Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Surveying the Aftermath of Hurricane Dennis

Aired July 11, 2005 - 06:28   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. The sun is coming up along the Florida panhandle, and we're following the aftermath of Dennis for you. We'll have the complete forecast. As the storm is now a tropical depression, it moves on and causes havoc elsewhere.
We'll also take you live to St. Marks, Florida. This is one of the spots that really got hit. Look at this flooding. Meteorologist Chad Myers naturally is there.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, we're going to talk to one Gulf Coast resident. She decided not to evacuate, road out the storm at home. She did the same thing during Hurricane Ivan. We'll see how she did this time around.

M. O'BRIEN: Right now, let's check the headlines, though. And for that, we go to Kelly Wallace.

Good morning -- Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Mile. And good morning to all of you.

Here are some of those stories "Now in the News."

A state of emergency is posted in southern Colorado. A fast- moving wildfire has quadrupled in size to more than 8,000 acres. At least 750 homes and other structures are threatened. About 1,000 people have evacuated.

A hail of gunfire ends a long standoff in south Los Angeles. A man who had barricaded himself in a house with a number of weapons was killed. Police officers shot and killed the man when he came out of the house and opened fire. A baby girl he was holding also was killed, but it's not clear who fired the shot that hit and killed her. One police officer was wounded.

In London, investigators are asking for the public's help in the search for clues to last week's deadly bomb attacks. Police are asking commuters to send in pictures and video taken with camera phones at the bomb sites. Authorities have warned Britain could face more terrorist attacks.

President Bush says the London bombings give new urgency to the war on terror. The president will deliver a progress report today. He is giving a speech at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia. And, of course, you can count on CNN for live coverage, beginning at 10:40 a.m. Eastern.

And you could call it panda-monium. There is a new bundle of joy at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. The zoo's giant pandas have a new cub, born over the weekend. You can't see it too well, but the panda can. It's providing the first pictures of mama and cub. The cub -- get this -- is about the size of a stick of butter and weighs just ounces. It won't make its public debut for at least three months.

That gets you caught up. Now back to Soledad and Miles, who are working around the clock. Great job, you guys, yesterday.

S. O'BRIEN: Kelly, thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, thank you, Kelly.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you for noticing that we've been working around the clock.

WALLACE: And around the clock and around the clock.

S. O'BRIEN: Sleep, sleep.

WALLACE: Right, who needs it?

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Kelly, thanks.

WALLACE: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: I like that little stick of butter, the panda. How cute!

M. O'BRIEN: Panda-monium (ph). I mean, really, you can't bear it, can you?

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get serious now...

M. O'BRIEN: Press on, press on.

S. O'BRIEN: ... as we press on and check in on the ram -- remnants, rather, of Hurricane Dennis and see how the storm might be affecting your day today.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Dennis brought with it some huge storm surges, reaching up to 10 feet. Many communities in the coast ended up with more water than they could handle. One of those places -- we've been telling you about it this morning -- is St. Marks. And that is where Chad Myers has made his way this morning.

Chad, did you see a lot of flooding along the way as well? Or is this -- is it kind of localized in this spot?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This is localized. This is all wind-driven water from the Gulf of Mexico that was blown up into a bay. The bay -- at the top of that bay is St. Marks.

Here is what happened. Here is the peninsula of Florida. The wind has been blowing for hours from the south. That south wind blew water right on up here into Appalachia Bay. And right on the top of Appalachia Bay is St. Marks. That's the town we're in right now.

As that wind blew and blew for hours and hours and hours, think of it like you're cooling your coffee right now. And as you blow the top of your coffee, you're blowing that coffee away from you and onto the other side of the cup. The water was blowing from Tampa, St. Pete all the way up here and pushed right on up into St. Marks.

And the water was right up to the bottom of that sign right here. And on the other side into the marina, boats were pushed around. Some pictures from yesterday, six feet deep where I'm standing right now. Boats were lifted up. Covered boats in a covered marina were lifted right and pushed -- shoved right into the top of the marina itself, the roof of the marina and destroyed there. Boats were also moved around in the marina.

And obviously folks are here. A lot of homes are not on stilts. They don't see this kind of flooding. They had some flooding here back in the '80s, about '85-'86, but nothing like this. They've never seen this before. And this was salt water, not fresh water flooding. This was actually the salt water from the Gulf of Mexico blowing back up the rivers, and then rising here where I'm standing right now.

We'll have more to come here. The American Red Cross is on the way. And we will have more on what's coming up today for the folks here, what they can expect with all of this basically salt water in all of their homes and everything that they own.

Back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, Chad, let's pull the camera back just a little bit and give us the lay of the land. The water has receded a little bit, right?

MYERS: The water -- oh, the water is absolutely gone. As the wind shifted direction a little bit just in from the west now, not in from the south all day, the water went down very rapidly. But the problem is that it also went up very rapidly. There, maybe you can see the quanson (ph) hut-like type building over there, where the boats were stored, all under-cover boats. Typically an under-cover boat is a more expensive boat, because you want to pay for that undercover rather than just leave it out in the open. They were all lifted up six to eight feet, and they all slammed into the roof of that quanson (ph) hut cover. That shields the marina over there.

And as that came up, the water also came up in the marina, lifted boats out of the water, lifted them across their piers. And we have a lot of boats actually if you go off here. And we'll get some pictures for you later. It was too dark to get there this morning. But as we take a look at that, the boats came up. They got moved back on land. Then they got dropped down, and they're nowhere near where they were. They're nowhere near the water anymore. They're sitting in people's back yards.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thank you very much. We'll check back in with you in just a little while. Appreciate it -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, as Hurricane Dennis struck the Florida coast at 120 miles an hour, CNN's Rick Sanchez spent the day in Hurricane One, which is our mobile storm unit, recording some of the day's most dramatic scenes.

Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in Panama City, and I was here less than a year ago covering this very same storm -- or just outside of it, I should say. These are people who are used to this. They're expecting something similar to what they experienced last time.

And they have pretty much evacuated this entire area. The area we're in right now is all but a ghost town.

The most precarious place to be is where we are, the north-west quadrant of the hurricane. That's where you get a lot of your tornadic activity. They will obviously come in and do a lot of damage. Those winds are clocked in excess by at least another half, sometimes double, what you get on the main winds.

You're seeing now that the actual pumps are starting to fall over. Many of the tops that are made of aluminum are coming off.

If you move -- Michael, move up just a little bit. We're going to show them. This one is already starting to teeter and totter itself. And it looks like it could go as well.

And expect -- expect, if this is indeed a cat. 4 as expected, an hour-and-a-half from now when it comes onshore with maximum-force winds, that this aluminum roof, like on many other of these gas stations, will likely either peel off or fly off altogether.

This is salt water, all right? And it's essentially the Gulf of Mexico has overtaken the land and has now also overtaken Highway 98. And this is now an impassable road.

We have now doubled back. What we're trying to do now is we've gotten this report that there's a roof collapse at a hotel in Crestview.

Take a look behind me. That is what is left of a hotel here in Crestview. As the wind continues to blow in off this area, it has literally -- I don't know if you can see that, Stu (ph). Are you hard on that? Yes. I don't know if you can see that, but literally it has just ripped the aluminum sheeting off of the roof completely.

We've taken the vehicle now, our Hurricane One, since we are mobile, and we we've been able to come to the other side of the building. And that's what we found out. As residents were pointing in that direction, you could see the roof has fallen on top of a power line, pulled down the power line and pulled down the transformer. As the transformer got pressure on it, it started to spark.

And that's why moments ago firefighters arrived here on the scene, as well as some members of fire rescue. It doesn't appear they're going to try and do anything to it, and I think they're going to back off. That just looks to me like a very, very dangerous situation.

It's a power line that has just crashed onto the road. Part of the road is -- it almost appears like the power line is coming out of the middle of the road.

When you've covered these storms for many years, you realize that whatever you think the damage is, it never quite realizes it that way, because the next day when you wake up and you look around, you find out that there's a lot more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Rick Sanchez with an amazing odyssey there in Hurricane One, showing us -- really, he showed us a lot of the storm's damage as it happened. It was pretty fascinating.

Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a firsthand perspective of Hurricane Dennis from someone who knows. We'll talk with the owner of Nick's New York Restaurant, and we'll tell him, first of all, he's in the wrong place. It's not New York, no. We'll ask him how he rode the thing out, why he decided to do it, and if he'd do it again. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The Red Cross, as it always does, responded quickly to help the hurricane victims. Shelters opened in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama.

Now it's time for the day after, which takes it into a new phase for the Red Cross.

Spokesman David Rudduck is joining us from the fishing village of St. Marks. He spent the night in Tallahassee, trying to assess where the damage might be and where the Red Cross might be of most help. And it appears -- at least for now, St. Marks appears to be the place.

In a sense, that's a bit of a surprise, isn't it, David?

DAVID RUDDUCK, RED CROSS: It is. You know, a lot of the activity on the radar screens was focusing more up in the Panhandle area. But, you know, it was a big storm, and a lot of the bands came down and grazed off the coastlines here. And in the low-lying areas, we got a lot of flooding.

This visual that you have here doesn't tell half the story. In most of these buildings, there has been soot and muck and all kinds of stuff almost up to the roof. So, there is going to be a lot of rebuilding to do.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. The one thing about a flood, once the waters recede, you have the impression, oh, it's over. And that, of course, doesn't really tell the story at all. I suspect that folks in St. Marks are going to need your help today.

RUDDUCK: Yes, sir, we think they are. We're going to be sending some teams in here to do some damage assessment, to meet with the people, try to identify some of the needs that we have here in this town. Over the course of the last 24 hours, you know, we've got disaster relief operations going on in four states. And we had 158 shelters and put about 15,000 people in them.

Now, fortunately, it wasn't as bad here. But, like we were talking about, the unseen damage is going to be evident. And we're going to be doing everything we can to make sure that people have the things they need to get their life back in order.

M. O'BRIEN: And give us a sense of the kinds of things you offer in the immediate aftermath of a storm like this, David.

RUDDUCK: Well, in this case here in St. Marks, they're going to need clean-up kits. We're going to give them some mops, brooms, items that they can use to clean up their house and clean some of the debris out.

Also, we give them hygiene kits that have, you know, little toothpaste things in there, toiletries and things of that nature that might have been lost in the storm.

Naturally, we're going to have our emergency response vehicles coming in through the town. And what they'll be doing is making sure that they have ample food and water here in the neighborhoods, because in a lot of cases the power is down. The food might be going bad. So, we want to make sure that they have all of the food, water, the basic essentials of life that they need to get their life going.

And I've got to say, if it wasn't for the American public and their generous financial contributions, we wouldn't be able to provide that assistance to them.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I mean, we should point out that the Red Cross does exist on the good grace and largesse of the American people. So, we encourage folks to think of the Red Cross when they're thinking about making charitable contributions.

Folks obviously get very anxious to return to their homes in the wake of one of these things. And sometimes that can be the wrong thing, right?

RUDDUCK: Definitely, in a lot of cases. I think you guys might have seen some of the footage yesterday. There were people wading around in the water out here, and it was hard to determine from, you know, the standpoint of a viewer if these live wires -- if these wires were actually live or not. So, you not only have to be concerned about the electricity component and getting shocked, but there's also debris out here. There are shards of glass. There are very sharp objects such as boards, planks and nails.

And then, you know, you've still got a health issue. In a lot of low-lying areas, you just don't know how sanitary some of the water is.

M. O'BRIEN: What is the biggest lesson you learned last year, that incredible, miserable season of hurricanes that you had, that you might be employing this go-round?

RUDDUCK: Well, one of the biggest things we learned is that we needed to push materials and resources into the areas as fast as we can. So, I think what everybody is going to see on this go-round is that our pre-positioning is going to make a big difference. We're going to be able to get things into the affected areas, not only here, but also all the way up and out in all of the other states that were affected as well.

Again, I want to say that we couldn't do that if it wasn't for the American public's contributions. If people want to help the victims of this disaster and others across the country, they can call 1-800-helpnow, or go to our secure Web site and make a donation at www.redcross.org.

M. O'BRIEN: OK. David Rudduck, you got the plug in there -- 1- 800-helpnow or www.redcross.org. Thank you for your time. Good luck.

RUDDUCK: Thanks for having me.

M. O'BRIEN: And I hope folks get back on their feet quickly there, thanks to your help and others. We appreciate it.

RUDDUCK: Appreciate it.

M. O'BRIEN: All right -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, we're going to talk to a business owner who did not evacuate when Dennis hit. He decided to ride it out. So, how did he do? We're going to find out next on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody, to this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

Crews will be out today assessing the damage from Hurricane Dennis. But take a look at these aerial pictures. These are just in to CNN from the U.S. Coast Guard. And you can already get an idea of just how much water came onshore and really see what an impact Dennis has on beachfront property. It looks like most of the homes there survived. But by contrast, take a look at these pictures from Pensacola, Florida, just a short distance from where Dennis blew ashore. There are damaged homes, uprooted trees, snapped power lines, a little bit of a different story there.

And as we've heard from many people today, really it really is all about perspective. We've been talking about how it is better- than-predicted. But, of course, if you've lost the roof of your home or the home has collapsed, things are pretty hard.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a hundred-percent just as bad if you've lost your roof, regardless of what the big picture numbers are. The big picture is better than Ivan, but at that very local level, we wish you all well if you suffered some damage overnight.

Well, we've been hearing interesting stories this morning from people who weathered the storm at home. And joining us on the line now is Nick Zangari. He hunkered down at his restaurant. That's New York Nick's in Pensacola, Florida.

Nick, how did you weather it?

NICK ZANGARI, OWNER, NEW YORK NICK'S: Just fine. Actually, we were more geared up for the event than more afraid of the result and the actual -- what was happening with the storm.

M. O'BRIEN: So, what do you mean by that? In other words, you thought it was going to be worse than it is?

ZANGARI: Oh, yes. It looked just as bad, if not worse, than what Ivan was as it was ready to come through. And there was just -- it was an incredible build-up, and then it just -- it really hit at all once very hard and very quickly. It was fast-moving. It was -- Ivan was very methodical and very -- it was very progressive. And it was -- and it got worse, and you could feel it and hear it.

This one, it hit all at once. It really did. It was amazing. Within a manner of an hour-and-a-half it was over.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, that hour-and-a-half, though, must have been something. Tell us a little bit about what it was like.

ZANGARI: Literally you could watch the disintegration of the weather within -- literally within minutes going from a bad storm to an actual hurricane. It was just in a matter of minutes between street lights, street lamps, sides of buildings, just all going at the same time. Within minutes just going and lasting about 45 minutes' time, you were hearing different types of noises that we had. We still have idea what those noises were. We assume they were air conditioning units. At this point, we still haven't figured it out yet.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, that's always reassuring when you're in the middle of a storm like that hunkered down, and you start hearing a bunch of noises you can't explain. ZANGARI: They were happening all around us, and the things -- the things that were happening in front of us were bad enough. But then, yes, the noises around you that you can't identify what they were or where they came from, then it starts getting pretty nerve- wracking.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, things that go bump in the afternoon. There must have been a few occasions there when you thought, you know, maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

ZANGARI: No, you know, this was a -- it was a different animal than Ivan, only because Ivan came at night, and you could not see what was happening. You could just hear it getting progressively worse at the time. And you knew that bad things were happening. This was daytime, where it was pretty interesting, because you could actually watch what was going on and, you know, the progressive deterioration of the weather and the situation, you know, moment by moment. It was pretty interesting to see it happening in the daytime.

M. O'BRIEN: I still have to ask you, though, why? Why was it important for you to ride it out in the restaurant? Why didn't you go seek shelter elsewhere?

ZANGARI: This building has been here over 100 years. My house is in Gulf Breeze, where the eye of the storm came, and we're still trying to figure out what happened to my home as well, and to protect my business establishment.

And we pretty much morphed ourselves since Ivan into a media haven and a home base for people from out of town to cover the storm. That happened by accident last year. And when it came around this year, it was pretty much most -- a lot of people came back that were here last year that stayed here for the storm to come back to cover this storm to the same place, because they do this. This would be a home base and be open for them.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, New York Nick's is obviously the place to go if you're covering a storm in the Panhandle. We appreciate you helping our folks out. And we wish you well as you head back to your home today, Nick. I hope it goes well for you there in Gulf Breeze.

ZANGARI: Thank you very much. I appreciate it, too.

M. O'BRIEN: Good luck -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Coming up in just a moment, a look at the day's top stories, including this one, a tragedy in Sustachuan (ph) caught on tape. We'll show you the amateur videotape, fill you in on the details, straight ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Let's check the headlines and see what else is going on in the world. Here is Kelly Wallace at the Time Warner center in New York.

Kelly -- good morning.

WALLACE: Good morning to you, Miles. Good morning, everyone.

And here's a look at those other stories "Now in the News."

Police in London identified the first body from last Thursday's bomb attacks. The 53-year-old woman was traveling on the London Underground when she was killed in the worst of the blast. At least 21 people were killed in that bombing alone. At least 49 people died in the four explosions.

A fatal mid-air collision cut shot a Canadian air show. Two small biplanes simulating a World War I dog fight collided, killing both pilots instantly. Witnesses said one plane came from beneath and collided with the other. Both burst into flames and crashed. The pilots belonged to a U.S. aerobatics team. No spectators were hurt.

The body of a third Navy SEAL has been recovered in Afghanistan. The victim is the fourth member of the team that disappeared two weeks ago. A senior defense official denying a Taliban claim he had been abducted. Only one member of that four-man team survived. The military has not identified the lone survivor.

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