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CNN Live Sunday

Hurricane Wilma Heads for State of Florida

Aired October 23, 2005 - 19:30   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: So as this killer hurricane heads for the state of Florida, there are a lot of questions about the federal response. You saw how FEMA, well, failed miserably during Hurricane Katrina, this time, though, it may be different. We're going to go to FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to see if there's going to be enough generators, water, food, rescue workers on the ground just in case the worst happens in the state of Florida.
We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at paradise lost. Cancun and Cozumel are disaster areas. Mexican authorities say the hurricane killed four people. Wilma basically stalled over the Yucatan Channel before emerging and accelerating back into the Gulf of Mexico.

Now Wilma has been threatening Florida for days, but the rain is falling and the flooding has started. It is real now. A hurricane is in effect in Longboat Key, the Keys, and the all the way up to Jupiter Inlet in the East. The Keys and other coastal communities are under mandatory evacuation. Most of those residents are not complying.

Now if, if Wilma spares Key West, many will credit this little grotto behind St. Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic Church. It was built by a nun in 1922, three years after a horrifying storm that killed hundreds. The nun professed Key West would never experience the full force of a hurricane so long as the grotto stood. And so far it never has. So we might make history again.

Welcome back to the CNN Center in Atlanta. I'm Carol Lin.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And I'm Rob Marciano on the beach in Ft. Myers, Florida, where this storm could easily make landfall tomorrow, Carol. So we're watching and waiting for that to happen.

All in all it has been a pretty pleasant evening. The waves crashing a little bit more than they normally would. And earlier today and yesterday there were surfers out. But for the most part the beach has cleared out, high tide has come and gone. Will likely be back tomorrow right around when this storm is expected to make landfall.

Regardless of where it makes landfall on the southwest coastline, it will be timing out to do it right around high tide. So storm surge, as is always the case, will be even more of an issue when this storm comes onshore.

Hundreds of miles in advance of this storm, even though its calm right now, we've had feeder bands go through, dumping rain with thunder and lightning, and some of those have spelled trouble in the way of tornadoes. Jacqui Jeras in the CNN Weather Center has been dealing with that aspect of the storm all afternoon and evening long, and she now has the latest with our radar.

What's going on, Jacqui?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Rob, it seems that as soon as a tornado warning expires, a brand new one pops up. And we're very concerned about two different cells in particular right now.

Indian River and Brevard Counties are under a tornado warning for this cell right here. That includes the city of Blue Cypress. That storm is moving northerly around 10 miles per hour. And then another storm cell over here. That's for Polk County, a tornado warning. These are both Doppler Radar-indicated tornadoes, very intense storms right.

We'll take you a little farther off to the west around St. Petersburg and on up into Tampa. These storms are moving north to northwesterly. These are not severe at this time, but they are producing a lot of lightning and torrential downpours.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg area getting hit very hard, it has been couple of hours. And more tornadoes are going to be expected through the night tonight and even through the day tomorrow. There you can see the watch in effect, it extends from north of Tampa all the way down to the Florida Keys. While this expires at 1:00 tonight, we expect a new one will likely take its place.

Wilma itself has been gaining a little bit of strength very slowly but steadily. And satellite imagery still looking very impressive and a very nice eye popping out there. The storm is over some very warm water. So there is still a chance and we still have another couple of hours left in our window for this storm to intensify and make it up possibly to a Category 3 once again. And there you see those feeder bands already affecting the Keys and much of the Florida peninsula.

It has been picking up forward speed, 14 miles per hour now, but we're expecting it continue accelerate and it make be moving at double the rate by the time it reaches the land. So it could be moving at 25-plus miles per hour. And so because it's going to continue to pick-up speed, the timing of landfall is very difficult to predict, but we do expect that that will probably be happening early tomorrow morning.

The hurricane force winds will be arriving before you wake up tomorrow, ripping across the peninsula very rapidly, affecting both sides of the coast with hurricane conditions and then it will accelerate on up to the north and to the east.

And we are expecting some widespread power outages. This is a computer animation, a forecast of where we're expecting extensive power outages in the dark orange, in the light orange widespread, and the just scattered into the yellow areas. That does include you in Tampa and nearly all the way up to Orlando -- Rob.

MARCIANO: Thanks, Jacqui. Jacqui Jeras, our meteorologist in the CNN Weather Center with our entire suite of tools to show you exactly what this storm is going to do and when it comes on board what it will do as it heads to the east coast.

That's going to be a big issue as well, Carol. You know the eastern side of Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm, Miami, Key Largo, those folks are going to get hit almost as hard as the western shoreline. So this storm will once again encompass quite of bit of the state of Florida as it moves through.

Back to you.

LIN: Yes. Pretty amazing. And the federal government is really seeing this as an opportunity and perhaps people out there are also seeing it as a test given the problems responding to hurricane Katrina. Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency are determined to be ready for Hurricane Wilma. CNN's Gary Nurenberg is standing by for us at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Gary, does it look they're ready?

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening, Carol.

With at least some lessons of Katrina learned and then incorporated into planning for Wilma, FEMA earlier today gave us a bottom line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NURENBERG (voice-over): FEMA's acting director says the agency is ready for Wilma.

R. DAVID PAULISON, FEMA ACTING DIRECTOR: We are as prepared as we can be right now, with us in the state of Florida. We've taken pretty much all the steps that we can take.

NURENBERG: FEMA has 300 truckloads of food, water, and ice on standby, they're staged at military bases on either side of the storm's track. The agency has nearly 1,000 workers spread throughout the state, some of them with new responsibilities.

PAULISON: As soon as the winds die down, we are going to have community relations people on the ground, and they're going to be more than just community relations, they're going to become operational where they're going to be reporting back to us and reporting back to the state of what type of damage we have and what the -- what type of injuries they have.

NURENBERG: FEMA has 300 satellite phones distributed throughout Florida to help it keep in touch with state and local officials after the storm hits. There is Sunday evening this pressing reality. PAULISON: Time is running short. The storm is moving very quickly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NURENBERG: Which means that FEMA now will be finding out very quickly whether all this planning pays off -- Carol.

LIN: All right. Better to be safe. Thanks very much, Gary.

Rob, it looks like the federal government is preparing for the worst as well as we try to figure out exactly where Hurricane Wilma is going to make landfall sometime by sunrise.

MARCIANO: Yes, FEMA is on it. And the state of Florida is on it. You know, unfortunately they had plenty of practice, especially with last year's hurricane season, the record-breaker there. Now this season, another record-breaker. And Florida getting back into the act. It may have not really tweaked their plan much. It tends to work and you don't find many residents here that are upset with how the government -- at least the state government has reacted to hurricanes in the past.

Speaking of past hurricanes, Hurricane Charley, last year ripped through Punta Gorda as a Category 4. Tore up a whole bunch of homes. Now a lot of those homes have been rebuilt and now Hurricane Wilma is threatening those new homes once again. We went up there to visit and we'll have that story in just a few minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Welcome back to our special hurricane coverage. Just in the last few minutes we have learned that Hurricane Wilma is now spawning some tornadoes in parts of the state of Florida. It is already flooding parts of western Cuba. It is heading for the southwestern coast of Florida right now.

Winds blowing in excess of 100 miles an hour, and just in the next few hours we're expecting to see tropical storm-force winds blowing in that part of the state. Evacuation orders are under way. Now Rob Marciano has more from his post out at Ft. Myers Beach, Florida.

Rob, are you seeing any changing conditions out there?

MARCIANO: No. It has been pretty calm. We had a couple of feeder bands go through. And unfortunately those intensified as they moved up the coast, as Jacqui pointed out, in Sarasota County and around Tampa, those blossomed into tornadic thunderstorms.

I mean, there were some -- possibly some weak tornadoes that were spawned. That will be an ongoing threat, not only tonight but through the day tomorrow. Those small tornadoes can do damage, especially to mobile homes. And they're obviously the most threatened when you talk about these type of hurricanes. I mentioned Hurricane Charley before the break, it was a Category 4 storm that made that right turn and ripped up through Punta Gorda, Florida, last year, tore apart a lot of homes. Now a lot of those folks have rebuilt. Some of them have just moved into those new homes, just imagine being one of those folks and now another storm is coming their way.

Here's their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO: John and Martie Blazis lost their home when Hurricane Charley ripped through the neighborhood last year.

JOHN BLAZIS, HOME DESTROYED BY CHARLEY: Well, the house, it was here. It had three walls gone. The roof was gone. The kitchen cabinets were sticking up. It was total devastation.

MARCIANO: Four hundred and twenty-four were leveled at Windmill Village, only 30 survived. Now, 14 months later, they have a brand new home. They moved in a week ago, just in time to have to leave again.

MARTIE BLAZIS, REBUILT AFTER CHARLEY: We arrived on Sunday afternoon, six days ago, and began to have some furniture delivered on Monday. On Tuesday then the tropical warnings came out.

MARCIANO: But this around the Blazis are in better shape thanks to better construction and are confident they won't have to start from scratch should Wilma come their way.

J. BLAZIS: Things are attached to the roof, run down the slag walls, and then anchor to the ground.

MARCIANO: Galvanized steel straps (ph) anchor the roof. Cinderblock foundations are built higher in case of flooding. Two by six sidewalls are thicker, made to withstand higher winds. With the new home ready to take on the storm, what about the Blazis?

J. BLAZIS: If it's headed this way, we're out of here.

MARCIANO: Just across town, Jim Minardi has a new home, too.

(on camera): Your house at some point looked like this, what, six months ago, eight months ago, 10 months ago?

JIM MINARDI, BUILT "HURRICANE PROOF" HOME: Yes, February 12th we scraped it off the lot.

MARCIANO: And tell me some of the things that you have now that you didn't, I bet a lot.

MINARDI: Yes. We have four feet of elevation, and now the house is all poured-in-place concrete structure. So I guess the walls are supposed to withstand like a Category 5 hurricane easily. MARCIANO (voice-over): Extra thick windows. Roof tiles that are screwed down. A pool cage designed to withstand 135-mile-an-hour winds.

(on camera): There are so many little subtleties about this hurricane-proof house. The door, for instance, it opens to the outside. Most doors open in and they're only supported by the latch and the lock. When hurricane-force winds hit this door, it's supported by the entire reinforced frame.

(voice-over): If that's not enough, Jim is also putting up a screen out back.

(on camera): This is bulletproof and it's made protect your almost bulletproof glass.

MINARDI: Yes. Instead of leaving all your lawn furniture out to blow away, put it behind this. For every 100-mile-an-hour wind on the outside of it, it's three miles an hour behind the screen.

MARCIANO (voice-over): With all this protection, Minority is going to ride out the storm inside his new home. But still he's nervous.

MINARDI: It really is affecting me that we could get another really bad hurricane and I really don't want to put it to the test.

MARCIANO: After suffering a direct hit last year, storm clouds are hovering over Punta Gorda again. But residents know hurricanes are just part of life here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our other boat left with Charley. We don't want Wilma to take this one.

MARCIANO: And if you're going to rebuild, build it stronger for the next one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO: You know, the Blazis asked me while doing that story, do you think it's going to come here? Do you think it's going to come again to Punta Gorda? And you know they were still in the cone uncertainty -- still are at this point. But I looked at her, I said, you know, if it does, you're -- that's just really, really bad luck. And at this point tonight as we get closer to landfall it looks like that track is starting to be (INAUDIBLE) farther to the south and hopefully the at Punta Gorda will be spared a direct hit from this storm.

But you know, Carol, it was 1992, you know, everyone talks about the lessons learned from Katrina. Certainly there were a bunch, but the biggest lessons learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was the building code here in the Florida, and they have upped the ante for sure.

I mean, most of the houses built since then, since the new laws have been passed, are built like fortresses and they can withstand well over 100-mile-an-hour winds. It's a problem for the houses that are built well before then, they're the ones that will easily get blown down and we'll probably see a few of those come this time tomorrow night.

Back to you.

LIN: Right, unfortunately. Rob, how much did that house cost? I mean, what did it cost to build that?

MARCIANO: You know, I asked him. I said, excuse me for being rude, he wouldn't answer.

LIN: Really?

MARCIANO: So I guess it's, you know, one of those things.

LIN: It's way expensive, I mean, poured-in-place concrete walls? Incredibly expensive.

MARCIANO: Well, he did mention that it's approximately 15 to 20 percent above what it would normally cost to code is what, you know, he had to pay to get it ramped up to that level. And, you know, he wanted to build it code-plus, and that's what he got.

LIN: Well, he sure did, but I'm guess probably $300 to $500 a square foot for that house. That kind of glass and....

MARCIANO: And it's pretty nice.

LIN: Yes. It is pretty, too.

MARCIANO: It's pretty nice inside too. You didn't see much of the inside. It's pretty nice inside. He's living large now.

LIN: Real interesting. All right, Rob. Thanks so much.

We have much more of our special hurricane coverage to come. So stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Welcome back to our all-night special hurricane coverage. Hurricane Wilma right now a Category 2 with winds gusting over 100 miles per hour. It is the 22nd storm of the season. There have been so many storms this year that the hurricane folks have almost run out of names. They're now into the Greek alphabet.

Rob Marciano, is this unusual? I mean, what's causing this kind of storm season?

MARCIANO: Yes. It's crazy. It's a record-breaker. We've never run out of names since they've been naming them in the '50s. And going into the Greek alphabet has been their fallback this year, never really expecting to run out of names ever before. And now we have. Like you mentioned, 22 named storms, a dozen or so hurricanes, six of those hurricanes major hurricanes, Category 3, 4, or 5. And three of those major hurricanes so far making landfall in the U.S. So it's definitely not usual. It's a record-breaking season and after last season it seems to be a trend.

And the cycle that we're in, we talk about the hurricane cycles, the way the Atlantic Ocean is circulating right now, it's remaining fairly warm, it's keeping conditions pretty ripe for hurricane development. And we started this cycle in 1995. And they typically last 20, 25, sometimes 30 years. So we're only about 10 years into this active hurricane -- so we're not even halfway through, Carol, of seeing more active hurricane seasons in the years to come.

LIN: Yes. You know, we've put out a question to our viewers last night to ask them what they thought was causing, you know, so many major storms. And we got answers, everything from oil drilling to the war in Iraq to global warming. Any theories?

MARCIANO: Well, I stick with the theory that it's the cycle that -- the circulation that happens in the Atlantic Ocean. You know, the oceans -- the Earth is covered by more than half -- the ocean. Did I say that right? You know what I mean.

LIN: Yes.

MARCIANO: It has got a lot of water on the planet. And so much so that, you know, the ocean often controls the atmosphere. And if you look in past active decades, in the '50s and '60s and the '20s and '30s, and you see how they were spaced apart, it's very similar to what is happening now.

And oddly enough, what would save us from an active hurricane season is El Nino. We haven't talked a lot about El Nino the past several years. But if we get a strong El Nino...

LIN: All right. We just temporarily lost the connection to Rob Marciano. He is in Ft. Myers Beach, Florida. We don't think it's weather-related, but you never know. He's going to check back as our all-night hurricane coverage continues.

The skies are finally clearing in Cancun, Mexico, for example, and residents and tourists are seeing the damage for the first time. CNN's Susan Candiotti is in the midst of that devastation, just one of many correspondents in our special all-night hurricane coverage. You're watching CNN LIVE SUNDAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are watching and waiting for Hurricane Wilma. Florida is bracing for this powerful Category 2 storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: I cannot emphasize enough to the folks that live in the Florida Keys, a hurricane is coming, and a hurricane is a hurricane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: CNN is your hurricane headquarters. Our extensive coverage on the path of Hurricane Wilma begins right now.

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