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CNN Live Sunday

Hurricane Jeanne Downgraded To Tropical Storm; American Troops To Enter Insurgent Controlled Zones

Aired September 26, 2004 - 16:00   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: Hello. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. Here's what's happening now in the news. Weaker but still dangerous. Hurricane Jeanne is now a tropical storm after causing widespread damage along Florida's east coast. It now threatens the Gulf coast with 70-mile-per-hour winds. We have extensive live coverage coming up.
Also, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says American troops in Iraq will soon be moving into insurgent-heavy areas known as no-go zones. Powell says the move is meant to clear the way for legitimate elections scheduled for January and hopefully help stabilize the country as a whole.

In the Iraqi city of Fallujah, U.S. aircraft strike for the third time in 24 hours. The U.S. military says the sites targeted there were being used by militants loyal to terror chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Up first this hour, the fourth hurricane to batter Florida in six weeks is now a tropical storm headed for the Gulf of Mexico. Jeanne came ashore overnight as a hurricane on Hutchinson Island on Florida's east coast. This is just some of the destruction left behind.

In some places it's hard to tell whether the damage was caused by Jeanne or by Frances from three weeks ago. The hurricane sent huge waves crashing into buildings. Sections of roads were washed out and water rushed into some homes. Across the state on the Gulf coast, officials are urging residents to brace for tropical storm-strength winds and rain. The storm is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico near Tampa before making landfall possibly again.

Back on Florida's east coast now one emergency management official says Vero Beach was devastated like never before. At least a foot of water rushed through some streets in the city and 100-mile- per-hour wind gusts slammed the area. Florida Governor Jeb Bush says it's been a tough six weeks but things can only get better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH, FLORIDA: This state will not only survive. It will rebound. It's a resilient place full of incredibly talented people and I'm really proud to be governor of a state where I can honestly say that a year from now in spite of what's happened in the last six weeks, we will be stronger and we will be better because of what we've gone through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: We have reporters stationed all along the storm's path. Let's begin with CNN's Sara Dorsey on Hutchinson Island, which felt the brunt of the storm perhaps first along the east coast of Florida. Sara?

SARA DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, a resident here said it best. This gives a new meaning to beachfront property. You can see in this condo here, the sand goes all the way up to the windowsill and it's just solid sand that hurricane Jeanne brought in. All across this area they're recovering from not just one storm but two. As hurricane Frances came in, it washed much of the sand out of this area.

The natural dunes that were here were washed away. And in the meantime, people have been cleaning up and then just in time for the cleanup, hurricane Jeanne came in and messed everything up again. You can see in some of these condominiums just how bad it was. The windows were knocked out. Much of the furniture is tipped over. We saw a computer in one of them just destroyed. And it goes all the way to the very front of these apartments. The parking lot is even full of sand. So it really gives you an idea of just how powerful this storm was and these waves were as they came crashing through.

There were actually four people that chose to ride out the storm in this area, and I asked them what would make you stay here despite all the warnings and the mandatory evacuation orders? And they said really it's money. You know, they've had to prepare for four different storms. And of course they left for hurricane Frances. But when the cash is gone, what do you do? And that seems to be the big question. People stayed and luckily, they were OK. But as you can tell, many of the apartments and condos in this area didn't fare so well. So it's going to be quite a while as people here begin to clean up again, try to --

WHITFIELD: Sara Dorsey, sorry to interrupt you. We've got to go straight to Tallahassee where the Federal Emergency Management Agency is talking now about what's ahead of them now that Jeanne is passing through Florida. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Palm Beach County pretty much mirrors Broward as it looked after Frances had passed, mostly power outages, clearly some roof damage. When you get into Martin and St. Lucy County, Fort Pierce, Stuart area, you're having more flooding and it appears as we travel north what you'll be able to see is, again, extensive flooding in those areas. The structures that were sound after hurricane Frances passed through are still sound after this event with hurricane Jeanne. So we're encouraged by that.

We're moving commodities from the facility down in Homestead that's currently being able to go directly to the affected areas. So we're encouraged by the fact that even though the storm is still here in the state, our response teams have had the ability to respond to the victims in the area. What I'd like to say at this point is that there are 298 shelters. The population has increased from this morning to some 61,523. The special needs shelter seems to be stabilizing at 62, a population of 1,242.

Some of the things that the state is doing currently with the disaster food stamps benefits program, the number I'm going to provide to you is for hurricane Charley and Frances. As of September 25, the electronic bank transfer has issued $9,346,905. So again, the department of children and families has been working very hard to be able to provide the need assistance to the residents here in the state of Florida.

We're still asking for people to stay off the roads. The storm is still with us. In the Jacksonville area they're still getting tropical storm winds, same thing in the Lakeland areas. So clearly it is time for folks to be able to stay indoors and continue with their own emergency management programs.

Here in the big bend up through Tallahassee, it's something that we're going to need to pay particular attention to, keep our eye open, keep our eye on the storm as it starts to work its way through this particular area. To give you a little bit more information on that at this point we'd like to have Ben Nelson.

BEN NELSON, FEMA: Thank you, secretary. Good afternoon. Jeanne was downgraded to a tropical storm as of 2:00 p.m. this afternoon. However, the impacts continue to be significant, especially across the central portions of our state, now the northeast part as well. During the past hour Newport Richie in Pasco County reported a wind gust of 75 miles per hour along U.S. 19. Also Sanford during the past hour still reporting wind gusts over 60 miles per hour.

At 2:00 Jeanne was located near Brooksville, Florida moving toward the northwest around 10 miles per hour. We expect it to turn more toward the north during the next several hours and Jeanne's likely to parallel the big bend coast of the state overnight. That could bring a three to six-foot surge along the big bend coast, particularly Levy, Dixie County, around the Cedar Key area later this evening especially after the storm passes that area and onshore winds commence.

In the wake of hurricane Jeanne, we've seen widespread rainfall totals throughout southeast and central Florida of greater than eight inches. That has produced quite an extensive amount of flooding across these areas of our state, large portions of the state. So we urge residents not to travel and if you are an emergency worker or, you know, must travel this evening or during the next few days, the message is turn around, don't drown.

If you encounter a roadway that's covered by water, there's no way that you can tell, especially at night, just how much water is on that roadway and that can lead to some tragic circumstances if you do decide to cross a flooded roadway.

Also, the river flooding situation is going to worsen over the next several days. The river basins that are likely to experience significant flooding include the St. John's, Kissimmee, Hillsborough, Lake Lakuchi (ph), Alafia (ph), Little Manatee, Mayaca (ph), and Peace Rivers. And we're already expecting a record crest along the Peace River at Bartow in Polk County.

Again, we expect Jeanne to continue to move towards the big bend tonight. We will see three to six inches of additional rainfall along its path as it crosses just to the east of Tallahassee during the overnight hours. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you know, the governor and Director Fugate as well as the FCO from FEMA were out in the area earlier today. We have the search chief, Mike Delorenzo (ph), to give you an update on operations.

MIKE DELORENZO, FEMA: Today we continue search and rescue efforts. In talking with the teams, they estimate that they will be able to complete the search and rescue efforts on the coast on the barrier islands by close of business tomorrow. Basically, what Secretary Cohen said, what they're finding is as far as structural damage. there is moderate structural damage to slight structural damage. We don't have the situation we had in Ivan where we had collapsed structures.

But the major concern on the barrier islands is flooding, as with the rest of the impact area. Our recon teams have gone north. They're presently -- they've gone up to Melbourne and now they're en route over to Orlando to get an assessment of the interior of the affected counties.

We will continue as far as operations go to focus on search and rescue until we complete that operation. But also, as Secretary Cohen said, we're starting to build the lifeline to the affected counties to get commodities into those counties. Of course as soon as the weather lifts we can increase that effort. And I'll turn it back to Secretary Cohen.

As you know, the final link in our chain to be able to get aid directly to the victims comes through the graciousness of volunteer organizations as well as organizations such as the Red Cross and with that Carol Overton (ph).

CAROL OVERTON: Good afternoon, everybody. Our main concern right now is ensuring that the people who need food, shelter, and basic necessities get those as quickly as possible. The American Red Cross also needs to be able to move into affected areas and set up our disaster response operation.

To ensure that both of those things happen, we have an 800 number and we would ask anybody who's in need of our help right now to give us a call and if you live in one of those areas call us so that we understand what those areas are, where those areas are so that we can come and provide you with the help that you need. That said, the number is 1-866-GET-INFO. Again, it's 1-866-GET-INFO. Thank you.

COHEN: As you know, we've been able to do this with the extraordinary assistance from the Federal government with FEMA and since we're giving numbers, we'd like to again, if you've been in the affected areas, to be able to call 1-800-621-FEMA. That will start the process to be able to provide you with the necessary assistance. Going forward from the state's perspective, we're coordinating the utility issues and Secretary Castille has been working that issue very hard since the very beginning from Charley all the way through to where we are now and will provide us with an update.

CASTILLE: Thank you, Secretary Cohen. Today's numbers will continue to go up. We are seeing outages, customers of approximately 1.98 million customers without power. A majority of those are in the of course highly populated areas beginning from Palm Beach County to Palm Beach County, Martin, Indian River, Brevard County, and Okeechobee are the hardest hit at this point, but as this storm continues upward on the --

WHITFIELD: You've been listening to an update from folks with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as the Florida Department of Community Affairs and American Red Cross, all say that the damage, structural damage, is moderate to slight in some places, unlike during hurricane Ivan. They will conduct some search and rescue operations as soon as the weather passes a bit. And of course, for American Red Cross they are still seeking donations. And the number they gave is 1-866-GET-INFO.

All right. Let's check in with Orelon Sydney to find out what kind of track Jeanne, now a tropical storm, is taking. Orelon?

ORELON SYDNEY, METEOROLOGIST: Thanks a lot. It looks to me like it's made a little bit of a turn to the north. I took a look at the radar and some of the satellite images just a moment ago and it looks like now we're going to see more at the 5:00 update probably more of a north northwest track than true northwest. Here's the satellite picture. Here's the latest that we have, 20 miles southeast of Brooksville. At this point I think it's probably right very close to Brooksville, winds of 70 miles an hour moving northwest at 10.

Take a look at the radar. Maybe you can see the little trend that I was seeing. You can see that it starts to track here to the northwest and then just at that last couple of frames, it looks like it's taking a little bit of a jog to the right. So we may be seeing it turn a little bit more to the north. I'll have to give this another hour or so before I can be really sure about that.

But for now we definitely still have a storm causing problems across central Florida. Orlando just reported a wind gust of 70 miles an hour. We've seen winds even at Daytona Beach gusting up into the 50-mile-an-hour range. And that can still do damage, especially when you consider that so much of this area is already damaged from previous storms. So the structures are not as strong as they ordinarily would be. So this is definitely going to be a problem. In addition to the rainfall I'll show you in a second.

Tornado watch box is in effect now for southern Georgia down into central parts of Florida until 5:00 p.m. They will issue a new watch. There is good news here. We've only seen one confirmed tornado report so far and that of course is excellent news. We hope that continues. We're going to see how this rolls on throughout the night.

Take a look at some of the rainfall totals. Just in 24 hours, Coopertown, look at that, over eight inches of rain. Ft. Pierce, West Palm Beach, both at seven inches, Frostproof at six, almost six at Haines City. A lot of these locations continue to get rain currently. So obviously we have flood warnings, especially for the central portion of the state with flood watches to the south.

I did take a look at the water vapor imagery, and it looks like the southern portion of the storm is really starting to decrease in intensity, which is generally what you expect and also some good news. Look for the storm to head northward later on tonight and take a turn to the northeast and hopefully out to sea by late Tuesday. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right, Orelon, thanks so much. We continue our continuing coverage now of Jeanne, tropical storm Jeanne, with the help of our affiliates all throughout Florida. Right now we want to go to our Miami-based affiliate, WPLG and join them with their live coverage. Let's listen in.

ARLENE RODRIGUEZ, WPLG CORRESPONDENT: ... if we could come this way real quick, Marcel, let's show them out here. We have been able to see a few people. You may be able to see them out there. They're just coming back after this. They were able to drive into their mobile home park. They're trying to see just what's left behind. I mean, you can just imagine how difficult it is to have to leave your home in one of these storms. That's why we found so many people that didn't want to leave those stubborn residents. It's hard to leave all your precious belongings behind. And obviously, these people did leave. Now they're returning to see what's left of their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Arlene, what was the trip like up there? Are a lot of the lights out? I mean, what's it like in Stuart? What's Stuart look like?

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, gosh. Stuart just looks awful, Dwight. I mean, there's no way to describe it. We were counting -- we started to count the minute we got off I-95, driving out here to this mobile home park, and we lost count. I mean, in every single block there is something down. And you heard Nikki say that this place is suffering a double whammy because they got hit hard during Frances and now they got hit hard, I mean, the eye of Jeanne coming right through this area. And every single block there is something down.

We saw lights, traffic signals just down, smashed to pieces on the ground. We saw all sorts of things, tree limbs, light poles, anything that was vertical is kind of like this or completely down on the ground. I mean, it looks pretty bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE ANCHOR: Incredible story there in Stuart. Again, as she mentioned, as Arlene Rodriguez mentioned, they took the eye of the storm, the worst that could happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE ANCHOR: And things were already so bad off to start with, and then to have a second big hurricane come through. Well, Jeanne is also being blamed now for three deaths, one of those in Miami-Dade County, the other two in Broward County, and while residents down here did not see the eye of the storm obviously pass ashore, we are seeing a lot of damage. WHITFIELD: All right, our affiliate in Miami, WPLG, giving us a look at Stuart, Florida, an area that felt the brunt of hurricane Jeanne when it passed through throughout the night. We're going to continue our coverage in a moment, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well north of what's considered ground zero from hurricane Jeanne is Daytona Beach, Florida, where folks, however, did still feel the wind, the rain, and some storm surges. To help give us a view there of Daytona is Adam Landau of WJXT where it looks still very foggy and rather ominous there.

ADAM LANDAU, WJXT CORRESPONDENT: Still very ominous. We're still feeling some heavy winds. The rain isn't as bad. Of course when you stand on the beach it pelts you. It kind of feels like sandpaper is hitting you on the face. Using our wind gauge here, I can tell you we're holding steady at about 30 miles an hour, gusting at maybe 35.

We peaked out a little bit ago at 50. But I want to show you what's going on here. This is the most amazing part besides the wind and of course all the foam that's blowing on shore now. But if you take a look at what's going on to the beach, you can just see how amazing this is.

We did this yesterday, we did a test and it was about here and now it's about here and even further back if you can see all the way down there, it's about seven feet tall looking like a plateau. And of course what's happening is the beach is receding. And of course, that's bad news for the people here. I'm going to show you why, because they used to be protected by a lot of this sand. Well, now this is all they have protecting them here from water whipping up over and flooding the area.

We can show you a perfect example of that because this stairway right here used to be covered with sand up to about here as a buffer. Well, you can see now it's completely exposed. This is going to be the lasting problem they have here because you can see it looks like the ocean virtually starts at the wall. There used to be a pretty good buffer here. We talked to some business owners. They say they feel since Charley, Frances, and now Jeanne they've lost probably about 15 feet, 15 feet of what normally would protect them from high tide and from the whipping winds and rains.

The good news, though for the people here is the fact that there hasn't been a lot of power outages. This, of course, though, is the real bad news for people, and of course the whipping winds bringing this sea, not many people coming out to see it, and that's a good thing. Excuse me. But we can tell you that we've seen some heavy winds, we've seen some heavy rains, not as bad as Frances. That's a good thing. The thing that everybody here is thankful for because they lost power in Charley, they lost power in Frances. Most people still have their power now. Live from Daytona Beach, I'm Adam Landau for CNN.

WHITFIELD: Now, Adam, let me ask you, just beyond that seawall that you showed us, are those mostly businesses and hotels or are there individual lone-standing residences as well?

LANDAU: Well, right where we are it's mostly hotels. And you can see that they're pretty exposed now. If you go down a little way, we can't really see it, but I'm going to have my photographer Carlos just pan down that way a little bit, and you're going to see where it's getting really bad because a lot of the fences are actually starting to come down there. And then there's really nothing to separate the water from people's land. If you go down a little bit, there's some condominiums, but in this area it's mostly hotels. The area that people are seeing flooded, people's homes, is along the inner coastal. We were just there a little bit ago. And we can tell you the water is whipping up over the shore there and people, many people there are having about two, three feet of standing water in their front yards and of course no one wants that.

WHITFIELD: All right. Adam Landau of our affiliate WJXT. Thanks so much.

While the folks on some parts of the coast are still feeling the effects of Jeanne, so are the folks inland, particularly in Orlando, where it's been a very rainy day and some wind as well. Our Eric Philips is there and Eric, earlier you reported their biggest problem is likely to be flooding. Not a whole lot of wind damage but flooding.

ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that was the main concern, Fredricka, from the outset, that hurricane, now tropical storm Jeanne would bring a lot of flooding to this area, because the ground was already saturated. However, they have been receiving a lot of rain. However, they've not been receiving a lot of reports of flash flooding.

But the rain continues to fall, and so they're watching that very carefully, knowing that flooding could be a main problem. As far as damage is concerned, one of our CNN crews had an opportunity to sort of troll around within the last hour to take a look at Orlando and nearby Kissimmee to look at some of the damage. And again, what they have found is probably what you would typically expect to find, lots of downed trees, some trees blocking roadways, some downed power lines and some roads that are blocked by debris, some debris. But as far as the power outages in this area are concerned, according to officials there's about 120,000 to 130,000 people right now in Orange County without power. Most of them are in southern Orange County. We do know that as far as damage is concerned there's a hospital, a local hospital, Humana health care, that had its fifth floor damaged and that caused 12 patients to have to be moved to another part of that hospital. But again, that damage was not severe, and according to officials, there has been no severe structural damage.

Moving forward now, what they're trying to decide at this hour, officials here in Orange County are meeting because the 5:00 curfew, the curfew is supposed to be lifted at 5:00 here, but now with this storm lingering on a little bit longer, not so much with the rain but with the heavy winds, the strong wind gusts that come through every so often as a matter of fact, we're feeling one right now, they're saying it still may not be safe even by 5:00 to allow people to go out walking around and trolling around the streets and the like. So they're thinking of extending that 5:00 p.m. curfew beyond 5:00 p.m., perhaps until tomorrow morning. That decision is yet to be made.

Of course, there were evacuations in terms of people in mobile home parks and people in manufactured housing. Those people are very anxious to get back and see what's left of their homes, hoping that in fact their homes are still there. But authorities are cautioning them to just, you know, stay tight, give us an opportunity to see what will really be best for you. We do know that some people have been arrested at this point for breaking curfew and for looting.

We don't have exact numbers on that right now, but we have been told that there have been some arrests, and both of those cases and our CNN crew that was out said they saw cars on the road and they saw people kind of walking around just sort of curious, storm seekers, those wanting to see what Jeanne left behind. And so it's obvious that people are anxious, particularly at this hour, when it appears that the storm has passed. People are anxious to get out and see what's left behind. But again, authorities are saying just be patient because safety is definitely the key issue here. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: And Eric, residents there shouldn't be surprised to hear this, that they're being urged to stay indoors, because we just talked with a Florida Power and Light person just moments ago who said the wind gusts are keeping a lot of their crews from being able to get out and try to restore some of the power that's been lost to a million customers.

PHILIPS: Well, absolutely. That's the main problem right now, is the wind gusts that are coming. You're talking about gusts anywhere between 40 to sometimes 70 miles an hour. They thought by this time the gusts would have slowed down maybe to 30 or 20 miles an hour and then we'd be able to see a gradual decline such that people would be able to come back out. But you know, when the power crews aren't coming out to start restoring power because the situations, the weather conditions don't warrant it, that should be a clear signal to everyone else that it's just not safe. And as one official put it that I spoke to just a few minutes ago, we're still taking quite a beating here. However, we haven't been too badly damaged.

WHITFIELD: All right. Eric Philips in Orlando, thanks so much.

And we'll be back with more continuing coverage of Jeanne right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Here is a look at what is making news right now. Tropical storm Jeanne continues to batter Florida. Governor Jeb Bush says the heaviest damage is in the coastal communities of Martin, St. Lucy and Indian River.

The storms winds are down to about 70 miles per hour now. Forecasters expect Jeanne to head further north in the Panhandle and then curl east over Georgia and North Carolina. Secretary of State Colin Powell says the U.S. will move into insurgent-heavy no-go zones appearing just a few hours ago on CNN's "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, Powell said U.S. and Iraqi forces would move into the areas to clear the way for legitimate elections come January.

And take a look at this. Just seconds after getting off the ground a small plane crashed into a crowd celebrating Airport Day in Fullerton, California. The plane barely missed the control tower and slammed into a parked car, where two women were inside. They were treated and released. The two men on board the plane are in critical condition.

Well, Jeanne is slowly lumbering northwest across Florida, drenching it. Residents in the Panhandle are bracing for whatever the tropical storm may be bringing. Richard Smith is on the telephone with us from Tallahassee. He's the director of Emergency Management in Leon County. All right. Good to see you, or hear from you, Richard.

RICHARD SMITH, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT LEON COUNTY (via telephone): Good to talk to you.

WHITFIELD: Give me an early assessment.

SMITH: Well, right now, of course, we haven't even begun to see the outer fringes of the storm. That's still a little bit to our south and east just approaching our area. The bulk of the storm probably won't impact our area directly until later this evening and then through the night hours and again through tomorrow morning.

WHITFIELD: And it looks as though unlike Ivan and even Frances this storm is bringing a lot of water damage as opposed to the kind of wind damage we saw associated with those hurricanes. Is that about right?

SMITH: Yes. We don't think that the winds will be as strong or last for the duration that we saw in Ivan even though Ivan tracked almost 200 miles to our west. If the storm passes to our east, we don't think we will see those direct wind effects here in Leon County. Now, that still is uncertain, of course, because of the cone of uncertainty in the forecast. But hopefully, we won't see those winds like we did in Ivan.

WHITFIELD: What's your greatest concern given that so many residents are hurricane-fatigued, they're tired of being cooped up, whether it be in their shelters or even in their homes, they're so anxious to get out, venture out, and see what this latest storm has done?

SMITH: Well, we're hoping that, you know, people have learned. Of course, there's been numerous deaths in Florida this season, people either joyriding or staying where they shouldn't or taking chances that they really didn't have to. And we're hoping that people are aware enough of the dangers of these storms that they're going to take the necessary action to protect themselves and their families and ride this thing through and get out of it safely. WHITFIELD: We know that there are still many power outages that are affecting several counties across your state and it's going to take a while before many of those power crews can get to the areas to try to restore some power, particularly because of the winds. And we saw our correspondent, Eric Phillips, in Orlando experiencing still heavy gusts of wind.

What are your concerns about the kind of damage that still some of these winds might be able to bring?

SMITH: Well, we're a heavily treed community. A lot of century- old oaks, a lot of pine trees. We're very proud of our canopy roads. And of course those can become problem areas in any kind of high winds. We've seen numerous power outages in both Frances and Ivan.

And of course we worked to restore those as rapidly as possible. We'll leave shelters open for people that have a need for electrical power for as long as is necessary and respond as quickly. But just like you say, it really depends on the extent of damage to the distribution system, how long it's going to take to restore power.

WHITFIELD: Richard Smith, the director of Emergency Management in Leon County, thanks so much for joining us on the telephone. We know you have a very busy day ahead and the next coming days as well.

SMITH: My pleasure. Thank you for keeping the people informed.

WHITFIELD: Well, it was a dramatic scene at Lake Monroe, Florida as Hurricane Jeanne passed over. Gustavo Almondovar from affiliate WFTV was there.

GUSTAVO ALMONDOVAR, WFTV: We're here about an hour and a half ago. When we left the winds were very strong, the rain was basically going in this direction. And I've got to tell you, when we came back, it was exactly the same way when we left it here. Now, if you take a look to my left, I want you to see exactly what's happening here on Lake Monroe. You can see that the waves are pretty much crashing onto the seawall here. There's not much left of the seawall because as you can see, Seminole Boulevard is now part of Lake Monroe.

Now, I've got to tell you, in the past five minutes or so the wind has been picking up tremendously. I'm crouching down a little bit because it almost knocked me over a couple of seconds ago. But I'm going to attempt to walk on Seminole Boulevard here so you can see how deep it is. I was over here a little while ago. And I want you to show -- it goes almost all the way to my knees. We're on Seminole Boulevard right here on the river walk. To my left we've got those lakefront homes.

I spoke with some people earlier this morning, asked them about what they thought about what they're looking at. They said that they weren't sure if this was going to happen. But listen to this man. He said he was preparing anyway. But bought some protectors for his seawall, about 60 or 70 feet of aluminum to prevent any water from entering his home. None of the homes right now are threatened as far as flooding is concerned, but you can take a look behind me here. The seawall doesn't exist anymore because the waves are pretty much taking it over here. This is the bench where people would sit here and observe the lake. You can see that it's a couple of inches under water. To my right you're going to see some palm trees here that have been knocked down. There's about half a dozen of these palm trees that have been knocked down since we've been here this morning. And we presumed that there's quite a few more of these palm trees knocked down the further east you go on the river walk.

WHITFIELD: Wow, pretty extraordinary pictures. Let's go back to the east coast of Florida, where a place called Sewell's Point, not far from Stuart, first felt the brunt of Hurricane Jeanne when it came on shore. Our Gary Tuchman is on the telephone with us to give us a sense as to what's happened in Sewell's Point. Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, that's right, Fredricka. This is the exact point, to coin a phrase, that Hurricane Frances -- amazing coincidence that the same little portion of land, this community in Martin County, Florida is the epicenter for two big hurricanes. And I can tell you here in Sewell's Point a beautiful town, there are a lot of estates in Sewell's Point, and because these homes are built so well a lot of them have very little damage despite the fact that the eyes of two hurricanes crossed.

Some of the smaller homes which may not be as well built do have some damage and there is significant flooding in the small town which is right across the inter coastal water way from Hutchison Island. The island is along -- Hutchison Island is a long barrier island. Can you still hear me, Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: Yes, you're breaking up a little bit.

TUCHMAN: I apologize. I thought we were breaking up, but I apologize. We're going on kind of a driving tour to give you an idea what's going on. Hutchison Island is a long barrier island that's in two counties, St. Lucy County and Martin County. The part of the island where the eye crosses in Martin County, the southern part of Hutchison Island and then Sewell's Point, the town right across the coastal waterway.

I can tell you the damage where the eye crossed is not catastrophic, but I think a lot of that is because of how well built these homes are and it is quite a wealthy community. I can't tell you, as we were driving to the south from Ft. Pierce through Stuart and through Port St. Lucy you see a lot of damage. It's very extensive. But I will tell you it's very similar to the damage we saw in Hurricane Frances and also Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Charley before that.

It's something we're getting used to seeing in the last six weeks in the state of Florida. But so far officials keep stressing to me, all the emergency officials -- and you hear an ambulance going past me right now. But they're very grateful that the casualty toll is so low, and they credit the fact that people paid very serious attention to the evacuation orders, and they're very grateful for that -- Fredricka. WHITFIELD: All right Gary. That last bit you just said broke up a little bit on the telephone. Are you saying that most people in that area did adhere to the evacuation order?

TUCHMAN: Yes. They are very grateful, the emergency operations officials here in Martin County and St. Lucie County to the north, that people really did pay attention. Yes, people were in the shelters this time compared to Hurricane Frances. However, they're saying there's a reason for that. A lot of people knew.

They said the next time there's a big hurricane I'm going to go to a neighbor's house, I'm going to go somewhere, I don't necessarily want to -- so they don't think that more people stayed behind on barrier islands and in the vulnerable areas, just -- this time. And having spent over -- of Ft. Pierce was -- intercoastal waterway, we didn't see anybody wandering around.

WHITFIELD: Yes, OK Gary Tuchman in Sewell's Point, thanks so much for calling in with that even though the transmission's a little iffy there, but that's understandable. We're lucky to even get that cell phone call in the first place after a storm like Jeanne.

And we'll be right back with more of our continuing coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More of our continuing coverage of Jeanne. Just when it was looking like a repeat of Frances, it decided to make a turn. Our Orelon Sidney is in the Weather Center. What is Jeanne doing now?

SIDNEY: Well, it still looks to me, especially if you look at the radar trend, that it started to make a little bit of a turn to the north. I'm going to step out just a minute and go over here to the telestrator and see if I can make it a little clearer for you what I believe is going on here. You can take a look at the southern end of the storm. If you kind of bisect it, you can see that this southern end down here, we're really starting to get a lot less action than we have seen earlier.

And take a look now it looks like in these last few frames if you look at the center right through here it takes a little bit of a jog rather than moving in this direction, it takes a little bit a jog it looks like to the north. So I have to again you have to be careful because of a couple of things. Number one you have got a lot of your strongest thunderstorms here in this northern portion of the storm.

And sometimes this can act kind of like a washing machine that's off balance. When you've got a lot of balance on one side, it'll start to wobble. So it may be kind of a wobble. But if it were, I would expect it to wobble west and not wobble northward, as I believe that it's actually doing. So that would be interesting to watch to see whether or not the center actually makes it out over the water.

You can see the southern edge down here just to the north of Tampa looks like it's about to head out over the Gulf of Mexico. In any rate, it does not look like the whole thing is going to be moving across open water very much at all. We don't expect that to happen. So we're not looking for any re-strengthening whatsoever. I expect it to continue a little bit more northward like this and head off northeastward as we go on through the next several hours.

It is expected to drop below tropical storm force tomorrow morning. And that certainly is some very, very good news. Here's the 5:00 update now, 35 miles southeast of Cedar Key. Winds down to 65 miles an hour. Still moving officially to the northwest at 12:00. But I bet you when we see the 8:00 advisory there will be more of a northward component there. And of course it is weakening. Again expected to be a tropical depression by tomorrow morning.

Head up to the north now. New tornado watch box. This does include just to the south of Savannah and Macon extending down into Florida. This tornado watch will be in effect until 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. And again, the track really hasn't changed much at all. We're still expecting it to work up through the Carolinas and continue on offshore. May stay onshore a little bit longer than earlier anticipated. But it does look like by the middle of the week it certainly should be out of the U.S. And working its way into the Atlantic -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Orelon thanks so much. We'll check back with you a bit later.

And when we come back, we'll check in with the American Red Cross and see what kind of help they need now that they're dealing with the fourth hurricane in six weeks to hit Florida. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: You're looking at Stuart, Florida, hit hard and hit first along Florida's East Coast, as Jeanne made landfall. It was the fourth hurricane to hit Florida in six weeks. And right now Jeanne is stretching the resources and the patience of Florida residents as well as emergency crews and workers there. The American Red Cross is called to just about every disaster across the country, and it too is starting to feel the pinch.

Margaret O'Brien Molina is a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, and she joins us on the telephone from Daytona Beach. Margaret, glad you're able to join us. We know you are very busy and very strapped for resources as you're now dealing with the fourth hurricane to hit Florida. What are some of the needs of the American Red Cross? All right. Looks like we've lost our telephone call with Margaret. And we'll try to resume that in a moment. Right now we're going to take a short break, though. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: We want to join our affiliate WPLG, based in Miami, and listen in to their live coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank god we put that there. Because that's -- that really stayed right through -- you can see this part of it's still on. I think a tornado might have hit that corner.

MATT LORCH (ph), LOCAL 10 NEWS: A team of insurance adjusters has been staying here on the island since the last storm, Hurricane Frances. I'm told now the damage is so widespread they believe they'll be here through November. On Abaco Island, I'm Matt Lorch (ph), Local 10 News.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Hurricane Jeanne did take a similar path, similar to that of Hurricane Frances, striking the east coast of Florida north of Palm Beach, then traveling west right across the state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our chief meteorologist Don No (ph) joins us to explain --

WHITFIELD: All right, that's our affiliate coverage, WPLG in Miami. Let's try to talk again to Margaret O'Brien Molina, with the American Red Cross. She's in Daytona Beach. We think we have her back on the telephone. Margaret, are you there?

MARGARET O'BRIEN MOLINA, AMERICAN RED CROSS (via telephone): Yes, I sure am.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, give me a sense of the kinds of needs that the American Red Cross has, considering you have now responded to four hurricanes in the past six weeks in Florida.

MOLINA: Actually, this is turning out to be what we think is the biggest sheltering operation in Red Cross history. We've opened more than 1,400 shelters in the past six weeks, if you can imagine. We've sheltered more than 350,000 people. We've served nearly 8 million meals.

And that work has all been done by about 25,000 Red Cross paid and really 93 percent volunteers who have come out and just opened up their hearts and their arms and gone out to feed, take care of the other needs of so many of the people down here.

WHITFIELD: And Floridians are so incredibly appreciative that you all are able to do this. But how are you able to afford it?

MOLINA: We rely on the generosity of the American people. We truly do believe, and Clara Barton she started this organization, started doing this work, she said that the Red Cross couldn't continue its mission without the assistance of the press. We go to organizations like yours to tell the people what's going out there, how these people are hurting.

We count on them to come forward to help us in doing this work. And that's what we're doing right now, we're counting on people to come forward and help us. We're thinking it's probably going to be about $70 million that we're going to extend just through Ivan, and now imagine Jeanne on top of that. We have people coming in from all over.

But it's a lot of money. It's a lot of resources. And we're certainly hoping people will be generous and come through and just realize that there but for the grace of god go any one of us.

WHITFIELD: So in addition to volunteer help and money were most of your crews in place before this hurricane hit?

MOLINA: Yes. We have something -- just about more than 3,000 people actually within Florida, Alabama. But imagine, we have disaster relief operations going clear up into Pennsylvania. Where they had shelters. We have in Guam, in the Virgin Islands, because we cover all of those places. They're U.S. territories. And Tennessee, everywhere. So it's a lot.

WHITFIELD: And Margaret, before I let you go, because we're running out of time now, one more time, the telephone number that people can call and/or the Web site where people can call if they want to make donations to the American Red Cross.

MOLINA: Please. It's 1-800-help-now, and for information and also donations, www.redcross.org.

WHITFIELD: Margaret O'Brien Molina, thank you so much, with the American Red Cross, for taking the time out to talk with us. And I know a lot of the Floridians thank you too for all of the hard work that you've done over the last six weeks plus.

MOLINA: Thank you for helping us let people know about it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks. And that's going to do it for us. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Howard Kurtz is coming up next with a special edition of "Reliable Sources." And then at 6:00 Eastern "CNN Live Sunday" continues with Carol Lin. Anderson Cooper will join her live from Melbourne, Florida with the latest on the destruction from hurricane, now downgraded to tropical storm Jeanne.

And at 7:00 Eastern, "People in the News" has a behind-the-scenes look at Cirque Du Soleil (ph) and real estate mogul turned reality TV star Donald Trump. Thanks for joining us back with the headlines right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired September 26, 2004 - 16:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: Hello. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. Here's what's happening now in the news. Weaker but still dangerous. Hurricane Jeanne is now a tropical storm after causing widespread damage along Florida's east coast. It now threatens the Gulf coast with 70-mile-per-hour winds. We have extensive live coverage coming up.
Also, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says American troops in Iraq will soon be moving into insurgent-heavy areas known as no-go zones. Powell says the move is meant to clear the way for legitimate elections scheduled for January and hopefully help stabilize the country as a whole.

In the Iraqi city of Fallujah, U.S. aircraft strike for the third time in 24 hours. The U.S. military says the sites targeted there were being used by militants loyal to terror chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Up first this hour, the fourth hurricane to batter Florida in six weeks is now a tropical storm headed for the Gulf of Mexico. Jeanne came ashore overnight as a hurricane on Hutchinson Island on Florida's east coast. This is just some of the destruction left behind.

In some places it's hard to tell whether the damage was caused by Jeanne or by Frances from three weeks ago. The hurricane sent huge waves crashing into buildings. Sections of roads were washed out and water rushed into some homes. Across the state on the Gulf coast, officials are urging residents to brace for tropical storm-strength winds and rain. The storm is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico near Tampa before making landfall possibly again.

Back on Florida's east coast now one emergency management official says Vero Beach was devastated like never before. At least a foot of water rushed through some streets in the city and 100-mile- per-hour wind gusts slammed the area. Florida Governor Jeb Bush says it's been a tough six weeks but things can only get better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH, FLORIDA: This state will not only survive. It will rebound. It's a resilient place full of incredibly talented people and I'm really proud to be governor of a state where I can honestly say that a year from now in spite of what's happened in the last six weeks, we will be stronger and we will be better because of what we've gone through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: We have reporters stationed all along the storm's path. Let's begin with CNN's Sara Dorsey on Hutchinson Island, which felt the brunt of the storm perhaps first along the east coast of Florida. Sara?

SARA DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, a resident here said it best. This gives a new meaning to beachfront property. You can see in this condo here, the sand goes all the way up to the windowsill and it's just solid sand that hurricane Jeanne brought in. All across this area they're recovering from not just one storm but two. As hurricane Frances came in, it washed much of the sand out of this area.

The natural dunes that were here were washed away. And in the meantime, people have been cleaning up and then just in time for the cleanup, hurricane Jeanne came in and messed everything up again. You can see in some of these condominiums just how bad it was. The windows were knocked out. Much of the furniture is tipped over. We saw a computer in one of them just destroyed. And it goes all the way to the very front of these apartments. The parking lot is even full of sand. So it really gives you an idea of just how powerful this storm was and these waves were as they came crashing through.

There were actually four people that chose to ride out the storm in this area, and I asked them what would make you stay here despite all the warnings and the mandatory evacuation orders? And they said really it's money. You know, they've had to prepare for four different storms. And of course they left for hurricane Frances. But when the cash is gone, what do you do? And that seems to be the big question. People stayed and luckily, they were OK. But as you can tell, many of the apartments and condos in this area didn't fare so well. So it's going to be quite a while as people here begin to clean up again, try to --

WHITFIELD: Sara Dorsey, sorry to interrupt you. We've got to go straight to Tallahassee where the Federal Emergency Management Agency is talking now about what's ahead of them now that Jeanne is passing through Florida. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Palm Beach County pretty much mirrors Broward as it looked after Frances had passed, mostly power outages, clearly some roof damage. When you get into Martin and St. Lucy County, Fort Pierce, Stuart area, you're having more flooding and it appears as we travel north what you'll be able to see is, again, extensive flooding in those areas. The structures that were sound after hurricane Frances passed through are still sound after this event with hurricane Jeanne. So we're encouraged by that.

We're moving commodities from the facility down in Homestead that's currently being able to go directly to the affected areas. So we're encouraged by the fact that even though the storm is still here in the state, our response teams have had the ability to respond to the victims in the area. What I'd like to say at this point is that there are 298 shelters. The population has increased from this morning to some 61,523. The special needs shelter seems to be stabilizing at 62, a population of 1,242.

Some of the things that the state is doing currently with the disaster food stamps benefits program, the number I'm going to provide to you is for hurricane Charley and Frances. As of September 25, the electronic bank transfer has issued $9,346,905. So again, the department of children and families has been working very hard to be able to provide the need assistance to the residents here in the state of Florida.

We're still asking for people to stay off the roads. The storm is still with us. In the Jacksonville area they're still getting tropical storm winds, same thing in the Lakeland areas. So clearly it is time for folks to be able to stay indoors and continue with their own emergency management programs.

Here in the big bend up through Tallahassee, it's something that we're going to need to pay particular attention to, keep our eye open, keep our eye on the storm as it starts to work its way through this particular area. To give you a little bit more information on that at this point we'd like to have Ben Nelson.

BEN NELSON, FEMA: Thank you, secretary. Good afternoon. Jeanne was downgraded to a tropical storm as of 2:00 p.m. this afternoon. However, the impacts continue to be significant, especially across the central portions of our state, now the northeast part as well. During the past hour Newport Richie in Pasco County reported a wind gust of 75 miles per hour along U.S. 19. Also Sanford during the past hour still reporting wind gusts over 60 miles per hour.

At 2:00 Jeanne was located near Brooksville, Florida moving toward the northwest around 10 miles per hour. We expect it to turn more toward the north during the next several hours and Jeanne's likely to parallel the big bend coast of the state overnight. That could bring a three to six-foot surge along the big bend coast, particularly Levy, Dixie County, around the Cedar Key area later this evening especially after the storm passes that area and onshore winds commence.

In the wake of hurricane Jeanne, we've seen widespread rainfall totals throughout southeast and central Florida of greater than eight inches. That has produced quite an extensive amount of flooding across these areas of our state, large portions of the state. So we urge residents not to travel and if you are an emergency worker or, you know, must travel this evening or during the next few days, the message is turn around, don't drown.

If you encounter a roadway that's covered by water, there's no way that you can tell, especially at night, just how much water is on that roadway and that can lead to some tragic circumstances if you do decide to cross a flooded roadway.

Also, the river flooding situation is going to worsen over the next several days. The river basins that are likely to experience significant flooding include the St. John's, Kissimmee, Hillsborough, Lake Lakuchi (ph), Alafia (ph), Little Manatee, Mayaca (ph), and Peace Rivers. And we're already expecting a record crest along the Peace River at Bartow in Polk County.

Again, we expect Jeanne to continue to move towards the big bend tonight. We will see three to six inches of additional rainfall along its path as it crosses just to the east of Tallahassee during the overnight hours. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you know, the governor and Director Fugate as well as the FCO from FEMA were out in the area earlier today. We have the search chief, Mike Delorenzo (ph), to give you an update on operations.

MIKE DELORENZO, FEMA: Today we continue search and rescue efforts. In talking with the teams, they estimate that they will be able to complete the search and rescue efforts on the coast on the barrier islands by close of business tomorrow. Basically, what Secretary Cohen said, what they're finding is as far as structural damage. there is moderate structural damage to slight structural damage. We don't have the situation we had in Ivan where we had collapsed structures.

But the major concern on the barrier islands is flooding, as with the rest of the impact area. Our recon teams have gone north. They're presently -- they've gone up to Melbourne and now they're en route over to Orlando to get an assessment of the interior of the affected counties.

We will continue as far as operations go to focus on search and rescue until we complete that operation. But also, as Secretary Cohen said, we're starting to build the lifeline to the affected counties to get commodities into those counties. Of course as soon as the weather lifts we can increase that effort. And I'll turn it back to Secretary Cohen.

As you know, the final link in our chain to be able to get aid directly to the victims comes through the graciousness of volunteer organizations as well as organizations such as the Red Cross and with that Carol Overton (ph).

CAROL OVERTON: Good afternoon, everybody. Our main concern right now is ensuring that the people who need food, shelter, and basic necessities get those as quickly as possible. The American Red Cross also needs to be able to move into affected areas and set up our disaster response operation.

To ensure that both of those things happen, we have an 800 number and we would ask anybody who's in need of our help right now to give us a call and if you live in one of those areas call us so that we understand what those areas are, where those areas are so that we can come and provide you with the help that you need. That said, the number is 1-866-GET-INFO. Again, it's 1-866-GET-INFO. Thank you.

COHEN: As you know, we've been able to do this with the extraordinary assistance from the Federal government with FEMA and since we're giving numbers, we'd like to again, if you've been in the affected areas, to be able to call 1-800-621-FEMA. That will start the process to be able to provide you with the necessary assistance. Going forward from the state's perspective, we're coordinating the utility issues and Secretary Castille has been working that issue very hard since the very beginning from Charley all the way through to where we are now and will provide us with an update.

CASTILLE: Thank you, Secretary Cohen. Today's numbers will continue to go up. We are seeing outages, customers of approximately 1.98 million customers without power. A majority of those are in the of course highly populated areas beginning from Palm Beach County to Palm Beach County, Martin, Indian River, Brevard County, and Okeechobee are the hardest hit at this point, but as this storm continues upward on the --

WHITFIELD: You've been listening to an update from folks with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as the Florida Department of Community Affairs and American Red Cross, all say that the damage, structural damage, is moderate to slight in some places, unlike during hurricane Ivan. They will conduct some search and rescue operations as soon as the weather passes a bit. And of course, for American Red Cross they are still seeking donations. And the number they gave is 1-866-GET-INFO.

All right. Let's check in with Orelon Sydney to find out what kind of track Jeanne, now a tropical storm, is taking. Orelon?

ORELON SYDNEY, METEOROLOGIST: Thanks a lot. It looks to me like it's made a little bit of a turn to the north. I took a look at the radar and some of the satellite images just a moment ago and it looks like now we're going to see more at the 5:00 update probably more of a north northwest track than true northwest. Here's the satellite picture. Here's the latest that we have, 20 miles southeast of Brooksville. At this point I think it's probably right very close to Brooksville, winds of 70 miles an hour moving northwest at 10.

Take a look at the radar. Maybe you can see the little trend that I was seeing. You can see that it starts to track here to the northwest and then just at that last couple of frames, it looks like it's taking a little bit of a jog to the right. So we may be seeing it turn a little bit more to the north. I'll have to give this another hour or so before I can be really sure about that.

But for now we definitely still have a storm causing problems across central Florida. Orlando just reported a wind gust of 70 miles an hour. We've seen winds even at Daytona Beach gusting up into the 50-mile-an-hour range. And that can still do damage, especially when you consider that so much of this area is already damaged from previous storms. So the structures are not as strong as they ordinarily would be. So this is definitely going to be a problem. In addition to the rainfall I'll show you in a second.

Tornado watch box is in effect now for southern Georgia down into central parts of Florida until 5:00 p.m. They will issue a new watch. There is good news here. We've only seen one confirmed tornado report so far and that of course is excellent news. We hope that continues. We're going to see how this rolls on throughout the night.

Take a look at some of the rainfall totals. Just in 24 hours, Coopertown, look at that, over eight inches of rain. Ft. Pierce, West Palm Beach, both at seven inches, Frostproof at six, almost six at Haines City. A lot of these locations continue to get rain currently. So obviously we have flood warnings, especially for the central portion of the state with flood watches to the south.

I did take a look at the water vapor imagery, and it looks like the southern portion of the storm is really starting to decrease in intensity, which is generally what you expect and also some good news. Look for the storm to head northward later on tonight and take a turn to the northeast and hopefully out to sea by late Tuesday. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right, Orelon, thanks so much. We continue our continuing coverage now of Jeanne, tropical storm Jeanne, with the help of our affiliates all throughout Florida. Right now we want to go to our Miami-based affiliate, WPLG and join them with their live coverage. Let's listen in.

ARLENE RODRIGUEZ, WPLG CORRESPONDENT: ... if we could come this way real quick, Marcel, let's show them out here. We have been able to see a few people. You may be able to see them out there. They're just coming back after this. They were able to drive into their mobile home park. They're trying to see just what's left behind. I mean, you can just imagine how difficult it is to have to leave your home in one of these storms. That's why we found so many people that didn't want to leave those stubborn residents. It's hard to leave all your precious belongings behind. And obviously, these people did leave. Now they're returning to see what's left of their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Arlene, what was the trip like up there? Are a lot of the lights out? I mean, what's it like in Stuart? What's Stuart look like?

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, gosh. Stuart just looks awful, Dwight. I mean, there's no way to describe it. We were counting -- we started to count the minute we got off I-95, driving out here to this mobile home park, and we lost count. I mean, in every single block there is something down. And you heard Nikki say that this place is suffering a double whammy because they got hit hard during Frances and now they got hit hard, I mean, the eye of Jeanne coming right through this area. And every single block there is something down.

We saw lights, traffic signals just down, smashed to pieces on the ground. We saw all sorts of things, tree limbs, light poles, anything that was vertical is kind of like this or completely down on the ground. I mean, it looks pretty bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE ANCHOR: Incredible story there in Stuart. Again, as she mentioned, as Arlene Rodriguez mentioned, they took the eye of the storm, the worst that could happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE ANCHOR: And things were already so bad off to start with, and then to have a second big hurricane come through. Well, Jeanne is also being blamed now for three deaths, one of those in Miami-Dade County, the other two in Broward County, and while residents down here did not see the eye of the storm obviously pass ashore, we are seeing a lot of damage. WHITFIELD: All right, our affiliate in Miami, WPLG, giving us a look at Stuart, Florida, an area that felt the brunt of hurricane Jeanne when it passed through throughout the night. We're going to continue our coverage in a moment, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well north of what's considered ground zero from hurricane Jeanne is Daytona Beach, Florida, where folks, however, did still feel the wind, the rain, and some storm surges. To help give us a view there of Daytona is Adam Landau of WJXT where it looks still very foggy and rather ominous there.

ADAM LANDAU, WJXT CORRESPONDENT: Still very ominous. We're still feeling some heavy winds. The rain isn't as bad. Of course when you stand on the beach it pelts you. It kind of feels like sandpaper is hitting you on the face. Using our wind gauge here, I can tell you we're holding steady at about 30 miles an hour, gusting at maybe 35.

We peaked out a little bit ago at 50. But I want to show you what's going on here. This is the most amazing part besides the wind and of course all the foam that's blowing on shore now. But if you take a look at what's going on to the beach, you can just see how amazing this is.

We did this yesterday, we did a test and it was about here and now it's about here and even further back if you can see all the way down there, it's about seven feet tall looking like a plateau. And of course what's happening is the beach is receding. And of course, that's bad news for the people here. I'm going to show you why, because they used to be protected by a lot of this sand. Well, now this is all they have protecting them here from water whipping up over and flooding the area.

We can show you a perfect example of that because this stairway right here used to be covered with sand up to about here as a buffer. Well, you can see now it's completely exposed. This is going to be the lasting problem they have here because you can see it looks like the ocean virtually starts at the wall. There used to be a pretty good buffer here. We talked to some business owners. They say they feel since Charley, Frances, and now Jeanne they've lost probably about 15 feet, 15 feet of what normally would protect them from high tide and from the whipping winds and rains.

The good news, though for the people here is the fact that there hasn't been a lot of power outages. This, of course, though, is the real bad news for people, and of course the whipping winds bringing this sea, not many people coming out to see it, and that's a good thing. Excuse me. But we can tell you that we've seen some heavy winds, we've seen some heavy rains, not as bad as Frances. That's a good thing. The thing that everybody here is thankful for because they lost power in Charley, they lost power in Frances. Most people still have their power now. Live from Daytona Beach, I'm Adam Landau for CNN.

WHITFIELD: Now, Adam, let me ask you, just beyond that seawall that you showed us, are those mostly businesses and hotels or are there individual lone-standing residences as well?

LANDAU: Well, right where we are it's mostly hotels. And you can see that they're pretty exposed now. If you go down a little way, we can't really see it, but I'm going to have my photographer Carlos just pan down that way a little bit, and you're going to see where it's getting really bad because a lot of the fences are actually starting to come down there. And then there's really nothing to separate the water from people's land. If you go down a little bit, there's some condominiums, but in this area it's mostly hotels. The area that people are seeing flooded, people's homes, is along the inner coastal. We were just there a little bit ago. And we can tell you the water is whipping up over the shore there and people, many people there are having about two, three feet of standing water in their front yards and of course no one wants that.

WHITFIELD: All right. Adam Landau of our affiliate WJXT. Thanks so much.

While the folks on some parts of the coast are still feeling the effects of Jeanne, so are the folks inland, particularly in Orlando, where it's been a very rainy day and some wind as well. Our Eric Philips is there and Eric, earlier you reported their biggest problem is likely to be flooding. Not a whole lot of wind damage but flooding.

ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that was the main concern, Fredricka, from the outset, that hurricane, now tropical storm Jeanne would bring a lot of flooding to this area, because the ground was already saturated. However, they have been receiving a lot of rain. However, they've not been receiving a lot of reports of flash flooding.

But the rain continues to fall, and so they're watching that very carefully, knowing that flooding could be a main problem. As far as damage is concerned, one of our CNN crews had an opportunity to sort of troll around within the last hour to take a look at Orlando and nearby Kissimmee to look at some of the damage. And again, what they have found is probably what you would typically expect to find, lots of downed trees, some trees blocking roadways, some downed power lines and some roads that are blocked by debris, some debris. But as far as the power outages in this area are concerned, according to officials there's about 120,000 to 130,000 people right now in Orange County without power. Most of them are in southern Orange County. We do know that as far as damage is concerned there's a hospital, a local hospital, Humana health care, that had its fifth floor damaged and that caused 12 patients to have to be moved to another part of that hospital. But again, that damage was not severe, and according to officials, there has been no severe structural damage.

Moving forward now, what they're trying to decide at this hour, officials here in Orange County are meeting because the 5:00 curfew, the curfew is supposed to be lifted at 5:00 here, but now with this storm lingering on a little bit longer, not so much with the rain but with the heavy winds, the strong wind gusts that come through every so often as a matter of fact, we're feeling one right now, they're saying it still may not be safe even by 5:00 to allow people to go out walking around and trolling around the streets and the like. So they're thinking of extending that 5:00 p.m. curfew beyond 5:00 p.m., perhaps until tomorrow morning. That decision is yet to be made.

Of course, there were evacuations in terms of people in mobile home parks and people in manufactured housing. Those people are very anxious to get back and see what's left of their homes, hoping that in fact their homes are still there. But authorities are cautioning them to just, you know, stay tight, give us an opportunity to see what will really be best for you. We do know that some people have been arrested at this point for breaking curfew and for looting.

We don't have exact numbers on that right now, but we have been told that there have been some arrests, and both of those cases and our CNN crew that was out said they saw cars on the road and they saw people kind of walking around just sort of curious, storm seekers, those wanting to see what Jeanne left behind. And so it's obvious that people are anxious, particularly at this hour, when it appears that the storm has passed. People are anxious to get out and see what's left behind. But again, authorities are saying just be patient because safety is definitely the key issue here. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: And Eric, residents there shouldn't be surprised to hear this, that they're being urged to stay indoors, because we just talked with a Florida Power and Light person just moments ago who said the wind gusts are keeping a lot of their crews from being able to get out and try to restore some of the power that's been lost to a million customers.

PHILIPS: Well, absolutely. That's the main problem right now, is the wind gusts that are coming. You're talking about gusts anywhere between 40 to sometimes 70 miles an hour. They thought by this time the gusts would have slowed down maybe to 30 or 20 miles an hour and then we'd be able to see a gradual decline such that people would be able to come back out. But you know, when the power crews aren't coming out to start restoring power because the situations, the weather conditions don't warrant it, that should be a clear signal to everyone else that it's just not safe. And as one official put it that I spoke to just a few minutes ago, we're still taking quite a beating here. However, we haven't been too badly damaged.

WHITFIELD: All right. Eric Philips in Orlando, thanks so much.

And we'll be back with more continuing coverage of Jeanne right after this short break.

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WHITFIELD: Here is a look at what is making news right now. Tropical storm Jeanne continues to batter Florida. Governor Jeb Bush says the heaviest damage is in the coastal communities of Martin, St. Lucy and Indian River.

The storms winds are down to about 70 miles per hour now. Forecasters expect Jeanne to head further north in the Panhandle and then curl east over Georgia and North Carolina. Secretary of State Colin Powell says the U.S. will move into insurgent-heavy no-go zones appearing just a few hours ago on CNN's "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, Powell said U.S. and Iraqi forces would move into the areas to clear the way for legitimate elections come January.

And take a look at this. Just seconds after getting off the ground a small plane crashed into a crowd celebrating Airport Day in Fullerton, California. The plane barely missed the control tower and slammed into a parked car, where two women were inside. They were treated and released. The two men on board the plane are in critical condition.

Well, Jeanne is slowly lumbering northwest across Florida, drenching it. Residents in the Panhandle are bracing for whatever the tropical storm may be bringing. Richard Smith is on the telephone with us from Tallahassee. He's the director of Emergency Management in Leon County. All right. Good to see you, or hear from you, Richard.

RICHARD SMITH, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT LEON COUNTY (via telephone): Good to talk to you.

WHITFIELD: Give me an early assessment.

SMITH: Well, right now, of course, we haven't even begun to see the outer fringes of the storm. That's still a little bit to our south and east just approaching our area. The bulk of the storm probably won't impact our area directly until later this evening and then through the night hours and again through tomorrow morning.

WHITFIELD: And it looks as though unlike Ivan and even Frances this storm is bringing a lot of water damage as opposed to the kind of wind damage we saw associated with those hurricanes. Is that about right?

SMITH: Yes. We don't think that the winds will be as strong or last for the duration that we saw in Ivan even though Ivan tracked almost 200 miles to our west. If the storm passes to our east, we don't think we will see those direct wind effects here in Leon County. Now, that still is uncertain, of course, because of the cone of uncertainty in the forecast. But hopefully, we won't see those winds like we did in Ivan.

WHITFIELD: What's your greatest concern given that so many residents are hurricane-fatigued, they're tired of being cooped up, whether it be in their shelters or even in their homes, they're so anxious to get out, venture out, and see what this latest storm has done?

SMITH: Well, we're hoping that, you know, people have learned. Of course, there's been numerous deaths in Florida this season, people either joyriding or staying where they shouldn't or taking chances that they really didn't have to. And we're hoping that people are aware enough of the dangers of these storms that they're going to take the necessary action to protect themselves and their families and ride this thing through and get out of it safely. WHITFIELD: We know that there are still many power outages that are affecting several counties across your state and it's going to take a while before many of those power crews can get to the areas to try to restore some power, particularly because of the winds. And we saw our correspondent, Eric Phillips, in Orlando experiencing still heavy gusts of wind.

What are your concerns about the kind of damage that still some of these winds might be able to bring?

SMITH: Well, we're a heavily treed community. A lot of century- old oaks, a lot of pine trees. We're very proud of our canopy roads. And of course those can become problem areas in any kind of high winds. We've seen numerous power outages in both Frances and Ivan.

And of course we worked to restore those as rapidly as possible. We'll leave shelters open for people that have a need for electrical power for as long as is necessary and respond as quickly. But just like you say, it really depends on the extent of damage to the distribution system, how long it's going to take to restore power.

WHITFIELD: Richard Smith, the director of Emergency Management in Leon County, thanks so much for joining us on the telephone. We know you have a very busy day ahead and the next coming days as well.

SMITH: My pleasure. Thank you for keeping the people informed.

WHITFIELD: Well, it was a dramatic scene at Lake Monroe, Florida as Hurricane Jeanne passed over. Gustavo Almondovar from affiliate WFTV was there.

GUSTAVO ALMONDOVAR, WFTV: We're here about an hour and a half ago. When we left the winds were very strong, the rain was basically going in this direction. And I've got to tell you, when we came back, it was exactly the same way when we left it here. Now, if you take a look to my left, I want you to see exactly what's happening here on Lake Monroe. You can see that the waves are pretty much crashing onto the seawall here. There's not much left of the seawall because as you can see, Seminole Boulevard is now part of Lake Monroe.

Now, I've got to tell you, in the past five minutes or so the wind has been picking up tremendously. I'm crouching down a little bit because it almost knocked me over a couple of seconds ago. But I'm going to attempt to walk on Seminole Boulevard here so you can see how deep it is. I was over here a little while ago. And I want you to show -- it goes almost all the way to my knees. We're on Seminole Boulevard right here on the river walk. To my left we've got those lakefront homes.

I spoke with some people earlier this morning, asked them about what they thought about what they're looking at. They said that they weren't sure if this was going to happen. But listen to this man. He said he was preparing anyway. But bought some protectors for his seawall, about 60 or 70 feet of aluminum to prevent any water from entering his home. None of the homes right now are threatened as far as flooding is concerned, but you can take a look behind me here. The seawall doesn't exist anymore because the waves are pretty much taking it over here. This is the bench where people would sit here and observe the lake. You can see that it's a couple of inches under water. To my right you're going to see some palm trees here that have been knocked down. There's about half a dozen of these palm trees that have been knocked down since we've been here this morning. And we presumed that there's quite a few more of these palm trees knocked down the further east you go on the river walk.

WHITFIELD: Wow, pretty extraordinary pictures. Let's go back to the east coast of Florida, where a place called Sewell's Point, not far from Stuart, first felt the brunt of Hurricane Jeanne when it came on shore. Our Gary Tuchman is on the telephone with us to give us a sense as to what's happened in Sewell's Point. Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, that's right, Fredricka. This is the exact point, to coin a phrase, that Hurricane Frances -- amazing coincidence that the same little portion of land, this community in Martin County, Florida is the epicenter for two big hurricanes. And I can tell you here in Sewell's Point a beautiful town, there are a lot of estates in Sewell's Point, and because these homes are built so well a lot of them have very little damage despite the fact that the eyes of two hurricanes crossed.

Some of the smaller homes which may not be as well built do have some damage and there is significant flooding in the small town which is right across the inter coastal water way from Hutchison Island. The island is along -- Hutchison Island is a long barrier island. Can you still hear me, Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: Yes, you're breaking up a little bit.

TUCHMAN: I apologize. I thought we were breaking up, but I apologize. We're going on kind of a driving tour to give you an idea what's going on. Hutchison Island is a long barrier island that's in two counties, St. Lucy County and Martin County. The part of the island where the eye crosses in Martin County, the southern part of Hutchison Island and then Sewell's Point, the town right across the coastal waterway.

I can tell you the damage where the eye crossed is not catastrophic, but I think a lot of that is because of how well built these homes are and it is quite a wealthy community. I can't tell you, as we were driving to the south from Ft. Pierce through Stuart and through Port St. Lucy you see a lot of damage. It's very extensive. But I will tell you it's very similar to the damage we saw in Hurricane Frances and also Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Charley before that.

It's something we're getting used to seeing in the last six weeks in the state of Florida. But so far officials keep stressing to me, all the emergency officials -- and you hear an ambulance going past me right now. But they're very grateful that the casualty toll is so low, and they credit the fact that people paid very serious attention to the evacuation orders, and they're very grateful for that -- Fredricka. WHITFIELD: All right Gary. That last bit you just said broke up a little bit on the telephone. Are you saying that most people in that area did adhere to the evacuation order?

TUCHMAN: Yes. They are very grateful, the emergency operations officials here in Martin County and St. Lucie County to the north, that people really did pay attention. Yes, people were in the shelters this time compared to Hurricane Frances. However, they're saying there's a reason for that. A lot of people knew.

They said the next time there's a big hurricane I'm going to go to a neighbor's house, I'm going to go somewhere, I don't necessarily want to -- so they don't think that more people stayed behind on barrier islands and in the vulnerable areas, just -- this time. And having spent over -- of Ft. Pierce was -- intercoastal waterway, we didn't see anybody wandering around.

WHITFIELD: Yes, OK Gary Tuchman in Sewell's Point, thanks so much for calling in with that even though the transmission's a little iffy there, but that's understandable. We're lucky to even get that cell phone call in the first place after a storm like Jeanne.

And we'll be right back with more of our continuing coverage.

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WHITFIELD: More of our continuing coverage of Jeanne. Just when it was looking like a repeat of Frances, it decided to make a turn. Our Orelon Sidney is in the Weather Center. What is Jeanne doing now?

SIDNEY: Well, it still looks to me, especially if you look at the radar trend, that it started to make a little bit of a turn to the north. I'm going to step out just a minute and go over here to the telestrator and see if I can make it a little clearer for you what I believe is going on here. You can take a look at the southern end of the storm. If you kind of bisect it, you can see that this southern end down here, we're really starting to get a lot less action than we have seen earlier.

And take a look now it looks like in these last few frames if you look at the center right through here it takes a little bit of a jog rather than moving in this direction, it takes a little bit a jog it looks like to the north. So I have to again you have to be careful because of a couple of things. Number one you have got a lot of your strongest thunderstorms here in this northern portion of the storm.

And sometimes this can act kind of like a washing machine that's off balance. When you've got a lot of balance on one side, it'll start to wobble. So it may be kind of a wobble. But if it were, I would expect it to wobble west and not wobble northward, as I believe that it's actually doing. So that would be interesting to watch to see whether or not the center actually makes it out over the water.

You can see the southern edge down here just to the north of Tampa looks like it's about to head out over the Gulf of Mexico. In any rate, it does not look like the whole thing is going to be moving across open water very much at all. We don't expect that to happen. So we're not looking for any re-strengthening whatsoever. I expect it to continue a little bit more northward like this and head off northeastward as we go on through the next several hours.

It is expected to drop below tropical storm force tomorrow morning. And that certainly is some very, very good news. Here's the 5:00 update now, 35 miles southeast of Cedar Key. Winds down to 65 miles an hour. Still moving officially to the northwest at 12:00. But I bet you when we see the 8:00 advisory there will be more of a northward component there. And of course it is weakening. Again expected to be a tropical depression by tomorrow morning.

Head up to the north now. New tornado watch box. This does include just to the south of Savannah and Macon extending down into Florida. This tornado watch will be in effect until 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. And again, the track really hasn't changed much at all. We're still expecting it to work up through the Carolinas and continue on offshore. May stay onshore a little bit longer than earlier anticipated. But it does look like by the middle of the week it certainly should be out of the U.S. And working its way into the Atlantic -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Orelon thanks so much. We'll check back with you a bit later.

And when we come back, we'll check in with the American Red Cross and see what kind of help they need now that they're dealing with the fourth hurricane in six weeks to hit Florida. We'll be right back.

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WHITFIELD: You're looking at Stuart, Florida, hit hard and hit first along Florida's East Coast, as Jeanne made landfall. It was the fourth hurricane to hit Florida in six weeks. And right now Jeanne is stretching the resources and the patience of Florida residents as well as emergency crews and workers there. The American Red Cross is called to just about every disaster across the country, and it too is starting to feel the pinch.

Margaret O'Brien Molina is a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, and she joins us on the telephone from Daytona Beach. Margaret, glad you're able to join us. We know you are very busy and very strapped for resources as you're now dealing with the fourth hurricane to hit Florida. What are some of the needs of the American Red Cross? All right. Looks like we've lost our telephone call with Margaret. And we'll try to resume that in a moment. Right now we're going to take a short break, though. We'll be right back.

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WHITFIELD: We want to join our affiliate WPLG, based in Miami, and listen in to their live coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank god we put that there. Because that's -- that really stayed right through -- you can see this part of it's still on. I think a tornado might have hit that corner.

MATT LORCH (ph), LOCAL 10 NEWS: A team of insurance adjusters has been staying here on the island since the last storm, Hurricane Frances. I'm told now the damage is so widespread they believe they'll be here through November. On Abaco Island, I'm Matt Lorch (ph), Local 10 News.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Hurricane Jeanne did take a similar path, similar to that of Hurricane Frances, striking the east coast of Florida north of Palm Beach, then traveling west right across the state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our chief meteorologist Don No (ph) joins us to explain --

WHITFIELD: All right, that's our affiliate coverage, WPLG in Miami. Let's try to talk again to Margaret O'Brien Molina, with the American Red Cross. She's in Daytona Beach. We think we have her back on the telephone. Margaret, are you there?

MARGARET O'BRIEN MOLINA, AMERICAN RED CROSS (via telephone): Yes, I sure am.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, give me a sense of the kinds of needs that the American Red Cross has, considering you have now responded to four hurricanes in the past six weeks in Florida.

MOLINA: Actually, this is turning out to be what we think is the biggest sheltering operation in Red Cross history. We've opened more than 1,400 shelters in the past six weeks, if you can imagine. We've sheltered more than 350,000 people. We've served nearly 8 million meals.

And that work has all been done by about 25,000 Red Cross paid and really 93 percent volunteers who have come out and just opened up their hearts and their arms and gone out to feed, take care of the other needs of so many of the people down here.

WHITFIELD: And Floridians are so incredibly appreciative that you all are able to do this. But how are you able to afford it?

MOLINA: We rely on the generosity of the American people. We truly do believe, and Clara Barton she started this organization, started doing this work, she said that the Red Cross couldn't continue its mission without the assistance of the press. We go to organizations like yours to tell the people what's going out there, how these people are hurting.

We count on them to come forward to help us in doing this work. And that's what we're doing right now, we're counting on people to come forward and help us. We're thinking it's probably going to be about $70 million that we're going to extend just through Ivan, and now imagine Jeanne on top of that. We have people coming in from all over.

But it's a lot of money. It's a lot of resources. And we're certainly hoping people will be generous and come through and just realize that there but for the grace of god go any one of us.

WHITFIELD: So in addition to volunteer help and money were most of your crews in place before this hurricane hit?

MOLINA: Yes. We have something -- just about more than 3,000 people actually within Florida, Alabama. But imagine, we have disaster relief operations going clear up into Pennsylvania. Where they had shelters. We have in Guam, in the Virgin Islands, because we cover all of those places. They're U.S. territories. And Tennessee, everywhere. So it's a lot.

WHITFIELD: And Margaret, before I let you go, because we're running out of time now, one more time, the telephone number that people can call and/or the Web site where people can call if they want to make donations to the American Red Cross.

MOLINA: Please. It's 1-800-help-now, and for information and also donations, www.redcross.org.

WHITFIELD: Margaret O'Brien Molina, thank you so much, with the American Red Cross, for taking the time out to talk with us. And I know a lot of the Floridians thank you too for all of the hard work that you've done over the last six weeks plus.

MOLINA: Thank you for helping us let people know about it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks. And that's going to do it for us. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Howard Kurtz is coming up next with a special edition of "Reliable Sources." And then at 6:00 Eastern "CNN Live Sunday" continues with Carol Lin. Anderson Cooper will join her live from Melbourne, Florida with the latest on the destruction from hurricane, now downgraded to tropical storm Jeanne.

And at 7:00 Eastern, "People in the News" has a behind-the-scenes look at Cirque Du Soleil (ph) and real estate mogul turned reality TV star Donald Trump. Thanks for joining us back with the headlines right after this.

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