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American Morning
Hurricane Dennis Bears Down on Gulf Coast; London Bombing Investigation Continues
Aired July 10, 2005 - 06:00 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 to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miles O'Brien. We're following an extremely dangerous hurricane for you, Dennis is now Category IV, headiong for the Gulf Coast landfall before much too long.
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah. In fact we're going to take you this morning to Pensacola in Florida, also to Mobile, Alabama. We've got reporters standing by in both locations this morning.
M. O'BRIEN: And of course, we're going to be checking in, in the Weather Center frequently. Rob Marciano is in the Weather Center for the storm's latest coordinates and its possible destination.
S. O'BRIEN: But first, the very latest on Hurricane Dennis. It is a monstrous storm, monstrous in size, very menacing in its intensity. The storm is on a collision course with an area that's been battered by Hurricane Ivan just about 10 months ago.
Dennis dealt a glancing blow to the Florida Keys before it moved into the Gulf of Mexico. Once it was over the warm gulf waters, the storm strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane. Its maximum sustained winds increased to 145 miles an hour. Dennis is blamed for at least 32 deaths in the Caribbean, 10 in Cuba, 22 reported in Haiti.
We've got Rob Marciano. He's going to be with us all morning. Let's get right to him.
Hey, Rob, good morning to you.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: ... overnight. My mike should be on. How's my mike now? Can you hear my mike? OK.
This eye, you can see it directly behind me. This is an impressive storm now for sure. It is now moving north-northwesterly at about 15 miles an hour, a very distinct eye. What was amazing last night when this thing -- in a matter of, like, two hours, it went from not having an eye at all to having a very distinguished eye, and that's when the maximum winds increased.
And now we're at Category 4 strength. It is heading a little bit farther to the west of Pensacola than we first had forecast last night. So the track has shifted somewhat. Let's talk a little bit about where it is exactly and where we think it's going.
Now, finally, the eye is getting into radar range. We can always see the eye from above over the satellite, but these radars are based over land, so they only have a certain amount of range. You see the swath of the Pensacola radar, or at least the Mobile radar, sliding right through the eye wall there, which is moving in that direction.
How far or how close is it? Well, it's about 170 miles from Panama City, a little bit more than that from Biloxi. So the timing of this is about 10 hours and change to get to Mobile, Alabama. So that's a serious situation.
Here's the deal, as far as what it compares to. Obviously, we've been comparing this to Ivan of last year, which was a Category 3 when it made landfall in a similar spot. Very similar track to Hurricane Frederick for these folks, back in 1979, which was also a Category 3.
If this comes ashore as a Category 4, which is in the forecast, Miles, it'll be even worse damage, obviously. So hopefully we'll get some weakening, but right now, we don't see that happening.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Rob Marciano. Appreciate that.
As Rob told us, the storm is expected to make landfall somewhere between Pensacola, Florida, and Mobile, Alabama. We have reporters in both locations, of course. Dan Lothian is in Mobile. We begin with Randy Kaye in Pensacola -- Randy?
RANDY KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. I am here in Pensacola where a light rain has begun early this morning, and the winds are certainly kicking up. In fact, I'm told the weather is expected to be so bad here this morning that they won't be delivering the morning papers.
But I wanted to share with you yesterday's paper, because I think the story is exactly the same today on this Sunday morning. "Hurricane Dennis on the Edge," that pretty much tells the story here for folks in the Pensacola area.
Lots of folks were evacuating the beach area yesterday, including, as the beach closed yesterday about 11:00 a.m., and then we had to get off the beach area about 6:00 p.m. yesterday. We had some video to show you of the folks evacuating.
About 1 million people have evacuated the area, and they've closed the I-10 bridge, which is the bridge that connects the mainland to the beach area. And that is the very same bridge that was damaged by Hurricane Ivan back in September. And they just finished the repairs on that in January. And those are just temporary repairs.
Also, the shelters are beginning to get some more people. They hold a capacity of about 8,400 people. And late last night, at last count, there were about 2,100 people inside the shelters here in Escambia County. There are about nine shelters. And it does appear that folks are really heeding the warning this time around. Lots of folks we've talked to around this area did sit it out through Ivan, but now they've seen what Ivan can do, just as a Category 3 coming here, making landfall as a Category 3. So you can only imagine how they're feeling about the possibility of Hurricane Dennis as a Category 4, 140 mile-an-hour winds. That has lots of folks taking cover here.
And it's important to mention that the winds can be felt at 40 miles either side of the center. So they know that, even if it doesn't hit right here, they know that they can get into some trouble, and especially with there -- they're expecting now a storm surge and waves up to 19 feet.
So we have moved to higher ground, and lots of other folks have, as well. We talked to one gentleman yesterday who was sandbagging just to save his mini-golf. We met lots of folks yesterday who were boarding up their homes. And these are folks who did sit it out through Ivan, and now they are leaving town.
One guy told us yesterday, because a big concern here is still debris that hasn't been cleaned up from Ivan, so one guy said to us yesterday that he's a little concerned about his neighbor's door, which is sitting on the ground still from the damage to that house, hurling toward his house, pretty much as a projectile.
So lots of folks here still very concerned. And as the paper says from yesterday, "On the Edge" -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Randy Kaye. We'll be checking in with your frequently. Thank you very much.
Like people in Pensacola, Mobile residents have fresh memories, of course, of Hurricane Ivan, as well. And now they brace for what is likely to be a Category 4 storm. Dan Lothian is joining from there.
And, Dan, I assume people there sort of have the same feelings about it. Their memories of Ivan are very fresh, and this could be a more powerful storm.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is correct, Miles. No one has forgotten what happened during Ivan. In fact, yesterday, we were talking to a business owner who said that he received extensive water damage inside his restaurant during Ivan, and he fully expects that he will get hit quite hard this time by this hurricane, which emergency management officials fully expect will be much worse than Ivan.
Right now, the wind is relatively calm here. Every few minutes or so, you can feel the wind pick up, but certainly nothing like what is expected to hit Mobile later on throughout the day.
Now, one thing that officials, emergency management officials, have found out is, based on the current course of the hurricane, which is a little more west than they initially thought, there are some areas that they had not expected any damage or any flooding to take place based on past hurricanes. And so, based on their computer models now, they're looking at areas to evacuate folks.
What they're going to do this morning, later this morning, is to have these pickup points -- they're even using metro buses -- to go in, and pick up these folks, and move them from those areas, which, as I said, in the past, they did not expect that they would be hit hard. But they now fully expect that this hurricane will cause damage in those areas, so they want to get those folks out of there.
Yesterday, we saw a lot of people boarding up and moving out of the area. In fact, one of the major highways, I-65, is only headed northbound. They did that, reversed the lanes, so it'll make it more efficient for all the folks to get out of town. Emergency management officials telling us that some half-million people -- more than a half-million people -- have already evacuated from the area. They fully believe that more people will have to be evacuated as we move throughout the day.
I'm standing right along Mobile Bay. And behind me, you see the USS Alabama. On that ship, some of the workers of the museum are planning to ride out the storm. We've been told that some of them may have their family members with them. It's expected to be quite a sturdy place to ride out the storm.
Folks here fully expect to get hit hard by Hurricane Dennis -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Dan, is it not unlike some of the other places we've been talking about, there's still a lot of residual damage from Ivan, and that's part of the concern here?
LOTHIAN: There really is. Not as bad here as, perhaps, you see in some of the other areas like Gulf Shores, where we were earlier in the week, where you still saw a lot of homes that are still boarded up, fenced off, people waiting for insurance money, or try to get contractors.
That has been a big problem. Because of all the damage and so much rebuilding, there are not enough contractors to go around. So folks have yet to recover from Ivan, and now they're looking down another storm.
M. O'BRIEN: Dan Lothian in Mobile. We're checking in with you, as well, all throughout the day -- Soledad?
S. O'BRIEN: Well, coastal communities in Mississippi are also under a mandatory evacuation order. CNN's Peter Viles is in Gulfport this morning. He joins us on the videophone.
Hey, Peter, good morning to you. How does it look there?
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Just a light rain starting to fall, probably the same rain that Randy Kaye is getting over in Pensacola. We're about 60 miles west of Mobile. And until about 14 hours ago, they didn't think this area was going to get hit very hard. Then two things changed. The storm strengthened and it didn't take that jog to the north that people thought it would take, instead continued on a northwest direction. The result is a storm that's going to be closer to Mississippi than officials had thought even 24 hours ago.
That said, the evacuation order last night appears to be pretty orderly. No reports of congestion on the road. Two big concerns here: Obviously, the concern of what happens when the storm hits land, with coastal flooding here in the storm surge. A second concern tells you how strong this storm is.
There is a concern about hurricane-strength winds 150 miles north of here in central Mississippi, that the hurricane may be so strong that it will cut diagonally across Alabama on a northwest direction and come back into Mississippi, up to 150 miles north of here.
So that gives you some idea of the level of respect the officials are giving this storm and the level of fear it has created -- Soledad and Miles?
S. O'BRIEN: Clearly. Let me ask you a quick question, Peter. You mentioned that to some degree it's been a little bit of a surprise, it kind of headed a direction different than many people thought it might. Does that mean that they were prepared still for the storm and the brunt of the storm coming their way?
VILES: Even before it took that direction, and even before they ordered the evacuation, people here we were talking to said there was much more boarding up of stores and homes than there had been in past storms. And they say that's because of Ivan.
Even though Ivan wasn't a direct hit here, it hit the Florida Panhandle so hard. People here are very aware of that. They share the same weather systems with Florida. They saw what it did over there. So Ivan gave this area a real respect for this storm in advance, even when they didn't think they were going to get the brunt of it.
Now they're bracing for several hours of hurricane-strength winds, even if the eye comes ashore 60, 70 miles east of here, which is sort of the expectation.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, many people learn lots of lessons from Ivan. All right, Peter Viles, thanks, Peter. We'll check in with you again.
Residents of the Florida Panhandle are still recovering, in fact, from last year's powerful Hurricane Ivan. Now they face another punch from the oncoming Dennis.
Ivan came ashore last September just west of Pensacola, Florida. It's path, you can see right here on that red line on your left there. Dennis is the moving line on the map. It's projected to hit in nearly the identical spot.
M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, we go live to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. We'll get the very latest on the strength of Dennis and the current projections of when and where it will make landfall.
Stay with us. We are your hurricane headquarters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Hurricane Dennis has already left a trail of destruction in the Caribbean. The hurricane blamed for 32 deaths in Cuba and in Haiti.
Our Havana bureau chief, Lucia Newman, reports on the aftermath of the storm's rampage across Cuba.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is where Hurricane Dennis said good-bye to the island of Cuba, exiting shortly after midnight with winds of up to 105 miles, or 168 kilometers an hour.
"It was very strong, incredibly noisy. It blew the shingles right off our roof," said Beatrice Gonzalez (ph) from Guanado Beach (ph) on the outskirts of the capital.
Havana awoke to find power had not been reestablished. Downed trees and branches strewn all over the capital, a testament to the ferocity with which this storm flogged the Caribbean's largest island. In all, more than 1.4 million people were evacuated from low-lying areas and unsafe homes and buildings throughout Cuba.
More than 16,000 of them foreign tourists who'd come here expecting to find sun and sand, and who instead got trapped in a hurricane that, for the month of July, is extremely rare.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a little bit scary in the beginning, but it was good. We have no problem.
NEWMAN: Damage was worst in southeastern Cuba, where downed power and communications lines, as well as destruction to homes, was significant. Ten people were killed in eastern Cuba.
Earlier, Dennis took at least 22 lives in Haiti while it was making its way towards Cuba. Massive mudslides and flooding again taking a tragic toll on that impoverished country which still hasn't recovered from last year's hurricanes.
In Cuba, the job of trying to get back to normal is already underway. All in all, the people of Havana are counting their blessings, although many say they see Hurricane Dennis as a kind of an appetizer for what experts predict will be a particularly long and vicious hurricane season.
Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE) M. O'BRIEN: Well, at the National Hurricane Center, I doubt they're calling it an appetizer this morning. Ed Rappaport is there watching it for us.
Ed, good to have you back with us. Why don't you just give us a position report right now, and tell us an idea of where it's headed?
ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: OK. Yes, good morning. The center now is located about 175 miles to the south-southeast of Pensacola, Florida. And we expect the landfall to occur near Pensacola, perhaps a little east of there, to just west of the Mobile area.
In fact, if we switch to another graphic, you can see where we think the impact will be greatest. And that's in this area of red here extending, again, from just east of Pensacola to near Gulfport. This is where hurricane-force winds are likely to occur.
We did have a transformation overnight, much more intense hurricane. And a smaller hurricane, in terms of the extent of the damaging winds.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, but let's -- for folks who are watching right now, and they see -- and they say, "Well, I'm not in that red zone. I shouldn't be worried," let's offer up a cautionary few words to them.
RAPPAPORT: Absolutely. There is still some chance of a variation to the right or to the left, and that's why we have hurricane warnings up for a significantly larger area. Again, we have seen storms that have veered off just a little at the end, and that's all it would take to move those hurricane-force winds farther east along the Florida Panhandle or maybe west into Mississippi.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think a lot of people remember from last year the lesson of the Charley. That was one where the cone was very wide and people presumed it was going to head right for Tampa, and of course, it took that jog down toward Punta Gorda at the last minute.
Are there winds aloft that would suggest this hurricane could do the same?
RAPPAPORT: It could do the same. Those fine-scale or small- scale fluctuations are very hard to forecast. And that's why we have to have a larger warning, and I'm glad you brought that up. We want everybody in this area to be prepared, because this is going to be a destructive hurricane.
Category 4 is close to the top of the scale. We're going to have storm surge on the order of 10 feet, with waves on top of that. So a hurricane that, in its structure and intensity now is somewhat similar to last year's Hurricane Charley.
M. O'BRIEN: Of course, when we talk about Ivan, which is what people in this part of the world remember -- that was Category 3 -- we're talking about Category 4 now. Give people a sense of how much of a difference that makes, this storm being that much more powerful.
RAPPAPORT: It's different in two ways. One, it's smaller than Ivan, but, two, it is stronger. So there will be much more destruction from the wind and a storm surge right in near the center of the hurricane. Not as much damage on the outside.
But again, we don't know exactly where that core is going to wind up. So you do have to be prepared throughout this coastal region.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the surge. Big numbers on the storm surge being predicted right now, in excess of 15 feet in some places?
RAPPAPORT: That's possible. We're making some adjustments right now. Because, fortunately, the size of the inner core has shrunk, that also brings down the surge a little bit. But we're still expecting, perhaps, 10 feet of surge, and then the waves are going to ride on top of that near and just to the east of where the center comes ashore.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Without getting too technical here, let's talk about how these eye walls form, collapse, and then re-form. And the timing of this whole process has a lot to do with how strong the storm will be when it makes landfall. Can you give us a little sense of that, in other words, how the storm will be waxing and waning throughout the day?
RAPPAPORT: Yes, absolutely. The smaller storms, like this one, tend to undergo their changes in intensity more quickly. So like we saw yesterday, while it slowly gained strength, then went through a period of very rapid intensification, we're hoping that we also see the reverse, although we're not predicting that now. Because very small storms can collapse quickly.
We're hoping that occurs. But again, we're not going to be planning for that. We expect Category 4 conditions to make it to the coast.
M. O'BRIEN: OK. So we should assume Category 4. We'll hope it collapses. But at this point, no predictions for that?
RAPPAPORT: That's right. We have to be prepared for Category 4 and hope that it does weaken a little bit before landfall. But no indications of that at this moment.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Ed Rappaport, long day ahead. We'll be checking in with you all through the day. Thank you very much.
RAPPAPORT: Thank you.
S. O'BRIEN: And you are absolutely right. It's going to be a very long day ahead. And that is why, in fact, we are asking our viewers to help join our coverage of Hurricane Dennis as citizen journalists. If you've got any storm-related pictures, you can e-mail them to us. Here's a couple from Susan in Punta Gorda in Florida. You can see the flooded streets. The palm trees are whipped by the wind. We've got another picture here, as well, of high water. Punta Gorda is on the west coast of Florida, just north of Fort Myers.
So here's our e-mail address if you want to send you videotape and your pictures. It's CNN.com/hurricane. An obvious word of caution for anyone who wants to help us out as a citizen journalist: Please don't do anything risky. Keep safe.
M. O'BRIEN: I think in Punta Gorda they know that lesson well after Charley. They do.
S. O'BRIEN: The whole area, I think, that is now destined, frankly, to be hit, they know this is going to be tough. I mean, people have definitely learned their lesson from Hurricane Ivan.
M. O'BRIEN: In the hardest way possible. All right.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, this is a very special edition of AMERICAN MORNING on a Sunday morning.
You know this area as Margaritaville. This weekend, though, Key West, more like shaken and stirred. We're going to tell you how the tip of Florida fared after its brush with Hurricane Dennis. That's ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: More than a million people along the Gulf Coast had already been ordered to evacuate. In Pensacola, Florida, officials say those who haven't left by now might not be able to get out.
Matthew Lopez is the Escambia County chief of emergency management. He's live in Pensacola this morning.
Matthew, thanks for talking with us. We certainly appreciate your time, because I know you're very busy. Give me a sense of how prepared you feel this morning.
MATTHEW LOPEZ, ESCAMBIA COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Well, again, thank you for having us. And as far as preparation goes, I think we're about the most prepared division of emergency management in the state of Florida right now.
S. O'BRIEN: The governor says that you can enact a mandatory curfew through tomorrow if you so desire. What will be the thing that makes you go ahead with a curfew?
LOPEZ: Well, first things first, we want this hurricane to blow through and have a good, coordinated effort with our sheriff's office, our police department in Pensacola and our municipalities, as well as our emergency management officials and our elected officials before we go and implement a curfew.
One will be coming in, but we want to coordinate with all teams first. So this could be one voice, one unison curfew.
S. O'BRIEN: How have you seen the people who took off and decided to evacuate? Was it orderly? Was it less than orderly? How would you describe it?
LOPEZ: Well, this was probably one of the most orchestrated evacuations I've ever seen. We issued the evacuation order on Friday night at 6:00 p.m. And I'll tell you, this morning, I took an extra- long drive in. I drove about 28 miles in the county this morning going to the EOC. I noticed six cars on the road. Four were my sheriff's officers, and two were locals.
So it's amazing. There are so many little notes of inspiration out on the buildings out here that say, "We will be back." And it's a testament to the people in Escambia County. They did evacuate.
S. O'BRIEN: Has that evacuation -- how much of it is, do you think, a testament to people learning the lessons from Hurricane Ivan?
LOPEZ: I'd say the higher side of 100 percent.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, Ivan was the worst thing that we've ever seen here in Escambia County to date as far as a hurricane goes. And right now, Dennis is predicted to be even a little stronger than that. So people definitely learned their lesson during Ivan, and it shows.
S. O'BRIEN: So then two questions for you. Psychologically, when people were devastated by Ivan, and then they hear Dennis, which is going to be worse, is going to roll through, how psychologically are people dealing with that, do you think?
LOPEZ: Well, I'll tell you. People in Escambia County are the most resilient people I think you will ever meet. And they, you know, like I say, have already had signs out in from of their businesses saying, "Bring it on," signs saying, "We will be back."
Psychologically, I think most of the people here are prepared. There's a synergism and a sense of community in this area. And it's neighbor helping neighbor. So the minute that they're allowed back to their home, you'll see one neighbor helping another.
S. O'BRIEN: How many folks had finished doing their work, repairing from Hurricane Ivan, where they kind of had to stop and get out of town? I mean, what percentage is the city and the area rebuilt after Ivan?
LOPEZ: Well, there's a large percentage that remains in the building phases right now. There has been some difficulty with people settling with their insurance companies, people trying to find licensed contractors to come in and repair their house. Contractors have been very, very overwhelmed with workloads coming into Escambia County.
So there is a large percentage that are building or have maybe just almost hit the final stages of finishing. However, with Dennis coming, all you can do is prepare, and stay aware, and now they've acted.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, hopefully it's not going to be back to square one once Dennis rolls through. Matthew Lopez, the Escambia County chief of emergency management. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
M. O'BRIEN: Evacuation is the order across coastal Alabama, as well as Hurricane Dennis moves closer to landfall. Mobile, Alabama, one of the many places lying directly in the projected path, that cone that we have been talking about.
Joining us now is Mobile Mayor Michael Dow.
Mr. Mayor, good to have you with us. Tell us about the evacuations, mandatory evacuations. Have they gone well?
MICHAEL DOW, MAYOR OF MOBILE, ALABAMA: Yes, good morning, Miles. Here we go again. I think the evacuations going extremely well. A lot of folks have stayed, but hopefully they're hunkered down. We're trying to get this morning people to realize on the coastal areas, "OK, it didn't go down. It went up. And let's get out of the coastal area and get to a shelter."
We're opening a new shelter at Causey School here in Mobile. And spending a lot of time with public housing, trying to make sure people are fully aware, and communicated with, and have one more chance to get out of these areas that could be in harm's way. So I think things are going as well as can be expected.
M. O'BRIEN: Mayor, you bring up a very important point here, because at a certain point, it's better for people to stay put. When is that point? And are you encouraging folks to make a move quickly this morning?
DOW: Well, it's getting very close, yes. We've got a couple- hour window here. We're hoping people will take a serious effort -- try a friend, if you have a friend who lives in a place that's maybe safer than yours. If you're a mobile home or in a coastal area, take this next hour or two -- hopefully they'll be watching all the communications this morning -- and just get to better, safer ground.
M. O'BRIEN: Why do you think people -- I mean, you've lived there a long time -- why do you think people are so insistent on staying in their homes?
DOW: Well, I think many times you're here for a decade or two, and the storms always miss, and you just don't feel that sense of anxiety. I think Ivan probably has given us that sense this is real. I think everybody expects this hurricane is real.
I'm not sure everybody realizes that it's easing up to, you know, a Category 4. And if it hits at that speed, it's going to be unprecedented since about 1978, when we had Frederick sit on top of us a long time and cause quite a bit of damage. M. O'BRIEN: I remember Frederick well. And that did cause a tremendous amount of damage in Mobile. It took a lot of years for your city to recover.
DOW: Well, much of the young people weren't even born then, and so, you know, we're in a different time. You know, we're as prepared as we can be. We're very prepared for the aftermath. And you know, we do a good job at that.
Our biggest concern is getting people out of harm's way, and that's my number-one objective here in the next few hours.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. And so I assume you're doing everything you can to get the word out. Hopefully, people are watching television this morning. Are you going door-to-door? Do you have the kind of manpower to do that?
DOW: Well, in some areas we are. It's a little bit late for a lot of the door-to-door stuff, and not much time here. But I'm standing out in the rain trying to get the word out as best I can, and all of our people are.
And we really appreciate you guys taking an interest and helping us. This is very helpful to have you take this kind of national interest and be here at our time of need. And we appreciate it.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Mayor Michael Dow, we wish you and your city the best all through this day.
DOW: Thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: Stay in close contact -- Soledad?
S. O'BRIEN: We are watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We are your hurricane headquarters this morning. In just a few minutes, we're going to check in with Rob Marciano for the very latest on where Hurricane Dennis is headed.
Stay with us. We've got a short break. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We are your hurricane headquarters this morning.
In just a few minutes, we're going to check in with Rob Marciano for the very latest on where Hurricane Dennis is headed.
Stay with us. We've got a short break. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Just about half past the hour on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We are your hurricane headquarters here.
S. O'BRIEN: Coming up this morning, we're going to talk to a member of the Alabama National Guard. His unit is task force headquarters for Hurricane Dennis. The same unit responded to Hurricane Ivan. We're going to find out some of the lessons that were learned from that storm.
M. O'BRIEN: Rob Marciano is watching the storm from the Weather Center, and he joins us now with an update on the position and direction of this Category 4 storm, which is a one to reckon with, right -- Rob?
MARCIANO: That's for sure. And you know Ed Rappaport, just about 20 minutes ago, brought up a number of good points. It's a Category 4 storm, yes, not quite as big as Ivan. A tightly clustered storm, as far as the amount of really, really strong winds. Much like Charlie was, which came in to Punta Gorda last year in through this area. And when it did that, it literally leveled and wiped out much of that town.
So, you know with weather, there's always a catch 22 it seems. This particular storm extremely strong, the winds tightly clustered, so it shouldn't affect as many people as a wider, weaker storm. But the people that do get hit are going to get hit hard.
And let's go over the track of this thing. First of all, there is the eye. It looks like there's going to be fluctuations in intensity. And these bigger, stronger storms will go through these what we call eyewall replacement cycles. Meaning, one, there'll be a couple of eyewalls that kind of fight with each other, one will collapse, another one will take over. And when that happens, it'll weaken just a little bit.
Looks like we may be going through one of that -- one of those cycles now. But Ed also mentioned, in these stronger storms, those, and smaller storms, that happens quite rapidly. So, if we could time it so that we go through one of those cycles on the weak side as it makes landfall that would be perfect. We'll see if that happens as we get closer to it.
So here's the forecast track. Still later on this afternoon, probably late afternoon it looks like at this point, for the eye to make landfall. And it looks like it's going to slice, according to this forecast, right up the gut of Mobile.
This is the same track that Frederic took back in 1979. Ivan kind of came in this way, missed Mobile just to the east. Frederic in '79 came right up the gut in a diagonal manner like that, but it was a Category 3 storm. So hopefully we'll get some weakening.
Steinhatchee River westward towards the Pearl River, we still have hurricane warnings in effect, meaning that hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours. They listed this warning yesterday. So we do expect to see hurricane conditions here in the next several hours. Probably as the sun comes up, well I guess it's doing that now, but closer to lunchtime or Sunday brunch time you'll start to see -- you're going to start to see some action all the way east, around the big bend and towards the mouth of the Pascagoula River. I should also mention the rivers here are going to have a bit of an effect. A lot of the buoys out here, most of them, are reporting 83 degree-plus water temperatures. So that's one of the reasons that it has strengthened and kept its strength.
There are, you know, eddies and little -- a lot of little rivers. The Mobile River comes out, the Pascagoula River comes out. You know hard to forecast exactly what kind of effect that will have on water temperatures. But last year when Ivan came ashore, it did weaken just a little bit as it came onshore. So hopefully that will happen, Soledad, later on today.
But in the meantime, out ahead of this system, a tornado watch is out for much of the Florida Panhandle. So even though we have several hours before landfall, dangerous weather looms here. And obviously, things will get worse as we go through the morning.
Back to you.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Rob, thanks a lot.
MARCIANO: You bet.
S. O'BRIEN: Well forecasters place the possible landfall for Dennis somewhere between, as Rob just said, Pensacola, Florida and Mobile, Alabama. We've got reporters at those borders. We're going to get to Randi Kaye in Pensacola in just a moment.
First, though, let's get right to Dan Lothian. He's in Mobile for us.
Hey, Dan, good morning.
LOTHIAN: Good morning, Soledad.
Well here they are bracing. Emergency Management officials, along with the residents who are away from the low-lying areas, are bracing for Hurricane Dennis. More than a half million people have already evacuated.
We're standing right along Mobile Bay. And you're wondering -- you might be wondering what that ship is behind me. It's part of a museum. It's the USS Alabama. There are also some larger airplanes there. They moved a lot of the airplanes from that museum inside of hangars, but there are still some there. They've been tied down. They're hoping that those airplanes will still be there after Hurricane Dennis comes through.
There are some workers from the museum. We're told some of the employees who are planning on riding out the storm on the ship. They've also brought on, we are told, some of their family members. It is buried in mud there, so they expect that to be a pretty sturdy place to ride out the storm.
Now the mayor is very concerned that some of the folks who have yet to evacuate are still in place. He said he's especially concerned about the housing projects. Those are areas he said that in the past they have not moved out of because they just felt like there was not a reason to be concerned so far inland.
But based on computer models, they have looked at the computer models, comparing them to now the projected path of that storm, and they believe that there are certain areas that has not been impacted in the past that will be impacted this time. So what they will be doing is taking some of the metro buses and going to certain pick up points, picking up some of those folks, taking them to shelters.
The mayor also telling me that they will be riding in those buses through the housing projects, encouraging folks to get on those buses and get out of there and go to some of the shelters. Already about half of the shelters are at capacity. The mayor said an additional shelter has been opened. So they are bracing here for this storm, fully expecting that it will be worse than anything they have ever seen before -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: It is amazing to hear that when you consider the damage that they had been through before that some people are still holding out on those evacuations.
Dan Lothian for us, he is in Mobile. Dan, we'll check back in with you in just a little bit.
Pensacola, Florida's mayor told us on Friday that he expects it's going to take the city about four years to recover from last September's Hurricane Ivan. Now a potentially more powerful storm shadowing its shores.
Randi Kaye is in Pensacola this morning. She's got an update for us.
Hey, Randi, good morning again.
KAYE: Good morning again, Soledad.
Just spoke with the Office of Emergency Management here and they tell us that we can expect sustained tropical winds beginning here in about 45 minutes. Those would be winds upwards of 35 miles an hour. Right now the trees are certainly blowing here. It's still raining. We're probably looking at about 25 miles an hour right now. So those sustained tropical winds expected here shortly.
Dennis is actually -- Hurricane Dennis is actually expected to be through this area of Escambia County, we're told, by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. It's expected to hit here some time this afternoon between 3:00 and 5:00.
And what's frustrating, as you've been mentioning all morning, is the fact that they still have not been able to clean up from Ivan, which hit here in September of last year. There is still plenty of debris and plenty of blue tarp on roofs. There are still boats turned sideways lying around in the wetlands here. They just can't get to it. And what they're most concerned about this time around is are the beaches, actually. Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key, right now, they are smack in the middle of a dune replenishment project. They've just begun that project. So this is absolutely the worst timing for Hurricane Dennis to be coming through here.
Lots of folks evacuated yesterday. They don't have a mandatory evacuation here in Escambia County, but it certainly was strongly suggested. Heavy traffic going through that for the evacuations. The shelters are getting filled up, lots of folks heeding the warning here. Two shelters are full. Still 3,200 spaces left for folks who are looking for some shelter. But I'm told by the Office of Emergency Management, Soledad, that the time to go to the shelter is right now. Do not wait.
S. O'BRIEN: Anybody who is thinking about it should just go.
Randi Kaye for us this morning. Randi, obviously we're going to check in with you throughout the morning, thanks -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Alabama's governor is warning coastal residents don't even think about riding this one out. Mandatory evacuations are in effect. National Guard troops have been mobilized to help out with all of this.
Major Matt Haley is with the Alabama National Guard. He joins us on the phone now from Mobile.
Major Haley, good to have you with us. We just talked to the mayor there, and he was harkening back to Hurricane Frederic. I was looking up a little bit of information on Frederic, two out of three structures in Mobile were damaged by Hurricane Frederic in 1979. When you hear that, you must get nervous.
MAJOR MATT HALEY, ALABAMA NATIONAL GUARD: Well, we do have concerns because you always have to take hurricanes seriously. You never do know what they're going to do. And what you have to do is just implement our civil and military support plans and procedures, many of which were developed, verified and improved upon from Hurricane Ivan. And we're prepared to respond to requests or for assistance as they occur.
M. O'BRIEN: Well give us a sense of the plan there.
HALEY: Well what we're doing right now is a lot of preparatory work. And, like I said, a lot of lessons learned from Ivan. Pre- positioning people, equipment and a lot of it, a lot of our work will begin after the hurricane goes through.
M. O'BRIEN: Now when you say pre-positioning, you have to kind of guess where the hurricane is coming. You do that properly. And you also, potentially, put people in harm's way, don't you?
HALEY: Sure, that's part of the nature of our job. But what we have to do is put liaison officers with the Emergency Management operation centers throughout the lower state of Alabama. M. O'BRIEN: What is your biggest concern right now then about your ability to respond to this problem?
HALEY: Our biggest concern right now is to protect the lives and the property and the citizens of Alabama. And as soon as the hurricane goes through, we want to ensure that we can get the cities back to a normal operating function. And that's our concern, we want to protect the lives and property, the citizens of Alabama.
M. O'BRIEN: Major Matt Haley with the Alabama National Guard who is girding for what could be a long day and long night and a few days to come. Thank you for your time, and good luck to you and your people.
HALEY: Thank you -- sir.
M. O'BRIEN: All right -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, as Londoners try to recover from last week's horror, a suspicious package prompts evacuation orders in Birmingham, England. We've got more details on that story just ahead on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
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M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back to our special edition of AMERICAN MORNING on this Sunday morning. We're keeping an eye on Hurricane Dennis, of course.
But we also want to update you on the investigation into the London terror bombings. First, pictures coming in to us this morning from church services in London. Happened a little while ago. People mourning the victim's of Thursday's attacks. Praying for peace, as well.
There was a scare last night about 100 miles north of London, a section of the city of Birmingham was evacuated after someone spotted a suspicious package. Police say there was no explosive device, however.
In London, police are disclosing new details, meanwhile, about Thursday's bombing on three subway lines and a bus.
CNN's Paula Hancocks is outside the King's Cross station with the latest -- Paula.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Miles.
Well people are continuing to come here to King's Cross to lay flowers to mourn the victims of Thursday morning's bombing. There are tremendous amounts of flowers here, people are lighting candles, and they're also leaving flags from all over the world. We've seen American, Canadian, Australian, South African flags. Also one Union Jack, the British flag, which had the words we're all Londoners written across it. And then all around it, it had Muslim and Seiks (ph), Jewish, Christians, Hindu, Buddhists, just to show that everyone is together against the perpetrators of this attack.
Also, there are many church services, as you say, going on across London, mourning the victims of Thursday morning's bombings and also thinking about those that are still missing. It's thought that about two dozen people are still unaccounted for. There are posters all around King's Cross station of pictures of those who are missing as relatives and friends desperately trying to find out any news about them at all.
Just around the corner, about three blocks away, at St. Pancras Church, there is a memorial service going on. This is a church where many of the victims and many of the injured and the evacuated from King's Cross and from Tavistock Square, where the bus blew up, were taken in the minutes and hours after the attacks.
Also, as you say, there was a great security alert 100 miles north from here in Britain's second largest city, Birmingham. About 20,000 people, it is thought, were evacuated from the city center from the entertainment district of Birmingham last night. The police said they had real and credible specific threats. They didn't give any details about that intelligence, but they said they made no apology about the grand evacuation because they said that security and the safety of the people is a tantamount -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: OK. All right, thank you very much, Paula Hancocks, appreciate it -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: In London this morning, the very grim task of recovering bodies goes on following the attacks that killed more than 50 people on Thursday. Our next guest witnessed the bus bombing, quickly responded to help victims.
Stephanie Akuei is an American Ph.D. student in London. She's in our London bureau this morning.
Stephanie, thanks for talking with us. Give me a sense of what you first saw? And did you think it was a bomb?
STEPHANIE AKUEI, WITNESSED BUS BOMBING: Excuse me?
S. O'BRIEN: Give me a sense, can you tell us, describe for us what you first saw?
AKUEI: Well it was a combination of a very, very eerie, surreal silence, combined with just total devastation of human and material debris spread all over the area.
S. O'BRIEN: When you first heard the explosion of the bus, did you know or did you think it was a bomb or did you have no idea what it was?
AKUEI: I have to say I did not think it was a bomb. I was immediately thinking of the sound I've heard from implosions of buildings during my time in northern California. And I didn't know what it was at all, although many people started to stream towards me.
S. O'BRIEN: We're looking at some pictures.
AKUEI: So there was some urgency.
S. O'BRIEN: We're looking at pictures of that bus, and it's just mangled. I mean complete wreckage. You ran over to help. What sorts of things were you able to do?
AKUEI: Well I have very rudimentary first aid skills, but I knew that they could be put to use somehow. So I just rushed to the scene and tried to do as much as I could do. We were wrapping wounds. First of all, just looking for people who were alive. There were obviously people who were not alive. And tried to help as much as I could with some of the medical professionals who showed up by holding drips, administering oxygen, consoling people. People who were very aware, who were still awake, trying to console them that everything would be OK.
S. O'BRIEN: Were those people panicking? Were they calm?
AKUEI: You know it's very hard to put into words. There were obviously people who were in extreme distress and they expressed it very loudly. And there were other people who were probably in distress very silently.
S. O'BRIEN: Obviously you've had a little time to reflect on all of this in the few days since this bombing. How does the city seem to you now, quiet, give me a description?
AKUEI: Well I have decided not to travel very far over these few days. And it just feels very, very unsettling, and especially knowing that a bomb went off in an area where you would least expect it.
S. O'BRIEN: How long have you been living in London?
AKUEI: For a number of years now while studying.
S. O'BRIEN: And you're expecting to stay?
AKUEI: I'm expecting to finish.
S. O'BRIEN: It must feel like your security, obviously, very undermined when this happens sort of on your daily trek wherever you're going.
AKUEI: Well I happened to be -- I happened to have made a detour on that day. I normally on that day walk down that street at exactly that time and possibly would have taken that bus. So it is very unsettling to know that I might have been there.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I can imagine. Well, Stephanie Akuei in London, thank you for talking with us. Appreciate it.
AKUEI: You're welcome.
S. O'BRIEN: Miles. M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, as Hurricane Dennis bears down on the Gulf Coast, we're reminded there are some obvious downsides to living in paradise. You see the results there. But beachcombers say it's all worth it, there's no better place to live. That story is next. Stay with us and AMERICAN MORNING your hurricane headquarters.
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S. O'BRIEN: Some of the homes in the path of Hurricane Dennis still bear the scars from Ivan just 10 months ago. And some residents whose home were wiped out, homes, rather, were wiped out by that storm haven't even had the time to rebuild.
Susan Roesgen of affiliate WGNO reports from Pensacola Beach in Florida.
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SUSAN ROESGEN, WGNO-TV REPORTER (voice-over): This is the Florida dream, to be able to live right along the beach. And the people who do live here are willing to take the risk that comes with that dream.
(on camera): Here's a little snapshot of Pensacola Beach before Dennis gets here. Right where I'm standing used to be a house, a pretty good sized one, but Ivan wiped it out. In fact, all over this neighborhood you'll see empty lots that used to be houses.
Let me show you something across the street here. This is one of those old 1950's cinderblock houses. You can see that Ivan did a lot of damage to it. It's still standing, but it isn't livable. So in front of it now is this not-so-great FEMA RV. The government has provided hundreds of these in the Pensacola area for people who aren't able to live in their homes and they're living in these RVs.
Now the guy who lives here says he's going to leave, he's going to evacuate, but he's never really going to leave the beach. People who come out here love this lifestyle. He's just waiting for Dennis to knock out the rest of his house, probably knock out that RV, and then he's going to build again.
KATHY GIBBS (ph), RESIDENT: I bought dog-ear pickets and I just put them all in here and they stayed. So I'm hoping it works again.
ROESGEN (voice-over): Here's another one of those 1950's cottages. Kathy Gibbs fixed it up and just bought brand new furniture to replace the brand new furniture Ivan ruined. Two hurricanes in less than a year are no match for a woman determined to save her little place on the beach.
GIBBS: Yes, a lot of people would like to see it knocked down and put up a big, beautiful home. But even if I had $100 million this is what I want and I want to keep it just like it is.
(END VIDEOTAPE) S. O'BRIEN: That was Susan Roesgen of CNN affiliate WGNO for that report. She was reporting from Pensacola Beach in Florida -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, don't go anywhere, unless you need to evacuate, in which case we invite you to evacuate. But we'll be back with more hurricane coverage after the break. We'll check back with our reporters. They are blanketing the Gulf Coast, and maybe they're doing a little praying too, we don't know. And we'll have an update from the National Hurricane Center. We are your hurricane headquarters. Stay with us for a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
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