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CNN Live At Daybreak

Dennis: The Aftermath

Aired July 11, 2005 - 5:00   ET

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


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Soledad O'Brien. The aftermath: Dennis blasts into the Florida Panhandle, the fifth hurricane to slam into Florida in less than a year.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien. Beachfront properties along the Gulf Coast panhandle take a beating, but so far no deaths in the U.S. blamed on this storm.

S. O'BRIEN: And Dennis, once a powerful Category 4 storm, downgraded to a tropical depression.

You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Kind of an early edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

M. O'BRIEN: Early editions, late editions, we've been on the air a lot as Hurricane Dennis...

S. O'BRIEN: All edition.

M. O'BRIEN: ... made its way across the Panhandle of Florida. Parts of Mississippi and Alabama feeling it as well. But I think the consensus this morning is they dodged a bullet.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: It was not an Ivan.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and I think a big sigh of relief, of course, that people had thought it was going to be a killer storm. So far, of course, no reported deaths from this storm in the United States.

M. O'BRIEN: In the United States.

S. O'BRIEN: In Cuba, and obviously in Haiti, there have been problems.

Let's take a look at where things stand with Dennis in the aftermath of this storm.

A little more than 13 hours ago it was a Category 3 hurricane, with winds hitting at 120 miles an hour. This morning, Florida Governor Jeb Bush is going to fly over some of the areas that were hit by those powerful and fairly compact winds.

In its wake, Dennis left more than 400,000 residents and businesses without power in the Gulf Coast panhandle. Overnight, as Dennis moved over land into Alabama, it was downgraded into a tropical storm. And then just a short while ago it was downgraded again to a tropical depression.

Well, President Bush has declared parts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi federal disaster areas. That makes residents there eligible for a variety of federal assistance. And that can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, and also some low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs that can help people recover from the disaster.

So, here is how it breaks down today: 45 counties in Alabama, 13 counties in Florida, 37 in Mississippi, all these areas are now being declared federal disaster areas.

M. O'BRIEN: So what about this storm? What happened as it made landfall and where is it going?

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Chad Myers is with us this morning. We're going to check in with him in a couple of hours as soon as there's some daybreak. Of course he was all along the coast in Panama City all day yesterday giving us a first-hand account. We'll check in with him a little bit later -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And we've got some other correspondents as well we'll check in with and see how they -- how they did yesterday. As expected, Dennis, then a Category 3 hurricane, came ashore on the Florida Panhandle. Widespread damage, flooding, power outages all followed in the storm's path. Luckily, there have been no reports of any fatalities in the area, though.

For the very latest from Pensacola, Florida, let's get right to CNN's Randi Kaye.

Hey, Randi. Nice to see you this morning. Yesterday, at one point, you were holding on to a post, and you were pretty concerned about how things would turn out for all of you. What kind of damage did you sustain there?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually, Soledad, so far this morning we're hearing that Pensacola didn't do as badly as expected. So we're happy to hear that. And as you mentioned, no reports of fatalities, which is really, really good news.

But I'm out here at the front of our Ramada Inn hotel, where we spent the night yesterday, and we haven't had any power since yesterday afternoon. And this is just one example of the force of Hurricane Dennis, the winds that Hurricane Dennis brought this way.

This is the Ramada Inn hotel sign. You can see probably some of the light bulbs. This came crashing down yesterday afternoon.

It used to be way up there at the top of that pole. So it made a pretty big noise as it made its way down the pole. It just slid right down.

During Hurricane Ivan, which was here in September, that was spinning. It's not even supposed to be spinning. They just had it resealed and re-bolted in place. But it turns out it still came crashing down. There's pieces of glass and actually pieces of the sign just all over the place.

So, the Ramada Inn, as I said, here in this area of Pensacola, we're without power. We had the -- the gutters were flying off the hotel. We had a lot of the shingles, a lot of roof damage. But one of the hardest-hit areas, as we thought would happen yesterday, is the beach area.

Pensacola Beach suffered a lot of damage. They were in the middle of a June replenishment project after Ivan. So now they're still in the middle of that, but we're told that the cranes are laying on their sides, the construction cranes, and there's -- there's much damage there.

It's pretty inaccessible. The power lines are down. And they're going to be heading out there today, the Office of Emergency Management, heading out there to survey some of the homes.

I-10, also, they're going to have some -- some divers out there today to see how that held up. That's the bridge that we were showing you pretty much all day yesterday. That took a big hit during Ivan and had some temporary steel plates holding it up ever since January. So we're wondering how -- how that fared.

But about 100,000 people or so without power. They have about 1,100 people sort of on standby, waiting to restore power. They hope that that will come in just a couple of days.

And this is just an example. After Ivan, there wasn't even a -- there wasn't even a leaf left on a tree. So, actually, we did OK here.

That's what we're told by some of the hotel employees here, that nothing, absolutely nothing was left. And here you can see there's -- there's plenty of leaves on these trees, even though -- even though they're down. At least they do have some trees on -- some leaves on them.

But also, I do want to tell you that we talked to some of the 911 operators through emergency management, and this is really interesting. They tell us that they had one of the slowest Sundays they've ever had.

They got fewer calls yesterday during Hurricane Dennis than they have on a typical Sunday, which is really amazing. That shows that people really did heed the warnings. They hunkered down, they got out of town, they evacuated. And it was just really good to know that 911 wasn't as busy as they could have been.

Governor Jeb Bush also expected to this area sometime today -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: All good news there. Randi Kaye for us. Thanks, Randi -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: While the storm continues on its northerly path, let's take you back for a moment, a little more than 13 hours ago back, when Dennis slammed into Florida. Our correspondents were scattered all across the area, and several times they found themselves in harm's way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The eye wall of Hurricane Dennis is now making landfall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The winds really have picked up. If you look over there, the trees are moving, are getting pushed pretty good here. And I tell you, we're pretty close to, you know, hurricane-force winds sustained now.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are some sparks coming off the other side. We don't know exactly what that is. But there's always the possibility that there may be either some kind of gas main or something. But you know what? This looks a little scary.

We're going to back out of here. We're going to talk to some of the people who were here.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: What we're experiencing here now is the storm surge coming up and coming over onto the seawall, and every once in a while splashing over the top.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can feel it right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There we go. Watch out for that aluminum. Get back! Get back! Get back! It's coming apart!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa. Look at it! Look over there! Look over there!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's coming apart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is aluminum. That's part of the sign. Look at that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this. It's all coming apart. The trees are coming down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that tree. Did you see that tree went down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big trees coming down. Big trees coming down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. Be very careful. Look at that...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's the sign! It's down! It's blowing apart! Get back! Get back! Get back!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unbelievable. I've never seen anything like this.

JERAS: More possible tornadoes. We've got some new warnings, and they just extended the Escambia County, Alabama, tornado warnings.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: How big of a tornado are we talking about? And what kind of damage did it do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it did quite a bit of damage. We were in the northeast quadrant of it at my home where it hit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Bush called me just a few minutes ago. He has declared portions of Florida a major disaster area, and including parts of Alabama and Mississippi.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Residents of St. Marks say they've never seen the water rise so high, so fast. Joining us now by phone, CNN photojournalist Mark Biala (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water rose so fast that they -- there was nothing they could do to stop it from, you know, taking over the town, literally.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: We have an awesome team that is mobilized, that is moving as we speak towards west Florida to be able to provide that first assessment of safety to make sure that -- our first priority is to take care of the people that may be in danger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Now, we've received a tremendous response from viewers in the path of the storm. We asked you to become citizen journalists, and you sent us some incredible e-mails with pictures attached from the areas affected by Dennis. We're asking you to keep them coming.

Our citizen journalist program continues, if you will. If you storm-related pictures, please e-mail them to us. And here's some that we have so far.

Rudy with this picture along the road in Destin. You can see the dark clouds and white clouds in the distance. That's a nice shot.

S. O'BRIEN: It's beautiful. It kind of looks like...

M. O'BRIEN: That's kind of beautiful.

S. O'BRIEN: ... it's almost over, doesn't it?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

And the next one comes to us from Daisy in Apalachicola. What does it say on the tree? Can you see that? Is it "Root canal?"

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Like I'd prefer root canal to this, maybe, or -- oh, it fell on a dentist's office. There you go.

S. O'BRIEN: I get it.

M. O'BRIEN: If they went along here, we would have known that. Root canal on the dentist's office.

And then there's this one coming up. This is John in Crystal River, Florida. That's about 75 miles north of Tampa.

And gosh, you know, think about that, where Dennis hit. And it shows you, even though the storm was not -- didn't cause the tremendous damage in the panhandle that Ivan did, really widespread flooding all throughout the Florida peninsula as well.

S. O'BRIEN: And flooding's a huge problem. I mean, and more people, as we heard from the experts yesterday, died in the aftermath of a storm than during. And so it can be a very big problem. But, you know, you see -- as much as the folks there were lucky, there was major damage to some people's individual homes, and trees down, and all the things that they're dealing with today.

M. O'BRIEN: And once again, if you'd like to participate, if you have a picture you'd like to share with us and with the rest of the world, for that matter, CNN.com/hurricane is the place to post it. And once again, we will offer a disclaimer, as it were, please don't do anything foolish out there, because there's a lot of downed power lines and a lot of danger out there.

Still to come on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, staring down the eye of the storm through a view finder to get that great shot. These are the professional shots. We'll get the perspective of an AP photographer who braved Hurricane Dennis as it came ashore.

S. O'BRIEN: And what is FEMA's recovery plan now as Dennis is winding down now? We're going to talk with a FEMA official in Pensacola.

Plus, residents of the panhandle breathing a sigh of relief after Dennis, but in Cuba the recovery much more difficult. We'll take a look at those pictures from Cuba today.

You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

Fort Walton beach, that's just a few miles east of where Dennis made landfall, and that's the site of the storm where the bands of rain and heavy wind are usually the worst. Mari Darr Welch is a freelance photographer. She works for The Associated Press, and she joins us this morning to talk about what she saw and also some of the pictures she took.

Mari, thanks for talking with us. First, give me a sense of how the storm went for you. Where did you ride it out? And at what point did you get out and start taking pictures?

MARI DARR WELCH, AP FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER: I rode the storm out in my home with my husband. And I had -- I really did never stop taking pictures -- excuse me. It's early.

S. O'BRIEN: What -- what were some of the riskiest things that you had to deal with? I know that there are downed power lines, obviously lots of flooding. As you made your way through, was it dangerous?

WELCH: It wasn't as dangerous, I don't believe as Hurricane Ivan, but it was probably physically more dangerous with the wind. Because while I was at home during the peak of this storm I went back to my home and evacuated, and decided to go out on foot and take pictures. And the minute I stepped out my front door, a big gust of wind hit and I got slammed against the front of my house. So that probably wasn't very good.

S. O'BRIEN: But you kept taking pictures, and we've got some that we want to share this morning. The first one you call Juanas Pagoda. Tell me about this picture.

WELCH: Juanas is a landmark in Navarre Beach -- or was. And it was -- the hand-thatched roof on that has lasted through several hurricanes. And it was amazing to see it finally got taken out by Dennis.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it looks completely gutted.

A construction trailer on its side is our next photo that you have to show. I think this one also in Navarre Beach. Is that right?

WELCH: Yes. Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Tell me about how you got this shot.

WELCH: We actually had to wait for quite a while to be able to get on to Navarre Beach, because the police had to check out -- you know, make sure there were no live wires and stuff like that on the island. And we were able to get down to the base of the island where all these things were. And it was really interesting to see that the construction trailer which has been used for carrying damages from Hurricane Ivan had been damaged during Hurricane Dennis.

S. O'BRIEN: You took several pictures of a guy named Russell Orstead (ph), and here's a guy who had been through Hurricane Ivan, his home was very badly destroyed then. Tell me about this picture, where he's wading through the water to get to his home.

WELCH: Oh, you could feel -- you could feel the apprehension just because he'd been through so much. And his home had just been finished. I mean, it had been nine months trying to rebuild this home. And you could just feel the tension as he was purposefully walking through this water to see if his boarding job had worked and to see if he had anything left.

But you could, because that is his home in front of him. He wanted to know if it flooded.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think you're absolutely right.

Let's look at the next two shots. The main road along Navarre Beach, and really quite desolate and just scattered and littered with the power lines down. And the one after that, the pier, was damaged a little bit by this hurricane, wasn't it?

WELCH: Yes. Yes. It has two brakes. It was split in half, and there's another chunk missing up by the beach, which was really unusual.

S. O'BRIEN: Back to Russell Orstead (ph). And as I said, you took several pictures of him. The consternation with which he approached his house sort of resolved.

Here he's getting a hug from a friend. What happened here?

WELCH: He reached his house and he just -- he looked. He was just looking to see if the water had breached any of his wood or anything like that, or how high the water line was. And you could just see him melt as soon as he realized that it was OK.

And she just, you know, put her arm around him because his wife and daughter had evacuated. And it was just -- it was very emotional. It was nice. It was nice to be able to see something happy.

S. O'BRIEN: Russell Orstead (ph), I'm sure, really feeling the same way that many people there feel: was bad, could have been a whole heck of a lot worse.

Mari Darr Welch is in Fort Walton Beach at home. No power, but joining us by phone, a freelance photographer for The Associated Press.

Thank you.

WELCH: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Boy, she was working hard. Good pictures.

S. O'BRIEN: Beautiful pictures, weren't they?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Really nice work.

The community of St. Marks, Florida, was not in the direct path of Dennis, but it was on that dangerous northeast quadrant that we've been telling you so much about. That's the area packing the strongest winds. That's the area where the storm surge is of greater concern.

St. Marks is about 40 miles south of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, of course. On Sunday, residents were fishing from their front porches after a tidal surge of 10 to 12 feet caught many of them off guard. Boy that picture tells it all right there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, this is something just unbelievable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things are floating off. And, I mean, I've never actually experienced anything like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like that I've never seen it this high. And I've been here 37 years. And all the people -- I'm with the volunteer fire department, and I had just come back from rescuing some people down -- down in there that didn't get warned in time, and they didn't get out and we had to go get them out by boat. And I've never seen as many cars and trucks and -- everything's under -- everything here's under water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Also, about 40 miles of the coastal highway US 98 was damaged by the storm. That's like the main highway down there. So that's a problem as well this morning.

Chad Myers is in St. Marks this morning. In just a little while, we'll see him and we'll talk about the challenges of brining you live coverage of Hurricane Dennis as well. Some snippets and snapshots worthy of a second look.

Stay with us on a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: More than one million people potentially in the path of Hurricane Dennis got out of the way and evacuated. But things got pretty dangerous for the folks who did not evacuate ahead of the hurricane. The storm made landfall as a Category 3, with winds around 120 miles an hour.

Some of those who stayed in Dennis' path were our CNN colleagues, who were there to bring you the story. And here's a brief look at what some of them endured.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You guys have got to come to us.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now or never.

COOPER: Hey, guys, you've got to come to us quick. We're not sure how long we can stay on.

SANCHEZ: The wind just comes through, blows through, picks pieces of it up. A little while ago, that flap, too.

Show them that -- that flap over there -- oh, there it goes! There it goes! You know what? This looks a little scary. We're going to back out of here.

COOPER: There was this extraordinary wall of white. It was like a solid mass.

ZARRELLA: You couldn't see a thing out there. And the trees were bent, and they're bending again now. We're starting to get another one of those.

COOPER: Yes. And look at the tops of those trees over there. You've seen some of them have snapped already. But these things are moving, and it -- as these bands of the storm come...

ZARRELLA: Here it comes again. Look out here.

COOPER: ... here, another comes. You can feel it now.

ZARRELLA: There we go. Watch out for that aluminum. Watch out!

COOPER: Whoa!

ZARRELLA: Get back! Get back! Get back! It's coming apart!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at it! Look over there! Look over there!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's coming apart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is aluminum. That's part of the sign. Look at that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this. It's all coming apart. The trees are coming down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that tree. Did you see that tree went down? Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big trees coming down. Big trees coming down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. Be very careful. Look at that...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's the sign! It's down! It's blowing apart! Get back! Get back! Get back!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unbelievable.

MYERS: Good afternoon, Anderson. And, in fact, you didn't even get the worst of it. I know what you experienced was really bad, but people on the other side of the eye, the eye that actually was moving forward, they got it a lot worse.

Obviously, we don't have pictures from there yet, but we will. What we're experiencing here now is the storm surge coming up and coming over on to the seawall and every once in a while splashing over the top. Ah, now I can talk, because I'm in the shadow of a big building.

COOPER: I've never seen anything like this, John. This is incredible. Have you ever seen anything like this?

ZARRELLA: Never seen anything like this. Have never experienced anything like this before.

COOPER: That sign -- this, of course, is the most dangerous time, when the winds are this strong.

ZARRELLA: Tree limbs are flying down. These pine trees, you see them out there, they keep -- big branches coming down, huge limbs.

COOPER: And it's incredible when you think -- I mean, these are strong pieces of metal. This is not, you know, a little tin. This is a huge metal sign that survived Hurricane Ivan. It has not survived Hurricane Dennis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: All our reporters and photographers made it through the storm unscathed. They're going to continue to bring us the very latest on the aftermath throughout today, so stay tuned for that -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, responding to Dennis and the devastation in the storm's wake. We'll take you live to Pensacola. We'll find out what FEMA is doing to try to help those who need it most. Hopefully they're coming through for those folks.

Meanwhile, take a look at some of the storm pictures that you've been sending us. The stories behind these photos just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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