Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Dennis Expected to Make Landfall in the Afternoon

Aired July 10, 2005 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome back to our special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien. CNN is your hurricane headquarters all day today, so stay with us. We have the latest for you on Hurricane Dennis. The powerful storm has its sight on the Gulf Coast, landfall coming this afternoon and we're watching it every step of the way.

S. O'BRIEN: We're watching it. And of course, all the folks who are directly in the path are watching it as well. Let's get right to an update on the latest developments with Dennis.

The storm has strengthened to a category-4 now. That level hurricane can cause extreme damage. Winds increasing to 145 miles an hour and that's slightly higher than the forecasters original prediction for the landfall speed.

Dennis is being blamed for at least 32 deaths in the Caribbean. At least 10 people in eastern Cuba. As many as 22 people are reported dead in Haiti.

M. O'BRIEN: CNN's Rob Marciano is up in the weather center. He is presiding over, I don't know, what do you have a dozen computers or so up there?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We're going to do maybe a little walk through. There's quite a few. Now they're all hooked to this clicker. So if I stumble or stutter or look down it's because it's somebody who just got a new remote control.

O'BRIEN: It's all in that remote control.

MARCIANO: Yes, and there's more buttons than I know what to do with.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, take us through it as best you can. Don't push -- if you push the wrong button it's OK.

MARCIANO: OK. Thank you, Miles. I appreciate that.

Here's what's happening. This is the hurricane. You see the eye a few frames ago. Last night, when the hurricane was re-strengthening it didn't have this eye it started to get really red and then all of a sudden within like two or three frames it was like a curtain opening up watching the eye develop last night. It intensified so quickly, which is an amazing thing to watch and it has held that intensity every sense at 145 miles an hour.

It may very well be weakening briefly right now or going through one of these cycles that we've been talking about. You kind of see the eye getting a little bit lopsided collapsing just a little bit but that's just probably a cycle and it very well could easily re- intensify or at least get a bigger eye over the next couple of hours, so we're watching for that.

All right, let's give you an idea of one of our tools. I pressed the wrong button already. This is our Titan radar. We can show 3-D. We can do a 2-D. We can do whatever. Right now we've instituted several radars that -- one out of Tallahassee, one out of Mobile, one out of Slidell, Louisiana, one out of Tampa. There you see the eye. You can't see the ring past the eye because the radar just don't go that far out.

But what also this computer can do is kind of give you a sense as tow hat the most dangerous spots are with this storm. So we're slide down just a little bit. Again there's Mobile, Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Gulfport, Biloxi area. As far as how far this is from there, about nine hours in time if it continues on its track. And this is the area of greatest threat.

So pan back towards Pensacola and maybe towards Biloxi and Gulfport, this is the area where the National Hurricane Center and really what we're seeing is to be the most intense area of storm damage. Obviously right along the path of this is where we're going to see the most intense damage.

Miles, I just want to show you this one more time. Again this is eastern standard time. We are looking south from central Alabama. Here's Mobile. There's Pensacola. This is where we expect the track of this thing to come. Obviously pushing a lot of water and a lot of wind out ahead of it with winds of 145 miles an hour at landfall that would be a category-4. That would put it in the top 10 all time let alone July of hurricanes making landfall. We certainly hope that it decreases in intensity and we have several hours to see if that actually happens.

M. O'BRIEN: Rob, this storm is moving what about 15 miles an hour or so?

MARCIANO: Fourteen miles an hour I think at last check, 14, 15 miles an hour.

M. O'BRIEN: That's like right in the middle, right, as far as speed?

MARCIANO: That's about average. Typically when they get a little bit higher in latitude they'll pick up speed, 16, 17, 18 miles an hour, but that's about average. Maybe one mile an hour above average.

M. O'BRIEN: Now why do they pick up speed as they get higher? Do you know? MARCIANO: As they get higher they start to encounter the westerly jet stream winds, the winds that are typically in control of the weather that come across the U.S. We think of our weather typically coming from west to east down in the tropics.

This time of year the weather comes from east to west and then once they get nudged up towards the north, once they come around the corner, as we like to say around a huge area of high pressure that typically sits out here in the Atlantic Ocean, once they come around that corner and get drawn up they're more affected by the jet stream, which we're all familiar with. Obviously that means right away stronger winds. So the steering current is a little bit stronger and they'll start to pick up more speed.

But we don't really expect it to pick up more speed probably for several hours. So it will probably maintain the speed that it's in right now and that gives it an ETA of eyefall landfall, eye landfall in about nine hours.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So what's better, a storm that moves really quickly or one that moves slower across? I mean does it make much difference?

MARCIANO: Well, if a storm is moving really quickly that's going to add even more wind to the right side of the storm. Remember you pointed out a couple -- a few minutes ago that the right side of these storms are always the strongest because you have winds that are rolling around at 140 miles an hour and then you have a forward speed of another 15 miles an hour. So automatically that puts the right side of the storm not only 15 miles an hour stronger but actually 30 miles an hour stronger than the left hand side because you have to subtract that forward motion, so it's all relative.

A faster storm will give you higher impact on the right side, but it gives you less in the way on inland flooding. And now a days, Miles, that is the number one killer for hurricanes is inland flooding because we do such a great job of telling everybody ahead of time get out. When it gets inland and people have no more -- you know, nowhere else to go it's the flooding from the rivers from heavy rains and the southeast is already pretty soaked up from Tropical Storm Cindy. So that's going to be an issue too.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Do you have a question?

S. O'BRIEN: No, no I just thought that was an interesting point because of course the big problem as far as damage goes and as far as the bill at the end of all that damage is really the high winds. We've been talking about these are folks who are still cleaning up. I mean still trying to fix things from Hurricane Ivan. And in fact the residence of the Florida Pan Handle they're still recovering from Hurricane Ivan. Now they face this other punch coming from Hurricane Dennis.

You recall that Hurricane Ivan came ashore last September just west of Pensacola, Florida. You can look at the path here. It's that's straight static red line on the left. Dennis is the line that's moving up the map and you can see they're actually both projected to hit land in almost the same exact spot.

So let's get you right to our reporters, who are in these major cities where landfall is expected this morning. CNN's Dan Lothian is in Mobile. We're going to get to him in just a moment.

In Pensacola we've got Randi Kaye. Randi, as I ask you a question I want to take a look at some of the latest pictures coming to us out of Pensacola. You can see with this camera shaking the winds have got to be picking up there. We're looking at this -- looks like a little bit of a bridge or something heading out into the water. The seas are getting a little high too. How's it looking right now?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually, Soledad, it's -- the winds are certainly picking up and the rain is picking up as well. We were expecting sustained tropical winds of about 35 miles an hour or so shortly here. They're not here yet, but it is certainly kicking up.

We cold see, if Dennis does come ashore as a cat-4 we could see winds as strong as 155 miles an hour. Now what's really concerning here is the fact that the folks here are still cleaning up after Hurricane Ivan. There's much dangerous debris still hanging around in the yards here. Many of the houses are still boarded up. It's the lose debris that if we do see these very high winds could act or serve as what you might call projectiles around the neighborhood, wood, doors, shutters could be flying in that type of wind.

We also want to let you know we did speak with the Office of Emergency Management. The shelters here they were filling up and they are filling up, but what they're telling us now is do not leave your home. It's now time, they say, to hunger down. Do not get in your car. All morning we've been telling you to get to the shelter. The time was now. Well now they're saying it's no longer the time that you should just hunger down.

A couple of areas of concern here the bridge you mentioned over Escambia Bay that is I-10, that is an area that was hit by Hurricane Ivan. Ivan took a big bite out of that bridge. Another area of concern are the beaches, Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key also very hard hit. They're in the process of doing replenishment right now and they're very concerned about their beaches once again.

In fact I just also spoke to somebody who had been at Pensacola Beach and they're telling me that there are already 19, 20 foot waves already at Pensacola Beach. And we're expecting a storm surge to reach about 19 or 20 feet. And just to give you an idea I'm just over five feet, so that's a storm surge about four times the size of myself. So it's certainly time to hunger down.

S. O'BRIEN: This brings us to an interesting question too which is, so what are your plans? Where do you go? I mean where are you now exactly and where are you going to move so that you're not, you know, hit when the storm comes through?

KAYE: I'm glad you asked that because I've been asking my producer all morning, in fact, all weekend, what are we going to do? We're at the hotel here just a short distance away from the Bay and we're -- I'm told we're at about 29 feet above sea level. So if the storm surges about 19 feet then we should be OK.

But just speaking with Matt Lopez, who was on earlier from the Office of Emergency Management, he directed us to their offices here just in case because this hotel did live through Ivan and they got about a foot of water in their first floor here. They lost their roof. They had quite a bit of trouble with Ivan, but I am told they do have category-4 windows, which is very, very good news, so in case Dennis does come ashore as category-4.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Randi you're making me a little nervous there. I've got to tell you. We'll continue to chat with you.

KAYE: Me too. I've got some sand bags.

S. O'BRIEN: If there's ever a point where you need to go, you know, my thing is just go. All right.

KAYE: I got it. Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: We want to get the very latest on Dennis where it's headed right now and for that we -- let's get back to Ed Rappaport deputy director of the National Hurricane Center. Ed, first of all give us an update. Everything is pretty much status quo, 15 mile an hour track northwest?

ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: That's right, north, northwest actually. In fact there's been a little bit of a wobble to the right. We see these wobbles right and left. This is increasing the risks. As we've been saying for the Florida panhandle westward to about the Mississippi border. Latest data from the recognizance aircraft indicate that the hurricane remains very intense, category-4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

M. O'BRIEN: As you look at how the storm sort of waxes and wanes, can you make a prediction as to whether, or is it difficult to do, whether it will still be category-4 when it finally -- the eye reaches landfall?

RAPPAPORT: We think it will but regardless of what we think at this point everybody on the coast and inland for some distance needs to be prepared for a category-4. It's too late now to be doing much other than making your final preparations, getting away from the coast. That's our most -- that's our greatest concern because there's going to be a storm surge near and just to the right from where landfall occurs that could be in excess of 10 feet with waves on top and winds of 145 miles per hour. This could be an unprecedented storm in terms of damage. We've not had a category-4 hurricane make landfall in this area previously.

M. O'BRIEN: I was just looking at the tide tables for Mobile, Alabama and it's not good news. High tide is at 3:40 p.m. which means pretty much right around when the worse of this storm could be there. How much of a concern is that for you?

RAPPAPORT: It is an additional factor although it's relatively small. The tides in the Gulf are not particularly large. We're already talking about though 10 feet of water coming in plus or minus a foot or two perhaps for the tide, but then we have the waves on top and again, this is going to be destructive in terms of its storm surge and a narrow area near the core as well as the intense winds that will be occurring there. So we'll see strong winds, storm surge right near the core and some surge as far to the east as perhaps the Appalachicola area.

M. O'BRIEN: Ed Rappaport, we'll check back in with you. Thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right back to Dan Lothian. He's in Mobile, Alabama. As we mentioned just a few moments ago. Dan, how's it looking? I see you've put the hood on and you got the jacket out, so conditions are obviously worsening.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Since the last time we were on the air the wind has picked up as well as the rain. So there is that -- you can see that in the storm intensifying ahead of Dennis reaching on shore here it is picking up.

It's kind of going sporadically. There are times when it calms down and then the rain and the wind pick up. Obviously in the next few hours it will be getting more intense and more steady. Officials, emergency management officials believe that there is a little less than two hour window now for folks to get out of areas that might be impacted.

They've been doing some computer modeling and they've found out that there's some areas where in the past they did not have any heavy flooding. But they do believe that if the storm continues on its current course that those areas will be impacted. So they plan on taking the metro buses and going through some of those areas to pick up some of those folks and move them to higher ground.

I just want to give you, Soledad, a sense of where we are at. We're at Mobile Bay. That's right behind me here. It's pretty much a ghost town. Everyone has moved out of here. This place has been evacuated. You can take a look over here. We're right along I-10. Every so often you'll see one or two cars go over that overpass there. But for the most part there is no traffic on the highways.

We are here at the Best Western, this hotel. Just a while ago we checked out at the front desk there and no one is there. The hotel has shut down. There was a restaurant. They told us they would stay open until noon. That is now closed. And just taking a look up here at the hotel everyone is out. We're the only ones here. The parking lot is empty and we within the hour will be leaving from here.

The problem here is that we're right along the Bay and with that storm surge could be anywhere from 10 to 12 feet this entire area could be flooded. So a lot of concern about that. Again, officials, emergency management officials thinking hat they have little less than two hours or so for those folks who still haven't evacuated from some of those areas that they believe will be impacted this time that haven't been impacted in the past to get out, go to higher ground, go to some of the shelters.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Moving out of the way in about an hour or so. Dan Lothian will continue. Of course, as long as you're there we'll check in with you.

What's being done to help the Gulf Coast residence who evacuated to the area shelters?

M. O'BRIEN: When we get back we'll talk with the head of the American Red Cross to see how it is responding. Your hurricane headquarters is CNN and AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Hi again. I'm Rob Marciano in the CNN weather center. This just in to us out of the National Weather Service, a tornado warning. We've been talking about this particular cell which earlier this morning was in Sarasota County now heading into Pinellas County, which if you live in the Tampa area you know where that is. Clearwater right through here. So here's Pinellas County on our tornado warning for the next 15 minutes.

Some of the larger towns that will be under the gun here Clearwater, Palm Harbor a little bit later and Tarpon Springs at 8:25. This little square here is something we don't typically see with tornadoes that form in hurricane. Tornadoes that do form in hurricanes are typically very weak and almost undetectable by some of the radars. But this popping up a tornado vortex signature indicates that it may very well be touching the ground, so wanted to give these folks a heads up.

And just a reminder of how far away from the center of the storm Tamps is and St. Pete and Clearwater right here a couple of hundred miles away from the center. And since the activity of the past hour now the storm's prediction center has put out a tornado watch out for the western shore line of Florida until 2 p.m. and this watch remains in effect until 3 p.m.

Again, these red watches indicate that conditions are ripe for tornadoes to develop. We saw a couple of them do that yesterday. Typically to the right and north of the center of the storm is where you get the most spin and that's why we're worried about the potential for Tornadoes. And again this one in through Pinellas County until 8:30 a.m. Obviously you want to stay inside and keep away from your windows if you live in that county. Just one more thing to worry about and this thing hasn't even made landfall.

Miles and Soledad, back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: It's probably a good idea to remind people about that, that you know we've been so focused on what's going on in Mobile and Pensacola and Panama City the panhandle that is spinning off these tornadoes. Now you say they're typically weak but people should still be paying close attention shouldn't they?

MARCIANO: Well, yes, when we say weak 100 miles an hour, 120 miles an hour storm. We compare them to the monster tornadoes that happen out in the planes the Midwest those are typically -- can be over 200 to even some cases 300 miles an hour and those will just tear things a part. But a weak tornado certainly will blow out windows and do some damage to homes and cause some injuries. So that's why we want to tell folks about it. Good point, Miles.

MILES: All right, Rob. Thank you very much.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, when disasters like Hurricane Dennis threatens the Red Cross goes into action. Already the agency providing shelters and emergency assistance for Gulf Coast residence who have been forced to leave their homes.

Marty Evans is the president and CEO of the American Red Cross and she joins us from our Washington bureau this morning. It's nice to see you again. Thanks for talking with us.

The Red Cross obviously providing help on lots of different levels, but let's first start talking about the shelters. How many shelters do you have up and running and are you finding that people are taking advantage of them?

MARTY EVANS, PRES. & CEO, AMERICAN RED CROSS: We have about 150 shelters opened in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and we are prepared to open more as needed as this storm progresses up through the U.S.

People are taking advantage of the shelters and I think the most important thing is for everybody to worry about their safety, worry about their family's safety and when and if the order to evacuate is given to go to a Red Cross shelter as soon as possible.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you finding that in the wake of Ivan people are kind of taking the advice a little bit earlier, maybe a little bit more seriously?

EVANS: It appears that way and I will tell you that we certainly have taken the lessons learned from Ivan the extensive sheltering necessary not only during the storm but after the storm. We actually sheltered more people after the storms when they came back into the area and assessed their particular situations and needed help.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you prepared for how bad it could potentially be? I mean when you talk to the folks at the hurricane center they say it's going to be of historic proportions I think is the words they've been using.

EVANS: Well, we work very closely with not only the weather authorities but also the local emergency management in every single community so that we know what the load in the shelters could be the worse case. We plan for the worse case, we coordinate. And you know, Soledad, we've been working on these plans since literally the end of he hurricane season last year. So we not only have supplies in place we have supplies stock piled ready to move into the areas as soon as the storm passes through. So we're ready.

S. O'BRIEN: Sort of no rest for the weary there. Give me -- you know, you talk about the stock piling. You've got these staging points I know. Where exactly are they staging? Because of course you want to be close in order to be able to get the stuff in but not so close that you're part of the damage.

EVANS: That's exactly right. We -- in this case we've had the opportunity to move in extra supplies in anticipation of the storm. So our Red Cross chapters do have a good storehouse already. But then we have 23 trailer loads staged in the areas of Baton Rouge near Atlanta ready to move in extra food, hygiene, all of those basic clean up supplies that people are going to need in the aftermath.

So this is the best staging that we've ever had the opportunity to do because we've had such good information about the storm's progress.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, this might be some of the toughest damage that you've ever had to deal with at least in recent history.

Marty Evans from the American Red Cross nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us.

EVANS: Thanks, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's take at that picture we've been getting in from our affiliate WEAR in Pensacola. This is from their tower cam. The winds there now are in the 30 mile an hour range. OK? That should give you a little bit of a sense of perspective here. When you consider the fact that somewhere, if the projections hold true, somewhere between where you see right here Pensacola and to the west Mobile, Alabama the real brunt of this storm Dennis will hit this afternoon.

And as you look at the big picture here, of course as Rob has been pointing out this right here is the eye of Hurricane Dennis and the key to remember here as we look, first of all that's Mobile and that is Pensacola right in there. OK? So that swatch, that little swatch of land right in there is really kind of the target right now as this storm kind of moves in that direction.

Of course it's very much likely that it will not do that. It will probably do a little bit of wobbling along the way, which is why we've got people all along the coastline there to keep you posted on all of this.

But once again you can kind of divide -- put a line right down the middle of the tornado and as Chad said the other day this will be the good side and this will be the bad side. And basically what is happening is you've got that counter clockwise swirl and as it swirls around it picks up sea water, it picks up speed. You add, of course, the direction which is north northwest at 15 miles an hour and 15 miles an hour plus whatever the wind speed is of 145 sustained, so you could have in theory right on that side there, the bad side, 160 mile an hour net effect winds.

So as we look at this and we focus on that bulls eye location folks all along hat coast should keep that in mind that if you're on the bad side as Chad called it the other day it kind of sums it up well. You should pay extra close attention.

S. O'BRIEN: And that's also where all the tornadoes are being, or at least the one now and also the ones that we expect as this gets closer to landfall,

M. O'BRIEN: apparently that's how the tornadoes spin off.

S. O'BRIEN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: We can ask Rob a little bit more about that, why it's more likely to happen on that side. But I guess if you think about the way it's swirling around maybe that's the way it works.

Still to come the Gulf Coast of course on alert. There's that WEAR picture again. We thank them for that. You see the surf there. We talked briefly about high tide. It's only about a foot and a half tide at the Gulf, so it will be high tide but that's not a huge factor in all of this.

Hurricane Dennis is on its way and we are tracking it on CNN your hurricane headquarters. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Hurricane Dennis is turning toward the Gulf Coast packing winds of 145 miles an hour. It was less intense when it grazed southern Florida, swept past the Florida Keys. Reporter Greg Hunter surveys the damage that Dennis caused in Key West.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREG HUNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hurricane force winds pushed water over seawall and onto streets in Key West. Gust up to 75 miles per hour bent over signs, downed trees, capsized boats and knock out power for nearly 30,000 people in the lower keys.

(on-camera): Police here in the Key West area are telling people to stay indoors. The reason why is that the wind could literally blow you away. Now right now I'm under the protection of a stone bathroom at the beach. But when I stepped out into the wind, you can see the effects. I'm literally laying (ph) into the wind.

(voice-over): Despite the safety warnings, locals stroll through the storm. Ray Kaplan and his wife Lynn have lived here for 20 years. Lynn doesn't care if her French pedicure takes a beating. They both need to just get outside.

RAY KAPLAN, KEY WEST RESIDENT: I'll tell you what, you spend two days in the house with three kids, two dogs, a lizard, a tortoise, and I don't know what other (INAUDIBLE), you'd want to get out also.

LYNN KAPLAN, KEY WEST RESIDENT: That's right.

HUNTER: Then there's Lou Perdomo, a local tattoo artist. He's seen plenty of stormy weather in the past 10 years. He says nothing bad has ever happened to him during a hurricane, until now.

LOU PERDOMO, KEY WEST RESIDENT: I just happened to have walked out, and all of a sudden, hey, look at that tree fall down. Then I realized, that's my car that's underneath.

HUNTER: Bad as a palm tree landing on your car is, Perdomo says it could have been worse.

PERDOMO: Better my car than my Harley.

HUNTER: The wind is only half the problem. More than five inches of rain fell on Key West.

(on camera): And that turned this downtown street into a virtual river.

(voice-over): These charter boat captains are already celebrating the end of Dennis at a local restaurant, one of the only places on the island serving hot food, with the help of a generator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, free hat!

HUNTER: Fishing guide Greg Shertz was forced inside today. Shertz is as local as you get in Key West. He's lived here all of his life. He says he's seen 20 hurricanes, and nothing ever makes him leave.

GREG SHERTZ, FISHING BOAT CAPTAIN: Ain't going nowhere. Staying through the next hurricane too, I hope.

HUNTER: Greg Hunter, for CNN, Key West.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Taking it in stride in Key West. Pensacola, however, probably should be listening very closely. As you look at the pier there from our affiliate WEAR, getting battered by the early warning waves, if you will, of Dennis. Dennis is about 165 miles out in the Gulf, headed roughly in the direction of Pensacola right now. Should make landfall by this afternoon, somewhere along that part of the coast. And we are tracking it every step of the way. Everything you needed to know is right here. So stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back to a special Sunday morning edition of AMERICAN MORNING, live from B control here at the CNN Center in Atlanta.

Let's send it up to the Weather Center. Rob Marciano is up there presiding over dozens of computers and a remote control with numerous buttons on it, trying to keep it all straight for us -- Rob.

MARCIANO: As you have numerous monitors behind you, and the folks in the control room taking care of that.

Here we go, Miles. I want to update you on what's going on. Pinellas County, hundreds of miles away from the center of this storm, earlier this hour we talked about a tornado warning that was up for that county, just to the west, across the Bay of Tampa, through Clearwater. Looks like this particular cell has weakened somewhat, because they are -- the National Weather Service has allowed that warning to expire. But still a few towns that are under the influence of this cell as it moves off to the north quite quickly, at about 40 miles an hour. At 8:50, maybe Hudson, you might get a taste of this, so you'll definitely want to stay inside in the event that that continues to move that way and maybe even strengthen a little bit.

Want to remind everybody that we do have the threat for tornadoes on the right and north side of this system. These two watch boxes indicate that. And these two are up for -- until 2:00 and 3:00 Eastern time respectively. And you see quite vividly, as this eye gets closer and closer to the shoreline, it will be coming more and more clear on the radar because it gets within range of all of our radars.

OK, I want to show this animation. It's one of our computer models. It varies somewhat from the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center, but it does a great job of illustrating the wind field that will come out ahead of this system.

This is -- starts at 6:00 a.m. So a couple of hours ago. There's the center of it. The yellow indicates tropical storm force winds, the orange indicates hurricane-force winds, and the darker red, that's major hurricane force winds. So we're rolling animation just a little bit, and hopefully this will stop as we get closer to shoreline.

Noontime today is when you start to feel hurricane-force winds along the Panhandle of Florida and along the Gulf shores. Orange Beach area, maybe even through Biloxi, Mississippi, at about noontime today.

Already we're seeing wind gusts of over 36 miles an hour in places like Destin, Florida at this hour.

Roll the animation further into the late afternoon hours, and the landfall does look like it wants to move into the Mobile Bay area, and that's pretty close to the official forecast track.

Just to recap, category 4 storm right now. Its movement is north-northwesterly at 15 miles per hour. It's about 150 miles south- southeast of Pensacola, Florida, and at the moment, the forecast is for it not to weaken and to make landfall as a category 4. We'll look for signs of weakening. That would be a nice thing. Soledad, back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: It sure would be. We can certainly hope for that, right, Rob, but at this moment I guess it doesn't look like it's meant to be. Thanks, Rob.

MARCIANO: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, two cities that sustained extensive damage from Hurricane Ivan last September are again in the bull's eye with Hurricane Dennis. Let's get right to Randi Kaye. She's in Pensacola, Florida this morning. Randi, good morning again.

KAYE: Good morning again, Soledad. You can see the winds are certainly picking up here.

I want to take you right out to the water over there, right there over my right shoulder. That is Escambia Bay. And that is the I-10 bridge over there. That's the very same bridge that was hit by Hurricane Ivan back in September. Ivan took a big chunk out of that bridge. It was just repaired in January, with some temporary steel plating. The repairs were finished. And folks here are extremely concerned about that bridge. I-10 was closed overnight. That's why you don't see any cars out there, but you can see from the water out there that it's certainly getting pretty choppy. We're expecting a storm surge here of about 19 or 20 feet. So that's why the water is getting pretty lousy out there.

Meanwhile, folks here are still cleaning up from Ivan. If you drive around the neighborhoods here, looks like a ghost town. The homes are still boarded up. There's blue tarp, there's plywood on the windows and the doors. There's debris everywhere. And the concern is that that debris, because it hasn't been cleaned up and hauled away, is that that debris could actually cause a lot of problems for folks if they're out in their neighborhoods, or maybe even just cause damage to nearby homes once the wind kicks up even more, and that debris is made airborne.

The shelters, we just want to tell you one more time, do not go to a shelter anymore. The shelters are not taking any more folks. They want people to stay in their homes right now. All morning long, the Office of Emergency Management here said, get to a shelter if you need to, but now they want you to just hunker down and stay at home.

Couple of areas of concern here to keep in mind in the Pensacola area besides the I-10 bridge over there are the beaches, the dunes. They were destroyed here in September there when Ivan came through here, so they -- they're very concerned about the dunes and the rebuilding project there.

They are expecting to put in place here sometime this morning a mandatory curfew. They want everybody to stay in their homes. And people here who sat out through Ivan and lived through Ivan, have really heeded the warnings here. They know how bad Dennis could be, especially if it's a cat 4 and Ivan was a cat 3. So they are concerned. We're about 29 feet above sea level here at our hotel, and we are expecting to see a storm surge of about 19 feet, as I said. So there is certainly quite a bit of alarm. I talked to some folks here this morning, Soledad, at the hotel, and a lot of them were here through Ivan as well. They left their homes in the beach area and they came here to this very same hotel, which was flooded. They lost a roof. Their meeting rooms collapsed. But they didn't lose any windows. And that's very good news for all of us staying here at the hotel just off Escambia Bay -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: I guess if there's any silver lining from Ivan, it seems that at least people now take all the other warnings that follow very, very seriously.

Give me a sense of how things have changed in just what -- we have just talked about 20 minutes ago, since the 20 minutes since we last spoke?

KAYE: Well, I'm more wet than I was when we last spoke about 20 minutes ago. The wind has certainly kicked up. The weather, you know, where we're standing, we're actually under a little -- a little roof area here, but if you take a look out there, you can see that the rain is really kicking up, and the trees are blowing a little bit harder than they were, and it's just -- it's not looking good. We were expecting these sustained tropical winds to hit right about now, and it does appear they are. It's supposed to be about 35 mile-an- hour winds expected, and it seems that they are in place. We don't see any cars on the road, so obviously, folks know that it's gotten worse.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, you know what, it's only going to get worse. Randi Kaye for us this morning. Randi, thanks.

KAYE: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll be sure to check back with you in just a few minutes -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Nearly 1.4 million people are under evacuation orders along the Gulf Coast. John McNeil is among the residents who were told to leave. He's decided to stay. This isn't the first time the Mobile resident has hunkered down during a powerful storm. John, you're joining us from very near the shores of Mobile Bay. Why are you sticking it out?

JOHN MCNEIL, MOBILE, ALABAMA RESIDENT: Good morning, Miles. Well, we -- I'm coming up on 50 years having lived right here, and we've survived Camille and Frederick and Ivan and a number of others, George being one of the worst, not wind-wise but water-wise, and we're just going to, as you say, hunker down and ride it out. It's starting to get pretty nasty right about now, though.

M. O'BRIEN: Tell me what you're seeing outside the window, what you're hearing.

MCNEIL: I'm looking -- we live on the west side of Mobile Bay, on the river, Dog River, which empties into Mobile Bay just south of downtown Mobile, and one of the concerning things is high tide's supposed to be around 3:30 this afternoon here at the mouth of the river, and so we should have fairly low tide right now, but it's starting to come over the sea walls. So we're getting a little bit more water, a little earlier than what we expected.

M. O'BRIEN: Yeah. I'm seeing right now that river, which is kind of nested (ph) just off the Mobile Bay there. Take me back to Hurricane Frederick, when you had that one, which went right up the chute there into Mobile Bay? When you had that one, how much damage did you incur then?

MCNEIL: Well, Frederick was pretty devastating. As you know, the eye of the hurricane came right up Mobile Bay, which was bad for the wind, but good for the water. It actually sucked all the water out of Mobile Bay and out of the rivers. But once it passed north of Mobile, the wind shifted, and that's when we had the flood that came in after the hurricane.

Frederick was what we considered a fairly dry hurricane, in that we didn't have the rain. But with what we got going here with Dennis, we started getting rain -- we got about four inches of rain yesterday before nightfall, and it's been raining pretty steady ever since. So that's the bad part, is all this rain we get loosens up the dirt, and therefore the trees, so when the winds do hit, and if they hit like you all were saying, at 145 miles per hour, we probably won't have too many trees left.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the one good thing, I suppose, and of course it depends on precisely where the eye hits, but in theory, you could be on the better side of this storm where you sit, assuming the eye goes to the east of where you sit. Are you -- are you concerned much about where it hits, or are you just going to sit there regardless?

MCNEIL: Well, we're going to sit regardless. We are concerned. I don't wish it on anyone. Pensacola with Ivan last year got hit worse than we did. We were, obviously, hit pretty hard here, but when it hits -- every time we see these hurricanes coming up the Gulf, we're hoping to be on the west side of it and not on the east side of it like -- and I was kind of glad to see this take a little jog to the north here. Like I say, I don't wish it on somebody else, but we're hoping it does go east of us.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. John McNeil, we wish you well. Be safe. And I guess at this point, you sort of made your decision. So hunker down and don't move. Stay with CNN, stay with us, and do us a favor, call in if you can and keep us posted. OK?

All right. Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, he's taking your advice already, Miles, he's hunkering down.

A short break ahead. We're going to leave you with some pictures from our affiliate WEAR in Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola, of course, right in the path of the oncoming Hurricane Dennis. An update on what's happening there and all the other trouble spots ahead this morning on our special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. You're looking at some pictures from our affiliate WEAR. You can see now that the water clearly rising here, and these are pictures from Pensacola, Florida, where we have our reporters camped out this morning.

Also taking a close look this morning at Mobile, Alabama as well. Important to note that these are two cities that were hit hard the last time around, just 10 months ago, when Hurricane Ivan tore through. So it is going to be a tough road to hoe for the folks there, because some of them, in some cases haven't even finished doing the repairs from all the damage that Ivan caused.

M. O'BRIEN: They're living in trailers, the roof still has a tarp on it, and here comes Dennis.

S. O'BRIEN: Which is worse.

M. O'BRIEN: Which is worse, and, you know, I just -- it's hard to imagine. Looking back on Frederick, which everybody keeps talking about Frederick back in '79, which was a category 3 -- this is a category 4 -- went right up Mobile Bay, and two out of three structures were damaged. So you can imagine...

S. O'BRIEN: Think of the number of actual buildings down.

M. O'BRIEN: Yeah, that's a big number.

Rob Marciano is watching all this for us. And we were talking earlier, there has never been a category 4 to strike this part of the United States in recorded history.

MARCIANO: Certainly in the month of July. I think you're right, though, in the way of recorded history. This has been unprecedented already this hurricane season.

Speaking of numbers, want to drop a few for you. If you have a luxury of not living in this area right now and you are a weather enthusiast or at least have a barometer at home, I just wanted to give you some numbers as far as what the numbers are in the storm as far as pressure, the barometric pressure is concerned. We just checked the latest recon reports from the airplanes flying through this, we should get another official update in about 10 minutes.

The air pressure dropped another millibar down to 930 millibars. That equates to about just under 227.5 inches of mercury on your home barometer. If you look at that, it's pretty much off the charts and pretty much will say stormy weather, and generally speaking, low pressure means stormy weather.

Low pressure also means high winds. So the fact that the aircraft measured another millibar less, you know, we may be bumping the winds a little bit. But it certainly looks on the satellite picture that the eye is becoming less organized, or maybe going through one of those cycles where it may very well re-intensify later on today. Always hoping for it to decrease in intensity, but we're not sure that's going to happen just yet.

Category 4 storm right now, about 160 miles and change away from Pensacola, south-southeasterly. North-northwesterly movement at 15 miles an hour. So the official forecast track still remains this: Anywhere from just west of Mobile, Alabama to just east of Pensacola, Florida. In the next six to eight hours is when we expect it to make landfall officially. Certainly, you will feel the effects sooner than that, as far as seeing hurricane-force winds, and then shooting up in this general direction. The upper part of Mississippi, Alabama and even Tennessee might catch a piece of this as a very weak hurricane or a tropical storm. I mean, how many times do you see a tropical storm or a tropical depression roll through Graceland? So this is already a storm that has affected millions of people.

Even across the Southeast last night -- Soledad, welcome to Atlanta by the way...

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

MARCIANO: I know there was a...

S. O'BRIEN: I would like to be here under better circumstances, but thank you.

MARCIANO: Well, there was a big storm. I don't know if it kept you up or woke you up last night, especially north of town, where inches of rain fell in a short period of time. Again, it was kind of a ripple that came from the hurricane hundreds of miles away, that sparked the showers and storms across Atlanta and across northern Mississippi and Alabama as well.

S. O'BRIEN: I've sort of had a feeling it's going to be not great weather over the next couple of days, even here, which is not directly in the path. So thanks, Rob. We'll check in with you again.

MARCIANO: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Dennis took a deadly toll in the Caribbean before it moved into the Gulf of Mexico. Residents of Cuba starting to assess the damage from the storm, while they're bracing for the threat of mudslides now.

CNN's Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman joins us by videophone this morning with the latest. What is the latest in Cuba, Lucia?

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Hello, Soledad.

Well, the sun, as you can probably see, is just beginning to come out, but there is still so much to do. There are millions of residents of this island that are still without power, without running water, or cooking gas. Here in the city, Havana, we have been seeing people trying to search for coal and bits of wood so that they can cook for their families. The fact that there's no running water is a big problem. And there is tremendous damage also to homes. Thousands of houses either partially or totally destroyed, especially in southcentral Cienfuegos Province, where the hurricane entered the country. There was also extensive damage to crops.

The pickup -- the cleanup exercise, of course, is already under way. The emergency teams working round the clock to restore power, to pick up debris, especially downed trees, downed power lines, but it's still -- they have a long way to go.

And over the coming days -- what you see behind me is Old Havana. As the buildings here, the dilapidated buildings start to dry, it's expected that many of them will begin to crack and will crumble.

So it's been a nasty start to this hurricane season here, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Lucia, there were reports of 10 people killed in Cuba. Do you know generally the circumstances? How did they die?

NEWMAN: We know that four members of a family got under a bed to try to protect themselves from the hurricane, and tragically, a wall came crumbling down on them. They were all crushed. Another, even more tragic story perhaps, and we heard this from Cuban television, was of a mother who tried to protect her child from the hurricane- force winds, and inadvertently smothered the baby -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, gosh. That's terrible. Lucia Newman for us. Lucia, thanks for the update.

NEWMAN: Very sad story.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, gosh.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. Gees, that's awful.

All right. We're going to take a break. We'll be back with more of our coverage of Hurricane Dennis as it bears down on the Gulf Coast. Mississippi and Florida apparently in the bull's eye right now. CNN is your hurricane headquarters. Stay with us as our special edition of AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Put this with the "kids don't try this at home" caveat attached to it, but we would like to -- assuming you can do it in a safe place, through your nicely secure window or something, if you have some pictures you would like to share with us or some video, we have a place for you to send it. WEAR has been sending in their pictures for us all day. This is their tower cam, by the way. There, I think the wind speed is only in the 30-mile-an-hour range right now. This is Pensacola, Florida. And we thank them for this shot. You have got to wonder how long this tower cam is going to last.

S. O'BRIEN: Yeah, they were saying 35 miles per hour. And this is pretty shaky so far.

M. O'BRIEN: And you can only imagine if it gets up into the 90 hundred (sic) mile-an-hour range or beyond, depending on where the eye hits, what that is going to be like.

In the meantime, we want you to participate and feel free to send us. We've gotten some great images. I'm not going to call you amateurs. You are citizen journalists, and we'd like you to participate. Send us your photos, your video. And also, we would love to hear some of your e-mail dispatches as well. Don't do anything risky, safety number one, but nevertheless, we'd love to see what's going on in your part of the world.

S. O'BRIEN: Yeah, kind of duh, don't do anything risky.

M. O'BRIEN: Yeah, I know, but got to say it.

S. O'BRIEN: Yeah. I hear you.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. CNN is your hurricane headquarters. We'll keep you updated. You don't need to change the channel. Just stay with us. As Dennis makes its way, we will watch it every step of the way for you. The latest forecast, reports from all of our reporters along the Gulf shores. A special edition of AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com