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Hurricane Rita

Aired September 23, 2005 - 23:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And in terms of the number of people who have evacuated out of Lumberton, any sense of like what percentage of the population? I mean, I imagine most, yes?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's about 11,000, 12,000 people here and we've been told by the police they believe that a good 90 percent of the folks have gone inland. We talked to one police officer. His family went to Waco, Texas and, again, took them about 14, 15 hours to get to Waco.

So, yes, the numbers are quite significant and we've been told by the mayor in Port Arthur and by the officials here that the numbers of people that have evacuated, Anderson, are directly related to what happened in Katrina. They don't believe they would have ever had the response that they've had if it hadn't been for the tragic events of Katrina. People saw what happened and they got out.

COOPER: Yes, that's the same thing as the mayor of Galveston told me. Look, she said, you know, people have been through many storms on Galveston. They normally just don't even try to evacuate but this time they did heed those warnings. John thanks very much. You didn't use the word hunker and I'm very proud of you.

ZARRELLA: Sure.

COOPER: Let's go back to Aaron in New York.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm hunkered down here in New York thank you very much.

One way to keep track of the progress of the storm keep an eye on Zarrella. Zarrella is a bit to the -- in Lumberton is a bit to the north and to the east of where Anderson is in Beaumont.

And so the storm, you can see the difference in where Anderson is and where John Zarrella is and you'll continue to see it worsen where Zarrella is as the thing moves north. That's one -- north and actually it's going to move a little bit west. That's one way to keep track of the progress of this storm as it comes ashore.

Chad Myers will give you more scientific ways to keep track of it, Chad, good to see you again at the top of the hour.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good evening, Aaron.

I do have the eleven o'clock advisory for you. One way to keep track is to write down the numbers. My mom does it. She's in central Florida. I'm not sure why but she likes to write them down.

So, here you go, 29.1 North, 93.2 West. That's 55 miles southeast of the Sabine Pass from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas right there, 55 miles from the center of that eye, which is now as it moves, the last frame right there, 55 miles into Port Arthur.

We'll get a little bit closer here for you, Beaumont right there, Lumberton right there, just right there Beaumont/Lumberton, all the way back down to Port Arthur. This storm is coming onshore with a vengeance now for Cameron right on back down and even into places like Holly Beach.

Holly Beach you have winds now over 70 miles per hour and even Lake Charles had a wind gust of 75 in the past few minutes, so the winds are obviously picking up as the storm gets a lot closer.

As Rob was talking about, the circulation, winds here going actually from the northeast and then from the south and then around that's what a hurricane does. So, you follow that. You follow that as it tracks up the line.

And so, if you're on the right side of the eye you get the waves onshore. If you're on the left side of the eye, you get the waves offshore. Our crew is right smack dab, right smack dab in the middle of where we expect the eye to go right over the land.

Probably landfall does happen in Louisiana. It crosses over the Sabine River right at Port Arthur. Port Arthur will be inundated by 15 feet of storm surge and then right on through and into Beaumont itself.

I'm being handed something here, probably a tornado warning and, yes, actually. This is actually for Cameron Parish and Jefferson Parish, for southwest Louisiana and also southeast Texas.

The eye wall is approaching the warning area and a lot of times the warning -- the weather service will do this. They will actually issue a tornado warning for a hurricane because the hurricane winds are strong enough to knock things down like a tornado and that's exactly what's happened now.

That tornado warning is in effect until twelve o'clock. There typically or there really truly isn't a tornado but this storm is so strong. This is like -- this is like an 80-mile wide F1 or F2 tornado moving onshore and that's why they put out the tornado warning.

The only difference is with a tornado warning we say go to the lowest level of your home. With a hurricane warning that's probably, if it's a basement, especially if you're in a low-lying area that's not a really good idea. But you get the idea. The winds are going to be very tornado like as the storm gets much, much closer.

There is the center of the eye. There is the Sabine River right there where the two states come together tracking across to the northwest. And then the storm stops. This thing literally tomorrow stops and it stops for 120 hours, four days this thing sits over Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and spins and rains and rains.

Now, we could even see some outer bands, some of those bands we know that continue to go around for hours and hours, right through New Orleans.

Here's the storm surge. Here's what's going to happen because of the way this thing is going to come onshore right over Port Arthur. If you are east of the eye, east of the storm surge this is where it's going to be worse, ten to 14 feet, Lake Charles, probably around five to ten.

And some of the areas, especially in the rivers, think of a river and a bay kind of like a funnel. You're funneling water into a smaller and smaller area. Well, if that happens, you have five feet here. If it's getting smaller, it's like a gorge. Then it gets to six and eight and ten to 12.

So, if you turn a funnel upside down, the middle of the funnel is the deepest part and sometimes these rivers can act like funnels and the typical river, the tip of the river can get 20-foot storm surges where the bay may only have five or ten feet, so keep that in mind if you're in orange, places like Bridge City. The floodwaters could go all the way to I-10 in those cities there -- Anderson.

Cooper: Hey, Chad, did you say that the storm is going to sit on Texas for four days?

MYERS: Yes. It is going to stop, Anderson, all the winds aloft, all the steering currents stop. Now, it's not going to sit there as a hurricane for four days but it's going to be enough of a moisture source, of a low pressure system that it's just going to sit and slowly spin.

It will work its way down to a tropical depression and then just to a low but it will rain in this area right through here, right through the Sabine River, Texarkana, maybe as far west as Dallas, as far east as Shreveport, all the way down to Morgan City, as far west as Freeport.

It could be 12 to 24 inches of rain in that area that all has to run off and that's just going to cause -- inland they call that freshwater flooding. What you are going to see where you are is saltwater flooding because the saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico is going to come up your river and flood your area there quick quickly after the eye makes landfall.

BROWN: Chad, when you said twelve o'clock on these tornadoes, we'll put it in quotes, twelve o'clock Central time?

MYERS: Central time.

BROWN: OK.

MYERS: Central time. Typically, you know, they do this all the time. I want to stress there is not a tornado but the winds are so strong, Aaron, it almost will make tornado-like damage.

BROWN: It's the -- whatever you call it the effect is the same.

MYERS: Yes, right.

BROWN: And the warning is in effect for another couple of hours in the Central time zone and, again, the area where the warning is, is?

MYERS: Centered right over Port Arthur.

BROWN: OK.

MYERS: Right around here. Both of the counties, the parish on the one side, the county on the other side from Texas right on over to Port Arthur.

BROWN: And, just one more quick one if I can, in the hour that we've been on the air here in these various areas how much has the wind increased? You said in some places it was already we're getting gusts of 75 miles an hour.

MYERS: Right.

BROWN: An hour ago my recollection is we were seeing 40-ish mile an hour winds.

MYERS: That's exactly right. Yes, some of these, they're coming up about 30 miles per hour per hour itself and, as the rain comes up, every time you get one of these bands to go by, the winds really pick up significantly.

And they just talked about there being, you know, a little lull up in Beaumont and it's hard to see with all this line in there but anyway could you go ahead and clear that Sean (ph). Just go ahead and hit clear and we'll get rid of these lines here.

The whole area here from Beaumont down to Port Arthur, there we go, not in a heavy band yet but Port Arthur, right there, there is your yellow and for you guys up there, for Anderson and also for Rob Marciano, your winds go back up about 20 miles per hour in the next ten minutes.

BROWN: That gives people a sense of the pace of the storm as it moves ashore and we can just, it's interesting just watching the difference, Anderson, from where you are and from where Zarrella is how much difference the wind is in just 20, 30 miles that separate you. Thank you, Chad, we'll get back to you as you get more information in.

MYERS: You're welcome.

BROWN: Sanjay Gupta joins us now. The doc has been watching hospitals. You know my memory is going but I thought it was Lake Charles, isn't it? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right Aaron. We're at one of the only hospitals that is open, remaining open in this part of where we've been for the last couple of days. A lot of hospitals have closed down for obvious reasons.

This particular hospital, St. Charles Hospital did evacuate most of their patients, less than half a dozen patients remaining. But they made the decision to stay open and, in fact, they've done an operation here in this hospital not that long ago. Someone was boarding up their windows. They fell. They broke their leg. They had an operation done in this hospital, so they're still open for business, pretty remarkable.

You just mentioned, Aaron, Lake Charles had some significant gusts of wind. It's really interesting. It's sort of really significant gusts of wind and then it sort of died down here a little bit over the past few minutes. It sounds like things might pick up.

A lot of the transformers, we've heard some loud booms all around here, Aaron. I guess these are just the transformers suddenly going bad and are being pulled right out of the ground, loud booms and a lot of the lights behind us gone as well now -- Aaron.

BROWN: But generally at the hospital we're all aware of what happened in the hospitals during Katrina. Generally speaking everything is OK. You've got the kind of little problems you'd expect in moments like this.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, I mean a couple of simple fixes really can help a lot. One thing is if the generator is actually above sea level, so significant, such an improvement, Aaron, because we remember from Charity Hospital after Hurricane Katrina the generators were located in the basement.

That may have seemed like an obvious choice at the time but they quickly shorted out and suddenly patients in the intensive care units were without power and their breathing machines failed. They're not anticipating that problem here for the simple reason the generators are above sea level.

They've also stockpiled lots of food and water, enough for at least eight days they're saying, so I think those things are certainly going to help. There's a certain amount of confidence here.

There's about 50 staff members that have stayed in the hospital, as I mentioned actually performed an operation on emergency generator power as well, so it seems to be working at least at this point -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sanjay, thank you, Sanjay Gupta who is in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

If you just think of the coverage area that we're basically working in, Sanjay is at the eastern end of it and Anderson is in the central, sort of the center of it in Beaumont and at the other end, the western end would be Galveston and that's sort of the area that we're working in east to west -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes, and what we're trying to do, Aaron, is get as broad a representation as possible so that if, you know, our satellite truck goes down or John Zarrella's truck goes down, you know, we'll still be able to broadcast and still be able to give viewers a sense of what is happening in this region.

There are so many people here who are in their homes who still have power, who are listening to satellite radio and trying to just get a sense, you know, desperate for any word about their town, about their -- the situation in their community. So, we're just trying to get as wide a view as possible.

I want to check in with Sean Callebs, who is in Galveston. Last we talked with him there was a report about two buildings on fire in the area around 20th to 21st Street. Sean, what's the latest, what do you know?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know the fire is on 19th Street and it's toward the bayside. Now here's the bad news. There are three buildings totally involved.

We're told the flames are leaping very high into the air. All three of these buildings very involved and the winds are gusting. It has stopped raining. Apparently we're getting in between one of those bands right now.

There is also a large Bank South Building apparently adjacent to these three buildings that are on fire but the wind is blowing the flames at least away from that building. It's been called a high rise. That's the way it was defined to me.

Also, the information we are getting there apparently are people in at least one of those buildings. We don't know if there are any injuries. We don't know if they got out. That's just very preliminary information but it apparently is a very significant fire.

We can actually smell almost an electrical burning smell in the air where we are and we're pretty far away from the area where that fire is. We haven't heard the sirens in some time but we know it's very involved.

And at least one of those homes is a historical building and so that's in an area like this where history means so much to the people here it's certainly not the kind of news anybody wants to hear on this night. One thing that just blew up at us is simply Styrofoam. It looked a lot worse than it was.

COOPER: OK, Sean thanks very much.

We are joined now on the phone by Senator David Vitter from Louisiana. Senator, how are you doing?

SEN. DAVID VITTER (R), LOUISIANA (by telephone): Good, hanging in there. I flew back to Louisiana today to be here for the storm, obviously very concerned about southwest Louisiana, Cameron Parish right on the coastline, Calcasieu, which includes Lake Charles right above that. That's going to get a big, big hit from the storm much like the Mississippi Gulf Coast got the very tough eastern side of Katrina.

COOPER: Senator, you were toward the end of the first week on Thursday, Friday after Katrina, very critical of the response at all levels. You gave it I believe the grade of an F. You said it turned the corner I think on that Friday. Maybe it was on that weekend. How do you view the response this time around?

VITTER: Well, it's too early to (AUDIO GAP) myself included has learned an enormous amount from that Katrina experience and from what I'm been seeing and hearing (AUDIO GAP) are prepared for this storm.

Just as a for instance, I talked to the mayor of Lake Charles today by phone and he was completing an evacuation of nursing homes and hospitals in the area. And, generally, they've been able to evacuate Cameron Parish and Calcasieu almost 100 percent. Of course, it's a lot less populous than Greater New Orleans but still I think we're ahead of the curve compared to where we were with Hurricane Katrina.

COOPER: Well, I know we saw earlier this evening one rescue taking place in New Orleans. I think it was in the 9th Ward, a woman eight months pregnant, her 4-year-old child being rescued by Coast Guard helicopters, those remarkable pilots from the Coast Guard just dropping down, getting them in a gurney, taking them to safety. Do you have any sense of how many people are still in New Orleans?

VITTER: I think it's very few but I haven't heard any specific number. Obviously, there is some new flooding now over the levees or perhaps breached levees from the Industrial Canal into the 9th Ward.

I've also heard perhaps parts of St. Bernard suffering the same thing. We're hoping and praying that that is localized as much as possible and certainly doesn't impact new areas that were not really devastated before but we'll just have to wait and see.

COOPER: What do you think the lessons are that you, I mean you said you learned a lot from Katrina, what do you think the lessons are that you take away that you are watching for over the next 12, 24, you know, 48 hours?

VITTER: Well, there are so many things all of us involved have to do, hospital evacuations, nursing home evacuations, getting busses to make sure there's a capability of evacuating folks without their own vehicles, the poorest of the community, the most vulnerable. And so I think everyone's been more focused on that this time around because of the Katrina experience, both (AUDIO GAP).

COOPER: And I think we lost Senator -- we lost Senator David Vitter. We appreciate him joining us. Obviously, you can understand communications a little bit tough to maintain.

I think we have on the phone Duane Gapinski, who is with the Army Corps of Engineers, colonel appreciate you joining us again. What happened to the levees today in New Orleans?

COL. DUANE GAPINSKI, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS (by telephone): Well, the level in the Industrial Canal, the level of the water rose and over topped some of the expedient repairs we had made to the breaches from Katrina as well as a couple other existing breaches. So, you know, basically it over topped the levees. Water got too high.

COOPER: And the situation with that particular levee right now is what?

GAPINSKI: Well, the canal, the level of the water in the canal is dropping but there's still water flowing out, of course, you know, because of the weather we can't, you know, there's no way to stop that water yet.

COOPER: And that particular levee how had you secured it up to now? Was it sort of those giant bags dropped from helicopters, how?

GAPINSKI: No, those two levees on the east side of the canal were constructed wholly out of rock, large 200-pound rocks at the bottom and then kind of finer aggregate up at the top and that's what got washed away when the water over topped. So, you know, that levee is still intact. It's just that water is flowing over the top.

COOPER: And are there other levees in particular that you are watching very closely?

GAPINSKI: Well, we are watching the back levee by St. Bernard Parish but right now that's holding fine.

COOPER: Colonel Gapinski, appreciate you joining us on this busy night. Thank you. Aaron, let's go back to you in New York, a lot to cover in these next several hours.

BROWN: Yes, just on the New Orleans situation. Obviously, they need a break in the winds and they need some daylight to get in there and repair that, so hopefully they'll get some of that done tomorrow.

Rob Marciano, at Beaumont, Rob it's, you know, I sit here and look at the computer imagery. This thing that makes this kind of relentless march and we know that you are still hours, a couple of hours at least away from the worst of it.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's true, that's true, but the past 20 minutes actually haven't been all that bad. I do sense the winds are starting to shift a little bit more maybe northeasterly, meaning that the storm is getting a little bit closer to us.

Just to give you an idea what's behind me we're kind of in the center of town right here. It's one of the main streets. That's the public library. You can't really see inside of it. The lights are still on. I can see the books, unbelievable to me that the lights are still on here in Beaumont, Texas, obviously deserted streets. Back here we normally would be concerned with, you know, signs like this. This is a -- we're near the Civic Center, so if there's some sort of sporting event or concert or a rodeo or whatever, you know, they'd light that sign up but that looks pretty solid. That's not your -- that's not a (INAUDIBLE) or Exxon sign (INAUDIBLE).

We're going to use this as some protection if the winds get a little too fierce down this. I walk right here and it's nice and calm. This is a hard truck. Just to give you an idea what's in it, gasoline and some other equipment, so we've got a -- we learned a little lesson from Katrina, prepare for the worst that's for sure.

And, like you mentioned, Aaron, the worst is yet to come here with the center of this thing still, you know, almost 100 miles away from us. It's going to be -- certainly going to be a long night. But as of the last 20 minutes it hasn't got a whole lot worse, so I don't know if I should feel comfortable with that or what but we're doing OK right here -- Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Buddy, be careful what you wish for. As a meteorologist reporter you see and feel this experience a little bit differently than the rest of us. Is it as you thought it would be?

MARCIANO: The main difference (INAUDIBLE) cover a storm I suppose, one on the beach and one away from the beach. When you're on the beach, I mean that sand is just peppering your face. It's like getting sandblasted, so there is -- when you're away from the beach you don't get the sand but, you know, there's things breaking off the trees and there's more debris. So, that's sort of the aspect is a little bit -- it's different.

As far as being a meteorologist out in the storm, I mean you are waiting for the winds to shift. You're trying to measure like how much stronger the winds are hour by hour. But really it's that wind shift and that's what we're monitoring here, not really monitoring the storm surge.

We were down by the (INAUDIBLE) river probably about 20 feet below us earlier and that's obviously not a safe spot with that anticipated storm surge, so now we're away from that, can't really monitor the storm surge because I don't really want to be that close to it as it's coming up, so it's more of a wind shift thing.

Smell, well if you're away from the ocean you don't smell that salt. It smells more like saltwater but other than that it's more of a wind shift thing. But feeling the power, Anderson, as a weather guy that's what's the most incredible thing and if there's one thing that I've learned doing these storms, you know, you constantly overestimate the wind, you know.

A 30 mile-an-hour wind, you know, might feel like it's 50 or 60 miles an hour. If you get a hurricane wind gust boy it could easily knock you over if you're not ready for it and I really don't think we've had much in the way of hurricane wind gusts here not just yet at least.

BROWN: Well, we're on our way there. Rob, thank you very much.

MARCIANO: Yes.

BROWN: Rob Marciano who is in Beaumont. And, again, Beaumont in this kind of cone that we've been focused on with Lake Charles, Louisiana at one end of the cone and Galveston at the other, Rob is roughly in the middle of that.

Sean Callebs is at the western edge in Galveston. For those of you who just may be joining us, one of the things we've been tracking in Galveston where it's actually a little bit better than I think people feared it might be is a fire, at least one in a high rise building. Do you have any more on that Sean?

CALLEBS: Yes, I do. I think you're exactly right, Aaron. Also, talking about the expectation game, for a couple of days people terrified about the storm and the damage it would do. They were worried about the wind. They were worried about the storm surge.

Well, now it's a fire that has really got the attention of emergency officials. There was actually three buildings up in flames. It's not a high rise. They're actually adjacent to a high rise.

What we're told three single structures, one is destroyed already. The other two are fully involved. The way it's been described to me the whole block area is just lit up in bright orange, flames leaping higher than telephone poles. So, that gives you an idea of just how significant that fire is right now.

Power has been going in and out for the last 15 or 20 minutes all along the stretch behind me. We know the fire started or at least has involved three buildings on 19th Street toward the bay side.

So it's further away from the Gulf of Mexico where we are but we could still smell it when there was a break in these winds and rain about five minutes ago, so without question a very serious fire.

What we're trying to determine right now, we have had mixed reports so I really don't want to go into it too much, if anybody was inside any of those buildings at the time.

We know the mayor and the city did a great job of evacuating this barrier island, some 60,000 people. The mayor says about 95 percent left. Police officers say they thought it was closer to 98 or 99 percent. So, still this has to be a worst nightmare for firefighters to go out in the teeth of a storm.

I think Rob hit the nail on the head a while ago too talking about the winds. People always say, oh, I was in 100 mile-an-hour winds. I was in this. I was in that. Well, even with the gusts, the strongest gust we've had here is 70 miles an hour and I've been in a number of hurricanes and really at this point the wind hasn't been terribly strong where we are.

We're also blocked by a large building here but this has to just be brutal for these firefighters out in this area with power going in and out trying to control this fire -- Aaron.

BROWN: OK, Sean, thank you very much. People need to keep in mind when they think of Galveston, Anderson, as you know, you just left there this morning, Galveston is an island so in a sense no matter which way the wind is blowing Galveston gets nailed. It gets nailed by if water is coming off the bay or coming off the gulf, either way.

COOPER: Yes and, Aaron, you were asking before about the houses are they close together? We don't know about these particular houses (INAUDIBLE) that area can tell you there are houses which are relatively close together, you know, a few feet from one another. So, it is a sense and (INAUDIBLE) how far that fire has spread.

Let's check in with Chad Myers, CNN severe weather expert who is in Atlanta. Chad, where is this storm now and where is it in relation to Beaumont and the areas where we've been talking from?

MYERS: Well, you have some significant big squalls to your south and they're headed to the north and they're headed your way obviously, Anderson, the eye of the storm still about 50 miles offshore making progress to the northwest at 12 miles per hour.

You do the math. That's about four hours to landfall or so. Maybe not quite for the center of the eye but certainly the northern part of the eye wall will be onshore in four hours.

You are right there under the M in Beaumont and you have all these squalls coming at you from the north and from the east. This entire area is spinning around like this. You are still getting the east winds.

As the storm gets closer to you, in fact, your winds may actually shift from almost due north because of the way the storm is going to progress to you, the way the circles progress to the storm.

As this storm is over you, your storm is going to be going this way east of you and this way west of you and it's not out of the question that you get the center of the eye wall where for a while your winds may drop off to almost zero. Sometimes that happens if you get right under the eye.

We've almost lost the eye though. The center has filled in. Sometimes it's a clear eye. You can see right on down to the water. It doesn't look like that's happening and that's typical for a landfalling hurricane to kind of lose some organization. The eye itself, even on the radar, not really that organized and the east part and the south part of the eye is almost very hard to find.

The storm surge that gets pushed up the Sabine Pass, the Sabine River, all the way into Lake Charles as well will be ten to 14 feet. And we called it the head waters although it's not like the head waters of the Mississippi.

The head waters of these bays, where it kind of gets skinnier and skinnier and turns into a river it's not out of the question that the surge in those little ends where it just turns into a river could be 20 feet and that will probably be the worst part of the place to be in and they're talking about places like Orange.

You're talking about places like Bridge City and even into Lake Charles. You are right at the head waters of where that river comes in. The waters in Lake Charles may be going up significantly tonight, could be 20-foot storm surge.

Something else, this is kind of a raw map. You're going to have to deal with it because we're going to -- we're kind of putting these things on the air as quickly as we can make them. Twenty-four inches of rain in this area here along the Sabine River that would be Texarkana.

This is Arkansas. Here's Louisiana. There's New Orleans. That orange is almost five inches of rain. This is in the next five days, so it's a long time before this is all done but the storm literally stops. It stops in its tracks and therefore it just rains for days -- back to you.

COOPER: That's depressing. How fast is this storm moving at this point?

MYERS: It's moving exactly at 12 miles per hour. We just got the new eleven o'clock advisory. They do have the coordinates on it and the coordinates said 12 miles per hour to the north/northwest.

COOPER: OK, so if it's moving 12 miles an hour you say what it's like 50 miles or so away from landfall is that what I heard correctly?

MYERS: That's correct, so you can do, you can quickly do the math on that Anderson and that's four hours from landfall and that very well may be the northern part of the eye wall here as it comes onshore. You are far enough inland. I would say you're another 25 miles inland that your maximum winds may not happen until five o'clock in the morning.

COOPER: Is that right, OK. And those maximum winds, I mean just any sense of how long they remain for? How big are these bands? I can't see the maps unfortunately from where I am. I mean how wide is this storm?

MYERS: It's a very odd-looking storm, Anderson, and let me describe it to those who maybe are just listening on XM radio or whatever. But there is a large area of orange and yellow.

We call that -- we call that significant heavy rain, probably an inch or two an hour but this outer band, this probably tried to develop an outer eye wall and that's what this yellow area would be here, a very large eye wall around it.

Now, if this was going back into warm water, we'd call it an eye wall replacement cycle. This eye wall would disintegrate. This eye wall would get smaller and it would even be a stronger storm than when it started. That's not going to happen because obviously the land is getting in the way, so this eye wall part here, the very most dangerous part of the storm right there, will be onshore right at the Sabine Pass, right at the Sabine River, Holly Beach just taking it as hard as could be, also over to Cameron very hard, up to Port Arthur in about five hours and to Beaumont, to where you are, in six. But it's going to go down.