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New Day

Rescue Crews Rally To Get People Trapped In Their Homes; Florence About To Make Landfall; Rising Water and Power Outages Due To Hurricane. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 14, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY HOST: calls for rescues all night long. More than 100 rescues that were able to take place before it became unsafe for the rescue crews to go out. We spoke to a volunteer from the Cajun Navy - that group of volunteers that goes to storms like this - they say they've been inundated with calls, some 500 calls.

The rescue crews cannot go out in this kind of weather, not yet at least. They're staging. They're getting ready to help when they can. We've been on the phone all morning with people trapped inside their homes. They have moved to the upper floors to try to remain safe while they can. This is just the beginning. There will be days of this - two days of this moving down to South Carolina over the next day and a half.

CNN, we have crews up and down the coast here as Hurricane Florence bears down. I want to go first to CNN's Chris Cuomo who is down in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A heck of a day to choose for alumni day here on New Day, Chris, as this storm hits.

CHRIS CUOMO, NEW DAY HOST: Happy to help out. You're doing a great job, JB. Stay safe. Keep the crews safe. You are out future here in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is just starting. JB and I have been on since 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and exchanged here during that time. It was dry and breezy.

Now, you're getting gusts - that's just 45 miles and hour. What will this place be like after 12 hours of it? Because we're not going to get the major conditions of a hurricane like John is seeing right now until about late, late, late tonight into early tomorrow morning. How many tree root systems will be softened up? What will we'll (ph) need for people who are sheltering in place? Those are the different concerns, JB. We're just getting started.

BERMAN: All right, Chris Cuomo down in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We just got an alert from the National Hurricane Center which says that Florence, the eye is about to make landfall not far from where I am in Wilmington with wind gusts of some 79 miles per hour the National Hurricane Center says, which I can tell you I feel on my face. I want to go now to the real crisis. The winds are bad here, but the crisis situation is in New Bern, about 80 miles from where I am. That is where there's been six to 10 feet of storm surge, flooding overnight, rescues overnight, and calls coming in overnight. Our Dianne Gallagher is with our team up in Newbern who've really had a very difficult night up there. Dianne, you join me on the phone. Please tell us the situation there.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually John, I might be able to be joining you live now. We were struggling to get a signal up just a bit, but look. Our conditions - we've been experiencing this throughout the night. We still have the pretty heavy winds, the intense rains. There are down power lines everywhere. Our hotel does not have power. Most of the places around here in New Bern, you can see, completely dark right now.

But look, that's not the big problem. The problem is this rising water that we talked about all day yesterday, and county and city officials have been working on water rescues throughout the night. I just spoke with the emergency manager's office. They said the Cajun Navy has arrived. They're going to be working with them now on these rescues.

But this morning, just about two hours ago, just this city of New Bern had more than 150 people who still needed to be rescued, John. This is a very serious situation here, and we could see it coming.

I mean, we had to evacuate twice last night from our positions because the water was rising so quickly and getting so high. Now, this is something they knew would happen. That is why the city manager and the mayor set a curfew starting on Monday. They asked people to begin evacuating. Now, they have more than 800 people in shelters right now in the county - Craven County.

When I just spoke to the emergency manager's office, they said we're expecting that number to rise significantly because of all of these rescues we're doing and other people who are trying to leave their homes as the water starts creeping up.

John, I saw that happen firsthand last night at our hotel. A man who just drove up he said, "look, I have money. I have stuff. Please can I come stay here? The water is coming up at my home." We're seeing desperation. Some of the women who are staying at this hotel just left a couple minutes ago probably against the best advice because they worked at a nursing home and they have to go and try to get their patients to see if they need to begin evacuating them.

So it is a life or death situation for hundreds of people right now in New Bern, John, and it's likely not going to get any better because we're on the Neuse River here, but we also have the Pamela (ph) coast now. We have inner coastal waterways. We've got channels and we've got the Atlantic ocean, of course, that's right there as well. And all of this water that Florence is churning up is coming through New Bern, going into the inland part of North Carolina. There's going to be flooding there as the rain and this water surges continues. But as that drains and comes back out, this city and this community will likely be revictimized by Florence in about a week as the drainage happens. So the county is trying to prepare for an extended emergency situation after they deal with the dire emergency this morning.

The good news is, of course, the Cajun Navy is here. They've got hundreds of rescue workers who are around here. There's a dive team from Indiana that's been performing rescues overnight and the National Guard is here.

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But if you're that person who see the tweet from the city telling you get to the second floor, get to your attic, or get to your roof, that's not comforting. That's frightening. And as quick as they can rescue people, John, this water is rising just as quick.

BERMAN: Dianne, thanks so much. I saw some blue transformer explosions here at Wilmington while you were speaking. Just some of the people have lost power, no doubt, in North Carolina. Some 280,000 people without power have had to hold on here in the last few minutes as these wind gusts get above 79 miles per hour, approaching as high as 90 we understand over the next few minutes.

Dianne, I'm having a little bit of hard time hearing you because of the amount of rain and wind where I am, but please tells us if you're still on with me, Dianna, how high the water is -

GALLAGHER: Yes.

BERMAN: - at this moment and the concerns about how long it may stay that high because this won't get better for some time I understand.

GALLAGHER: Yes. Yes, John. I mean, we're looking at in the immediate several days, but in the extended period here, you're looking at more than a week of this. They're really not sure how to estimate that right now because we're still kind of going through it, but at least late last night, just into this morning, we were looking at 10 feet here in certain spots of this additional surge coming into the Pamlico Sound and coming into the Neuse River.

So when we were in downtown New Bern as the streets began flooding, John, we had to get out of there roughly around 11 p.m. because we had nowhere else to go and it was starting to rise. We weren't sure where the other streets are going with coming down alleyways not just up from the river itself now. It was starting to spread.

And I'm told that it tends to flood here anyway, but the mayor, Dana Outlaw, even said last night they have not seen flooding associated with a hurricane in New Bern like this since Hurricane Hazel. That was in 1954, John, and it is something that people in North Carolina - look, my family lives here. They're in the path of the storm. Some of them didn't evacuate, and they talk about Hurricane Hazel all the time. It is legendary in North Carolina. BERMAN: All right, Dianne, I think I've heard you stop talking. So the control room knows my situation right now, I think my audio equipment has gone down. I think I have too much water in my ears or in the pack. Let me talk for just a moment to tell you what -

GALLAGHER: Thanks, John. Sorry about that.

BERMAN: - I'm experiencing here in North Carolina (ph). This isn't the worst of the storm that we've felt yet, the outer eye wall passing over us, and we were told that the eye itself will make landfall in the next few minutes over Wilmington. The wind gusts, 79 miles per hour. They say probably a little bit higher than that just over the last few mintes.

Chad Meyers was telling me we're getting three inches of rain per hour here, which I can believe because it's just coming down so hard right now, and frankly in every direction no matter which way I turn my face, it gets pounded with the rain. That's how hard it is raining.

We've seen the blue transformer explosions, power going out in some areas around here. Some 280,000 people without power. The eye moving ever closer here to Wilmington, to this city. If I can, I think we're supposed to go to Chad Myers next. Again, just so the control room knows, I'm having a hard time hearing, but Chad Myers, if you're with me at the weather center, give us a sense of where this storm is and what more we can expect.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: John, it's still - the eye wall is still about three miles to your east. You're not really in it. And I know it's going to be hard to believe that you're not really in it, but you're not just yet.

The worst is still to come, maybe another five to seven miles per hour. The eye center itself is here, right about there. Now, we don't call landfall until the center of the eye actually makes landfall with land - the center of the eye.

So if you're saying, "well, we're already made landfall." No, we didn't yet. We've made an outer eye wall landfall, but that's it, not technically an official landfall just yet. There's also an inner part of a storm beginning to try to make a new rotation inside, and these are what's called mesovortices, and it's just a big, long term that means yes, the whole thing is doing 90.

But some of these little mesovortices can do 100, maybe 105. And Jeff Piotrowski, one of the guys that we had on air yesterday, he's a storm chaser, works for Barons, one of our weather producers, and this - and he just had on his personal weather station near Topsul a wind gust over 100 miles per hour. So those gusts are there. This is still a very real storm in the eye wall because the pressure didn't go back up.

I know we've been talking about this go from a three to a two to a one and all that, but the pressure remain the same. The only difference between where we are now and where we were 48 hours ago is the eye wall. [06:10:00]

This part right there, this little part there, this little part right there they are no longer 130.

But everywhere else is doing the exact same wind speed that it was. So we focused on that one number of that one thing that's five miles wide when you have to focus on the size of the storm itself. So let me get rid of this and I will get you to the graphics here that will show you the tornado watches that are still in effect. The onshore flow that's coming right up into New Bern, that's not stopping.

The winds coming up into New Bern right there still blowing at 55 miles per hour. Blowing more wind into the storm itself. More wind into the Trent and into the Neuse Rivers. Water will still be going up all day. And then there is the center of the storm. Not that far from Wilmington. I do believe we will probably get a landfall this morning.

And then finally this is a forecast radar. This is what will likely happen. The storm will move over about Conway, just to the north of Myrtle. And then the winds will shift for our Chris Cuomo and they come on shore. And then Chris gets the storm surge right at the end of all this later on this afternoon.

The storm is still big and read, and even some spots purple. That means the eye is very cold, around the eye wall is cold, the storms are still going back up. And it's not loosing strength. John you are in the middle of it. I hope you can here me.

BERMAN: Yes, I can here you Chad and I can tell you I feel like I'm in the middle of it right now. The wind speed has absolutely picked up, gusts that have to be higher than 75 miles per hour. Chad how long will this last? Now that the winds have come, now that we're in the outer eye wall with the eye itself approaching landfall. How long will this last in this area?

MYERS: Well it could be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Because the eye wall has been wiggling back an forth and it's not a completely circular eye wall itself. There are some other spots trying to develop on the inside of the eye. More storms along the inside. And we sometimes can call this brown ocean, or really just friction effect. When a hurricane like this get's overland it begins to get more friction from the land.

That actually can slow the storm down. But in turn make the eye wall smaller. And we go with that whole ice skater thing. If you get a smaller eye you get bigger winds.

BERMAN: Right.

MYERS: So even though we're interacting with land it's actually could make the wind speeds pick up at least for a while.

BERMAN: All right Chad let me just tell you a little bit of what I'm seeing here in Wilmington. Just above the horizon I can see the blue explosions, those are the transformer explosions. Power will - if it hasn't gone out already some 280,000 customers without power in North Carolina, rising minute by minute.

Behind me is the north east Cape Fear River. One of those rivers that flows into the Atlantic, the concern is that the storm surge will push some of this river up. You might see some flooding from the surge pushing up. But over the next few day's its going to be the rain, this rainfall falling at three inches per minute that will flood these rivers and put the waves at 10 feet. May reach 20 to - feet - few days.

Remember we just had 20 - landed - beach. See miles from here - this is not -

CUOMO: All right JB obviously with all of the increasing winds and him being close to the wall, you know the signal is getting into competition. We're going to make sure JB's all right. Him and the team will ride out this part of it. When he has his com's back up we'll bring him back in.

So Chad Myers, John's been using the accurate number of 280,000 without power in North Carolina. It's now over 300,000 people. We haven't even seen anything real here yet. We're getting gusts of 40ish. A little bit more we're starting to see things change angles a little bit. Soften up a little bit, shingles here and there, already over 5,000 people without power.

So we've seen going north to south what this storm can do. John Berman com's are back now. So John if you can here us, keep going, tell us how you're doing.

BERMAN: All right, Chris we're back here. You know you can see it coming down here. The rain is really, really thick right - mess with our signal - the wind speed is probably higher than 8,000 - 80 miles per hour, certainly.

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BERMAN: I was talking about the Cape Fear River. The north east Cape Fear River, which is behind me. This is one of the water ways that will almost certainly flood. These boats behind me, I can't turn around because the rain would fly into my face just to fast. But the sails that were tied down have come loose.

And they've just been flapping. They've been flapping in the wind. The concern obviously with wind speeds like this is things that aren't tied down can turn into missals, can turn into projectiles. That's what well be watching for over the next several minutes here. We've been speaking to rescue crews up and down the coast. Obviously look, you can see the wind blowing here. You can see the rain coming down.

This looks tremendous, but the real fear, the real danger is north of here in cities like New Bern. New Bern, North Carolina where there have been water rescues through out the night. They went as far as they could until they had to stop, because this rain is falling to hard and the wind speed is simply too high for rescue crews to go out. We heard a short ago from our Dianne Gallagher on phone.

There have been some 100 people rescued already. So many more calls lined up. The Cajun Navy, that group of volunteers who often come into situations like this to help out. They say they've been inundated with phone calls, some 500 calls. Their staging where they can, they're getting ready to go out and help just as soon as they can. Chad Myers is our meteorologist with us. Chad we've been talking about New Bern.

Again this is as I'm getting pounded here - the wind and the rain - the real problem up in New Bern where they've been dealing with storm surge those rescue crews want to get out just as soon as they can. When do you think that might be? When will they see the wind speeds get below 50 miles per hour?

MYERS: In 10 hours, 10. I mean if - yes, 55 miles per hour. You're in a 10 foot rubber Zodiac with little motor on it trying to go through city streets that have water. It's just an impossible task. You're putting too much pressure on those first responders, those rescuers to try to get to you. The problem is that this - the Neuse River and the other river got - came together.

They get there and then they move into New Bern and it went up. It went from one foot to 11 foot. Now it's down to nine feet. So because of low tide we've lost two feet of surge. But that's going to turn around in one hour, and all that waters going to go back, all that waters going to go back up.

So I think we're going to get higher than 11 foot surge. We'll probably be up to 10 or 11, to 13 foot surge with the new surge coming in just from tidal surge alone. So let's just get right to here. Then John just take a breather. Let me talk for a second. Get dry, dry your gear out. There's New Bern, and here comes the rain. It comes in from the Neuse River here. And the entire area has been rained on now.

It has been raining there for non stop 13 hours. They've already had 10 inches of rain. And then the water's getting pushed up here. And this is kind of a porous boarder through here. You have a big porous border right through Morehead City. And that's where the water's pouring in from the ocean, and pouring into this river of poor New Bern.

And until this whole batch moves on up here into New Bern and moves away we're not going to get wind speeds below 55. And where you are now here, we're going to move you on up here. John this is what you're seeing here. The north and the west side of the eye. Kind of open over here, so there's lesser wind here. Unfortunately there's no one living here because that's the ocean.

But so this next batch of rain's going to come through for Wilmington and points west. Even to Sandy Creek, Skippers Corner, Carolina beach, all going to bet seeing what you're seeing right now and eventually that the storm appears to be moving. There is a eye in there. And that may get over you John, hopefully in an hour. Let's just hope for an hour. You'll get out of what you're seeing now. But unfortunately that means eventually that's all going to be going

down toward Cuomo and North Myrtle beach.

BERMAN: All right Chad, thanks so much. I think you can see the rain. I think this shows up on camera. The rain now is stinging. It's falling so hard your beginning to feel it on your skin. And for much of the time - I'm separated from my camera by about 50 feel or so. I can't see the camera shooting me right now. It's raining so hard, the wind blowing so fast I can't actually see the camera. I'm only looking in the direction where I think the camera might be.

MYERS: Wow.

BERMAN: But the rain is so thick that you simply can't see that far. You were tealling me three inches per hour. Actually I thinks is off (ph), I can't tell if it's just the raining I'm feeling or if the water is blowing off the north east Cape Fear River, which is right behind me. Looks like there's a lot of that happening as well right now.

Yes, the wind simply whipping here. The rain falling, you're saying three inches an hour. The forecast Chad if your still with me, we've been told we can expect 24 inches of rain here. At one point they were saying as many as 40 inches of rain. Is that still the forecast?

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MEYERS: It still is. I would put what's left of the storm still to come at 20. So if we get 20 compared to Davis or Cape Lookout where we've already 19 or 20, that does get us to, in fact, the 40-inch mark because it has been raining already in those spots. And it's also been surging in those spots to the northeast. You are going to get a break and that break is the center of the eye.

You may in fact see the sunrise through the center of the eye. And so the worst part where you are now gets better and then you get the other side of the eye that will blow water up your river and then all of a sudden you are going to get surged. You are on an inverse surge right now blowing down the river, but later on in two hours, three hours you are going to start to see the winds move in the other direction.

BERMAN: I'm going to take your word for it, that we'll (inaudible) possible (inaudible) like I is, not with the wind blowing and not with the visibility as low as it is at this moment. I keep looking behind me trying to get a look at the Northeast Cape Fear River. You know the water level is certainly higher than it was. I know it will rise even higher.

Still, the Cape Fear River, which is just that way from where I am right now about half a mile, the concern there is it could top 22, 24 feet with the wind falling -- sorry -- the rain falling like it is over the next several days. And the river master has just gave a dire warning to us about what we can expect when that happens.

Obviously when the water overflows its banks, it has major repercussions. North Carolina is a big hog farming area, and there are these hog lagoons, hog wastes (ph) not terribly far from the rivers. That could wash in here and then flow downstream in the next several days. Obviously people need to be very careful about what they're drinking and going anywhere near that standing water. So once again, bring it back to New Bern which is the area of our greatest concern.

We've been told by some of the rescue crews that are hoping to get out, that one of things they are most worried about is electrified water. So many of these power lines have gone down in the last several hours. They don't know -- they have to be so careful before they go out in the water to try to rescue these people.

Again, it's a triple threat, this storm. The winds that are picking up here as Chad says for the next hour or so, we could get 75, 80 90 mile and per hour winds. The rainfall, three inches of rain per hour, and then the storm surge. And often times, the three of them are not aligned. Often times what you will get is, you will get the wind and the hurricane-force winds in some areas, and then a few hours after that, that is when you will see some of the storm surge or the rainfall, it comes in these different waves. And remember, it's not just now.

It's not just now that we're worried about, it's the next day, day and a half as this storm moves down to the coast to the South Carolina area. Chad, give us an update on just where the eye -- a so far as the eye of this storm exists, where is the eye at this moment?

MEYERS: Oh, it absolutely exists. It has always existed. The reason why it went from a category 3 to a category 1 is because it got very wide. In fact, at times, 50 miles across, and where, let's say, hurricane Andrew was only 11 miles across, that's why it was such a bigger wind event for that one little spot. We never lost the pressure for the storm. It was always 953, 954, which is a very low enough pressure. A low enough pressure to make it a category 3 the entire time. That's why we're a getting category 3 surge here. That's why we're getting category 2 and 3 wind gusts in some spots here. Not sustained but a gust or two, easily to 115 to 116, and that's in that eyewall itself.

So John, just to give a point, there's the center of the eye right through there, so almost due south of Topsail, almost due east there of Wilmington. So 10 miles from each location, these places aren't that far apart, I know it looks like a huge map, but we're pretty close. Even, we have a crew down here in Carolina Beach just beginning to get the worst of the eye right now. But the worst of what you're seeing on the map will be this, because the onshore flow is pushing in water now.

Emerald Isle just checked in with a seven-foot surge. That's one of the barrier islands. the highest spot that I've ever seen on Emerald Isle was about 12 feet, so that means most of the island and most of those homes have either water running under them or water running smack dab into them because of the east side surge, John.

BERMAN: All right, Chad Meyers, thanks so much for that. I was on Oak Island yesterday, they were so concerned about the storm surges there, and I am thinking about all the people I met yesterday, including the people who did not heed the mandatory evacuation orders and tried to ride out that storm. They will be facing that same storm surge as it continues.

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I want to go out again, the outer eyewall, as Chad was saying, right over us at this moment, you can see the wind, and you can see the rain as it comes down. I want to go to Carolina Beach, about 12 or 13 miles from where I am. Our Derek Van Dam is there, and Derek, I understand you're really feeling it right now.

VAN DAM: Oh, without a doubt, John. This is the strongest part of the storm that we have felt. Every ten, 15 seconds we are getting the gusts well over hurricane force, and it's whipping us around. We were walking just outside of this covered balcony that we have available to us and we had a flash of light, transformers blew up around us and a loud pop, and all of a sudden we went dark. So we have now joined the hundreds of thousands of customers in North Carolina and South Carolina without electricity.

Of course we're on Carolina Beach and we are isolated from the mainland, because the only thing that connects us and gives us the ability to have any kind of help or rescue for people that decided to ride the storm out is a bridge, so that bridge is closed so that opportunity is closed as well. So many threats going on at the moment as we enter the eyewall, the strongest part of the storm.

We all know, and Chad has been talking about it, this is where we expect to feel the 95-mile-per-hour wind gusts, and we're definitely getting the brunt of it now as we speak. In fact, it's starting to pickup. Little tiny sand particles from the ocean, literally 100 yards behind us, and it's pelting us in the face. It feels like we are getting blasted -- almost like a jet engine getting thrown in your -- just thrown right at you, and you know, I am going to come home and not to make light of the situation, but definitely going to have a lot smoother skin once I get back to Atlanta, John.

BERMAN: Yeah, not the kind of exfoliation you wanted out there, Derek. Derek, if you can, just how are the structures holding up?

VAN DAM: Yeah, great question. So we're fortified with a concrete building. Our structure has not had any kind of damage, but looking up and down, like I said, we have no electricity so it's very difficult for us to tell, but there have been signs that have blown over in the parking lot here. Some of the trees, and I can't imagine for the sustained winds and the duration we're expected them to be, are going to be able to stay around too much longer.

We're going to -- we're going to start seeing branches come off. Palm trees bending over and eventually snap because the ground is so moist, so wet and saturated, that it doesn't take much to topple the trees because as you know, you are only ten miles away from me. We are right in the thick of it, the strongest part of Hurricane Florence and it's only going to get worse before we get into that eyewall. BERMAN: All right, Derek Van Dam. Stay safe out there on Carolina

Beach. Thanks for being with us. Derek was saying, yeah, we're right in the thick of it, and we certainly are. Hurricane Florence bearing down on the city of Wilmington, the outer eyewall, here, the eye itself about to make landfall. Wind speeds of some 90 miles an hour, three inches of rain per hour. A storm surge which has created a crisis situation about 80 miles north of here. CNN special live coverage of Hurricane Florence picks up after a very quick break.

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