died.
In fact, Florida is getting hit really hard because of the tornadoes this storm has spawned. We're going to tell you much more about that. But first we want to take you to New Orleans, because we thought New Orleans might be hit, but it escaped.
CNN's Jason Bellini is there -- good morning.
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And that's exactly right. New Orleans was completely spared. Out here on the streets, there aren't even raindrops. There were only sprinkles during the night. So none of the expec -- the worst expectations were fulfilled.
This morning they will lift a curfew at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time, a curfew that was imposed yesterday at 2:00 and was, for the most part, followed by residents of New Orleans. It's been very quiet here ever since yesterday afternoon.
But in the post-Ivan, there are already plans to do an assessment of evacuation procedures. Some real concerns about what happened in the days prior as people clogged up the highway system. There's only one major highway out of this city and it was in a state of virtual -- of complete gridlock for many hours. There's some criticism of the state police for not opening the other side of the highway so that people could use both directions to head out of the city. Concern about next time and also hope that people will continue to evacuate next time there is a hurricane, to follow the instructions of city leaders who are adamant that people, anybody who could leave should leave.
The other thing people we saw yesterday doing was vertically evacuating. Many of them will be checking out of their hotels tornado. It's safe to go home they're being told. People who tried to get up several levels in case there was to be flooding here. Fortunately, that didn't happen -- Carol.
COSTELLO: True.
And for those not in the know, vertical evacuation is just a fancy way of saying move up higher.
Jason Bellini live in New Orleans this morning.
Let's get back to the forecast center. Chad has more information for you.
MYERS: Hi, Carol.
I want to get this back to you, because I know I just heard you talk about the landfall of the eye right over Gulf Shores, Alabama. And that was the center of the eye. But I'm backing you up now to 2:30 a.m. Central time. This is not a live radar. This is one that we have on the computer.
And I want to really zoom in here and show you what really happened here. There's Pensacola. And I want you to really focus your attention on that red area. That is the eastern most eye wall. That means the winds are coming directly onshore here. This area right through here is experiencing 140 to 145 mile per hour winds and some higher gusts.
So as I keep zooming in, everybody wants to know what got hit hardest, Perdido Key. Absolutely the hardest hit, all the way over to Fort McRee, this barrier island here, which is east of Gulf Shores and east of that area over there in Mobile, but west of Pensacola, Perdido Heights, Perdido Beach and so on.
As I zoom you out, here's Pensacola and here's Gulf Shores down across this western side here. The eye wall here not seeing much wind. But the eye wall, as it came onshore, did give wind to Gulf Shores from the east.
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 16, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Ivan makes his presence known on the Gulf Coast states.
It is Thursday, September 16.
This is DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
Let's get right to the forecast center to get you some specifics on hurricane Ivan, when it made landfall and how strong the sustained winds are now -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.
I'll start out wide so you can actually see where the storm is now and then we'll get a little technical.
At 3:00 a.m. officially, the center of the eye came right over Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is a little bit to the east of the center of Mobile Bay. And that's why Mobile Bay did not take a direct hit from it. Direct is a relative term. But Pensacola really did. The areas here east of Mobile and west of Pensacola were, by far, the hardest hit areas. And I'm going to zoom in here for you, to show you where the hardest hit areas really were.
We can back this up and show you that these big red zones through here, the yellows and the reds were right to the west of Pensacola.
Now it's going to get a little blocky here. But I'm going to zoom in even a little bit more and run it right through again and the areas right through here -- and we talked about these, we've talked about Perdido Beach, we talked about Orange Beach, the areas just to the west of Pensacola.
Look at that as it was coming onshore -- the big reds, the yellows and the oranges. And it continued for hours and hours and hours. And as we get a lot closer, we begin to actually see some of the towns, Perdido Heights, Perdido Beach, Perdido Key, Fort McRee, Warrington, and also just anything, anything to the west of Pensacola. Now we'll get you back out so you can actually see the storm itself. That's the storm, still not moving up into parts of southern Alabama. We are worried now about something going on over here. You see this long line of cells? Follow my little pointer all the way from eastern Alabama all the way down now into western Florida. And as I zoom in here, you're going to see these little things start to spin around. The little spinners there are shear markers here, indications from the winds that there is enough spin to some of these storms to actually make tornado warnings on them.
I have one right now of Macon County in southeastern Alabama, including the city of Tuskegee, and that storm has been spinning for a while, in fact, right up here. I'll zoom into the area there and you can see the spin itself, the last frame, the spin just to the southwest of Tuskegee. And that areas of rain and moisture and thunderstorm activity is moving to the northwest.
Tuskegee, you are in the tornado warning right now. Hopefully you're haring the sirens. If you are not and you're hearing me, get into an interior room or get into the basement if you have one.
Carol, it's been a busy night here in the Weather Service office. It's going to be a busy morning, as well. And this area of moisture is going to run up into Alabama and cause significant flooding in many areas, as well, some spots predicted of 10 inches of rain before this thing finally moves away.
COSTELLO: OK, so let me ask you a question, because you do need to heed these tornado warnings, Chad.
But where do you go when there's a danger of flooding and the danger of a tornado?
MYERS: Well, an interior room on your first floor would be best. If you are in the flood prone area, I would not go into the basement. A lot of folks do have sump pumps and the like. But guess what? As soon as the power goes out, the sump pump stops working and the water can actually start getting into your basement. So stay on the first level. Certainly do not get into the second level until the water is already in your first level, because the second level, the wind speed of a tornado is actually significantly higher the higher you go, and the third floor and the fourth floor and the fifth floor, winds could go from about 100 miles per hour down at the surface to possibly 120, 130 or 140 on the fourth floor. So you don't want to get yourself into wind gusts, for sure.
COSTELLO: It's tough, isn't it, though?
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
We're going to get back to you, of course.
The hurricane Ivan actually made landfall about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. That's where Bill Hemmer is live this morning -- Bill, bring us up to date. BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Carol, listening to Chad talk, I can tell you I think we can reflect exactly what Chad's talking about. We get a little bit of gust here right now, Carol, but listen, this is nothing compared to what we went through overnight last night. It gives us an indication yet again that we are on the western edge of that eye as the storm continues to move onshore and upland inland here in Alabama.
The mayor says almost 200,000 without power, which accounts for roughly 75 percent of the people that live in this city. Luckily, no fatalities reported at this point here in Mobile, but we are not out of the woods yet. The lee -- the back edge, rather, of the storm still to come through here, Carol, possibly within the next hour. And that's going to last for a number of hours again, through the morning hours here.
Sunup is about 90 minutes away and then we expect the skies to be lightning somewhat. Just to give us an idea, to look around better around the area where we are herein downtown Mobile.
Overnight last night, Carol, a very long night. We stayed on the northern side of our hotel here, which we thought was pretty much the best guess in terms of trying to protect ourselves from the most fierce some and the most intense edge of that storm and those winds. But those winds just pounding our windows all night long. It makes you wonder how the windows stayed in their frame.
Throughout the morning, we will continue to gauge the area here. I can tell you, I was out on the street about an hour ago. There are trees down, light posts down. There is damage throughout the area. But talking with city officials already tornado, they've been up all night taking in various reports from the area. They say there is millions of dollars in damage already.
But overall, they figure with the category three storm, category four storm that came through here, they got pretty lucky at this point -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes, especially with no deaths reported. We don't know about injuries yet, but it is good news no deaths there.
HEMMER: That's right.
COSTELLO: Bill Hemmer live in Mobile, Alabama.
There were deaths, though, due to hurricane Ivan. At least two people in the Florida Panhandle have been killed by those tornadoes spawned by hurricane Ivan.
We want to go live on the phone right now to Panama City Beach, Florida.
Rick Sanchez is on the line -- Rick, what's the situation there?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we do know a little bit more now about those deaths that you were just mentioning. As a matter of fact, we were on the air yesterday some time in the late afternoon when we suddenly looked up and saw what was beginning to look to us like the formation of a tornado or tornadic activity just behind us.
It's almost as if the sky becomes real dark and then starts to come and almost kiss the actual shoreline. There's no space between the surf and the clouds. Well, shortly after that, about 45 minutes later, some two blocks from where we were standing, we got reports that the first tornado had actually struck. And that is where, as we reported at the time, a man had, in fact, lost his life.
We do have a little bit more information on that. They're telling us now that he was trying to ride out the storm at his daughter's business, a real estate business. The official cause of death is trauma as a result of structural damage from the building.
Then shortly after that, there was a report of yet another man who had also died, the same cause, another tornado on the north side of town, also died as a result of structural problems with the building where he as staying in.
COSTELLO: Oh, just so tragic.
SANCHEZ: So, you know -- go ahead, Carol.
COSTELLO: No, it was so tragic. I mean, you know, we always hear about people like braving the storm and most of them make it through. But you should really obey those evacuation orders when you get them.
SANCHEZ: Well, and think about this. We're about 120 miles from the eye of the storm in terms of where it made contact there, between Pensacola and Mobile. So you would think that this would not be the place where we would be getting the first reports of fatalities.
But what people don't consider or sometimes forget when you deal with this type of hurricane is the outer band is oftentimes where you find the heaviest tornadic activity. And that's exactly what, you know, came to fruition in this case.
Here you have a situation where we were furthest from the storm in terms of some of the folks that you've been talking to so far tornado. We were the first to get hit with that very, very heavy tornado activity.
Let me run down some of the other details that we're getting for you this morning here in the Panama City area.
Shelters up to 11,000 people. By the way, seven people have been hospitalized now. They have opened a brand new shelter just a little while ago. We're waiting for daybreak to see if we can get out and get some more pictures.
But we're told there's some more tornado damage somewhere in the area of Mariana and also in the area of Blountstown. And a lot of power outages. Aside from the tornado activity, what we're getting here in Panama City, Carol, is your typical category one hurricane damage, lots of signs down, lots of trees down, some structural damage. But nothing catastrophic.
We also have been getting some pretty good waves coming off the shore, as high as 30 feet. But they're breaking before they actually hit, the surf. So that's the situation here.
COSTELLO: All right.
Rick Sanchez, thanks for bringing us up to date from Panama City Beach, Florida.
There has been tornadoes reported also in Pensacola and there is heavy damage reported there. We're still efforting. We understand a hospital has been hit. We're still trying to get exactly which hospital, because there are three in Pensacola.
We want to get to Biloxi, Mississippi now and Eric Philips to see how people are faring there -- good morning.
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.
People here are faring pretty well, actually. They were expecting it to be a lot worse than it actually go there. Of course, in some low lying areas, there is flooding. And you've got about 50,000 people who are without power here in the Biloxi area. But by and large they're looking at their other neighbors on the Gulf Coast and they know it could have been much worse here.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS (voice-over): Ivan barely missed a beat as he marched onshore early this morning near Gulf Shores, Alabama, his winds slowing from 140 to 135 miles per hour. The sheer damage and destruction left in his path was evident. Hundreds of thousands in Alabama alone wop power.
GOV. BOB RILEY (R), ALABAMA: Now is the time still, if you have a neighbor that may need some help, go over and offer to help. We've all got to work together and if we do, we'll come through this.
PHILIPS: Though the storm centered on Alabama, the brunt of it may have been felt in the Florida Panhandle. At least two were killed in Panama City as a result of tornadoes spawned by Ivan. And officials in Pensacola reported catastrophic damage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got huge impacts in terms of wind and tidal surge. So I think the effects of this are going to be just pretty horrendous.
PHILIPS: Shelters on the Panhandle filled with people hoping for the best, wishing they could be elsewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's too expensive to leave. I mean if you leave, you've got the hotel expenses, you've got the food expenses, you've got the gas. PHILIPS: In New Orleans, officials say the storm impact was not nearly as great as they once feared, though they opened the Superdome as a shelter for those who could not or did not flee as recommended.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS: Officials are telling us that at first light, they'll have an opportunity to go out and make a more accurate assessment of the damage. But they say in many areas, the cleanup will be measured in weeks, not days -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And also in dollars.
Eric Philips live in Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.
Some perspective for you regarding hurricanes. Thirty-six percent of all U.S. hurricanes hit Florida. Seventy-six percent of category four or higher hurricanes have slammed into either Florida or Texas. And about half of the hurricanes to hit the middle Gulf Coast, southern Florida and even New York have been major hurricanes.
Back with more Ivan coverage after this.
This is DAYBREAK for a Thursday morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: September 18, 2003, hurricane Isabel lashed the East Coast with punishing winds and rain. CNN crews were there as she pounded the Carolina shelters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The gusts we are seeing now are easily up to 70 miles an hour and I will tell you, it is becoming increasingly dangerous by the minute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn't the fiercest storm on record, but hurricane Isabel was still strong enough to cause more than a billion dollars in damage across six states.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Let's talk about hurricane Ivan some more.
We have rolling live coverage for you. We've been on the air, what, how long now, Chad, about 12, 13 hours?
MYERS: I'm not sure. I slept through some of it and I've been in here since 2:00, Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. You have some warnings for people.
MYERS: I do. In fact, a new tornado warning for Elmore County in east central Alabama. That's a storm now. It's north of Montgomery. It's up here in this area. And I know it doesn't look that impressive, but the Weather Service is finding rotation now on the Doppler radar.
I'm going to zoom into the area north of Montgomery, right in through here. The storm is very close to Kent and some other areas here, across Eclectic. The entire area as its spinning now, that is Tallahassee, Alabama and just to the north of Tuskegee. This entire area is sliding to the northwest at about 30 to 45 miles per hour depending on the cell. And a lot of cells now are beginning to rotate. And, in fact, Carol, we have a new tornado watch. I haven't even got it on the box yet. A new tornado watch box for the eastern sections here of Florida and also southern Georgia. I'll have that for you here in just a few minutes.
COSTELLO: And, of course, hurricane Ivan made landfall near Mobile, Alabama.
We want to bring you up to date about what's happening there. About 200,000 people now without power. That's about 75 percent of the population. The eye of Ivan, as I said, made landfall on the east coast of Mobile Bay. That's very close to Gulf Shores. It made landfall at 2:50 a.m. Eastern. Gulf Shores, by the way, about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama.
Despite the Alabama landfall, the Florida Panhandle appears, appears to be bearing the brunt of the storm, although we hear reports of widespread flooding and also damage with trees down and homes destroyed. Of course, the Red Cross has its supplies and volunteers ready to go as soon as Ivan dies down.
Marty Evans is the president of the American Red Cross.
She joins us live now from Washington.
Good morning.
MARTY EVANS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: So as you're watching the coverage this morning, what are you looking for?
EVANS: Well, first of all, we're looking to suggest that people not go outside. We don't want to see anybody out until the authorities have given the go ahead, because it's not safe at all. We're also going to be looking for, in the aftermath, the areas where, that are most severely hit, where we're going to need to open additional shelters for people who have lost their homes or their homes have been severely damaged.
We're also going to be looking for those areas where people aren't going to be able to cook. And we know the power outages are widespread. So we'll be providing meals. We'll actually be sending our Red Cross trucks out on routes once again, once the roads are clear, to deliver food to neighborhoods.
We're going to be providing mental health counselors. That's a very, very important feature of the aftermath. People need to get some support from Red Cross trained professionals and also just from their neighbors to make it through the aftermath, to regroup, to figure out what's next.
COSTELLO: Well, this is such a wide area of damage.
How do you deal with something like that?
EVANS: Well, the Red Cross has a network of chapters. So each area, each county is supported by a Red Cross chapter, either in the county or in a neighboring county. So we have an extensive network of volunteers who have disaster training, disaster response training. They've been on the job for several days now in that -- in the areas that you've seen, setting up shelters so people had a place to go to get out of harm's way.
Now those same volunteers and additional volunteers will be providing support in the aftermath of the disaster relief phase.
COSTELLO: And from what I understand, you've already moved supplies into Little Rock and into Atlanta and they're ready to go.
EVANS: Well, that's right. Of course, you know, we've exercised our supply chain with Charley, with Frances, and now we have the same system that brings disaster relief supplies and additional people and equipment into the area as soon as possible.
Of course, the issue for us is how soon can we get on the roads. And we work very closely with the state and the counties involved so that we can get on the roads as soon as possible because we know that people need the help now.
COSTELLO: Well, finally, if people want to help, what do you need from them?
EVANS: We need financial donations. This is a third very, very costly storm, as you can see from the coverage you've had. Extensive damage. It's going to be a big job. People can go online at redcross.org or they can call 1-800-HELP-NOW and make a contribution. And truly no amount of money is too little to help some of the people that have been through an extraordinary experience.
COSTELLO: You'll take $0.50, you'll take a dollar, you'll take five bucks. All right, Marty...
EVANS: Well, we will.
Thank you.
COSTELLO: Definitely.
Marty Evans, president of the American Red Cross, joining us live from Washington this morning.
Let's head back to the forecast center. Chad has some new information to share.
MYERS: Carol, she was just talking about getting to places. And here's going to be the problem. Obviously right up here near Atmore, very strong winds still, probably 120, 130 miles per hour. Now the winds have moved farther north, even out of the Florida Panhandle. But there are more winds here through the Florida Panhandle at about 85 to 90 miles per hour.
I want to toggle this now over to the storm total. Here are some of the numbers now. Here are some of the rainfall totals -- eight inches, seven inches, even back over toward Mobile eight inches in the bay.
COSTELLO: Wow!
MYERS: Now I'm going to zoom into this area here that's not that far west of Pensacola and look at some of the numbers here -- 10 inches of rain already on the ground, Doppler estimated. These are not people on the ground measuring that. Gulf Shores, Alabama, nine inches of rain since the storm started. And so getting back to your house or getting back to anywhere is not going to be as easy as it sounds -- Carol.
COSTELLO: No, in some places, they're advising people to stay in their homes until noon today because the streets are so flooded and so dangerous they don't want them anywhere near the roads.
MYERS: Well, Carol the winds are still blowing, as well. And I was down in Charley and Frances and, you know, Bonnie and all that, and I'll tell you what, that aluminum siding and that stuff that comes off the mobile homes, that doesn't stop blowing around until the winds slow down to about 30 or 40. And the winds are going a whole lot faster than that still in a lot of this area, especially right through here, from Pensacola eastward all the way over to Panama City.
Some of the wind gusts coming on shore here still at about 60 to 80 miles per hour, even though the storm is already onshore. And, yes, it's losing punch, but it's not losing that much just yet.
COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.
MYERS: Sure.
COSTELLO: We're going to take a short break.
We'll be back with much more on hurricane Ivan on DAYBREAK.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over the last 100 years, there have been only three category five hurricanes to hit the United States. In 1935, an unnamed storm slammed the Florida Keys, killing 423 people. These pictures are from Camille in 1969 as she roared ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi. Property damages were so severe that sections of the Mississippi coast seemed to vanish. Twenty-three years later, Florida was pounded by hurricane Andrew.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: And welcome back to DAYBREAK and our special coverage of hurricane Ivan.
Just to bring us up to date in case you're just joining us, Ivan made landfall about 2:50 a.m. Eastern. It came ashore at Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's about 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. Two hundred thousand people in Mobile without power right now. There is rain. There is extensive damage, although we can't see it yet because, of course, it's still dark. But we do have reports of trees down, homes damaged. No deaths to report in Alabama, but we do have deaths to report in Florida. At least two people have died.
In fact, Florida is getting hit really hard because of the tornadoes this storm has spawned. We're going to tell you much more about that. But first we want to take you to New Orleans, because we thought New Orleans might be hit, but it escaped.
CNN's Jason Bellini is there -- good morning.
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And that's exactly right. New Orleans was completely spared. Out here on the streets, there aren't even raindrops. There were only sprinkles during the night. So none of the expec -- the worst expectations were fulfilled.
This morning they will lift a curfew at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time, a curfew that was imposed yesterday at 2:00 and was, for the most part, followed by residents of New Orleans. It's been very quiet here ever since yesterday afternoon.
But in the post-Ivan, there are already plans to do an assessment of evacuation procedures. Some real concerns about what happened in the days prior as people clogged up the highway system. There's only one major highway out of this city and it was in a state of virtual -- of complete gridlock for many hours. There's some criticism of the state police for not opening the other side of the highway so that people could use both directions to head out of the city. Concern about next time and also hope that people will continue to evacuate next time there is a hurricane, to follow the instructions of city leaders who are adamant that people, anybody who could leave should leave.
The other thing people we saw yesterday doing was vertically evacuating. Many of them will be checking out of their hotels tornado. It's safe to go home they're being told. People who tried to get up several levels in case there was to be flooding here. Fortunately, that didn't happen -- Carol.
COSTELLO: True.
And for those not in the know, vertical evacuation is just a fancy way of saying move up higher.
Jason Bellini live in New Orleans this morning.
Let's get back to the forecast center. Chad has more information for you.
MYERS: Hi, Carol.
I want to get this back to you, because I know I just heard you talk about the landfall of the eye right over Gulf Shores, Alabama. And that was the center of the eye. But I'm backing you up now to 2:30 a.m. Central time. This is not a live radar. This is one that we have on the computer.
And I want to really zoom in here and show you what really happened here. There's Pensacola. And I want you to really focus your attention on that red area. That is the eastern most eye wall. That means the winds are coming directly onshore here. This area right through here is experiencing 140 to 145 mile per hour winds and some higher gusts.
So as I keep zooming in, everybody wants to know what got hit hardest, Perdido Key. Absolutely the hardest hit, all the way over to Fort McRee, this barrier island here, which is east of Gulf Shores and east of that area over there in Mobile, but west of Pensacola, Perdido Heights, Perdido Beach and so on.
As I zoom you out, here's Pensacola and here's Gulf Shores down across this western side here. The eye wall here not seeing much wind. But the eye wall, as it came onshore, did give wind to Gulf Shores from the east.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
