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American Morning
Hurricane Dennis Expected to Hit Area Damaged by Hurricane Ivan 10 Months Ago
Aired July 10, 2005 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you remember Hurricane Ivan last September. Boy, if you remember that one take it and add an order of magnitude and you'll come up with Hurricane Dennis.
Welcome back to our special Sunday Hurricane Dennis edition of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Soledad O'Brien. We're reporting this morning from the CNN center in Atlanta and as you mentioned, Hurricane Dennis it is on schedule right now at least to be significantly worse than Ivan. Of course that all depends, because as the forecasters keep pointing out to us things can change and they can change fast.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, let's give you sort of the big picture here. Hurricane Dennis still bearing down on kind of the northern of the Gulf of Mexico. There's a big swath of area that could be affected anywhere from Mobile really all the way over to Panama City.
We've been showing you this picture. This is in Pensacola Beach. That's the Pensacola Beach Gulf pier there that has been battered.
And there are some additional tower cam shots from our affiliate WEAR in Pensacola giving us a sense of the surf which comes in advance of the approach of the eye of Hurricane Dennis. And that's an important thing that there's a lot of bad weather that comes ahead of that eye as we focus on that bulls eye you've got to think about the big picture.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we've been talking about the 2 p.m. landfall eastern time. But of course, it really happens much before then because all that bad weather that proceeds the hurricane is to be a big problem too.
Actually on the Saffir-Simpson scale of one to five Dennis is a strong four. It continues on a path that was actually trod by Ivan taking it over land somewhere between Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida. You just saw those pictures from Pensacola a moment ago expected to hit sometime this afternoon. Its top sustained winds are clocked at 145 miles an hour. That's even higher than was first originally forecast. It's already blamed form ore than 30 deaths, already tore across Haiti and Cuba. It was a weaker storm then a category two. That was yesterday and Friday.
So let's begin our coverage this hour with the very big picture. We're going to get to Jamey Singleton. He's in Panama City beach and he's got the very latest of what's happening there.
Hey, Jamey. Good morning to you. How's it looking there?
JAMEY SINGLETON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, Soledad. Pretty story, pretty squally. We've got the first outer edges of Dennis that came in last night here at Panama City Beach. Now let me remind folks that this storm is going to just graze us. OK? So despite all the wind that you're seeing buffeting me here at about 40 to 50 miles an hour, I've had my anemometer out all day we're gusting up to about 20 or 30 right now, but at times it will get up to about 50 miles an hour well start to lose our satellite single a bit, the highest amount of winds is going to go off to our west.
We're shooting right now because of the counterclockwise circulation around this hurricane seeing our wind coming primarily out of the east, which is just paralleling the Florida coastline here along the Gulf Coast. Later in the after that is going to change. It's going to start to come back up out of the south and we can expect more of a storm surge.
We've got an angry Gulf of Mexico back here. It's very impressive. I've been out here and covering storms before and earlier this morning some of those waves were right up against the (inaudible) pier here in Panama City. And you can see them crashing there right now several feet high. Maybe five or 10 feet or a little bit farther out you can see the Gulf of Mexico. Here comes one of those stronger gust of wind. I mean they're coming (inaudible) all of a sudden and the rain will come and bring that higher wind down.
One thing I was noticing earlier, the clouds move really fast then you notice the wind right after that. So the rain actually brings the wind back again now that the clouds are here. But conditions have been worsening here over the past several hours. The police are about to close -- there's a bridge that connects Panama City beach to Panama City and that bridge is about to be shut down.
Now right now we're on the Panama City Beach side of it, so we're going to have to move probably within the next hour because they're about to shut that down. There's really not much of any people out here other than just one or two news crews.
Soledad, Miles.
S. O'BRIEN: Thanks. If that's the case the cops are going to close down that bridge and that's the only way to get out of town it might be a good idea to start moving out of there, right?
Have you seen big changes in the last 30 minutes or so, Jamey?
SINGLETON: Only things I've seen like a couple of people driving around, the wind increasing. We had one of the heavier squalls we've ever seen since we've been here coming out of the east. (inaudible) it's pretty bad there in terms of the 55 mile an hour wind gust. No damage quite yet. There is a lot of construction though in Panama City Beach. I don't know if you've been here recently, but they're really starting to build this area up a lot and there's a lot of high rises just off to my left and right here that are just kind of vulnerable, I think, for wind damage. Not because the wind is that strong but because they're kind of open. They're not really completed yet. There's going to be a lot of the brick maybe flying around later this afternoon if the wind continues to increase.
Back to you guys.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, one would imagine that. All right, Jamey Singleton for us this morning. He's in Panama City Beach from our affiliate down there. Thanks a lot, Jamey. Be safe, OK.
Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right from sea level to high above the planet using our satellite and radar technology, Rob Marciano gives a sense of what the storm is doing, how it's wobbling, which way it's going and how strong it will be -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Miles. We'll start you at sea level ,start with the radar shots. A couple of them working for you this hour and also the range is what we're going to kick in. This is a swath, a band from Tallahassee kicking around. This one from Mobile and they're both cutting right into the center of the storm. There is the eye. About half of the eye is more difficult to see because, one, you can't get through all of that rain and two, the radar beam eventually starts to miss if it gets out of range.
But we turn the map a little bit and point it give you an orientation of the direction in which the storm is going. And we can give you an estimate as to the outer -- the barrier islands here from the front edge of the eye are about 79 miles away. And again, this is moving to the north, northwest at 16 miles an hour. So, you know, give or take that means that the front eye wall will be getting to the shoreline here in the next five hours. So sometimes 3 p.m. eastern, 2 p.m. local time is when you really start to be getting drilled by this thing.
The outer bands obviously getting to the coastline a little bit quicker right now. We're starting to see tropical storm force winds and I would guess in the next two hours we'll start to see hurricane force winds and then major hurricane force winds expected by the time we get towards 2, 3, 4 and 5 o'clock local time.
This radar has the ability to give you an idea of some of the winds sustained lived and interpolated anywhere from 25 to 35 miles an hour right along the coastline. Although I have seen wind gusts reported by the National Weather Service in many spots including Pensacola, including Panama City, including Destin up to 45 miles an hour, so they are certainly in it.
Here you see that hook a little bit more or a northerly turn and there's the eye and certainly Pensacola over towards Mobile, Alabama under the gun here and we're looking at five hours from now as to when we expect this thing, the front eye wall get in there.
Category-4 storm, north, northwesterly moving at 15 miles an hour and there you go. That's the latest from here. Again, a category-4 storm with those winds although tightly clustered Miles and Soledad extensive damage to structures as we saw in Hurricane Charley.
M. O'BRIEN: Now Rob, I'm a little surprised. You show those wind speeds that you have there and you say they're interpolated which means it's kind of a running guess, right or is it? Explain what you said -- what you mean by interpolated.
MARCIANO: Well, certainly meaning if we take what's actually being reported at some of the stations say in Pensacola in Panama City in Tallahassee and then we -- the computer will actually estimate or average what's going on in-between them.
M. O'BRIEN: Oh I see. I see. So in-between stations is what...
MARCIANO: Exactly. That's the only way we're able to pull up these towns that are really, really small because we don't have obviously gauges in every one of those towns.
M. O'BRIEN: Got you. So -- but they really stayed -- at least so far this morning they've stayed relatively steady in the mid 20s.
MARCIANO: Yes. And I think the rainfall has been relatively steady. Often you'll see the rain bans come in from this thing, you know, a squall calm, a squall calm. Really in the last four or five hours the love shots that I've seen you've really seen steady rainfall with pretty steady wins as well especially where Chad is right along the beach there. Right along the beach is where you don't have any other effects of land. You don't have any frictional effects of the land. You really get it coming in. It's pretty solid, Miles. I mean we're not going to see much of a break at all. There's no more feeder bans. There's no more squalls coming in. I think it's going to increasingly be steady rain and steady wind now going forward.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Rob. Thank you very much. Chad, did you hear that? Hunker down there, Chad. No need to interpolate where you are. You've got your anemometer there. What's...
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I do, and you know what, Miles? The average wind speed has been about 30, but as Rob was saying it's the wind gusts that come in and all of a sudden give you a good knock. Back out here to the west and to the south of where you see me here you can kind of look out into the ocean and the here is that you can only see probably maybe 150 yards out there and then there's just this line of water where it's just mist and everything just gets all torn up.
What I have noticed and so did the reporter from Panama City about five minutes ago is that the wind is still coming from the land or right down the beach. It' s not coming off the ocean yet. I can always tell because when you taste the water that's running in your face right now it's not salty. It's still fresh water. When you get the wind tearing the waves apart and it starts to break up the salt water you can begin to taste the salt in the air.
Now it's not raining salt water. A hurricane does not rain salt water. A hurricane rains fresh water. It's the distillation process that's out there in the ocean, the distillation process only picks up pure H2O. It does not pick up the salt takes it into the storm and then it rains fresh water. People ask me that all the time, you know, how come it doesn't rain salt water in a hurricane. It's just an amazing process that mother nature has invented called the evaporation...
M. O'BRIEN: Stay with us Chad. All right. Well that's going to happen. That's the first of many. Is he back? I think he's back. Chad, are you back there? Yes he is. Chad, come back to us.
MYERS: As the wind turns around and it will, (inaudible) that will come from the southeast and eventually all the way from the south obviously that spray is going to be blowing up here. But where I'm standing I'm expecting at least three feet of water on the ground. So we have higher places to go.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. So you obviously have a plan. And this is probably as good a time as any to remind our viewers that we have -- it looks like they're in harms way. This is a part of telling the story. We have tried to keep Chad and crews safe and...
MYERS: Absolutely.
M. O'BRIEN: And once the rain starts tasting salty they'll move to high ground or something like that, right? Is that how it goes?
MYERS: No question. Absolutely no question about it. We were here -- I flew in here on Friday scouting out this location because we knew that when the wind comes in and if it blows 120 like it's expected to and 145 a little bit up the beach you'd better have a plan. You can't do this without a plan. It took us -- this was 48 hours to develop this.
M. O'BRIEN: OK, good. Chad Myers we're going to check back in with you very shortly. We're going to move it along.
Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, we should also mention that what we saw there we are going to lose the satellites hits. We're going to take hits on the satellite. That's what's going to happen today certainly as the weather gets worse.
We're showing you pictures of Pensacola again. This is WEAR our affiliate there and you can see that pier that we've been showing you all morning, the Pensacola Beach Gulf pier really the waves have definitely picked up since we started first reporting and showing pictures of this.
And of course, that camera, I don't know how long we're going to be able to hold out and show these pictures because it's getting to the point where they're a little bit unwatchable. Obviously an indication that the winds are picking up, the waves are picking up, the surf is getting a little bit higher. We're going to continue to monitor what's happening here in Pensacola and bring you updates here and every where we have reporters. And again, as Miles said, they will be moved to higher ground to safer spots as the weather comes in.
We're looking at Randi Kaye. She's been out there all morning and we've been talking to her all morning and it looks like it's getting worse. The rain definitely has picked up, Randi. Can you hear me?
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. It has absolutely picked up and it's gotten a lot worse actually since I spoke with you last. I can tell you that the winds right here now are about 30 miles an hour and you could see, if you take a look here behind me you can see the trees are blowing quite a bit. I can barely actually hold myself up here.
The rains are also very, very heavy. We can show you what it's like to walk in this. It feels like little pellets actually being just charged on your face. It's just an awful feeling. But if you come down over here you can see we're at the Ramada hotel here and this is a light pole that's out in front of the Ramada. And this -- already you can see even though the hurricane is not here yet the winds are. The winds arrived well before the eye of the hurricane does here at Pensacola, so this is already a piece of the light pole here that's come off, so it is beginning.
There's plenty of debris around here in the area which is a problem because Ivan was here last September, as you may recall and it left quite a bit of debris around the area and that debris can serve as projectile. So when you're out here in the open like we are right now until it gets really bad and we have to head inside that debris can actually serve as projectiles.
But right now we're just seeing real, real, heavy, heavy rain, heavy heavy wind and these are the sustained winds that they were talking about that would be heading our way. That is the I-10 bridge out there in the distance. I'm not even sure if you can see it but that is the bridge that Ivan took a big chunk out of during -- when it hit in September. So the waves are out there. We're expecting a storm surge of about 19 or 20 feet. We're at about 29 feet above sea level here, so we're hoping it will be OK.
But as you can see things have certainly changed even in the hour that I spoke to you last.
Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: (inaudible) deteriorating a little bit. When you talk about the wind speed you said just about 30 some odd miles per hours right now. Dennis is predicted at 145 miles an hour and those little pieces that are already coming off that's going to be a huge problem.
KAYE: Absolutely. Our hotel -- I mean our hotel survived Ivan where we are, but we're not sure about the bridge. The bridge was just repaired in January and it's just in temporary steel plates that are holding that bridge out there. And so they're very concerned about that. And if they do reach 140 or 155 miles an hour we do have some trees here that could come down. Pieces -- the hotel lost its roof to Ivan, so we're sort of bracing it.
I've got to tell you waiting, waiting for the worse of it is pretty bad.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I bet a little unnerving. All right, Randy, thanks a lot.
KAYE: OK
S. O'BRIEN: Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: The situation in Panama City is also giving us a lot of focus as well. You know what? You'd better take this. I'm eating a biscuit because...
S. O'BRIEN: We should mention that we've been on the hour now for four hours and 15 minutes. We're only about halfway through and obviously since landfall is expected around 2 o'clock this afternoon it's going to be a long day, so we've been snacking in-between our reporter live shots.
M. O'BRIEN: Out with the biscuit. (inaudible).
S. O'BRIEN: If I had known I would have covered for you better, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's go to Panama City where we're going to check in with the mayor. Mayor Lee Sullivan is on the line with us right now. Mayor tell us where you are and what you're doing to try to get your town ready.
LEE SULLIVAN, MAYOR, PANAMA CITY: Miles, if my town is not ready it is now too late for it to get ready. We are experiencing the beginning of what will probably be a rough six hours and as the storm wobbles, everyone holds their breath on either side. But we are -- it is inappropriate for any one in this weather to try to do anything but stay where they are.
M. O'BRIEN: So if you have evacuated stay there. If you are at home stay there. Let's talk about the people who might have elected to stay in their homes. What should they do to make themselves safe?
SULLIVAN: They should understand hopefully the quality of their home. They should (inaudible) a place in one corner of their home that is windowless, that they were to go should the weather turn dramatically horrible for them and if you don't mind this, they ought to say a prayer.
M. O'BRIEN: I think that's probably very appropriate at this time when you consider the power of mother nature in this case. Of course in some case they were talking about people that are in low lying areas the storm surge is a big concern as well. The projections are for as high as 15 feet. That's got to worry you some. That put a good portion of your city under water.
SULLIVAN: Well, I'm an old man. I've been here on this beach and it's at least I think the last recollection was to have of something like this was Camille in '69. But we caught a high tide (inaudible) and we suffered a lot of inland damage along the waterways. I am anticipating that we'll have a similar problem today.
M. O'BRIEN: Mayor Lee Sullivan we wish you and the people of Panama City well as Dennis bears down on the Gulf Coast.
S. O'BRIEN: We're going to hear much more on Dennis this morning. Obviously we're going to hear from the governor of Florida. Jeb Bush is planning a news conference. We're gong to take it live on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING coming to you from Atlanta. We're back in a moment.
M. O'BRIEN: Gulf Shores, Alabama braces for a now familiar nightmare too much Gulf too little shores and too much storm. All this too soon after Ivan.
S. O'BRIEN: And what about the shuttle, three days from a very important launch will Dennis force a delay? Live report up next as AMERICAN MORNING's coverage of Hurricane Dennis continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back everybody to our special coverage, extended coverage of AMERICAN MORNING, a Sunday edition, as we track the progress of Hurricane Dennis. You're looking at a picture. It's from Gary. This is from St. Petersburg in Florida and it looks quite nice until you see this and you can see the extensive flooding where actually there are obviously some big problems in St. Petersburg. Not as bad as other places though.
Another picture coming in to us from Jonie in Gulf Breeze in Florida and you can see she's looking at a peer and some surf. A little action there and then not too long after that one would imagine things have gotten a little bit worse.
It's going to be the story of the day as we track the progress of Hurricane Dennis. We are slowing, as we talk to our correspondents, which are all around the region that's going to be the most hardest hit really seeing thins get worse and worse and worse as the hurricane gets closer to making landfall. And as we've heard from Rob Marciano all morning you can't just look to that 2 o'clock eastern time deadline as being the most important. It's actually a couple of hours, maybe even three hours before we have to start noticing some of those hurricane speed winds there.
M. O'BRIEN: And while the surf may be up, as that surf board holding man might have been contemplating not a good time to try that I think folks. As a matter of fact, a really bad idea as we look at live pictures now. I'm not sure where these are coming in from. I believe that could be Panama City.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think this is Panama City. M. O'BRIEN: This is Panama City where you've been seeing Chad Myers and as you can see the surf is getting pretty wild out there. We haven't seen anybody tempting fate. Sometimes you see that in the course of a hurricane and you often wonder about the sanity of those folks.
In any case, whatever you see today if you'd like to share it with us and become a citizen journalist yourself we invite you to do that, CNN.com/hurricane is the place to do that.
Now with Hurricane Dennis bearing down in Florida the crew of the space shuttle Discovery kind of got the jump on the storm. They arrived early at the launch site yesterday. They didn't fly their T- 38 fighters that they normally come in, training jets. They came in a gulf stream jet better equipped for the weather. Not the way astronauts normally like to arrive but nevertheless, they're there safe and sound. Discovery, of course, is scheduled to make it's first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster on Wednesday afternoon.
Joining us at the Kennedy Space Center,, David Waters of our affiliate Central Florida News 13. He spends a lot of time out there at the Cape. David, first of all, how's the weather there today?
DAVID WATERS, CENTRAL FLORIDA NEWS 13: Not good, Miles, even 400 miles away from Hurricane Dennis. Just take a look behind us you'll see just a gloomy day out here. Meteorologist out here at the Kennedy Space Center were just telling us some 30 knot winds even 400 miles away from the storm, so some widespread effect and then on towards the pad you can see bad weather.
Despite all of that, Miles, NASA is saying that weather will be good, they think, for launch day. They say that they predict 30 percent chance weather will cooperate on launch day three days from now. That's Wednesday afternoon at 3:51 p.m. The only problem is later on in the week on Thursday and then on Friday the weather deteriorates and the meteorologist here are saying that is because of the after effects of Dennis. So it's definitely affecting plans here at the Kennedy Space Center even, of course, with the astronauts flying in there early yesterday.
M. O'BRIEN: Well now a couple of things people should know about. First of all there's this thing called the rotating service structure. It's a big cocoon which covers over the shuttle, so it's pretty safe even if that hurricane had taken a dog leg to the right and gotten closer to the Cape it was not in jeopardy was it?
WATERS: No, NASA was very worried about that though, Miles. They actually planned to role Discovery back. They got preparations underway. They started unplugging things because the fear was the storm would turn. They would have to bring Discovery off the launch pad and return to flight. But at the last minute they decided that since Dennis didn't appear to be turning this way they would leave it out at the pad and Discovery and the space shuttle is supposed to be able to withstand 70 knot winds, tropical storm force winds. NASA says they would never want to test that though and they would have rolled it back in had we expected that, but we're getting a lot less than that here today.
M. O'BRIEN: That's one design requirement I think they'd rather not test. Now the one thing that would be a concern, however, is all of the preparations that go into the countdown, which will begin officially this evening. All the things that have to happen on the pad because of the bad weather is that slowing anything down?
WATERS: It has just a little bit. Workers do have to do work on the pad, but their concern is, of course, if workers are sitting on the launch structure in high winds it could be dangerous for them. So in those cases workers would be pulled off. That hasn't happened for the most part, but there is some rain out there. NASA feels though that they will be able to get all of the work done. The aft section, the back of the space shuttle has been closed out. The crew equipment is stowed, so they believe that they're good for Wednesday right now.
M. O'BRIEN: David Waters, we'll see you down there on Wednesday. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
WATERS: You bet.
M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Out of Tallahassee, Florida we're just about five minutes away from a press conference. We're expecting to hear from Florida Governor Jeb Bush with an update. He's going to come to us live from the emergency operations center. So as soon as that gets underway we will bring that to you live when it happens. You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We are back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Well, we have been following Dennis and Dennis is really moving with all due deliberate course at about 15 or 16 miles an hour north-northwest, actually taking a little jog to the right, maybe, but whatever the case may be, Mobile, Pensacola, all the way over toward Panama City, places this morning that have lots of evacuations, and really at this point, wherever you may be, stay put, hunker down. And as you look here at some live pictures from Panama City, which is kind of on the far right side of the zone, which may or may not be -- that's misleading, I think, to folks. You have to remember that we're talking about a big, wide swath of area, and particularly the right side of the storm is an area where there could be some real trouble.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and somewhat disconcerting, of course, because those who are responsible for predicting exactly where landfall is going to be continue to qualify that all of this could change, and they've been tracking the storm, but you're talking about a cone, as Chad has said many times, and really it's a fairly wide area that's expected to be -- to be or potentially could be hit or will be hit, and, of course, it's not just the eye of the storm, it's what comes before it comes from the tornadoes that are spun off on the bad side or the righthand side of the storm. So there's lots of damage, potentially, that these regions are looking at in the very near future.
On top of that, this is a category 4. It was upgraded to a category 4. When it hit Cuba and Haiti, it was a category 2. Now, a category 4, which means it packs much more power than it did in Cuba, where it caused 10 deaths and 22 in Haiti.
M. O'BRIEN: And to put it in perspective, Hurricane Ivan last year, in September, which you'll recall, caused a tremendous amount of damage as it went through the same area. It was a category 3. And going back to Hurricane Frederick, which went through Mobile in 1979, caused tremendous damage, historic-type storm; it also was only a category 3. So let's keep that all in mind. This is a very powerful storm.
Now, we've been checking in with affiliates all throughout the day, the reporters have been checking in with us. Just for a little moment, let's check in with a newscast that's going on right now in Mobile, Pensacola. WKRG is the station. Let's just listen in to what their anchors are saying to the folks in Mobile, Pensacola right now.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: ... to move out. It is critical to identify a safe place in your home. Having had some experience in this in Hurricane Andrew, I can tell you it is really important to find an interior room without windows. A lot of my friends down in Miami, if you haven't had the experience of going through a storm of this force, didn't heed that advice, and there was damage to their properties and damage to their lives, and they got their wits scared out of them. And there's no need for that. If you plan for this, it's important to find a room that's safe for your family and stay there as the storm passes.
Monitor local media. You can do that through the NOAA weather radio or battery-operated radios, both of them work, and the local media has done an outstanding job in northwest Florida educating and providing information for the residents of that area.
Make sure you have your basic provisions that we've been talking about over the last few days, including water, and food and medication, and there are a couple of things to remember. A lull in the storm does not necessarily mean the storm has passed. As the eye of the hurricane passes, it presents a deceptive period of clear weather. In fact, it's almost eerie, if you've had this experience of the eye passing. It gets totally calm, and there is a tendency to want to go out. We urge you not to do that. Remain sheltered for the entire duration of Hurricane Dennis.
Floridians across the peninsula should be prepared for heavy rain. It's a storm that has -- that is huge in its width, and it's creating isolated severe weather, including tornadoes, lots of flooding and lots of rain.
After the storm passes, it is important that you don't automatically leave your home. We need to allow the emergency responders that are staging right now as I speak, time to be able to assess the damage, and it's important to resist the urge to drive around, site-see or explore. Conditions will remain dangerous due to downed power lines and many other reasons. In fact, as you know, more people die after the storm passes than during the storm. So it's important to have patience.
And I know that's going to be hard, particularly with families with children, to make sure that you stay in your home and use common sense. Don't use your generator in the house. Do the things that you know under normal circumstances wouldn't be appropriate, don't do it during a hurricane.
Our team here, and there is an awesome team that federal officials, state officials, lots of volunteers for many great organizations, are working hard to prepare for the next phase of this, which is the relief efforts that will be under way as soon as possible.
Our first priority will be to meet the immediate life safety needs of the residents of northwest Florida. Urban search and rescue teams and law enforcement teams will be the first teams that are deployed in the area. There will be a minimum of 1,400 guard, National Guard that have been activated that are staging right now to head west, and will soon, as I say, be en route to the impacted area.
Commissioner Tonels (ph) has told me that 650 law enforcement officers from the state agencies as well as other sheriff's departments are on their way as well, to provide that immediate response for the residents of northwest Florida.
We have prepositioned resources and responders that will be deployed to affected areas as soon as the winds have decreased and there is the chance for safe passage. In addition to that, water, food, ice and tarps are staged and ready to be deployed as well.
We're in the process of drafting a presidential disaster declaration. FEMA has been a really great partner in this regard. Unlike previous storms of several years ago at least, we're operating together in this regard and preparing for Hurricane Dennis, rather than waiting for the storm to pass and then saying, how are we going to do this? FEMA has prepositioned resources as well, sizable numbers, and as you know, particularly in the Pensacola area, it's important to have resources staged both west and east to be able to access the area as quickly as possible, and we appreciate their help. And we are confident that once our declaration request is made, that there will be a quick response by FEMA and the president of the United States.
Finally, I would like to ask all the people that are not in the storm's path to pray for their fellow man. These are really dangerous storms, and the devastation that could take place is something that we've already seen. Past is prologue. We've seen the damage done with Ivan, and it's important for us to pray for the safety for the residents and for their quick recovery. And I can assure you that thousands and thousands of people will back that up with a lot of hard work in the weeks ahead.
If I could say a few words in Spanish as well.
(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
M. O'BRIEN: We thought we were just going to show you a little bit of what the local anchors are doing, and we happened upon Jeb Bush's live news conference, that we just showed it to you via WKRG. That's how they are seeing it there. So there you have it. That was Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, offering up some -- the cautionary words that we've been telling you all day about being careful to not just focus on that eye, but focus on the big picture of the storm. Before, when the eye comes, there's a lull, and afterward, and also indicating that he's already drafted the paperwork for creating a declaration of emergency for the area.
S. O'BRIEN: And talking in Spanish, of course, because a number of the people affected will be Spanish, primarily Spanish speakers in the region. So that's why his words in Spanish when we cut out. He was repeating a little bit of what he said in his press conference, and what he said was, FEMA, working well, first time, maybe, he seemed to indicate in a long time that they're finally working together, and they've been a really great partner, he said, unlike past operations.
Also, he talked about how some of the resources have been prepositioned, and immediate response teams are ready to go in to help out right after the eye passes and the storm, the brunt of the storm goes through.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, the sad fact is they've had -- last season I think taught them quite a few hard lessons.
S. O'BRIEN: Kind of a mess I think it's fair to say.
M. O'BRIEN: And I think, you know, let's hope that they've learned those lessons. So far so good, according to Governor Jeb Bush.
S. O'BRIEN: An expensive mess, too.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes. In many ways.
Rob Marciano is up at the Weather Center. He's got some new numbers for us -- Rob.
MARCIANO: We do. The 11:00 advisory Eastern, we can sometimes get these things in a few minutes ahead of time, although they're in knots usually so I'm trying to do some math. 120 knot winds, so it's come down a bit, to 140 mile-an-hour winds.
What has changed also, so it's weakened by 5 miles an hour, but it sped up by 16 knots -- by about one or two miles an hour. So that's the situation right now.
Here's the satellite imagery. Once again, you see the eye, you see that jog it took. Then it kind of wobbled a little back, but they have also changed slightly the forecast track, which is something that we were kind of thinking that would happen. It's shifted just a little bit to the right, and landfall still approximately 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 this afternoon. But at this rate, the way it has sped up, likely the outer rings, the outer edges of that eyewall to make its way into this area, 2:00 p.m.
So, Miles, now if this latest forecast holds, and we think it will, it has shifted away from Mobile Bay. So that helps them, but Pensacola on this track will likely get absolutely pounded again, and it's four hours and change, Miles, hours away from Pensacola proper. But Pensacola Beach, the outer eyewall will start to get there probably around, you know, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Rob Marciano, thank you very much. Your colleague, Chad Myers, is on the beach in Panama City. And Chad, how's it going there now? It looks like it's getting a lot worse.
MYERS: You know what I did, Miles, I was up on a little balcony up there, but I wanted to come down, and I know the first rule of TV is don't turn your back on the TV, but the first rule of Mother Nature is don't turn your back on the ocean.
I'm going to walk down here and show you really kind of get a perspective of how large the waves really are, because you can't tell when I'm that far away. But you can certainly tell when I get right here to the surf. And let me tell you, the surf here, this is probably a good four feet down from where I just was, and just a minute ago, a huge wave, maybe a little bit of a rogue wave, I think, came all the way up and washed all of this seaweed back up here. That's what I thought at the beginning. And then I've had two or three more that have done the exact same thing.
So the waves are getting much bigger, and you expect that as the winds pick up, the waves are going to get larger themselves, but we're not even close to high tide. Still almost another three and a half hours to high tide. So when the high tide comes up two feet from where I am now, that's another two feet. That's where I was standing before, and then if there's a six-foot storm surge, my cameraman, it's over his head. So the water's coming up. The winds are picking up, and here comes Dennis. Back to you guys.
M. O'BRIEN: So, Chad, obviously, you have a good escape plan there. I'm curious, what would you measure the height of the surf there right now? Those waves, roughly?
MYERS: Well, you know, it's tough. I've tried to figure out where I am and do you measure it from the base of the wave all the way to the crest of the wave? That's typically how they're measured in America. Sometimes different than that in Hawaii for the surfers. They only measure how high the face is. But at least 8 to 10 feet swells now, and every once in a while, that one that washed all the way up to the beach, that was at least a 14-footer that crashed over here and all the way back -- all the way to the sea oats, which is a good 6 feet from where the ocean level is right now. So that was a pretty good wave to make it all the way up here.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, if we can go briefly to the map, I just want to ask you a question. I want to go to the map on the telestrator here if we could, just briefly, and show people where Panama City is. And then I have to ask you a question about it.
Now, if we put that X right in there, that's about where Chad is. OK? And if you looked at it, Chad is almost facing, if he looks out to the ocean, he's almost facing due west. Does that in any way protect you where you are?
MYERS: There's very little protection here where I am. Almost this entire island, from when you get off the bridge from Panama City itself. We are on Panama City beach. It was a little spit of land that comes off from Panama City. There's not one piece of land on this island over 12 feet high. So that means if the storm surge is 8 to 14 or 10 to 14, there's not going to be one piece of land on this island that doesn't get some saltwater washed over it, and then that washes over and into the back bay, and that eventually the people who thought they were safe on the other side, that are on the mainland, they get a storm surge as well as the water goes up and over and back up and over again.
So not too much safety here, but we have high ground to go to, and those are big concrete condos that we rented here in Panama City Beach.
M. O'BRIEN: That's smart, but you will stay on the barrier island for the duration. You're not going to go to the mainland.
MYERS: We are staying on the barrier island. Yeah, everybody should have been evacuated from the barrier island. It was a mandatory evacuation. We talked to the police, we talked to the owners (INAUDIBLE) it's all concrete and steel. I stayed here in Bonnie, and I know the windows are in great shape. We'll be in good shape here. We're just going to go up either one or two stories as the water comes up and obviously over where I am right now.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Which answers a lot of viewers' questions about how much careful thought and planning is put into these locations you see here.
MYERS: Absolutely.
M. O'BRIEN: Chad, please be safe. Keep everybody safe there. I know you will.
S. O'BRIEN: Starting to look at little ominous there.
Well, that is what the scene looks like in Panama City. In just a few moments, we're going to take you back to Pensacola. We've been showing you pictures of this bridge all morning, the camera shaking even more as the winds pick up, the surf increasing as well. We'll check in with our reporter live on the scene there after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Pensacola, Florida, as it stands right now, is right smack in the path of Hurricane Dennis as it goes making landfall. It is deja vu all over again for the folks there in Pensacola, because, of course, just 10 months ago, they were hit by Hurricane Ivan.
We've got reporters standing by all morning for us. Let's get right to Randi Kaye. She's been in Pensacola, and Randi, let's see how it looks there, because your conditions were really deteriorating last we talked to you, and they don't look any better, certainly.
KAYE: They're not getting any better, Soledad, I'm very sorry to say. We're out front here. That's Escambia Bay out there in the distance, and that's the area that you can't even get to anymore. They closed I-10, which is the highway over there, the bridge there that you see. They closed that last night, and now this morning, just a short time ago, they've put in a mandatory curfew. They don't want anybody out and about anymore.
You can see just probably from this live shot, the wind gusts have certainly picked up. I mean, there's been a couple of times here this morning where I've just been actually lifted right off my feet.
It's now probably -- the heavy gusts are probably reaching at least 50 miles an hour here. You can take a look at some of the trees. They're gusting pretty good. The rain is pretty heavy. It feels like they were just pellets kind of firing at you from behind and on your face when you turn around to face the wind.
But we're staying here, we're about 29 feet above sea level here at our hotel. And if you take a look up at the sign there, that's a big giant Ramada Inn sign. That sign is actually bolted in place, but during Ivan, which was only a category 3, Ivan turned that sign. That sign is not supposed to turn. So we're expecting category 4 winds here, which should be about maybe reaching as high as 150 miles an hour, and if this is just 50, I'll tell you, just standing in this, I don't even want to meet a 150-mile-an-hour wind. So it's getting pretty bad.
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah, looks like it is going to be pretty bad. All right Randi Kaye for us, Randi, thanks. We'll check in with you again as I see our photographer trying to clean off that lens so they can see what she's doing right there.
M. O'BRIEN: Yeah, Randi is about 5 feet tall and probably about 90 pounds dripping wet, so she better make sure she's latched down.
S. O'BRIEN: Right, right.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Gulf Coast officials are now warning residents that it's too late to leave and they should stay put for the duration of the storm. One area expected to be hit hard by Dennis is Gulf Shores, Alabama. You'll recall Hurricane Ivan came ashore near Gulf Shores last year. Jade McCarthy of our affiliate WAFF is there with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JADE MCCARTHY, WAFF CORRESPONDENT: Things really starting to pick up in Gulf Shores, Alabama, as Hurricane Dennis steams its way closer to shore. Take a look out at the ocean. It's starting to get a bit angry out there. The waves are picking up, starting to crash a bit harder. Storm surge, of course, something that they are worried about here. They did see major storm surge after Hurricane Ivan, and this, another major hurricane. People can't believe that they're dealing with another one out here.
The beach is pretty much empty. We have seen Gulf Shores police officer, state troopers, sheriff's deputies making the rounds, trying to make sure that people are heeding that mandatory evacuation, trying to make sure that the streets are clear this afternoon. That's what they're working to do. They want to make sure that people are safe.
Police themselves are going to be leaving this island, they're going to be crossing the bridge shortly, wanting to make sure that they can stay safe as well, not wanting anyone to ride out this storm.
Of course, Hurricane Ivan was here just 10 months ago. People having a hard time believing that they're trying to deal with another one of these storms. There's still damage along Gulf Shores from Hurricane Ivan. People are shaking their heads going, not us, not this time, not again. But Hurricane Dennis is barreling towards here. Where it will make landfall is something that we're just going to have to wait and see.
In Gulf Shores, Alabama, Jade McCarthy. Now back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
M. O'BRIEN: That was Jade McCarthy of WAFF. Thank you to her and for that matter, to all our affiliates this morning, helping us out with our coverage here.
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah, and it's kind of the $64,000 question, which is where is it going to hit, exactly when, and with what kind of a force. Because right now it's looking like a category 4 hurricane, which is stronger than Hurricane Ivan just 10 months ago.
M. O'BRIEN: And I think if you're in earshot, and you're in that part of the world, why don't you just assume the worst for now and as a result, act accordingly. For one thing, if you're at home, stay there; if you're evacuated, stay there. Don't start moving now. Hunker down wherever you may be, because it's going to get bad pretty quickly here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. We are updating you on the progress of Hurricane Dennis as it makes its way toward land. Let's get right to Mayor Lane Gilchrist. He is the mayor of Gulf Breeze in Florida, it's very close, actually, to Pensacola, Florida. He joins us live.
Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for talking to us.
MAYOR LANE GILCHRIST, GULF BREEZE, FL: Thank you for calling. S. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, first of all, give me a sense of how things are right now where you are.
GILCHRIST: Well, right now, I'm in -- sequestered in city hall. We're about ready to have a status meeting here in a few minutes, but we're buttoned up pretty tight. A guy just came to the door and said, did you know there's a tree on the front of city hall? And we didn't know that. But the winds are kicking up pretty high. I just drove over here about a half hour ago from where I'm going to stay, and the wind's blowing pretty hard, and rain, it's just what you might expect at this stage.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, one would expect exactly that, in fact. What percentage of folks heeded the advice to get out, to evacuate?
GILCHRIST: I think a pretty high percentage this time. I had to drive over into Pensacola last night, and I've never seen the city so deserted and so many things boarded up. I think people got plenty of notice this time, and due to our experience with Ivan last year, a lot more people left and we have a lot more people that have boarded up.
We put out a pile of sand and gave out sandbags, and we have just seems like hundreds of people getting sandbags to protect their home from floodwater. So I think people made a lot better preparations this time.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it certainly seems that if there is any silver lining, if it's even fair to call it that, from Hurricane Ivan it is that people are taking these warnings very seriously. Of course, Ivan is a category 3; you're looking at a category 4 now, a more powerful storm headed your way. People have to be pretty nervous about that.
GILCHRIST: Yes, they are, and we're concerned about the storm surge. The southern half of Gulf Breeze is in a flood plain, and in fact, we just got through cleaning out all of the debris from Hurricane Ivan just a month or so ago. And we're looking at more debris filling the wetlands.
S. O'BRIEN: Really. that's a story we've heard again and again. Some people are not even halfway through cleaning out all their debris and making their repairs.
How bad was the damage from Ivan?
GILCHRIST: It was pretty bad. I've been out of my house, as a personal experience, and I'm not alone on my street -- I live on the sound side of Gulf Breeze, on the south side, and I had 12 foot storm surge under my house, which sort of wiped out my house. And I'm just typical of people who lived on the south side of Gulf Breeze.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, you sound pretty calm. Where are you going to ride out the storm this time around?
GILCHRIST: Well, we're in a rental house across town. I'll probably hunker down there. But right now, I'm in city hall, which is sort of hardened. We've got real good hurricane shutters and a good roof on this thing. This is where I was during Ivan.
S. O'BRIEN: All right.
GILCHRIST: I could hear the roof groaning, but it made it.
S. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, we hope that it all goes fine for you. We'll check in with you a little bit later as well, Mayor Lane Gilchrist in Florida joining us -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: You know, we have been talking so much about Florida and Alabama -- we just got word that there is a curfew in place in a huge swath of Mississippi, in Harrison County. Cities of Biloxi, Diberville, Gulfport, Long Beach and Pass Christian having a noon local time curfew, county-ordered mandatory evacuations for mobile homes and structures not able to withstand 80 miles an hour.
So noon local time, which is of course 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.
We're going to take a break, we got lots more to talk about.
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah, we got to check in with all our correspondents. They're of course placed pretty much everywhere where we are expecting Hurricane Dennis to come onshore. And we have seen things deteriorate relatively quickly in the last hour or so. We'll check in with them once again in just a few moments. Stay with us. You're watching our special coverage of Hurricane Dennis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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