Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Hurricane Wilma Coverage; Florida Keys Battered

Aired October 24, 2005 - 04:00   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. Hurricane Wilma now upon us.
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 we want to go right to the severe weather expert, Chad Myers, to begin our coverage this hour.

Tell us where it is now, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Carol, this is like old times, huh?

COSTELLO: I know.

MYERS: Wow, yes, (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: How long have you been here? I mean, how long have you been overnight working?

MYERS: (INAUDIBLE), that's a long time, since last -- sometime yesterday. I think maybe since Wednesday.

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: Here's the center of the storm. Here is Naples, here's Florida Bay, right on down into northern Monroe County. There's Key West, getting hit so very hard right now, with wind speeds must be in excess of 90 miles per hour. In fact, we don't even know, because the instruments have been knocked out for all of the keys at this point. But another very heavy band, right over Key West.

And then you get farther to the north. The winds are actually onshore. Could be some flooding in some of the canals around Key Largo or even, for that matter, even up to (INAUDIBLE) Fort Lauderdale could be seeing some flooding. And then here you go, the red counties here, tornado warnings.

I have central Oceola County, and that's for St. Cloud, and this one you see here, this is for Lake Wales. You can see Lake Wales here. I'm assuming it's on this storm here. Both of those are actually moving a little bit towards the northwest, about 15 miles per hour. This looks like an ugly part of the storm right there, maybe over St. Cloud in a half an hour.

Carol, we'll have more, but we have so many live shots we want to get to, I don't want to take too much time.

COSTELLO: Oh, do we ever. As you all know, Gary Tuchman has been in Key West, where it's raining really hard, and they got sustained winds of about 75 miles per hour. So let's head there live once again to check in with Gary, standing out in the elements. Hey, Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.

And let's summarize what's happening in Key West, Florida, the southernmost point in the continental United States.

What we're dealing with here is this, flooding in parts of the town, however, no major flooding just yet. At least one injury, a woman a short time ago was brought to this hotel we're standing next to, because there are no hospitals open in the keys. A tree fell on her house. She will be OK. She came in this hotel under her own power with the fire officials.

That gives you an idea of the kind of risks you take when you don't evacuate. Twenty-eight thousand people live in Key West, Florida. Most of them, according to Monroe County authorities, did not evacuate this town. They decided either it was too far to go to the shelter, because, the fact is, the nearest shelter is 150 miles away in Miami-Dade County. There are no shelters in the keys, because it's not considered safe.

And another fact is, Key West has not been directly hit by a hurricane, a major hurricane, since 1919, it's been 86 years. So generations of people have grown up with not seeing a major hurricane, and a lot of people will say, Hey, we've never before, we weren't planning on leaving again. And they didn't leave.

Mandatory evacuation was in effect yesterday. A curfew is in effect now. Nevertheless, we still see people wandering around. I just heard some wood break, so I was just looking up there.

There's a building right over here, you can see it's a very well- constructed building. It's called -- it's the Express Store. It's hard for you to see. There's a balcony up there. And we heard just a crack on the balcony there.

Over here, there are lights above these stores. These lights have been swinging for a long time. Hurricane-force winds for an hour and a half, and the lights haven't come down.

We're marveling right now, Carol, at the fact that during Hurricane Katrina and Rita, before the winds picked up even this much, we saw a lot of destruction with some of the stores and restaurants nearby. So far here, on Duval (ph) Street here in downtown Key West, not a lot of destruction. And according to the fire officials, they haven't seen a lot yet.

But we know at least one tree came down on one house, and it ain't over yet, Carol.

COSTELLO: No, you're right about that. The full brunt of the storm hasn't hit yet.

A question for you about the 80 percent of residents who chose to stay in Key West. I would have thought that they would have been watching television and watching what happened in light of Katrina. But obviously, they didn't -- I mean, that didn't make any of them leave.

TUCHMAN: What was really funny, Carol, because I think we talked about this during Rita, I was in Beaumont, Texas, and Port Arthur, Texas, during Rita. And we couldn't find anybody on the streets, anybody in their houses. It was like a 95 to 99 percent evacuation rate. It was incredible.

And we attributed a lot of it to what happened during Hurricane Katrina. So we thought that would kind of be the legacy of what happened during Katrina, the horror and the tragedy that people would remember, that you really -- it pays to evacuate.

And indeed, and you'll talk to my colleagues up the coast here, there's been some good evacuation percentages in Marco Island and in Naples and in Fort Myers. But here in Key West, where you have kind of a attitude of live and let live, a lot of people have decided they want to live here and not go to the shelter.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll get back to you. Gary Tuchman, reporting live from Key West this morning.

Let's head to the other side of the storm, on the northern end, to Naples, Florida. That's where Jeanne Meserve is watching Wilma. Good morning, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Boy, we're finally starting to get a touch of what Gary Tuchman has been experiencing down there in Key West. The winds here are now really hammering us. And the rain hitting my hood here so hard that I'm having difficulty hearing any of the program. It's really quite something.

You'll notice that the winds are blowing in this direction. That's probably a good thing. Behind me is a channel or an inlet in from the Gulf, into the middle of this condominium project here. And the winds are blowing back towards the Gulf. And so it's sweeping water out of here rather than bringing water in.

Of course, what they've been really worried about here is the storm surge. These winds would appear to minimize that impact here.

The storm, of course, tracking as south of here, it didn't look like Naples wasn't going to be too badly hit by the storm surge. But this just another big plus, driving, hopefully, some of that water right offshore.

I know Gary's been talking a little bit about the Katrina effect. I will say that I spoke to a number of people in the course of the week who said that they were evacuating, because they saw what Katrina had done to the Gulf. They didn't want to have any experience like that, so they were going to get out of harm's way, and they did.

But, you know, I talked to many other people, Carol, who said this is a totally different situation. New Orleans is below sea level. It was surrounded by those levees, that when they gave away, it was bowl that filled up. Here, we're right on the coast. Whatever water comes in is going to go out. And so people were deciding they were going to hunker down, and they just wouldn't see any comparison between that situation and that storm, and this one.

Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: OK, Jeanne, I'm going to take a chance that you can hear me. I wonder, you described somewhat where you're standing. What are you being protected by?

MESERVE: I'm sorry, I think I'm having trouble hearing that question, Carol. I believe I heard you say what am I being protected by, is that right?

COSTELLO: Yes.

MESERVE: Not much, I'll tell you. We've got a big building right in front of us, but the wind is sweeping down this way. There are some buildings in the distance, but not too many. I'm out in the thick of it right now.

COSTELLO: OK, stay there. We're going to talk really loudly so you can continue to hear us. I'm going to bring Chad in right now.

MYERS: I have my Doppler set up here for Naples, where she is, right there, Naples Park, and we'll just circle the whole area.

Carol, there's an awful lot of weather still to come for her. We'll (INAUDIBLE) it into motion and show that there's -- the weather here now, almost the eastern eyewall, and that will slowly go out a little bit farther. There you go. There is the eastern eyewall coming into her area right there. And that's going to be increasing the wind speed, probably by a factor of two. What she's seeing now, about 40. When that eyewall comes in, it may go actually to 80 or 90 miles per hour.

So Jean, I need you to be careful out there.

Got that?

COSTELLO: I don't think she can hear us, anyway.

MYERS: No, she can't. When it gets -- it gets to be a...

COSTELLO: Chad... MYERS: ... roar out there, when the wind starts banging on you like that.

COSTELLO: Oh, and it's blowing right into her ear.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: So we can understand it. I wanted to ask you a question about this bowl effect. People didn't evacuate Florida because, you know, they figured, you know, no lessons learned from New Orleans, because New Orleans is in a whole different situation, you know, with the being in a bowl and...

MYERS: Oh, sure.

COSTELLO: ... being below sea level. But it's still pretty dangerous, isn't it?

MYERS: Oh, it's still very low. And we have pictures earlier, Carol, I mean, literally, like, 10:00, when water was already coming over the sea wall there, right along Roosevelt Boulevard, the southernmost point in Key West. And all of this weather has just been pouring on up with the winds smashing onto all of those east-west keys, from Big Pine Key, to Marathon, and right on down to Key West.

And, you know, I love Key West, but I've looked at some of those buildings, and they're not built all that well in some spots. (INAUDIBLE) rickety old wooden buildings that haven't been hit by a hurricane in 80 years.

So, you know, we're going to see more damage, I think, than people expected.

COSTELLO: Well, there's only one bridge out of there.

MYERS: Well, sure, you have to go across the Seven Mile Bridge, which is seven miles, and then go all the way north through to Key Largo, up to either (INAUDIBLE) Cardson (ph) Road, and then go to the 18-mile stretch, which is another stretch of highway. But people know and realize that sometimes you can sit on that highway for eight hours trying to go 100 miles, and they just didn't want to deal with it, I guess.

COSTELLO: All right, (INAUDIBLE).

MYERS: There are no shelters in the keys. If you wanted to go to shelter, you had to get off the keys and go to the mainland part of Florida. And that's why people didn't want to drive that far.

COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about Florida's barrier islands now. They may be in most danger from expected storm surge.

And CNN chief national correspondent John King is on Marco Island. He joins us live there from now. Hey, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Carol. Getting a bit breezy out here now, you might notice. We've got, well, significant damage to some trees beginning to happen. And we've had some power surges, power outages in the last few minutes. Our hotel just went out, and down the island, we have had power going out. All night long, we've been wondering when it would go. Officials said they thought it would go once the hurricane got close.

We're at tropical storm speed with these winds now. It's my guess that they are intensifying still, and the wind and the rain, as you can hear, and for the first time, Marco Island is black except for some emergency lights on top of the buildings to my left, up the beach to my right as well.

We're running off, obviously, off our satellite truck and our generators, but we got a few flashes about 15 or 20 minutes ago, and just in the -- (audio interrupt) ... has gone out, at least on this side of the island, as far as I can see.

Carol, that is one of the concerns. Obviously, the storm surge is the biggest concern. They expect a storm surge of seven to nine feet. Obviously still a couple hours away. But this was their big worry for the about 2,000 people still on this island, that the power would go out, and the utilities would go out, and then you would have the storm surge in the early morning hours.

We expect it'll be daylight, just daylight -- (audio interrupt)...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand by.

COSTELLO: All right, we've lost John King, but we expected we would, because of the wind blowing there. He's really standing in an area where there's not much protection from the wind. And I'm sure his crew isn't far away.

Can we go back to the double box, the pictures? Actually, we can (INAUDIBLE) go back John King.

John, can you hear us again?

John?

Nah, he cannot hear us. But John King is standing in the barrier islands of Florida.

MYERS: (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: And in the upper right-hand corner is the picture of Key Largo. You can see it's basically wind blowing there right now. The Isla Morada, halfway down -- oh, no, we don't have that any more. We see a graphic. And where Hurricane Wilma is standing right now.

All right. Coming up in just a few minutes, we'll talk with one long-time resident of Marco Island who's decided to stay put and ride out this storm. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Wilma is approaching. You're about to see a picture of Marco Island, the barrier islands of Florida. You can see the rain is going sideways now, a good indication that, you know, there is a hurricane out there in the Atlantic Ocean.

Want to quickly update you now on what we know about Hurricane Wilma at this hour. The storm is a major category 3 hurricane. Sustained winds are around 120 miles per hour. Landfall is expected between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. Eastern time, and that's, of course, just a couple hours from now.

Some of the stronger winds already battering coastal areas of Florida. The storm's wind speeds picked up within the past hour, and we expect the back end of the storm to completely pass the east coast of Florida and head into the Atlantic by late today.

But let's talk to the expert, shall we? Good morning, Chad.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

I want to show you what I think is the biggest danger of this storm itself. Yes, Key West is getting hit hard. What, 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 people may be left on that island, depends. But now I do know that the east coast of Florida really did not evacuate with this storm.

Here is the northern part of the -- the hardest part of this southern eyewall, right here on the eye itself. It is going to actually pass north of Key West, not make direct contact with the island of Key West, or with that key.

But what's going to happen is, I flattened you out and show you the direction of this storm. This part, this most dangerous forward part, the right side of the eyewall that we always warn you about, will be moving on up toward Miami, and, in fact, right on up into Fort Lauderdale.

And we're going to call a more significant landfall along the big cities here. This is just completely now filled in with million- dollar residences, condos, high-rises, and everything you could possibly imagine. What used to be one city and then a break, another city, is now completely filled in. This southern part of, obviously, Florida is where everybody wants to retire.

Well, now this is where the damage is going to occur, as the storm passes into the Atlantic Ocean and then finally out to sea.

So I am concerned about everybody here not expecting a category 3 storm at 120 miles per hour, and those winds coming in from the west. Whenever you build a big high-rise, you put everything on the east coast, with the big windows and the storm shutters, because you expect the storm to come from the Atlantic. This one's coming from the wrong way.

COSTELLO: Oh! MYERS: Carol?

COSTELLO: And just to reiterate, Chad, what a category 3 storm could do, because you said it could pack winds of, what, 120 miles per hour?

MYERS: It is 120 right now, yes.

COSTELLO: One twenty, OK. Strong enough to damage mobile homes, of course. And hopefully, everyone who's lived in a mobile home is out of there by now.

MYERS: We talked to a guy, the mayor of Everglade City, about four or five hours ago. That city, at sea level, expecting a storm surge between eight and 12 feet, which means every building's going to be under water. And there were still 20 people left in that city that didn't evacuate.

COSTELLO: And we're going to -- we're actually going to talk to that man again next hour.

MYERS: Oh, excellent.

COSTELLO: But the winds are strong enough to peel shingles from roofs, crumble pull cages, uproot newly planted shrubs and trees, and, of course, power failures are likely. And, of course...

MYERS: (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: ... electricity has gone out in many cities throughout Florida this morning.

So it's nothing to fool around with.

MYERS: Absolutely not, not when it comes -- that's why they call a category 3, Carol, and major hurricane. That gets up to that major category.

COSTELLO: You know, it's funny what happens, though, and I remember, when I was in New Orleans, and Rita was coming, and it was a category 4, and we were all going, Oh, thank goodness it's not a category 5, not really realizing that a category 4 was really bad.

MYERS: It certainly is. And it was a cat 5, and people went, Oh, it's getting smaller, it's not going to be as bad. If this was just a tropical storm three days ago, and we said, It's going to be a category 3, everybody would have been much more prepared than I think something that was going the other direction, getting weaker rather than getting stronger.

And there you go, 120 miles per hour, right now.

COSTELLO: OK. What's it doing in Fort Myers? Rob Marciano is there, so what is he feeling, Chad?

MYERS: He's feeling winds that are actually offshore, not the onshore surge, but he's also feeling winds that are going to pick up to probably 60 or 70. I know he's on the easy side, or the clean side of the eye, but this is still going to be pretty bad for him.

COSTELLO: OK, so let's take a look. Rob, can you hear us?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I hear, you Carol.

Offshore or, in this case, in my face, the rain has been coming down and blowing this way, as Chad mentioned, offshore. We are on Fort Myers Beach, which is southwest of Fort Myers by about 15 miles and actually faces the southwest. So we've got winds coming easterly, and blowing pretty much the surf that is trying to roll in here. The tide is trying to come up and peek out, but these winds keep battering and blowing these waves and all that water back out to sea.

And this direction of the wind should keep up likely until this storm makes landfall down to our south.

Heard John King talk about the lights on Marco Island and how they're starting to go out as far as power is concerned. Up and down the beach here in Fort Myers Beach, there are a few lights. I think the power's on in most spots, but many of the business owners here have shut down their power before they left in order to preserve a little bit of that, you know, just one more safety measure in the event that things get hairy here and power starts to go out.

How fast that the wind's been going? Well, they've been sustained around 30 miles an hour. We've seen wind gusts certainly up and over 40 miles an hour at times. But much more than that, I don't think so. I don't think we've reached the 50-mile-an-hour mark. There hasn't been a whole lot of debris flying down the beach or coming off buildings or coming off of palm trees.

This is kind of a pseudo-barrier island. You go farther up the coast along Leed (ph) County you've got several other beautiful barrier islands like Sanibel Island and Captiva Island, Bonita Beach is another one. And a couple little small keys in between there. Those are all under mandatory evacuations. And with the bridges that go to and from those barrier islands, they shut down when you hit tropical storm-force winds. So those bridges are likely already shut down tonight.

That's the latest from Fort Myers Beach, Carol.

(INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: Well, don't go away just yet. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. I guess hundreds of people were gathering on the piers there, and they were body-surfing and surfing and in these major waves that were coming in Sunday. So how quickly did it turn, Rob?

MARCIANO: Oh, it's been fairly gradual throughout the day today. Actually, throughout much of the day today, still people were still hanging out on the beach, just like you said, they were body-surfing, they were surfing, which is not something that happens, typically, on this side of the Gulf, surf. So any time there's a storm out there, the hardcore surfers, who don't get many swells here, certainly hit the beach.

But the rain started coming in in squalls, starting around 5:00, 6:00 tonight, and then became steady around 9:00. And since then, it's been a pretty good swath of rain and wind at times, and most everybody has -- has -- We haven't seen much of anybody. A couple of security guards that are hired to stay around this area, so that, you know, in the event that, you know, there may be some looting. We haven't seen any of that. But there are a few...

The only people, really, that we've seen are security guards that are hired by the businesses here to keep their eyes on things while the storm comes onshore. So most of the people here on Fort Myers Beach have got up and got out of here, and the people that were hanging out on Fort Myers Beach earlier today are gone, either inland or to wherever they live elsewhere.

So just us out here. But the good news is, Carol, that that water is not good -- is not going to come up anywhere closer to where I'm standing. So storm surge is not going to be an issue. But as winds, as Chad has said, you know, keep kicking up, and at some point, they could gust to hurricane strength. That's going to do some damage and likely bring down some power lines.

So it'll be somewhat tough living here in Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach for the next couple days, that's for sure.

COSTELLO: But it seems like they're going to dodge the major bullet. In fact, on a 7-Eleven store there, an employee, you know, spray-painted the boards covering the windows. And the spray paint said, "Wilma, Yabba-Dabba-Don't." So maybe it listened.

Rob Marciano, live in...

MARCIANO: I lost my earpiece, Carol.

COSTELLO: That's OK, no problem.

MARCIANO: Your voice, your sweet voice went to dial tone. I'm sorry.

COSTELLO: No problem, Rob, we'll get back to you.

Much more to come this morning. Hurricane Wilma heading toward the coast of -- the west coast of Florida. We'll bring you the latest all morning long.

You're watching DAYBREAK for Monday, October 24.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: I have the latest from the National Hurricane Center right now. This came across the wires at 3:25 a.m. Eastern Time.

Hurricane Wilma now a category 3 with sustained winds at 120 miles per hour. The location of the storm center, 75 miles west- northwest of Key West, Florida, and 95 miles southwest of Naples. And boy, it is raining in Key West right now, and also on Marco Island, the barrier islands. And how many people have evacuated those areas?

So let's see what it's like to be a resident in the path of this storm. Tom Blodgett has lived in Marco Island for 30 years. He's braved a lot of storms in those 30 years, including Hurricane Andrew. He joins us again now.

Morning, Tom.

TOM BLODGETT, MARCO ISLAND RESIDENT (on phone): Good morning.

COSTELLO: So what's it like?

BLODGETT: I'll tell you, the wind is blowing sideways here (INAUDIBLE) sideways here right now.

COSTELLO: What kind of structure are you in?

BLODGETT: I'm in a 20-story high-rise on the beach.

COSTELLO: What floor are you on?

BLODGETT: I'm on the 11th.

COSTELLO: The 11th floor. I don't know, maybe I'd want to be lower.

BLODGETT: I'm all right until the power goes out, then I know I have to walk up and down the stairs, that's all.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's probably a good idea. I don't know, I think I would have got out of there, Tom.

BLODGETT: You know, I been here in, you know, and this structure is a very good structure. I have no problems with it at all. I mean, you can hear the wind howling and stuff like that now. I mean, I can probably (INAUDIBLE) even open up my sliders right now here. But it's going sideways pretty good. Probably -- (INAUDIBLE) probably with this storm (INAUDIBLE) going through here right now, probably close to 40 miles an hour.

COSTELLO: Yes, when you opened the door, we could hear the wind and the rain.

Is anyone in that building with you?

BLODGETT: I think there's probably one or two other people that stuck it out with us.

COSTELLO: Now, why did you stick it out, especially in light of what happened after Katrina?

BLODGETT: You know, I've been here for that many years, and (INAUDIBLE) and I'm surprised that it got to be a category 3. But I am the general manager and a (INAUDIBLE) here on the island, and I have generators and things. I had to go back to the restaurant early in the morning when the power goes out to take care of the restaurant. I own -- I'm the general manager at Terris Bacon (ph) Lobster House on Marco Island.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, your life is more important than your restaurant.

BLODGETT: I know that. I have an indoor bathroom and things I could get to if it gets bad. I can do that. Also, we have (INAUDIBLE) I can get down to a lower floor if I have to get there.

COSTELLO: You know, some people said they didn't leave because they were afraid of looters. Have you heard that?

BLODGETT: No, I've not heard that on the island at all. I've been here for this many years, I've never seen that on Marco Island.

COSTELLO: So Floridians are just hardy. And of course they've been through this so many times before.

BLODGETT: Right.

COSTELLO: So are you satisfied that FEMA will do its job? The Red Cross is there doing its job.

BLODGETT: Yes, and the reports that I've watched on TV and things like that, and, you know, people I've talked to in the police department (INAUDIBLE) they've assured us, and I feel very secure what's going on (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: Well, you know, speaking of the police department, you know, if you call 911, nobody will come now. The police aren't going anywhere.

BLODGETT: (INAUDIBLE)...

COSTELLO: That would be a major concern for me, Tom.

BLODGETT: Yes, that would be, I am by myself right now, you know, I'd sent (INAUDIBLE) my daughter and everything to Orlando. I'm by myself. Like I say, I'm 53 years old, I'm pretty sure of what I'm doing.

COSTELLO: See, now you sound like you're convincing yourself.

BLODGETT: Oh, no, I'm (INAUDIBLE). Our power just went out just now, my power went out just now.

COSTELLO: OK, well, Tom, thank you for talking with us. And of course we'll check back with you to check and see how you're doing.

BLODGETT: (INAUDIBLE)...

COSTELLO: Tom Blodgett, talking to us from Marco Island this morning. Stick with us all morning long. CNN is your hurricane headquarters. We'll be tracking Wilma as she bears down on Florida today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. Welcome back to DAYBREAK's continuing coverage of Hurricane Wilma. CNN is your hurricane headquarters all day and all night.

Let's go right to the severe weather expert, shall we? Chad is in. Chad's been all night long. And he has some tornado warnings to tell you about. Morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Good morning, Carol.

For northern Brevard County -- not Broward County, Brevard County, on up near the Space Coast, this is the Space Coast, Cape Canaveral, right here, this storm, just off the Space Coast, is spinning enough that they wanted to put out a tornado warning on it. Probably at this point still -- there it is, right there -- still a waterspout. But just to the east of Cocoa Beach, moving onshore, moving to the northwest at 20 miles per hour. Just so you know, Cocoa Beach, Jetty Park, Port Canaveral, all under the gun for a tornado warning now.

And all of these storms up here, there've just been so many of them that have been spinning overnight, literally. There's probably been 30 tornado warnings in the overnight hours.

And then here from Key West, that is that far away. I mean, it would take you four hours, maybe five hours to drive from Miami here, from Key West, on up toward that tornado warning is, and this is where the eye now is very close to making landfall in Key West, although it is going to be a miss. The center of the eye is going to make landfall along the Florida southwest coast, not in the keys.

I'm getting another warning here, (INAUDIBLE).

The 5:00 advisory is in, 105 knots, which, if I do some multiplication, that's about 120 miles per hour, the same, Carol, and the minimum pressure didn't go down very much either.

I'll digest this, get you a track in just a few minutes.

COSTELLO: OK. I have one more question for you, though.

MYERS: Go.

COSTELLO: I thought tornadoes formed after a hurricane hit and went away. But this is -- these are forming before. Is that normal?

MYERS: That is normal, yes. They're on -- they're always ahead of the storm. By the time the tornado -- the hurricane goes by, there's not left, there's not much spin left. The storm itself now, although the eye is here, this onshore flow, on up here into northern parts of Florida, that's where the storms are really spinning the most.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. You digest now. Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: I will. All right.

COSTELLO: Mandatory evacuations are in effect (INAUDIBLE) across large parts of southern Florida. But in the Florida keys, very few people decided to heed those warnings. They're staying. They're there right now.

CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman is too. Bring us up to date, Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, for two and a half hours now, we've had the sustained hurricane-force winds. And there is significant damage here in Key West, the southernmost city in the continental United States.

We are hearing, and what happens when you have these hurricanes that come in the middle of the night, and this is the second major one in a row, Rita was a middle of the night too, you just hear sounds, and you hear metal clanging, and you hear wood. And you just hear, behind us, a short time ago, there was a sign on this store behind us. It's an Express store, and the sign that's been dangling the last three hours just flew off.

Next to us is a hotel. It's a landmark hotel, if you've ever been to Key West, called the La Concha (ph) Hotel. Been around for 79 years. It's the tallest building in Key West, seven stories. And inside the hotel right now, significant leaking.

There's flooding in many homes. Just minutes ago, police officers, and they told us they were not going to be out in the street unless there was a major emergency, well, police officers took a family that was inside a flooded house, dropped them to this hotel, which is kind of a makeshift medical facility now, because all the hospitals in all the keys, all the islands, 130 miles of islands, from the Miami-Dade County border to here in Key West, all the hospitals are shut down. So they're using this hotel as a medical facility.

Earlier, a fire truck delivered a woman whose house was hit by a tree. She suffered minor injuries, was able to walk in under her own power.

But right now, there is and was a mandatory evacuation in effect. And as you were saying, Carol, the fact is, most people in this city of 28,000 did not evacuate.

There's a curfew in effect right now, began at 10:00 p.m. We've seen people wandering around the streets, doing -- I don't know exactly what. But the fact is, because your house can flood, because a tree could fall on your house, that's why they have mandatory evacuations.

Fact is, the highest elevation here in Key West is a foot and a half above sea level. Storm surge projections eight feet or more.

I will tell you right now, still awfully windy, but it's not as bad as it was an hour and a half ago. And I'd be very curious to hear from Chad Myers if the worst has passed Key West, Chad. Carol?

COSTELLO: Well, let's go back to Chad in just a second. I wanted to ask you about the flooded homes, first of all, because not many people -- well, nobody has a basement there, right? So if your home is flooded, where do you go?

TUCHMAN: Right. Well, that is a major issue. There are very few homes that have basements here (INAUDIBLE). And I'll tell you, Carol, one of the problems is, there hasn't been a major hurricane that's hit Key West since 1919. It's been 86 years since a major hurricane directly hit here. So you have people -- virtually everyone who lives here who's never experienced it before, and they just didn't want to leave.

Also, and Chad mentioned this earlier, also, the closest shelter to here is 150 miles away in Miami-Dade County. It's not safe enough to have shelters in the keys. And some people couldn't be bothered to go that far.

COSTELLO: OK, Chad is here now, and he's going to give you the latest forecast for Key West. Take it away, Chad.

MYERS: What I'm really seeing, Gary, is that your closest approach to the center of the eye is probably within the next hour. You're going to have to kind of use your -- the perpendicular rule, or the right angles, if you will. And the right angle from where the center of the eye is to where you are is almost in a directly in a straight line. So after it goes by, another hour of moving at 20 to 25 miles per hour, your winds are going to start to die off.

So you probably have seen the worst of it, and I think you're probably happy about that.

TUCHMAN: Well, I may be happy about it, but I can guarantee you, Chad and Carol, that the 80 percent or so of the 28,000 people who live here in Key West are even happier.

MYERS: Yes.

TUCHMAN: They're still here.

COSTELLO: I bet so. Gary Tuchman, we'll get back to you. And Chad will get back to you as well.

But we want to see what conditions are like now farther north in Naples.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve joins us live from there. Hello, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

We felt a little out of this storm earlier. The (INAUDIBLE) is with us now, as you can tell from this wind and from this rain. And we're starting to see the first negative effects of this. We're -- we, of course, can only observe this small area where we've parked our truck, but I can tell you the lights went out here briefly, came back on. And then we observed a very bright flash of light behind us here, lights went out across the canal here in the complex of (INAUDIBLE) there. They've come back on as well.

So clearly, they're starting to take a battering here. We fully expected to lose power, and we well may.

I heard Chad saying that renewed concerns about tornadoes. They've been worried about that here in Collier County since about 10:00 last night. They put out an urgent plea to people who lived in mobile homes to please get into a solid structure. They said it simply was not safe, whether you were in the evacuation zone or elsewhere in the county, because this risk of tornadoes had just become so great with this storm.

There were about 12 shelters set up in this county. As of early in the evening last evening, there were over 6,000 people in those shelters. We frankly don't know, authorities haven't been able to tell us whether there was a surge after they put out that warning about mobile homes. We certainly hope so, given the weather conditions we're seeing right now.

Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: Jeanne Meserve reporting live from Naples.

More than a foot of storm surge is expected to wash up on many of Florida's southern barrier islands.

CNN chief national correspondent John King is on Marco Island. Ooh, it's nasty there, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is getting more and more nasty by the minute, Carol. Not 30 minutes ago, the power went out all up the island. I know you were speaking to a local resident a few minutes ago, and he said his power was out. It lasted most of the night. That was longer than local officials thought it would. Couple of surges, and then around 4:10 a.m., poof, the power going out all up the beach.

You can see, you don't need me to tell you, the winds are intensifying, the rain is coming...

COSTELLO: Yes, we've been having trouble with John's signal all morning long, as, you know, the wind is a big factor, and it doesn't do much for a satellite shot. We'll try to get back to John King as soon...

Well, I hear him. We have John King again.

Go on, John.

KING: Hello, Carol, sorry about that. It's a little dicey out here for our satellite truck, and our equipment's holding up pretty well so far.

As you can see, the winds are intensifying. The point I wanted to make is that it's just about high tide, and they say that will add about two feet, maybe three feet, to the ultimate storm surge -- (audio interrupt) ... in the next hour, maybe two hours from now. But the main point on this island is, you heard Gary Tuchman -- (audio interrupt) ... most everyone stayed. They're very happy here that most everyone left. You did speak to that one local resident. We went to two hurricane parties a bit earlier, just before curfew.

But of the 20,000 people who were here before the weekend, local officials tell us they believe there are fewer than 2,000 now. Obviously it gets more complicated to keep in touch with them or to get to them in an emergency when the power is out, and the city manager did tell us this morning, at the emergency operations center, he believed that if it did go out, it could be out for a number of days. We'll have to see how that goes when conditions get better, and they hope by midday, anyway, the conditions will be good enough to make a pretty good assessment of the damage here, Carol.

COSTELLO: John, how far away are you from a building, a structure, that you can get into?

KING: Oh, I'm just -- Carol, there's a hotel -- (audio interrupt) ... structure, but again, we've lost the power, but it's held us up great throughout the night. It's 50 yards ahead of me, straight ahead. It's not -- I'm on a (INAUDIBLE) boardwalk. I don't know how much you can see. We have this lit pretty well, even though it's dark. I'm on a wooden boardwalk -- (audio interrupt) -- to the beach, pretty typical of any beach anywhere, USA.

It comes out of the hotel. There's a pool area, and maybe about 70 yards, 60 yards of this boardwalk. And then there was a pretty good stretch of beach earlier. The tide has come in, there's a bit more of a surge because of the weather. But I can get to safety pretty quickly. We feel quite secure here, even though it's getting more dicey.

COSTELLO: OK, glad to hear that. John King reporting live from Marco Island this morning.

There's much more on Hurricane Wilma at your fingertips. Our Web site, CNN.com, have their updated hurricane tracker. You can watch, you can watch all night long if you want to. You can also hear more from our reporters in this storm on our Hurricane Wilma blog. All that, again, at CNN.com.

Still to come on this early edition of DAYBREAK, much more on Hurricane Wilma as it bears down on Florida this morning. This is your hurricane headquarters. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Hurricane Wilma currently a category 3 storm with sustained winds around 120 miles per hour. Some of the stronger winds already battering coastal areas of Florida. In fact, in Key West, it's been raining for a couple hours now, heavy rain. But now the rain seems to be lessening.

We're going to go to Gary Tuchman in just a minute. And also in Naples, Florida, raining quite a bit, the wind not blowing quite as hard as it was an hour ago. Jeanne Meserve is there. And, of course, on the barrier islands, we have John King. And it's pretty darn nasty there.

Good thing about that is that most people have now evacuated, at least that area.

Want to go to a local reporter now from WFOR, Shamari Stone. He's from (INAUDIBLE) in Marathon, Florida, this morning.

Actually, we have a live reporter right now from our affiliate WPLG. His name is Alex Loeb, and he joins us live from Isla Morada, which is just south of Key Largo. Hello.

ALEX LOEB, REPORTER, WPLG: Hi, how are you?

We are having all sorts of trouble with the equipment here, so we just got into it here.

Let me show you the waves right here. I mean, it is wreaking havoc out here. We heard there were wind gusts up to 80 miles an hour. Just look at the waves crashing into the rocks. We expect it to start flooding any time now. During Hurricane Katrina, the waves flooded all the way up to the parking lot.

We should let you know that this point right here is our highest round in the area in Isla Morada. To our right, we had a lagoon that was flooded, so right now, we have moved over here for our own safety. But as you can see, the waves just ripping in.

You're looking at a boat turned on its side now in front of palm trees. It was not like that before this storm rolled in. It was on its bottom. It's just for decoration. Don't worry, nobody was hurt. But it is on its side. The fence is ripping apart as well next to it.

But again, you catch a look at these palm trees. The trees are pretty sturdy, but everything else looks like it's going to rip right off, the hammock, the roof, you can see the roof just facing the brunt of the storm as the waves come crashing in. But again, since about the last hour and half, two hours, the wind has really picked up.

The rain hasn't been too bad. But when it did come in, you had rain going diagonally from both waves. I mean, it was swirling all over the place.

We are on the third floor of a hotel, so we are safe. But thank goodness there's nobody down on the ground, because right now it does look good. COSTELLO: What about others? I mean, we have heard that 80 percent of the Key West area decided to stay. Are there many people where you are?

LOEB: Right now, pretty much, we are the only ones in the hotel, and the hotel owner, who's going to weather the storm.

An interesting note is, a lot of the businesses put their shutters up and headed out of town a few days ago. But quite a few residents, as is the attitude here in the keys, said they were just going to sit and wait it out and try to bear the storm. There are a lot of boat captains in this area of the hotel that tied their boats up with just a tremendous amount of rope, as would be expected, and they are going to stay here, wait out the storm. They're not leaving their boats, as you would think a captain would not do.

One thing they told us, the boat captains, there are plenty of buoys out in the area near here, near Alligator Reef. They measure the wind speed, and we had a computer here that went down an hour ago. The gusts were up to 65 miles and hour. And since then, they've picked up tremendously.

COSTELLO: Alex, stay with us. We're going to bring in Chad right now.

Chad, is this the worst it's going to get here, or is the worst to come?

MYERS: No, not at all, no, not at all. The worst is still to come, because we haven't really had even any rain squalls to speak of. What you see flying by there is probably actually just the sand there.

I'm assuming your at Holiday Isle, and all those boats are tied up at Bud and Mary's. Have they taken those boats and put them on the other side, on the bay side, or are they still all ocean side?

Did we lose our (INAUDIBLE)?

COSTELLO: Alex? Can you hear us? Oh, we lost him, Chad.

MYERS: I think we just lost him. Yes.

Actually, that's all right, Carol, because I do have a -- I have a tornado warning for mainland Monroe and also southern Collier County. Wind speeds now in excess of 115 miles per hour. What this is, is not an actual rotating tornado. What they're saying, now, (INAUDIBLE) weather service puts this out all the time during a hurricane, that 115-mile-per-hour winds that are coming on onshore here, with this part here and this part here, the actual eastern eyewall, that will do as much damage as a tornado.

So they're putting out tornado warnings, and they do this all the time.

Now, the only thing I stress here, and it's not so big of a deal where we are here, but I don't want you getting in the basement, because that's not the place to be either. But the good news is, there aren't really basements in the keys or anywhere up here across the south, because it's just too low, just...

COSTELLO: Yes, but you do wonder about that. I mean...

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: ... with a hurricane blowing around you, now you have a tornado. Where do you go for safety?

MYERS: Right, it's not technically a spinning tornado, it's just the destruction that the hurricane can make, can be tornado-like.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: We'll get back to you.

MYERS: All right.

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

Just ahead, we'll take a look at what's going on in places affected by the storm. You're watching an early edition of DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: On with our coverage of Hurricane Wilma, still a category 3 storm.

People in Miami being urged to stay indoors unless they're evacuating ahead of Hurricane Wilma. Too late to evacuate right now. Several local shelters are open, including one that is pet-friendly.

On the phone with us right now, Seth Kaplan. He's in Miami-Dade County at the emergency services center, and he's going to bring us up to date.

Good morning, Seth.

SETH KAPLAN, MIAMI-DADE EMERGENCY SERVICES CENTER (on phone): Well good morning, Carol, how are you?

COSTELLO: I'm fine. Tell us about the shelters. Are many people partaking?

KAPLAN: We have a couple thousand people at the shelters. And that's not entirely indicative of all the people who have evacuated, because, in fact, what we recommend to residents is that they use the shelters, really, as a last resort. The shelters certainly are safe, but they're not exactly, let's say, five-star hotels. I mean, they're not the most comfortable places. So we recommend to people that if they can, that they go to a friend or relative's house. And if they don't have anyplace else to go, that, well, in that case, they go to the shelters. And so certainly there are quite a few other people who have evacuated.

There was only a mandatory evacuation for mobile home residents. And that's because, while we think of hurricanes as very windy things, as wind events, it's really the water that's a lot of times more of a concern. And it's based on the water that we evacuate. And this storm, one good thing about the fact that it's moving so quickly, is that we just don't think it's going to be as wet as a storm like even Katrina here in south Florida was, not to mention, obviously, what happened in New Orleans.

COSTELLO: Right. I hope not, because it's supposed to be out of there by at least noon, at least we hope so. Maybe earlier, who knows? Well, let's chat about that in a bit.

KAPLAN: Sure.

COSTELLO: Seth, a question for you. The people who are in the shelters, where have they come from?

KAPLAN: Well, most of them have come from mobile homes. You know, and some of them are just not comfortable staying in their homes. And that's fine too, that's something else that we tell people. If they don't feel comfortable, for whatever reason, either just because they know their neighborhood, and they know that it floods, for example, or they anticipate having special needs. You know, we do have people, for example, senior citizens, people with health issues, who have special needs, some of whom, by the way, we evacuate to hospitals and not to shelters if, for example, they absolutely need electricity to get oxygen.

And so you have people in cases like that as well. And we maintain a registry of long before hurricane season. We reach out to our residents and ask them to let us know if they need some of that special attention. We take care of them as well.

So it's a lot of those kinds of people. Most people have stayed in their homes. And most of them, particularly if they've put up shutters, like we recommended, should be safe.

COSTELLO: You sound so calm.

Let's talk about nursing homes, and also hospitals, where critically ill people are right now, in certain parts of Florida. Some of the hospitals shut down altogether, right?

KAPLAN: Well, what hospitals generally do is, they'll cancel all elective surgery. So, you know, certainly as long as they're all capable of helping people who are true emergencies, they focus all of their resources on that. And somebody who would have just been going in for some kind of surgery, for example, that they could just do next week, that's what the hospitals aren't doing.

COSTELLO: Seth Kaplan, thanks so much, from the emergency services center in Miami-Dade County. Thank you.

The next hour on DAYBREAK in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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