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CNN Live At Daybreak

Wilma Bears Down on Florida's Coast

Aired October 24, 2005 - 05:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Monday, October 24. Wilma is bearing down on Florida's coast.
ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you. CNN is your hurricane headquarters. And severe weather expert Chad Myers has the latest on Wilma, along with the latest bulletin from the National Hurricane Center. So let's head to the forecast center right now -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I told you I was going to digest this, because they gave it to us in knots the first time, Carol. And now the Air Force reconnaissance aircraft now is saying that the winds have increased to 125 miles per hour. And that's not probably that big of a shock to me, because for a while, about 1:00 this morning, the Hurricane Hunter aircraft actually found flight level winds a little bit above 140. And so I'm assuming that that now kind of mixing down a little bit.

The pressure still coming down, but that's an estimated pressure. And so this is still a -- this continues to be a dangerous Category 3 storm that's going to make it's way now right up into Florida Bay and right across the large cities, from Florida City, right through and into Fort Lauderdale, and into West Palm, causing damage from the backside as this storm spins their way -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll get back to you, Chad. Thank you.

Hurricane headlines for you this morning. Many Florida residents have moved into shelters like the one you're about to see in Fort Myers. But of course many have not.

Officials are concerned that many residents in the Florida Keys ignored evacuation orders. In fact, many of them did. Eighty percent of the population staying put in Key West this morning.

FEMA is positioning tons of supplies in Florida. Trucks filled with food, water and ice are being sent to the state. Emergency officials say they are prepared for the worst.

People in Cancun, Mexico, line up for water and other essentials after enduring two days of hurricane winds and rain. The resort has suffered major damage, and there are plans to evacuate about 10,000 U.S. tourists from the region. Right now they're just stuck there.

Our coverage extends from Naples, Florida, where Jeanne Meserve is standing by, to Key West, Florida, with Gary Tuchman. He's live.

That's Jeanne. There's Gary. And Coral Gables, Florida, that's where John King is this morning. And we're having trouble with his signal, so we hope to get John King, at least.

Actually, we're going to try to begin with John. He is in the barrier islands along Florida's southwest coast, in danger from a substantial storm surge. But let's see if that's still the case.

John, hello.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Carol. (INAUDIBLE) since we last spoke, (INAUDIBLE). The rain coming in horizontal at this point, (INAUDIBLE) storm surge.

I have to tell you, they're beginning to worry because it's almost high tide. As you can see, the waves crashing the beach here. But we were at the emergency operation center here at the beginning of our day, about 20 hours ago now, and they were saying then that the storm was going to hit just to the north for a direct (INAUDIBLE) storm surge of perhaps over 10 feet if it stayed a Category 3. It appears now that the storm is going to hit (INAUDIBLE) south. That will make it better.

That doesn't mean there's not significant rain. It doesn't mean there won't be flooding. And already in the past little more than an hour, all of the power on Marco Island has gone out.

There was no electricity here (INAUDIBLE). Saved the hat that time. That's a good catch. But Carol, that will complicate any remaining rescue efforts.

We also know in the past hour or so some police and fire have stopped their patrols in the streets. They don't believe it's safe to be out anymore. And they believe, again, about 2,000 people (INAUDIBLE)...

COSTELLO: OK.

KING: ... evacuation orders first went out on Friday. Most heeded that advice. We will continue to check in with local officials. The biggest problem now is the utilities are out. And Carol, of course we're still a little bit away from the worst of the storm, but you can tell in the last few minutes we're beginning to get hit with much harder (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: Yes, and we want to -- we're going -- we're going to break away from John King right now. The signal's just too bad. But we want to see exactly when the worst will hit Florida.

Ed Rappaport joins us now from the National Hurricane Center with the latest advisory.

Good morning, Ed.

ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So what is the latest advisory?

RAPPAPORT: The latest advisory is that, as you can see there at Marco Island and Naples, that the strongest weather is approaching. The center of the hurricane is still about 55 miles offshore. It's here. Marco Island is here, and Naples is up there.

You can see, though, between the center and those two spots is this eastern and then southeastern eye wall. And that's where the worst of the weather is. So in the next hour to two hours, we'll have the worst of the weather in the southwest coast with Category 3 conditions. Maximum winds are now near 125 miles per hour, and that's the wind that's going to be pushing a storm surge ashore.

And it appears the worst of it's going to be from about Marco Island southward. The storm surge could be as high as 18 feet mainly to the unpopulated areas south of Marco Island. But there will be some surge all the way northward to Naples based on this forecast track.

COSTELLO: I want to bring Chad in, our severe weather expert. He has some questions for you, Ed.

MYERS: I'm curious, Ed, as the bump up to 125 in the past few minutes from the 5:00 advisory, tell me about that. Tell me what the Hurricane Hunter aircraft has found and why that bump up.

RAPPAPORT: There are a variety of pieces of information that we use to estimate the intensity. And the most recent new piece of information was that there was a dropsonde, an instrument that was sent out from the aircraft and was in the southern eye wall and found winds that were up a little bit, strong enough to support raising the intensity by another five miles per hour to 125 miles per hour.

MYERS: Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, of course, Ed, people are hoping that this storm, like, blows by really quickly. I mean, what -- what are you expecting? What are you forecasting?

RAPPAPORT: It is accelerating. It's moving pretty quickly to the northeast. But it means that we're still going to have, though -- because we've got such a large area, even with that rapid motion -- we're still going to have on the order of six hours or more of hurricane conditions over south Florida.

And it looks like all of south Florida will get Category 1 conditions. Areas to the south of the eye are going to have Category 2 conditions over much of south Florida. And then there'll be a few spots in the southern eye wall that could see Category 3.

MYERS: Ed, let's talk about damage for the south Florida cities, Florida City, Homestead, Miami, Opalacca (ph). Tell me about what kind of damage from the wrong way, basically. As people think about hurricane damage from the west with these winds, what are they going to see?

RAPPAPORT: Again, we're expecting Category 1, and in many places in south Florida, Category 2 conditions. And so there will be -- of course power is going to be out. There will be tree limbs down. There will be also likely some structural damage to mobile homes and other -- other buildings that are not well fortified.

So it's very important that for the next six to 10 hours that everybody remain indoors. Do not go outside. It's going to be very dangerous. Even though the winds haven't reached hurricane force yet on the southeast coast, they will within the next several hours.

COSTELLO: You know, Ed, I want you to repeat that. But before you do, we want to welcome our international viewers. We are simulcasting now.

But again, it's so important for people to stay indoors. In Key West, Gary Tuchman has seen people walking in the streets.

RAPPAPORT: Yes, they're putting their lives at risk now, because with the winds up to tropical storm and soon hurricane force, there will be flying debris. We've lost people in the past due to the airborne debris. And also, we're concerned, of course, still in the Keys about the storm surge. It's already risen several feet there, and it's likely to come up higher, particularly on the backside of the hurricane, where the rise in Florida Bay will be greatest when the winds start to come out of the west to northwest.

MYERS: Ed, I have...

COSTELLO: We're seeing a picture -- oh, sorry, Chad. We're seeing a picture of Key West. I just wanted to tell our viewers. But go ahead, Chad.

MYERS: I just have one more question about the tornadoes that we've been seeing in central Florida. What's the threat now, the risk for the rest of the morning into the afternoon?

RAPPAPORT: It looks like there's a risk all day long, particularly in these bands that are removed from the center. So there's going to be a risk from the tornadoes in these -- these outer bands, and then these really strong, steadier winds, hurricane-force winds, up to Category 3 in the eye wall region and the storm surge in south Florida.

MYERS: Carol, go ahead.

COSTELLO: All right. I think that's all we have.

Ed Rappaport with the latest advisory.

Chad Myers, we'll get back to you.

Thank you, Ed.

RAPPAPORT: Thank you. COSTELLO: Wilma is expected to slam ashore near Naples, Florida. Actually, before we go to Naples, to Jeanne Meserve, let's go to Key West and talk about conditions there, because we were just talking about that.

Gary Tuchman is live there now.

I know that one woman was injured when a tree fell on top of her house. Any other injuries this morning?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The word we're getting from the mayor of Key West, Carol -- we just talked to him a short time ago -- no other reported injuries. But the big problem right now, as we were just talking about on our air, is the storm surge.

There is two to four feet of standing water on the grounds now in part of Key West. An apartment complex about a half a mile away from where I'm standing right now, the water has gotten so high that everyone on the first floor of the apartment complex -- and when I say everyone, I mean it -- this particular apartment complex, we're told by the mayor, very few people have evacuated. All the people on the first floor have had to go to the second floor for safety because the water has passed their windows.

There is much flooding throughout the city of Key West. The elevation here is only a foot and a half. The highest elevation in the city very similar to New Orleans in that way, so they're very vulnerable to flooding.

The parking lot behind where I'm standing is flooded right now. This street, however, Duval Street, which is a main drag in Key West, which is where all the tourists comes, so far hasn't been flooded despite the fact that the rain has now been coming down for seven and a half hours torrentially.

I will tell you, I hate to use the word "improving," because I know it could get worse very quickly. However, the peak winds here seemed to be between 2:30 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

We're still getting the hurricane-force gusts, but it's not as high as it was before. An hour and a half ago, it was virtually impossible to stand. And now I can stand. And that's how I can judge it right now.

But the rain keeps coming down. We are told that there was one woman hurt when a tree fell on her house. She was brought under her own power into the hotel that we're standing next to because none of the hospitals are open. We're also told that people -- four people from a family were rescued from their flooded house and also brought to this hotel.

The people who stayed there were told that there would be no one to help you if you did stay here, unless there was an absolute emergency. And to their credit, the police and fire officials are going out to help some of those people who were supposed to evacuate, because there was a mandatory evacuation, but decided they didn't want to -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And that must be making police and firefighters frustrated this morning.

I want to talk more about the flooding. You mentioned that apartment building that was flooding. But many people in Key West live in single-story homes. Most of them don't have basements.

Are you hearing reports of water inside people's homes right now, Gary?

TUCHMAN: We're hearing there has been a lot of flooding in people's homes. But according to the mayor of this city -- and it's really interesting about this mayor, because he's only been in office for two weeks and two days. I mean, he's a brand-new mayor and he's dealing with this. There have been no major injuries, no casualties right now. That's certainly good news.

One really interesting thing, Carol, about Key West, the city which is the southernmost city in the continental United States, they haven't been directly hit by a major hurricane since 1919. In 1935, the most powerful hurricane on record in the United States hit the Keys. It was called the Labor Day hurricane, before the named hurricanes. But it hit the middle Keys and the upper Keys, not this city of Key West.

So people lived here for generations and have never experienced anything quite like this before.

COSTELLO: Oh, and I know -- and the storm surge is yet to come. And you heard Ed Rappaport say it could be as high as 18 feet.

TUCHMAN: You know, it's very scary. And that's why people were told to evacuate, because of that.

You know -- and you know this, Carol, because you and I talked in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, we just kind of all thought that, OK, everyone's going to kind of get it now and evacuate when there's a chance a major hurricane is coming their way. And up and down the Florida coast people have evacuated in good numbers. But here in Key West they really haven't.

COSTELLO: Yes, but you know -- you told me this before, and it was so astounding. They didn't evacuate because they didn't think they learned any lessons from Katrina because New Orleans is below sea level. But Key West is only like a foot and a half above sea level.

TUCHMAN: There's no question about that. But there are two reasons a lot of people haven't evacuated. One, because they haven't had a hurricane here in a long time. And they are proud Conchs. That's the affectionate term for the people who have lived here their whole lives.

A lot of people don't even regard themselves as part of the United States. They call themselves the Conch Republic here in Key West. Of course they consider themselves Americans, but a lot of them, you know, consider themselves a whole different breed of Americans. And they say, you know, "We are stubborn, we are proud, we are not leaving."

But also, another important factor, the nearest shelter is 150 miles away from here in Miami-Dade County. Not safe to have shelters in the Keys. There's actually some closer shelters, but they're 90 miles away in Havana, Cuba, and that would not be possible, obviously, or desirable to go to.

COSTELLO: Yes. And there's only one bridge out of town as well.

Gary Tuchman, we'll get back to you.

Gary Tuchman, live in Key West this morning.

Of course Wilma is expected to slam ashore near Naples, Florida, on the southwest Florida coast, and the worst is yet to come there. It's pretty bad there now, though.

Let's head -- let's head there now and talk with Jeanne Meserve.

Hello, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE) because it's getting worse where I am. The wind and the rain really picked up. This rain really pretty punishing on the face out here.

And (INAUDIBLE) John King say earlier that power was up on Marco Island. Behind us, that was all illuminated about 15 minutes ago. The lights are gone now. The lights in front of me have been going on and off.

The sheriff's department tells me that Amocoli (ph), another town in this county, has been affected by power outages, and that the power company says that won't be addressed anytime soon. One of the results of that is that alarms are going off and on, and the deputies would like to respond to that but they can't.

They've been pulled off the road in the last 40 minutes or so because conditions are simply too dangerous out there. Too dangerous because of things like this.

This is a piece of debris. When I last talked to you it wasn't here. But it came flying down off the trees. There's plenty of it coming down all over this county as a result of these really punishing winds.

As for the storm surge, (INAUDIBLE) indication that it's coming here. But again, we've got these winds blowing out, blowing towards the Gulf. That appears to be keeping the water away from here, at least for now.

When I spoke to the sheriff's department, they said they had no significant reports of flooding. And as far as they knew, no lives were in jeopardy, no reports of personal injury at this point in time. Of course it's the middle of the night. A lot of people in their homes, rightly so, because of the weather and because of the time. We certainly hope they're going to stay there, because conditions are probably only going to get worse where we are -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Speaking of that, Chad has a question for you, Jeanne.

MESERVE: Sure, Chad.

MYERS: Well, I just wanted to tell you, Jeanne, that eventually, yes, your winds are going to pick up just a little bit more. Your closest approach to the eye wall is literally about 10 to 15 minutes away.

This eye wall is going to pass directly over you. It's the northern eye wall, which of the two, the southern or the northern one, it's the least effective, the least dangerous, the one that's going through Gary right now. Gary Tuchman is in Key West. He got the dangerous side of the eye.

But you can now begin to see how Marco Island, right on up into Naples now, hitting the north and northeastern quadrant. And your winds are going to be stronger, maybe by as many as 30 to 40 miles per hour in the next 20 minutes, Jeanne. Be careful out there.

COSTELLO: Yes, definitely.

MESERVE: I will. A good thing...

COSTELLO: And Jeanne...

MESERVE: There are some trees to hold on to. Thank goodness.

COSTELLO: I just wanted you to describe what it's like. Because when the electricity goes off and you don't know where that flying debris is coming from, it's quite eerie, isn't it, Jeanne?

MESERVE: Well, yes. I mean, I keep sort of glancing off to my right here, because that's where the wind is coming from. And to be frank, I can't see because of the darkness, but also because the rain is coming right into my face. So probably from a safety viewpoint, this isn't the smartest thing to be doing at this point in time, but here we are.

COSTELLO: Well, you got the warning from Chad, so you know when to run into that hotel.

Jeanne Meserve, reporting live from Naples, Florida, this morning.

We're looking for citizen journalists. Send us your photos and video of Hurricane Wilma. Log on to CNN.com/hurricane. But of course we want you to be safe when you're taking those pictures. So don't do anything crazy.

CNN.com is the place to send your pictures, though. Still to come on this early edition of DAYBREAK, Rob Marciano in Fort Myers. We'll check in with him in just a minute.

CNN is your hurricane headquarters all night and through the day as Wilma bears down on Florida.

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COSTELLO: CNN is your hurricane headquarters all night and through the day as Wilma bears down on Florida. Here are the latest headlines for you now.

Wilma has intensified into a Category 3 storm, with winds of about 125 miles per hour. It's now 55 miles southwest of Naples.

About 80 percent of the people in the Florida Keys decided to stay put and ride out the storm. One emergency official warns they may be in deep trouble. The hurricane center predicting a storm surge of up to eight feet in the Keys. The area is only four to six feet above sea level.

Florida certainly has had more than its fair share of nature's wrath. Governor Jeb Bush has already asked his brother, President George Bush, to grant a major disaster declaration for 14 counties. Many of the areas bracing for Wilma were already hit or grazed by seven other hurricanes since August of last year.

And FEMA is positioning tons of supplies in Florida. Trucks filled with food, water and ice being sent to the state. Emergency officials say they are prepared for the worst.

Let's check in again with severe weather expert Chad Myers. Also, meteorologist Rob Marciano is in Fort Myers, Florida. We'll check with him in just a minute.

Let's start with you, though, Chad.

MYERS: You know, by the time you're standing in that rain for so long, there's no reason to even wear a rain slicker anymore, Carol. I feel for Rob standing out there because we've both done it so many times.

Here's Key West now, kind of getting out of some of the really bad stuff that has now moved to the east, into maybe some of the lower Keys, and finally into the middle Keys. Here's the Seven Mile Bridge right there, Key Colony Beach, also even up toward Islandmorada. Going to pick up some wind. Islandmorada still on the east side there of the bad stuff.

And now we're seeing right along the Florida Bay the eastern eye wall making landfall. And that's why actually there's a tornado warning in effect for this area, because there will be tornado-like damage even though there's not a tornado on the ground. The winds are gusting to 125, and that will make tornado-like damage.

How do we know, and how did Ed Rappaport know about that damage and about the wind speeds? Let me show you one other place to go with this thing.

This is another source that we have to show you. He called it a dropsonde. A dropsonde is something that drops out of an airplane. This is a top of an airplane here. I will put it into motion for you.

A little package falls out of the bottom of the airplane and right into the hurricane itself. And one of the little dropsondes dropped right into the eye wall. And they found wind speeds to 125 miles per hour. The one that you see pictured there missed the eye wall and got right into the eye, and that's how they predict and that's how they know what the central pressure is of the storm.

But there is the eye. The planes fly back and forth. The one that actually fell down, Carol, showed that, showed the wind speeds now were greater than 120. So a significant middle-of-the-road Category 3 now. Not a week 3, like it was about five hours ago.

COSTELLO: When is the worst to come, Chad?

MYERS: Well, it depends on where you are. From Miami and Opalacca (ph), and for Florida City, in the next couple of hours. For Fort Myers and Marco Island, literally in the next 20 minutes.

Then it moves to the east from there. After that, it gets better for people that are to the west of the eye, but goes a lot down hill for places like West Palm and Boca and Fort Lauderdale. That big city complex, if you will, almost from Melbourne, Florida, right on down into Miami, a lot of those areas -- most of those areas will have damage from the eye wall itself coming in from the wrong way.

COSTELLO: OK. You say 20 minutes to Fort Myers, right?

MYERS: Right.

COSTELLO: Of course that's where Rob Marciano is right now.

What are conditions like now, Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the winds have picked up, probably sustained at about 40 miles an hour now. And they've been gusting over 50 in spots.

I think an important note to point out here, when we talk about categories and how much wind this storm has produced, they come in at night. You know, it's difficult to see on your television screen at home just what kind of force these storms are bringing. But just to put things in perspective, Hurricane Ivan of last year, and then Hurricane Dennis of earlier this year, both came ashore across the northern Gulf of Mexico as categories 3s (INAUDIBLE) to 125. And you know (INAUDIBLE) did to the Florida peninsula, Florida panhandle, and also (INAUDIBLE) Alabama.

So we're likely going to see similar damage and destruction from this storm when the sun comes up and this storm begins to exit later on this afternoon. But (INAUDIBLE) barrier islands (INAUDIBLE) the beach. Can you still hear me, Carol?

COSTELLO: Now I do. We thought we lost you for a second, but keep going.

MARCIANO: OK. (INAUDIBLE) all afternoon and all evening long, and expect them to continue to do that. And as that happens, the storm surge just not going to happen.

The tide came up briefly, and now it has since receded because it's going out. But also, the winds are pushing it out. So there's no threat of any sort of storm surge flooding here, Carol. But heavier rain, we've easily got (INAUDIBLE) storm began about, you know, really 7:00, 8:00 is when the steadier rains began.

So, you know, this state has been waterlogged for the past several months from all the hurricanes that have rolled (INAUDIBLE), systems that have rolled through. So rainfall flooding is going to be an issue in spots, but the fact that this storm is moving quickly should diminish at least that threat as well.

That's the latest from here, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Thank you.

Rob Marciano, reporting live from Fort Myers.

We want to head to Wellington, Florida, now. That's in Palm Beach County.

Belkys Rodriguez is at a shelter there.

BELKYS RODRIGUEZ, REPORTER, WPEC: Good morning, Carol.

We're at Palm Beach Central High. It's a brand new high school, less than five years old. And of course it is hurricane-proof.

Let's show you some of the people that are staying here. Of course early hours of the morning.

This is one of the hallways where many people are staying. There's about 700 people staying at this shelter alone. There's a lot, though, of activity out here as well, lots of wind blowing and things like that.

We can tell you that most of the people that are staying here are Hispanic, maybe don't even have other means of providing a safe place for them to stay. And so they're staying here.

We just want to give you a sense of what it's like outside. Let me see if I can scoot over here.

This is -- we're in a barrier here. The school is -- their hallway is just around us. And then there's little courtyard in the middle. Winds have been picking up increasingly here. And because we're in western West Palm Beach, the storm would hit us first before heading farther east from us. And once the storm gets bad enough, the Red Cross volunteers here telling us that they're going to shut down and lock down all of those hallways that lead to the people and where they're staying just to make sure that no one gets out in this weather -- Carol.

COSTELLO: You mentioned some of the people staying there. Do -- are many people coming from mobile homes as well? Because I know they did a pretty good job of evacuating those areas.

RODRIGUEZ: They did. Many people coming from mobile homes. Mostly, the people that are here are either Hispanic, or from Lake Worth, which is a low -- sort of semi low class, low income area.

We can tell you that in previous years, when hurricanes Jeanne and Francis hit last year, there were far more people here. They did see a lot of people arriving once the winds picked up dramatically, and they're expecting that to happen again this time around. They do expect much more people to arrive in the next hour.

Of course, once it gets so bad, although they won't close their doors for anyone coming in, they really don't want anyone going out in these conditions and trying to get to safety. If you're in some place and you can't make it out, and the conditions are bad, they'd rather you stay where you are.

COSTELLO: All right. Belkys Rodriguez from our affiliate WPEC, reporting live from Wellington, Florida, in Palm Beach County.

Still to come on this early edition of DAYBREAK, Everglades City is only three feet above sea level. We'll touch base with the city's mayor to find out what's happening there.

CNN, your hurricane headquarters all night and through the day as Wilma bears down on Florida.

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