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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Eye of Hurricane Charley Off Florida Atlantic Coast
Aired August 13, 2004 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Fast, furious, and wily is how Charley came ashore. The Category 4 hurricane defying expectations and sidestepping Tampa, but showing no mercy when it made land by Captiva Island with 145-mile an hour winds. The eye of the storm is now off Florida's Atlantic coast, winds still clocking in at more than 80 miles-an-hour. Charley has triggered one of the biggest evacuations in Florida history: almost 2 million people ordered to leave their homes. The state's southwest coast, virtually empty tonight.
Hurricanes actually trace their swirling pedigrees to tropical waves that spin off North Africa's Sahara Desert, they evolve into depressions, then storms, and ultimately if the winds are right and there's plenty of warm water in their path to feed them, they mature into hurricanes. And so it went for Charley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Also keeping our eye here on another tropical disturbance, very strong looking waves...
O'BRIEN (voice-over): From those humble origins a week ago, Charlie zipped through the Caribbean leaving some damage behind in the Cayman Islands and Cuba. As it advanced on Florida, Charley got an upgrade, from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the third Atlantic hurricane spawned this year, was born.
Charley's two older siblings were underachievers, Hurricane Alex, grazed the Carolina coast a week ago, a category two storm with barley minimal damage. And Thursday, the second member of the class of 2004, failed to graduate to hurricane status. Tropical Storm Bonnie dumped heavy rain along the Florida Panhandle and then along came Charley. By late in the day Friday, a million Floridians looking at a category four hurricane in the eye, prepared to evacuate or had already left.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: This morning I have requested, from the president of the United States, a presidential disaster declaration...
O'BRIEN: One-hundred forty-five mile an hour winds were not the only threat to Florida's gulf coast. A surge of sea water kicked up by Charley was poised to overrun the barrier islands and low lying coast lines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you choose to live by the water, occasionally you're going to live in the water.
O'BRIEN: All this along a stretch of coastline that's gotten off easy from Mother Nature in this past century. It's been 80 years since Tampa Bay's been slugged by a major storm. The Fort Myers area last took a major hit 44 years ago. And since Hurricane Donna come to town in 1960, so have eight time as many residents. Like virtually all of the Florida coast, more people potentially in harms way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Ultimately, Charley hit ground at Captiva and then went up Charlotte Bay, and in Charlotte Bay is Punta Gorda and that is where Anderson Cooper has been telling us about reports of casualties tonight. Let's get back to Anderson in Tampa.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Miles, we don't have any new information about any numbers, we haven't been able to actually find any numbers of casualties at this point. The last we heard from emergency officials here in Florida was that a number of hospitals are struggling, in their words. They did say some hospitals have even sustained some damage in the Fort Myers/Punta Gorda area.
We have learned that Governor Jeb Bush will be touring disaster areas tomorrow and obviously a lot of emphases being put on rebuilding, and at this point, to search and rescue. Search and rescue operations will be underway, we are told, in the Punta Gorda area. As many as 1,400 National Guardsman have been called in to that area, so it's going to be a very busy night for them, indeed.
This scenario, they really didn't anticipate baring the brunt of this storm, as we've been saying all day long. It was supposed to be here, tamp, Florida, a city which had a mandatory evacuation. Hundreds of thousands of people left over the last several days. They left, often going to Orlando to cities inland, cities where they thought they would be safe. Of course, the sad irony, the storm turned and headed directly for those areas that many of them had fled to -- hitting Orlando, hitting Daytona Beach, and the like. So you had hotels in Orlando, hotels in Dayton Beach, which were packed with people, all of whom, many of them had left, either tourists or people -- residents here who had left Tampa in fear of the storm.
So again, the story really focusing now on Punta Gorda and what is going to be there at first light. What is the scene going to be there? People simply don't know at this point, but we are hearing some disturbing reports and we are closely following them -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Anderson Cooper in Tampa, thank you very much. By the way, we should tell you, tropical depressions four and five are out there in the Atlantic somewhere, heading our way. No telling how they might or might not shape up as the draw near. Orelon Sidney, of course knows, exactly what lies ahead when hurricanes take shape.
Orelon, bring us up to date on exactly where the eye is right now, of Hurricane Charley.
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I'll tell you something really quickly too, about your Tropical Depression No. 5, that one is not Tropical Storm Danielle, it was just upgraded by the National Hurricane Center at the top of the hour. It does not look like it will affect land areas within the next five days. And if the track holds, it may not affect land areas at all. We'll have to keep an eye on that, certainly.
This one is affecting a land area and how! It's moving off the coast of Florida now, around Daytona Beach, just about to make its way off the coast. We're seeing some of those inner-rain bands now, affecting the coastal barrier islands. It will continue to push its way off the shore, 85 mile an hour winds now, it could strengthen as it moves back over the open waters in the Atlantic. It's moving north- northeastward now at 25 miles-an-hour. We continue to watch out for flooding and flood warnings and flood watches are in affect all the, practically up the eastern seaboard, as we continue to see the storm accelerate to the north. By tomorrow, we think it's going to be somewhere over the state line between North Carolina and Virginia. So certainly, not over yet, with this particular storm system.
I want to take you out into the tropic now and show you our newly formed tropical storm Danielle, its way out there. These are the Leeward Islands. Here is Danielle and the latest track takes it more to the north and northwest, so we're hoping that that will probably hold and maybe it'll get shunted on off without affecting land. But, it's way too far to call that right now. We can say we have a tropical storm on our hands out in the Atlantic.
And Miles, I know you love statistics. Hurricane Charley, the most intense hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that's quite a statement, right there, Orelon.
SIDNEY: Yes, it is.
O'BRIEN: You know, and of course in the case of Hurricane Andrew, where it hit was so key, wasn't it?
It certainly was. Especially the part of the storm where you had the most intense winds going through Homestead and raking through that area, really doing damage like a tornado, but over a huge swath, so that's why I'm fairly concerned, too, about where Charley made landfall. The winds in this one now, 145 miles-an-hour. If it had gone up to 156, it would have been a category 5, so we're talking about and extremely strong storm. The last time we saw one like this, was Hurricane Andrew.
O'BRIEN: All right. And let's talk quickly about the possibility of this hurricane remaining in tact. You were talking earlier about some of the upper level winds, the troughs, as you put it. How is that going to steer this storm and affect this storm as it moves up the coast?
SIDNEY: Well, the trough itself is now doing what we call "filling." It was diving down and strengthening into the Gulf of Mexico and now the trough is starting to weaken a bit and ride up to the north. It's already caught the storm up, that's why the storm is moving in the direction that it is. And generally, when you start to come along through this area, where the tropical cyclone starts to get sheared apart a little bit, so we're going start looking for some shear with this, but because this trough of low pressure is weakening, is not going have as great an affect on the storm as I would like. So, we may actually see this kind of bumping along the coast for the next couple of days bringing some rainfall and maybe some gusty winds to the coastal area.
The excellent news though, is I believe the center of the storm is going to stay very close to the coast, so we may be getting the left side of the storm, the least intense side, but that certainly remains to be seen.
O'BRIEN: All right, but just to clarify, could it strengthen on its way?
SIDNEY: It certainly can. There is a possibility that as it moves out of the barrier islands and over these open waters of the Atlantic that it could strengthen and, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see it do that later on tonight.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll leave it on that ominous note. Orelon Sidney, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Back with more in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: We've been talking a little bit tonight, about Hurricane Andrew. It's now been 12 years since Andrew came through southern part of Florida, just south of Miami and a lot about what lies ahead, because the people who dealt with that storm had such a tough road that faced them.
Curt Ivy is the city manager of the city of Homestead which bore the brunt of Hurricane Andrew a dozen years ago. He joins us on the line, right now.
Can you hear me OK, Mr. Ivy?
CURTIS IVY, JR, HOMESTEAD CITY MANAGER: Yes I can.
O'BRIEN: All right. Take us back to 12 years ago and what it was like to wake up, as the city manager, on the day after a storm like Andre.
IVY: Well, actually I woke up as the police chief, at that time, 12 years ago.
O'BRIEN: OK.
IVY: And, it was very devastating. It was a shock when we walked out the door of the police station.
O'BRIEN: Describe that scene and what went through your mind, if you can recall it.
IVY: Well it was pretty surreal to go out and see the amount of devastation. We were locked in during the hurricane; we went out during the eye, briefly. We rescued some people during that time that their buildings had some apart and they were in the streets during the eye and we managed to get them into the police station. But, when the eye came back, the back side of the wall came in, we were locked again, into the police station. And then after it had passed, we had a hard time opening the door to get out the back because a lot of debris had blown up against it.
O'BRIEN: Wow. You literally couldn't open the door of the police station.
IVY: Right, and we found our cars were damaged and we had to kick the windshields and windows out and kind of looked like the "Road Warriors" driving the cars.
O'BRIEN: Do you recall how long it took before things go back to any degree of normalcy there in Homestead?
IVY: Oh well, it was months before things go back to normal. The electricity in some parts of the city didn't get back until Thanksgiving -- timeframe. There still -- there were still --you know, blank spots and pads that exist in the city today for Andrew.
O'BRIEN: Still today. And do you think people are affected, sort of, psychologically every time the hurricane season come upon them and we start airing coverage, as we did today, of a storm baring down on Florida, no matter what direction it's coming from?
IVY: Oh yes, I feel it myself, certainly a lot more attentive, a lot more tense when we watch these tropical depressions or disturbances come off the coast of Africa. We track them all the way through until they get past us or -- you know, we find that we're not in harms way again, there.
O'BRIEN: Do you have a pearl of wisdom to share with folks who might be faced with a similar predicament tomorrow morning?
IVY: Well again, perseverance there -- and not be overwhelmed by what you see. There's a lot of people to help you. There were a lot of people who came to Homestead's assistance and it's even more organized now than it was then, and I think the response will be much better now, than it was then. It's just you're going to have to be persistent; there's a lot of challenges you have before you.
O'BRIEN: Curt Ivy, the currently the Homestead city manager, a dozen years ago the police chief. Thanks very much for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.
IVY: You're very welcome.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn it back to another forecaster. Bernie Rayno spends a lot of time, kind of, sussing out the subtleties of these big storms, trying to figure out their formation, their direction, the damage they might cause. He joins us once again from Accuweather, up there in central Pennsylvania.
Bernie, give us a sense. What surprised you most about this storm and what it did? What was the most unpredictable thing?
BERNIE RAYNO, ACCUWEATHER.COM: Well, I thing for the most part, here at Accuweather.com, we are not really surprised by the strength or the track of the hurricane. We've been following it over the last couple of days and I think we thought it was going to be from Tampa on southbound and that's exactly what happened. But one thing we do want to stress, I think there's a lot of people saying now, hey listen, it's over Florida, it's weakening, it's not going to be as bad and we want to tell you that that's exactly wrong. Because of the next 24 hours Charley's going to be moving northbound, he will probably strengthen into, or at least strengthen further, become a category two or category three hurricane with maximum staying (ph) winds of 100 miles-per-hour. So, outer banks of North Carolina, also South Carolina, not only are you going to get the rain, but you are going to get the wind, in fact, we are going to see hurricane force winds from Myrtle Beach up toward Wilmington, North Carolina, and perhaps even Norfolk, over the next 24 hours. By Saturday, in fact, what we're really concerned about here, as -- this could turn into a catastrophe as far as flooding and winds, and many problems here. In fact, this our timeline.
Saturday morning into Saturday afternoon, watch out, for Myrtle Beach up toward Wilmington, North Carolina. Outer banks of North Carolina, it's Saturday afternoon into Saturday night, and then as Charley continues to go up the eastern seaboard, we're going to see problems across the mid-Atlantic states, even New York City. And what we're concerned about here, are flooding rains, rainfall amounts of two to four inches, maybe as much as five or six, in this area. And keep in mind, much of the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic states have already had their fair share of rain, so you factor in even more rain, more wind, and we're looking at potential problems. And do keep in mind, we already had some flooding problems along Route 12 here into the outer banks of North Carolina form the remains of Bonnie, so eastern North Carolina, we're afraid is going to feel the brunt of this and we're afraid that there's going to be catastrophic flooding. Keep in mind, most people or most fatalities that do occur in hurricanes if from inland flooding...
O'BRIEN: Bernie...
RAYNO: ...because they generally do evacuate...
O'BRIEN: Bernie, how much -- how much certainty do you have right now, predicting that -- that course for Charley? I mean, we were, after all, surprised, a little bit today when it took that sudden right turn and strengthened so quickly.
RAYNO: Well, we do feel very strongly that Charley is going to be moving northbound. We think it's going to hug the coast here, from North Carolina up into Virginia, and that means that the heaviest rain is going be on the northwestern side of that. So, cities like Raleigh- Durham, even our nation's capitol, it's going to be a close call, but watch out Philadelphia and New York City. We're really concerned about flooding, and what we're really concerned about at Accuweather.com is that a lot of people are resting on their laurels because they hear that Charley is weakening. We say... O'BRIEN: Well, the did -- Bernie, for the record, they didn't hear it here, all right?
RAYNO: Oh, I hear you. I hear you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much. Bernie Rayno with Accuweather in central Pennsylvania, we appreciate it.
Gary Tuchman is in Daytona and he was with us with a live shot, full pictures and everything, a little while ago. Now he's here -- he's on the phone. I suspect it has something to do with the weather.
Gary, tell us what's happening there.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right Miles. Right now the Daytona beach police are telling me the gusts are up to 95 miles-per-hour and because of the heavy winds, we're just rocking back an forth right now in the satellite truck on the beach and the satellite signals, right now, aren't working. I can tell you that in the streets and from the beach, here in Daytona Beach, there are signs blowing down the street, sheet metal, a couple of cars, I just saw a short time ago and about an eight foot chunk of sheet metal landed on the windshield of a car, it didn't break it, but it -- for anybody who's driving out there, it's a real big mistake right now. It's very treacherous. Garbage cans are rolling don the streets. I saw a very unusual sight on the beach just a short time ago, an outhouse blew from some unknown location onto the beach and it's still standing up, and it wasn't there before. I'm not quite sure how blew and ended up standing up.
But right now, palm trees are down and are really, right now, on the brunt of this hurricane leaving Florida to head out into the Atlantic Ocean, but it appears to be right over Daytona Beach. Not the eye, because it's not calm right now, but really a heavy gust of whatever remains of Hurricane Charlie.
O'BRIEN: And are -- Gary, you're in a crowded hotel. Are folks doing OK?
TUCHMAN: The hotel is doing OK. It's a relatively new hotel, the owners of this place vow that this is one of the safest buildings in Daytona Beach. And right now, I see very little damage to this hotel. I see lots of damage to other buildings, not catastrophic damage, but signs blowing off, linoleum blowing off, parts of roofs blowing off, some lights blowing down in the streets. This hotel, where we're at, and -- it's probably about 16 or 17 floors, it's a huge hotel and it's full of people who evacuated from the west coast of Florida and central Florida. Everyone here in these hotels, right now, as far as we can see, is safe.
O'BRIEN: OK, Gary Tuchman, stay safe yourself, and we'll be back in touch with you very shortly.
The director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami is Max Mayfield, he joins us now live to give us a sense of where things stand. Max, you heard Gary's reporting, right now, 90 mile-an-hour plus winds, right there in Daytona. Obviously a lot of activity there, and of course, the sad irony is, he said he's in a hotel with a lot of people who had evacuated themselves from the west coast.
MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Yeah and Miles, that's still the right thing to do, because we tell people to flee from the water and hide from the wind. These people that evacuated over there were in the coastal areas in the west coast and that was the biggest concern on the west when the storm surge flooding. If you live in a well-built structure, you needed to stay in your house where you are. If you were outside of the storm surge zone.
O'BRIEN: All right. No, tell us right now, give us kind of the situation report on the storm as you see it. You're getting those reconnaissance reports from all over the place, including the air craft. I don't know if they're up right now. Nevertheless, based on what you're seeing, if the storm apt to do what we've been saying. In other words, hug the coast and head north and even potentially strengthen along the way.
MAYFIELD: Well, I think that -- well first, we're not getting recon reports, they don't fly over land because of the turbulence, but the center, as you can see -- you know, the ragged center is right here just about to come off the east coast there, near Daytona. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) track has it moving very rapidly, in fact, by 8:00 a.m. should be somewhere just off the south Carolina coast, but 2:00 p.m. will likely be near the South Carolina/North Carolina border, and by tomorrow night, we'll be up here in northeast North Carolina, in all likelihood.
We are forecasting three to six inches of rain; I would not call that catastrophic flooding, associated with this. We are very concerned with the storm surge flooding, but I might add that the hurricane warning now, goes all the up from Coco Reef, Florida, up to, or get in that North Carolina. And if you look at the storms surge flooding that's possible with this, they could have in the neighborhood of eight to 10 feet near and to the east of where the center cross of the coast, up there in the Carolinas, so we really don't want people to drop their guard down, there. This is not the same hurricane. I think we could see a little of this and the strange thing is it's a mediocre category one, right now, it may strengthen a little bit, but I think that the fact that the inner core has dissipated, I really don't think we'll see it come back to be a major hurricane again.
O'BRIEN: OK, so mediocre category one, for now. The point is, still pay attention, though, I guess.
MAYFIELD: Absolutely, and we even have loss of life in most category one hurricanes and people do need to take this extremely seriously.
O'BRIEN: Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, Miami. Thanks very much, you've had a long day, we appreciate your time. MAYFIELD: You bet.
O'BRIEN: Back with more NEWSNIGHT in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Let's go back now to Orlando. Well inland, but not immune this time around. They got a direct hit up interstate four and gone, and so we head back there now to CNN's Susan Candiotti.
What's the latest, Susan?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I always wondered myself, what it would be like to be inland during one of these storms because I hadn't done it before and I've always been along the coastline, but you do sustain a lot of damage. There were very high winds, sustained winds here, I'm told, of 70 miles-per-hour with gusts up to 85.
Looking up at the sky now, the clouds are breaking up a bit; clearly it's passed up by. And now, at this hour, there are damage assessments teams out and about surveying the damage to see how well or how badly this area made out. In talking to the utility companies, I can tell you that at least 300,000 -- 330,000 customers are now without power. I'm old that at least -- includes half of the city of Orlando. And they are very concerned, at this hour, about a lot downed power lines and a lot of downed trees, and wanted me to stress how important it is, as we all know, not to venture out, not to around any of those lines because they could still have some juice coming through them.
But look, it didn't take that long after the storm for them to start -- for them to go out and they are already starting repairs.
Now, we can tell you that earlier in the evening, we heard reports of at least 5,000 people who had escaped to shelters and at many hotels, if you recall, a lot of people came here from the west coast of Florida thinking they were escaping the storm there and in many cases they did. In other circumstances, we talked to some families who had came form the Tampa/St. Pete area where there turned out to be no damage at all only for them to come right into the middle of the storm, here. Of course they were in a safe spot, here in the hotel; they suffered only minor damage where we were. Downed trees, downed street lights, a lot of parts of buildings, again, flowing -- blowing around in the wind, here. But, so far, the mayor tells me, he has not heard any reports of any serious injuries. Not true, actually, a couple of hours before the storm hit, there was a wind-related traffic fatality, a traffic accident between a passenger car and a truck. The truck was blown over by the wind, officials said, and literally crushed a car with a family inside, one little girl list her life, her three other brothers survived, as did the parents and the drivers of the truck. So, we have no further information on any other accidents as this time -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Susan Candiotti, seeing a hurricane from a new perspective. Someone who has seen a lot of hurricanes, this time inland and it was a frightening sight, indeed. Thank you very much.
With us now on the phone from Jacksonville is Benny Smith. She is a spokesperson for Jacksonville's Fire and Rescue Department. Thanks for taking a moment to talk to us. Can you hear us OK?
BENNY SMITH, JACKSONVILLE FIRE & RESCUE: I can hear you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jacksonville is likely to face, at the very least a little bit of flooding, probably some high winds. What's going on right now?
SMITH: Right now, it's fairly quiet. The storm is a category one. We're expecting it to come through Jacksonville approximately 2 a.m. We will start to get the winds of approximately 80 to 85 miles an hour. We expect to see a minimal effect. We're concerned right now about the squalls, that's our major area of concern at this moment. We've got six shelters that are open approximately; 250 people are housed in these shelters, and -- and that's pretty much...
O'BRIEN: So, Ms. Smith, only 250 people had evacuated, and you feel that you are not at risk there, and don't need to evacuate any further?
SMITH: Yes, that's correct. We -- we feel pretty good about -- about where we are, and, you know, we have planned -- our major has done a great job of letting people know that the best thing for them to do is stay in their homes and -- and stay tuned to the weather reports, and that seems to have worked for us.
O'BRIEN: All right. Benny Smith, thank you very much, she is with the Jacksonville authorities there. We appreciate you spending a few moments with us.
A year ago tomorrow, about this time, we were telling you, with a fair amount of difficult, about another kind of disaster -- where were you during the great blackout of 2003, the biggest in American history? Millions of people, from Michigan to New York and in Canada as well left in the dark. An international investigation would eventually place most of the blame on an Ohio utility company. One year later, you don't have to understand the intricacies of an electrical grid to ask the obvious question, could it all happen again? Here is CNN's Jonathan Freed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blackout of 2003 gave one power company in the Buckeye State, First Energy, a black eye. According to a U.S.-Canada task force, the cascading electricity failure that touched tens of millions of people centered on computer trouble at First Energy Eastlake Power Plant in northern Ohio. The computer didn't warn about a power surge, and the current flowed across lines not designed to handle the extra load. Some lines sagged into trees, and as systems shut down defensively, came darkness, stretching from Michigan through Canada to New York.
ALAN SCHREIBER, CHAIRMAN, OHIO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION: I can tell you that the probability of a blackout has gone down over this past year.
FREED: Alan Schreiber chairs Ohio's Public Utility Commission, and sits on the international taskforce.
SCHREIBER: First Energy has done a lot to upgrade their computer systems, the training of their personnel. Tree trimming -- that's a no-brainer, and I think every -- probably every utility in the United States has scorched the Earth underneath their power lines.
FREED: A year after the blackout, First Energy is declining interviews, but its president did appear at a recent meeting of utility executives convened by Ohio's governor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all learned quite a bit from that -- from that event.
FREED (on camera): So, AEP operates the largest transmission grid in the United States?
SCOTT MOORE, AEP, VICE PRES. TRANSMISSION OPERATIONS: That's correct.
FREED (voice-over): American Electric Power covers 11 states, and believes the grid is better off today. Most of AEP's territory stayed lit last year, but it's still upgraded its systems. Its computer now plays electrical war games.
MOORE: You can think of it as trying to analyze chess movements. If I move this piece, what -- what's the effect on other pieces on the board?
FREED: Some citizens groups think there's been more rhetoric than repair work, and they echo the taskforce's call for enforceable reliability standards and penalties.
The current system is voluntary.
MARTIN COHEN, EXEC. DIR., CITIZENS UTILITY BOARD, IL.: We're still vulnerable to massive blackouts, because the utilities really don't have any incentive to make sure it does not happen again.
FREED: The Bush administration claims it's trying to correct that.
SPENCER ABRAHAM, SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Which is why we want the Congress to pass an energy bill that includes enforceable reliability standards, so that people will know that the federal government can, in fact, penalize them.
FREED: Congress isn't expected to act until after the election. Regardless, industry and government agree that the country's power grid needs even more work if it's to meet growing demand. Saying to do less only raises the risk of another major blackout.
Jonathan Freed, CNN, Columbus, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: In New Jersey today, this is the day after -- the day after that shocking announcement by Governor Jim McGreevey, and there are plenty of aftershocks, and the plot is definitely thickening. We'll tell you all about it after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: In New Jersey today, what began as a political bombshell turned into a mushroom cloud. A day after Governor Jim McGreevey came out of the closet, admitted to having an affair and announced his resignation, there was more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The spectacle of a political career derailed by a secret double life wasn't all that New Jersey's resigning governor had to confront.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was some awkward stories for him and for New Jersey this morning.
O'BRIEN: Even as James McGreevey went public with his private, painful struggle -- a gay man, married with children, there are allegations of corruption, extortion and nepotism in this administration. And today, these allegations from former adviser Golan Cipel through his lawyer:
ALLEN M. LOWY, GOLAN CIPEL'S ATTORNEY: I was a victim of repeated sexual advances by him. Such conduct and Mr. McGreevey's behavior caused me such emotional distress and turmoil.
O'BRIEN: Cipel is a man McGreevey brought back from a trip to Israel to be his six-figure security adviser. Law enforcement sources say that Cipel resigned under a cloud, and then threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment, unless McGreevey was willing to pay up. But Cipel's lawyer said it was his client who was victimized.
LOWY: It was only at the insistence of the governor's representatives that I agreed to meet with him before filing a lawsuit, to hear the unfounded and baseless allegations of the supposed, and I quote, "extortion."
O'BRIEN: Other problems for Governor McGreevey: His top fund- raiser, Charles Kushner, whose company, according to Kushner's lawyers, sponsored Cipel's visa. Kushner faces federal charges of illegal fund-raising and is accused of using hookers to tamper with witnesses. Because of all that, his critics say McGreevey can leave office soon enough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm joined today by Republican leaders in asking the governor to do the right thing, to go beyond what he did yesterday, and resign now.
O'BRIEN: But Democrats are hoping to keep McGreevey in office until November 15, to avoid a special election. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know the governor like I do, and I think most of you do, he will, within the next three month, put the pedal to the metal.
O'BRIEN: The conventional wisdom is that male politicians can survive anything but being found in bed with a dead woman or a live man, but history has proven that politics is more complicated than that.
In 1983, Congressman Gerry Studds of Massachusetts admitted having sex with a male teenage page. His colleague, Dan Crane of Illinois, admitted to the same with a female page.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm paying the price today.
O'BRIEN: Crane cried, apologized, and never returned to politics. Studds refused to apologize and was reelected for the next 13 years.
Congressman Barney Frank, also of Massachusetts, admitted hiring a man in 1985 who ran prostitutes out of Franks' D.C. apartment. He has won 10 elections since then.
Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona was about to be outed as gay, so he came out, and survived.
Republican Representative Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin survived being outed on the floor of the House.
Michael Huffington spent millions running for Congress, using the fame of his wife, conservative pundit Arianna Huffington. He lost. They divorced, and then he came out. She doesn't hold it against him.
But while McGreevey's first and second wives and his parents and his children are standing beside him after the sex scandal, it's not clear the constituents will. His poll ratings were already plummeting following the corruption charges, and now, there is this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Each year, millions of people come to Orlando, Florida hoping to be vowed or thrilled. Well, all those tourists and some people who were evacuated got more than they bargained for today: CNN's Jason Bellini was with them. We'll check in with him in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: The 2004 Summer Olympics opened today in Athens. When Greece won the coveted bid to host the games, September 11 had not happened, BALCO hadn't been indicted. The world in many respects was a different place. Getting Athens ready for the games has not been easy, but today the games began in the country where they were born. Photojournalist Doug Carroll (ph) is there for CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really wanted to make this work. Greece is the smallest country that has ever held the Olympics of such scale, and there is a lot of Greek pride involved, and we're willing to kind of bear the burden, and we'll have to work really hard to make things work at the end, but I mean, we'll shoulder the burden.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE) until the last minute. I do the same thing myself, but it usually gets done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there is a lot of hard work and organization gone into it, and they are efficient people. Maybe last minute, but very efficient.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was following the all the media, and most of them were -- was against Greece. But finally, you see that everything is ready. You see what happened with tickets. Nobody was (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Now everybody is going to buy a ticket. It's the big way (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see security everywhere, you see police, you see army guys, you (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I feel secure, buy maybe it's a bit exaggerated. Every two meters here, a police agent. I certainly feel secure now, yes, that's for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard right now, it's chaotic. It does not seem to be a lot of organization, and difficult to get around. But otherwise, we're enjoying this (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Right now, we're just looking around, going to the Acropolis and simply looking at the historical sites. That's mostly what we're here for. I don't particularly want the hustle of standing in line for tickets, trying to get -- trying to get in, and going through all the security issues. It's really not for me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Everything will be fine. Everybody must come here to see where it begins. Nothing will be happens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm sure there is going to be a lot of tourism coming, not just this year but in the years to come, and it's kind of -- a lot of investment in terms of social capital, human capital. So it's definitely worth it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The work of photojournalist Doug Carroll (ph).
In Orlando, the scene was quite a scene today. Of course, there are always plenty of tourists there to visit the theme parks. In this case, they were joined by many evacuees from the west coast of Florida, hoping to find a refuge there. Unfortunately, however, Hurricane Charley decided to pass right overhead, causing a great degree of difficulty for people there, although we're told, at least we have no report so far, of any injuries.
CNN's Jason Bellini was in the hotels, talking to some of the people, tourists and evacuees alike -- Jason. JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Miles. I weathered the storm with tourists at the hotels, and also people who left their homes thinking that they were getting away from the storm, and found out they are right in the middle of it.
Fortunately, at the hotels that I saw, the damage was minimal. There were some trees down, a few cars that were damaged, some windows broken. But overall, people seemed to enjoy this storm and were able to sort of have fun with this and laugh at it now, because you know that none of these people were hurt. Some were out playing in the rain during the storm. I met quite a few people who were in town from other countries, and who -- I don't think they quite got the risk involved in a hurricane. Didn't take all that seriously, and fortunately, things worked out for them.
I want to show you right now one woman who I spoke with right before the storm hit. She was in the bar, a woman from England.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI: Where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: South Wales.
BELLINI: Yeah, what do you think about this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Frightening.
BELLINI: Frightening?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, scary, you know.
BELLINI: You're hanging out in the bar, how scared are you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need more drinks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI: I think, Miles, that was the prevailing attitude today, hanging out at the hotels, and there were really hundreds of people. I was surprised that -- the hotels were really packed along the hotel road, near the theme parks, near the Wet 'n Wild Amusement Park. People were there, and they weren't heading to the shelters that were available in the cities. They stayed in their hotel rooms, feeling confident enough, and it turned out OK for them -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: The Wet 'n Wild Amusement Park. On this day, that takes on some new meaning. The whole city was wet and wild, I guess?
BELLINI: It was indeed, and now that the storm is -- has passed, I was just on the streets, and there are quite a few trees down in some areas, and people are staying off the roads. I imagine that woman has called it a night. They're not planning to venture out until the next day, but some of these people are hoping to be leaving on cruises tomorrow, and that they can continue on with their vacation. I also drove past some of the amusement parks, some of the water parks, and they seemed to be intact, so I don't know for sure, but maybe they'll be open again tomorrow.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jason Bellini in Orlando. A few hurricane hangovers, no doubt there tomorrow morning. We appreciate you dropping by.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, it does not look anything like the camps I used to go to. Up next, a group of kids who will do anything to see their names in lights, even go to camp. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, if you are a parent, I need not remind you, it is back to school time, and that means that it's time for kids to tell the rest of the class what they did on their summer vacations. For most, stories of soccer camp and hiking trips, and learning to tie that knot when the rabbit goes into the hole, and runs around the tree and so forth. Well, for some, on the other hand, it's a whole another song and dance entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK CORLEY, DIRECTOR, CAMP BROADWAY: Camp Broadway, we like to call it Broadway bootcamp. It is an intense experience for the kids. They learn the finale, they take classes with Broadway professional. All week long, we have Broadway cast members coming in to talk to them during lunch.. And then, we get them on Monday, and on Friday they're presenting their shows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After dance -- two seconds, back on stage, back dancing, back singing, rehearsing, and doing everything over and over again until you get it right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you wake up in the morning, your feet still hurt, but after -- after you -- when you get here, you're like, I'm so glad to be here, you know, feel fine and everything.
CORLEY: We've been to cities all across the United States, and this week we happened to be doing Camp Broadway in New York, working with 100 kids from all across the country, and from the city of New York as well. It's not talent-based, the kids don't audition. It's just a bunch of kids who are passionate about theater.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be an actress on the Broadway. Because I love singing and dancing, and acting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's fun to act out certain people that you'd love to be.
CORLEY: At the end of the week, their parents and family are all invited to a show in a theater with two 20-minute version of Broadway show. And then ending with the big finale, were all 100 kids are on stage, doing the big number. Tonight is the big -- the big deal of the whole week. Backstage right now, the mood is calm insanity, I'd say. There is 100 kids back there. They're checking last-minute costumes, props. We've drilled them and I have faith that they're going to do it.
LESLEY MAZZOTTA, PRODUCING DIRECTOR, CAMP BROADWAY: It's inspiring, because all the kids are out there, and they may not be going left when they should be going left, or right, or stepping when they should, but they are all out there, giving it their all and smiling and loving it. And that's really what we're about.
CORLEY: Sometimes, I mean, we -- I admit it, I get weepy and I cry now and then. When you look out and you see kids doing stuff that they couldn't do or were really struggling with, and all of a sudden they rise to the level, and they nail it. They do it, and you can see the pride that they do that with. And it gets you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and everyone's clapping, and you don't want it to be over. It's like, I'm a Broadway star, and you never want it to be over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: I think she's got the bug, mom and dad. Thumbs up from this crew right here. Fantastic. You saw them here first.
It has been showtime all day for CNN's Orelon Sidney, up in the weather center. We will check in with her for a final act after a brief intermission.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Before we go tonight, we want to bring you up to date on Hurricane Charley, which may turn out to be the biggest hurricane to hit Florida since Andrew 12 years ago. It is leaving Florida as we speak, but not before taking an unexpected turn and doing an awful lot of damage.
Orelon Sidney has been watching it every step of the way. Orelon, a final report on where things are headed.
SIDNEY: Well, it's definitely headed offshore. And it looks like it's picking up a little bit of strength. I had an unconfirmed report the winds were up to 90 miles an hour again from 85, but still a category one now, moving off the coast here, just almost due northeast currently, of Daytona Beach.
We're going to take a little bit different radar perspective, out of Jacksonville now. This stuff is not rain. That's coming from the cold air back in Georgia. But here comes the storm system. You're getting some of the inner rain bands in St. Augustine. You're going to get a little bit of this rain in Jacksonville. But the storm is not going to make a hit to Jacksonville. It's going to head on northward. And as we saw earlier, it's going to affect the Carolinas on Saturday. These are some of the rain totals we've gotten. These are really starting to rack up now, especially from Orlando out to Daytona Beach. That's where the heaviest rain has fallen so far, in some of those big rain bands. Over three inches, probably four to five in some localized areas. The Doppler does tend to underestimate tropical-type moisture, tropical-type precipitation.
Let me show you the very latest now. Maximum winds, 85; again, unofficially up to 90 now, moving north-northeast at 25; expected to continue up towards the Charleston area; maximum winds about 90 miles an hour; gusts of 115; the forecast as it's just off the coast tomorrow.
My producer, Sean Morris (ph), did point out something to me I wanted to show you before I leave you this evening. We have tropical depression number five here that I mistakenly called Tropical Storm Danielle. Danielle is actually just off the coast of Africa. We're right at the edge of the satellite picture here, so you're not getting a very good view of it. Number five, though, will probably become Tropical Storm Earl later on tonight.
It has been a long day -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Orelon Sidney, it's not off your radar, is it? It may be of ours, but it's never off yours. Great work today. Thank you very much for explaining and walking us through what is a very dangerous, dangerous situation. We appreciate it.
Stay with CNN all throughout the night and all throughout the weekend. As daybreak settles in over Florida, we'll be able to give you a good assessment of what lies ahead for folks in the wake of Hurricane Charley.
I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for being with us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 13, 2004 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Fast, furious, and wily is how Charley came ashore. The Category 4 hurricane defying expectations and sidestepping Tampa, but showing no mercy when it made land by Captiva Island with 145-mile an hour winds. The eye of the storm is now off Florida's Atlantic coast, winds still clocking in at more than 80 miles-an-hour. Charley has triggered one of the biggest evacuations in Florida history: almost 2 million people ordered to leave their homes. The state's southwest coast, virtually empty tonight.
Hurricanes actually trace their swirling pedigrees to tropical waves that spin off North Africa's Sahara Desert, they evolve into depressions, then storms, and ultimately if the winds are right and there's plenty of warm water in their path to feed them, they mature into hurricanes. And so it went for Charley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Also keeping our eye here on another tropical disturbance, very strong looking waves...
O'BRIEN (voice-over): From those humble origins a week ago, Charlie zipped through the Caribbean leaving some damage behind in the Cayman Islands and Cuba. As it advanced on Florida, Charley got an upgrade, from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the third Atlantic hurricane spawned this year, was born.
Charley's two older siblings were underachievers, Hurricane Alex, grazed the Carolina coast a week ago, a category two storm with barley minimal damage. And Thursday, the second member of the class of 2004, failed to graduate to hurricane status. Tropical Storm Bonnie dumped heavy rain along the Florida Panhandle and then along came Charley. By late in the day Friday, a million Floridians looking at a category four hurricane in the eye, prepared to evacuate or had already left.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: This morning I have requested, from the president of the United States, a presidential disaster declaration...
O'BRIEN: One-hundred forty-five mile an hour winds were not the only threat to Florida's gulf coast. A surge of sea water kicked up by Charley was poised to overrun the barrier islands and low lying coast lines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you choose to live by the water, occasionally you're going to live in the water.
O'BRIEN: All this along a stretch of coastline that's gotten off easy from Mother Nature in this past century. It's been 80 years since Tampa Bay's been slugged by a major storm. The Fort Myers area last took a major hit 44 years ago. And since Hurricane Donna come to town in 1960, so have eight time as many residents. Like virtually all of the Florida coast, more people potentially in harms way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Ultimately, Charley hit ground at Captiva and then went up Charlotte Bay, and in Charlotte Bay is Punta Gorda and that is where Anderson Cooper has been telling us about reports of casualties tonight. Let's get back to Anderson in Tampa.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Miles, we don't have any new information about any numbers, we haven't been able to actually find any numbers of casualties at this point. The last we heard from emergency officials here in Florida was that a number of hospitals are struggling, in their words. They did say some hospitals have even sustained some damage in the Fort Myers/Punta Gorda area.
We have learned that Governor Jeb Bush will be touring disaster areas tomorrow and obviously a lot of emphases being put on rebuilding, and at this point, to search and rescue. Search and rescue operations will be underway, we are told, in the Punta Gorda area. As many as 1,400 National Guardsman have been called in to that area, so it's going to be a very busy night for them, indeed.
This scenario, they really didn't anticipate baring the brunt of this storm, as we've been saying all day long. It was supposed to be here, tamp, Florida, a city which had a mandatory evacuation. Hundreds of thousands of people left over the last several days. They left, often going to Orlando to cities inland, cities where they thought they would be safe. Of course, the sad irony, the storm turned and headed directly for those areas that many of them had fled to -- hitting Orlando, hitting Daytona Beach, and the like. So you had hotels in Orlando, hotels in Dayton Beach, which were packed with people, all of whom, many of them had left, either tourists or people -- residents here who had left Tampa in fear of the storm.
So again, the story really focusing now on Punta Gorda and what is going to be there at first light. What is the scene going to be there? People simply don't know at this point, but we are hearing some disturbing reports and we are closely following them -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Anderson Cooper in Tampa, thank you very much. By the way, we should tell you, tropical depressions four and five are out there in the Atlantic somewhere, heading our way. No telling how they might or might not shape up as the draw near. Orelon Sidney, of course knows, exactly what lies ahead when hurricanes take shape.
Orelon, bring us up to date on exactly where the eye is right now, of Hurricane Charley.
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I'll tell you something really quickly too, about your Tropical Depression No. 5, that one is not Tropical Storm Danielle, it was just upgraded by the National Hurricane Center at the top of the hour. It does not look like it will affect land areas within the next five days. And if the track holds, it may not affect land areas at all. We'll have to keep an eye on that, certainly.
This one is affecting a land area and how! It's moving off the coast of Florida now, around Daytona Beach, just about to make its way off the coast. We're seeing some of those inner-rain bands now, affecting the coastal barrier islands. It will continue to push its way off the shore, 85 mile an hour winds now, it could strengthen as it moves back over the open waters in the Atlantic. It's moving north- northeastward now at 25 miles-an-hour. We continue to watch out for flooding and flood warnings and flood watches are in affect all the, practically up the eastern seaboard, as we continue to see the storm accelerate to the north. By tomorrow, we think it's going to be somewhere over the state line between North Carolina and Virginia. So certainly, not over yet, with this particular storm system.
I want to take you out into the tropic now and show you our newly formed tropical storm Danielle, its way out there. These are the Leeward Islands. Here is Danielle and the latest track takes it more to the north and northwest, so we're hoping that that will probably hold and maybe it'll get shunted on off without affecting land. But, it's way too far to call that right now. We can say we have a tropical storm on our hands out in the Atlantic.
And Miles, I know you love statistics. Hurricane Charley, the most intense hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that's quite a statement, right there, Orelon.
SIDNEY: Yes, it is.
O'BRIEN: You know, and of course in the case of Hurricane Andrew, where it hit was so key, wasn't it?
It certainly was. Especially the part of the storm where you had the most intense winds going through Homestead and raking through that area, really doing damage like a tornado, but over a huge swath, so that's why I'm fairly concerned, too, about where Charley made landfall. The winds in this one now, 145 miles-an-hour. If it had gone up to 156, it would have been a category 5, so we're talking about and extremely strong storm. The last time we saw one like this, was Hurricane Andrew.
O'BRIEN: All right. And let's talk quickly about the possibility of this hurricane remaining in tact. You were talking earlier about some of the upper level winds, the troughs, as you put it. How is that going to steer this storm and affect this storm as it moves up the coast?
SIDNEY: Well, the trough itself is now doing what we call "filling." It was diving down and strengthening into the Gulf of Mexico and now the trough is starting to weaken a bit and ride up to the north. It's already caught the storm up, that's why the storm is moving in the direction that it is. And generally, when you start to come along through this area, where the tropical cyclone starts to get sheared apart a little bit, so we're going start looking for some shear with this, but because this trough of low pressure is weakening, is not going have as great an affect on the storm as I would like. So, we may actually see this kind of bumping along the coast for the next couple of days bringing some rainfall and maybe some gusty winds to the coastal area.
The excellent news though, is I believe the center of the storm is going to stay very close to the coast, so we may be getting the left side of the storm, the least intense side, but that certainly remains to be seen.
O'BRIEN: All right, but just to clarify, could it strengthen on its way?
SIDNEY: It certainly can. There is a possibility that as it moves out of the barrier islands and over these open waters of the Atlantic that it could strengthen and, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see it do that later on tonight.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll leave it on that ominous note. Orelon Sidney, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Back with more in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: We've been talking a little bit tonight, about Hurricane Andrew. It's now been 12 years since Andrew came through southern part of Florida, just south of Miami and a lot about what lies ahead, because the people who dealt with that storm had such a tough road that faced them.
Curt Ivy is the city manager of the city of Homestead which bore the brunt of Hurricane Andrew a dozen years ago. He joins us on the line, right now.
Can you hear me OK, Mr. Ivy?
CURTIS IVY, JR, HOMESTEAD CITY MANAGER: Yes I can.
O'BRIEN: All right. Take us back to 12 years ago and what it was like to wake up, as the city manager, on the day after a storm like Andre.
IVY: Well, actually I woke up as the police chief, at that time, 12 years ago.
O'BRIEN: OK.
IVY: And, it was very devastating. It was a shock when we walked out the door of the police station.
O'BRIEN: Describe that scene and what went through your mind, if you can recall it.
IVY: Well it was pretty surreal to go out and see the amount of devastation. We were locked in during the hurricane; we went out during the eye, briefly. We rescued some people during that time that their buildings had some apart and they were in the streets during the eye and we managed to get them into the police station. But, when the eye came back, the back side of the wall came in, we were locked again, into the police station. And then after it had passed, we had a hard time opening the door to get out the back because a lot of debris had blown up against it.
O'BRIEN: Wow. You literally couldn't open the door of the police station.
IVY: Right, and we found our cars were damaged and we had to kick the windshields and windows out and kind of looked like the "Road Warriors" driving the cars.
O'BRIEN: Do you recall how long it took before things go back to any degree of normalcy there in Homestead?
IVY: Oh well, it was months before things go back to normal. The electricity in some parts of the city didn't get back until Thanksgiving -- timeframe. There still -- there were still --you know, blank spots and pads that exist in the city today for Andrew.
O'BRIEN: Still today. And do you think people are affected, sort of, psychologically every time the hurricane season come upon them and we start airing coverage, as we did today, of a storm baring down on Florida, no matter what direction it's coming from?
IVY: Oh yes, I feel it myself, certainly a lot more attentive, a lot more tense when we watch these tropical depressions or disturbances come off the coast of Africa. We track them all the way through until they get past us or -- you know, we find that we're not in harms way again, there.
O'BRIEN: Do you have a pearl of wisdom to share with folks who might be faced with a similar predicament tomorrow morning?
IVY: Well again, perseverance there -- and not be overwhelmed by what you see. There's a lot of people to help you. There were a lot of people who came to Homestead's assistance and it's even more organized now than it was then, and I think the response will be much better now, than it was then. It's just you're going to have to be persistent; there's a lot of challenges you have before you.
O'BRIEN: Curt Ivy, the currently the Homestead city manager, a dozen years ago the police chief. Thanks very much for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.
IVY: You're very welcome.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn it back to another forecaster. Bernie Rayno spends a lot of time, kind of, sussing out the subtleties of these big storms, trying to figure out their formation, their direction, the damage they might cause. He joins us once again from Accuweather, up there in central Pennsylvania.
Bernie, give us a sense. What surprised you most about this storm and what it did? What was the most unpredictable thing?
BERNIE RAYNO, ACCUWEATHER.COM: Well, I thing for the most part, here at Accuweather.com, we are not really surprised by the strength or the track of the hurricane. We've been following it over the last couple of days and I think we thought it was going to be from Tampa on southbound and that's exactly what happened. But one thing we do want to stress, I think there's a lot of people saying now, hey listen, it's over Florida, it's weakening, it's not going to be as bad and we want to tell you that that's exactly wrong. Because of the next 24 hours Charley's going to be moving northbound, he will probably strengthen into, or at least strengthen further, become a category two or category three hurricane with maximum staying (ph) winds of 100 miles-per-hour. So, outer banks of North Carolina, also South Carolina, not only are you going to get the rain, but you are going to get the wind, in fact, we are going to see hurricane force winds from Myrtle Beach up toward Wilmington, North Carolina, and perhaps even Norfolk, over the next 24 hours. By Saturday, in fact, what we're really concerned about here, as -- this could turn into a catastrophe as far as flooding and winds, and many problems here. In fact, this our timeline.
Saturday morning into Saturday afternoon, watch out, for Myrtle Beach up toward Wilmington, North Carolina. Outer banks of North Carolina, it's Saturday afternoon into Saturday night, and then as Charley continues to go up the eastern seaboard, we're going to see problems across the mid-Atlantic states, even New York City. And what we're concerned about here, are flooding rains, rainfall amounts of two to four inches, maybe as much as five or six, in this area. And keep in mind, much of the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic states have already had their fair share of rain, so you factor in even more rain, more wind, and we're looking at potential problems. And do keep in mind, we already had some flooding problems along Route 12 here into the outer banks of North Carolina form the remains of Bonnie, so eastern North Carolina, we're afraid is going to feel the brunt of this and we're afraid that there's going to be catastrophic flooding. Keep in mind, most people or most fatalities that do occur in hurricanes if from inland flooding...
O'BRIEN: Bernie...
RAYNO: ...because they generally do evacuate...
O'BRIEN: Bernie, how much -- how much certainty do you have right now, predicting that -- that course for Charley? I mean, we were, after all, surprised, a little bit today when it took that sudden right turn and strengthened so quickly.
RAYNO: Well, we do feel very strongly that Charley is going to be moving northbound. We think it's going to hug the coast here, from North Carolina up into Virginia, and that means that the heaviest rain is going be on the northwestern side of that. So, cities like Raleigh- Durham, even our nation's capitol, it's going to be a close call, but watch out Philadelphia and New York City. We're really concerned about flooding, and what we're really concerned about at Accuweather.com is that a lot of people are resting on their laurels because they hear that Charley is weakening. We say... O'BRIEN: Well, the did -- Bernie, for the record, they didn't hear it here, all right?
RAYNO: Oh, I hear you. I hear you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much. Bernie Rayno with Accuweather in central Pennsylvania, we appreciate it.
Gary Tuchman is in Daytona and he was with us with a live shot, full pictures and everything, a little while ago. Now he's here -- he's on the phone. I suspect it has something to do with the weather.
Gary, tell us what's happening there.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right Miles. Right now the Daytona beach police are telling me the gusts are up to 95 miles-per-hour and because of the heavy winds, we're just rocking back an forth right now in the satellite truck on the beach and the satellite signals, right now, aren't working. I can tell you that in the streets and from the beach, here in Daytona Beach, there are signs blowing down the street, sheet metal, a couple of cars, I just saw a short time ago and about an eight foot chunk of sheet metal landed on the windshield of a car, it didn't break it, but it -- for anybody who's driving out there, it's a real big mistake right now. It's very treacherous. Garbage cans are rolling don the streets. I saw a very unusual sight on the beach just a short time ago, an outhouse blew from some unknown location onto the beach and it's still standing up, and it wasn't there before. I'm not quite sure how blew and ended up standing up.
But right now, palm trees are down and are really, right now, on the brunt of this hurricane leaving Florida to head out into the Atlantic Ocean, but it appears to be right over Daytona Beach. Not the eye, because it's not calm right now, but really a heavy gust of whatever remains of Hurricane Charlie.
O'BRIEN: And are -- Gary, you're in a crowded hotel. Are folks doing OK?
TUCHMAN: The hotel is doing OK. It's a relatively new hotel, the owners of this place vow that this is one of the safest buildings in Daytona Beach. And right now, I see very little damage to this hotel. I see lots of damage to other buildings, not catastrophic damage, but signs blowing off, linoleum blowing off, parts of roofs blowing off, some lights blowing down in the streets. This hotel, where we're at, and -- it's probably about 16 or 17 floors, it's a huge hotel and it's full of people who evacuated from the west coast of Florida and central Florida. Everyone here in these hotels, right now, as far as we can see, is safe.
O'BRIEN: OK, Gary Tuchman, stay safe yourself, and we'll be back in touch with you very shortly.
The director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami is Max Mayfield, he joins us now live to give us a sense of where things stand. Max, you heard Gary's reporting, right now, 90 mile-an-hour plus winds, right there in Daytona. Obviously a lot of activity there, and of course, the sad irony is, he said he's in a hotel with a lot of people who had evacuated themselves from the west coast.
MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Yeah and Miles, that's still the right thing to do, because we tell people to flee from the water and hide from the wind. These people that evacuated over there were in the coastal areas in the west coast and that was the biggest concern on the west when the storm surge flooding. If you live in a well-built structure, you needed to stay in your house where you are. If you were outside of the storm surge zone.
O'BRIEN: All right. No, tell us right now, give us kind of the situation report on the storm as you see it. You're getting those reconnaissance reports from all over the place, including the air craft. I don't know if they're up right now. Nevertheless, based on what you're seeing, if the storm apt to do what we've been saying. In other words, hug the coast and head north and even potentially strengthen along the way.
MAYFIELD: Well, I think that -- well first, we're not getting recon reports, they don't fly over land because of the turbulence, but the center, as you can see -- you know, the ragged center is right here just about to come off the east coast there, near Daytona. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) track has it moving very rapidly, in fact, by 8:00 a.m. should be somewhere just off the south Carolina coast, but 2:00 p.m. will likely be near the South Carolina/North Carolina border, and by tomorrow night, we'll be up here in northeast North Carolina, in all likelihood.
We are forecasting three to six inches of rain; I would not call that catastrophic flooding, associated with this. We are very concerned with the storm surge flooding, but I might add that the hurricane warning now, goes all the up from Coco Reef, Florida, up to, or get in that North Carolina. And if you look at the storms surge flooding that's possible with this, they could have in the neighborhood of eight to 10 feet near and to the east of where the center cross of the coast, up there in the Carolinas, so we really don't want people to drop their guard down, there. This is not the same hurricane. I think we could see a little of this and the strange thing is it's a mediocre category one, right now, it may strengthen a little bit, but I think that the fact that the inner core has dissipated, I really don't think we'll see it come back to be a major hurricane again.
O'BRIEN: OK, so mediocre category one, for now. The point is, still pay attention, though, I guess.
MAYFIELD: Absolutely, and we even have loss of life in most category one hurricanes and people do need to take this extremely seriously.
O'BRIEN: Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, Miami. Thanks very much, you've had a long day, we appreciate your time. MAYFIELD: You bet.
O'BRIEN: Back with more NEWSNIGHT in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Let's go back now to Orlando. Well inland, but not immune this time around. They got a direct hit up interstate four and gone, and so we head back there now to CNN's Susan Candiotti.
What's the latest, Susan?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I always wondered myself, what it would be like to be inland during one of these storms because I hadn't done it before and I've always been along the coastline, but you do sustain a lot of damage. There were very high winds, sustained winds here, I'm told, of 70 miles-per-hour with gusts up to 85.
Looking up at the sky now, the clouds are breaking up a bit; clearly it's passed up by. And now, at this hour, there are damage assessments teams out and about surveying the damage to see how well or how badly this area made out. In talking to the utility companies, I can tell you that at least 300,000 -- 330,000 customers are now without power. I'm old that at least -- includes half of the city of Orlando. And they are very concerned, at this hour, about a lot downed power lines and a lot of downed trees, and wanted me to stress how important it is, as we all know, not to venture out, not to around any of those lines because they could still have some juice coming through them.
But look, it didn't take that long after the storm for them to start -- for them to go out and they are already starting repairs.
Now, we can tell you that earlier in the evening, we heard reports of at least 5,000 people who had escaped to shelters and at many hotels, if you recall, a lot of people came here from the west coast of Florida thinking they were escaping the storm there and in many cases they did. In other circumstances, we talked to some families who had came form the Tampa/St. Pete area where there turned out to be no damage at all only for them to come right into the middle of the storm, here. Of course they were in a safe spot, here in the hotel; they suffered only minor damage where we were. Downed trees, downed street lights, a lot of parts of buildings, again, flowing -- blowing around in the wind, here. But, so far, the mayor tells me, he has not heard any reports of any serious injuries. Not true, actually, a couple of hours before the storm hit, there was a wind-related traffic fatality, a traffic accident between a passenger car and a truck. The truck was blown over by the wind, officials said, and literally crushed a car with a family inside, one little girl list her life, her three other brothers survived, as did the parents and the drivers of the truck. So, we have no further information on any other accidents as this time -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Susan Candiotti, seeing a hurricane from a new perspective. Someone who has seen a lot of hurricanes, this time inland and it was a frightening sight, indeed. Thank you very much.
With us now on the phone from Jacksonville is Benny Smith. She is a spokesperson for Jacksonville's Fire and Rescue Department. Thanks for taking a moment to talk to us. Can you hear us OK?
BENNY SMITH, JACKSONVILLE FIRE & RESCUE: I can hear you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jacksonville is likely to face, at the very least a little bit of flooding, probably some high winds. What's going on right now?
SMITH: Right now, it's fairly quiet. The storm is a category one. We're expecting it to come through Jacksonville approximately 2 a.m. We will start to get the winds of approximately 80 to 85 miles an hour. We expect to see a minimal effect. We're concerned right now about the squalls, that's our major area of concern at this moment. We've got six shelters that are open approximately; 250 people are housed in these shelters, and -- and that's pretty much...
O'BRIEN: So, Ms. Smith, only 250 people had evacuated, and you feel that you are not at risk there, and don't need to evacuate any further?
SMITH: Yes, that's correct. We -- we feel pretty good about -- about where we are, and, you know, we have planned -- our major has done a great job of letting people know that the best thing for them to do is stay in their homes and -- and stay tuned to the weather reports, and that seems to have worked for us.
O'BRIEN: All right. Benny Smith, thank you very much, she is with the Jacksonville authorities there. We appreciate you spending a few moments with us.
A year ago tomorrow, about this time, we were telling you, with a fair amount of difficult, about another kind of disaster -- where were you during the great blackout of 2003, the biggest in American history? Millions of people, from Michigan to New York and in Canada as well left in the dark. An international investigation would eventually place most of the blame on an Ohio utility company. One year later, you don't have to understand the intricacies of an electrical grid to ask the obvious question, could it all happen again? Here is CNN's Jonathan Freed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blackout of 2003 gave one power company in the Buckeye State, First Energy, a black eye. According to a U.S.-Canada task force, the cascading electricity failure that touched tens of millions of people centered on computer trouble at First Energy Eastlake Power Plant in northern Ohio. The computer didn't warn about a power surge, and the current flowed across lines not designed to handle the extra load. Some lines sagged into trees, and as systems shut down defensively, came darkness, stretching from Michigan through Canada to New York.
ALAN SCHREIBER, CHAIRMAN, OHIO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION: I can tell you that the probability of a blackout has gone down over this past year.
FREED: Alan Schreiber chairs Ohio's Public Utility Commission, and sits on the international taskforce.
SCHREIBER: First Energy has done a lot to upgrade their computer systems, the training of their personnel. Tree trimming -- that's a no-brainer, and I think every -- probably every utility in the United States has scorched the Earth underneath their power lines.
FREED: A year after the blackout, First Energy is declining interviews, but its president did appear at a recent meeting of utility executives convened by Ohio's governor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all learned quite a bit from that -- from that event.
FREED (on camera): So, AEP operates the largest transmission grid in the United States?
SCOTT MOORE, AEP, VICE PRES. TRANSMISSION OPERATIONS: That's correct.
FREED (voice-over): American Electric Power covers 11 states, and believes the grid is better off today. Most of AEP's territory stayed lit last year, but it's still upgraded its systems. Its computer now plays electrical war games.
MOORE: You can think of it as trying to analyze chess movements. If I move this piece, what -- what's the effect on other pieces on the board?
FREED: Some citizens groups think there's been more rhetoric than repair work, and they echo the taskforce's call for enforceable reliability standards and penalties.
The current system is voluntary.
MARTIN COHEN, EXEC. DIR., CITIZENS UTILITY BOARD, IL.: We're still vulnerable to massive blackouts, because the utilities really don't have any incentive to make sure it does not happen again.
FREED: The Bush administration claims it's trying to correct that.
SPENCER ABRAHAM, SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Which is why we want the Congress to pass an energy bill that includes enforceable reliability standards, so that people will know that the federal government can, in fact, penalize them.
FREED: Congress isn't expected to act until after the election. Regardless, industry and government agree that the country's power grid needs even more work if it's to meet growing demand. Saying to do less only raises the risk of another major blackout.
Jonathan Freed, CNN, Columbus, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: In New Jersey today, this is the day after -- the day after that shocking announcement by Governor Jim McGreevey, and there are plenty of aftershocks, and the plot is definitely thickening. We'll tell you all about it after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: In New Jersey today, what began as a political bombshell turned into a mushroom cloud. A day after Governor Jim McGreevey came out of the closet, admitted to having an affair and announced his resignation, there was more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The spectacle of a political career derailed by a secret double life wasn't all that New Jersey's resigning governor had to confront.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was some awkward stories for him and for New Jersey this morning.
O'BRIEN: Even as James McGreevey went public with his private, painful struggle -- a gay man, married with children, there are allegations of corruption, extortion and nepotism in this administration. And today, these allegations from former adviser Golan Cipel through his lawyer:
ALLEN M. LOWY, GOLAN CIPEL'S ATTORNEY: I was a victim of repeated sexual advances by him. Such conduct and Mr. McGreevey's behavior caused me such emotional distress and turmoil.
O'BRIEN: Cipel is a man McGreevey brought back from a trip to Israel to be his six-figure security adviser. Law enforcement sources say that Cipel resigned under a cloud, and then threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment, unless McGreevey was willing to pay up. But Cipel's lawyer said it was his client who was victimized.
LOWY: It was only at the insistence of the governor's representatives that I agreed to meet with him before filing a lawsuit, to hear the unfounded and baseless allegations of the supposed, and I quote, "extortion."
O'BRIEN: Other problems for Governor McGreevey: His top fund- raiser, Charles Kushner, whose company, according to Kushner's lawyers, sponsored Cipel's visa. Kushner faces federal charges of illegal fund-raising and is accused of using hookers to tamper with witnesses. Because of all that, his critics say McGreevey can leave office soon enough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm joined today by Republican leaders in asking the governor to do the right thing, to go beyond what he did yesterday, and resign now.
O'BRIEN: But Democrats are hoping to keep McGreevey in office until November 15, to avoid a special election. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know the governor like I do, and I think most of you do, he will, within the next three month, put the pedal to the metal.
O'BRIEN: The conventional wisdom is that male politicians can survive anything but being found in bed with a dead woman or a live man, but history has proven that politics is more complicated than that.
In 1983, Congressman Gerry Studds of Massachusetts admitted having sex with a male teenage page. His colleague, Dan Crane of Illinois, admitted to the same with a female page.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm paying the price today.
O'BRIEN: Crane cried, apologized, and never returned to politics. Studds refused to apologize and was reelected for the next 13 years.
Congressman Barney Frank, also of Massachusetts, admitted hiring a man in 1985 who ran prostitutes out of Franks' D.C. apartment. He has won 10 elections since then.
Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona was about to be outed as gay, so he came out, and survived.
Republican Representative Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin survived being outed on the floor of the House.
Michael Huffington spent millions running for Congress, using the fame of his wife, conservative pundit Arianna Huffington. He lost. They divorced, and then he came out. She doesn't hold it against him.
But while McGreevey's first and second wives and his parents and his children are standing beside him after the sex scandal, it's not clear the constituents will. His poll ratings were already plummeting following the corruption charges, and now, there is this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Each year, millions of people come to Orlando, Florida hoping to be vowed or thrilled. Well, all those tourists and some people who were evacuated got more than they bargained for today: CNN's Jason Bellini was with them. We'll check in with him in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: The 2004 Summer Olympics opened today in Athens. When Greece won the coveted bid to host the games, September 11 had not happened, BALCO hadn't been indicted. The world in many respects was a different place. Getting Athens ready for the games has not been easy, but today the games began in the country where they were born. Photojournalist Doug Carroll (ph) is there for CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really wanted to make this work. Greece is the smallest country that has ever held the Olympics of such scale, and there is a lot of Greek pride involved, and we're willing to kind of bear the burden, and we'll have to work really hard to make things work at the end, but I mean, we'll shoulder the burden.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE) until the last minute. I do the same thing myself, but it usually gets done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there is a lot of hard work and organization gone into it, and they are efficient people. Maybe last minute, but very efficient.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was following the all the media, and most of them were -- was against Greece. But finally, you see that everything is ready. You see what happened with tickets. Nobody was (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Now everybody is going to buy a ticket. It's the big way (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see security everywhere, you see police, you see army guys, you (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I feel secure, buy maybe it's a bit exaggerated. Every two meters here, a police agent. I certainly feel secure now, yes, that's for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard right now, it's chaotic. It does not seem to be a lot of organization, and difficult to get around. But otherwise, we're enjoying this (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Right now, we're just looking around, going to the Acropolis and simply looking at the historical sites. That's mostly what we're here for. I don't particularly want the hustle of standing in line for tickets, trying to get -- trying to get in, and going through all the security issues. It's really not for me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Everything will be fine. Everybody must come here to see where it begins. Nothing will be happens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm sure there is going to be a lot of tourism coming, not just this year but in the years to come, and it's kind of -- a lot of investment in terms of social capital, human capital. So it's definitely worth it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The work of photojournalist Doug Carroll (ph).
In Orlando, the scene was quite a scene today. Of course, there are always plenty of tourists there to visit the theme parks. In this case, they were joined by many evacuees from the west coast of Florida, hoping to find a refuge there. Unfortunately, however, Hurricane Charley decided to pass right overhead, causing a great degree of difficulty for people there, although we're told, at least we have no report so far, of any injuries.
CNN's Jason Bellini was in the hotels, talking to some of the people, tourists and evacuees alike -- Jason. JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Miles. I weathered the storm with tourists at the hotels, and also people who left their homes thinking that they were getting away from the storm, and found out they are right in the middle of it.
Fortunately, at the hotels that I saw, the damage was minimal. There were some trees down, a few cars that were damaged, some windows broken. But overall, people seemed to enjoy this storm and were able to sort of have fun with this and laugh at it now, because you know that none of these people were hurt. Some were out playing in the rain during the storm. I met quite a few people who were in town from other countries, and who -- I don't think they quite got the risk involved in a hurricane. Didn't take all that seriously, and fortunately, things worked out for them.
I want to show you right now one woman who I spoke with right before the storm hit. She was in the bar, a woman from England.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI: Where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: South Wales.
BELLINI: Yeah, what do you think about this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Frightening.
BELLINI: Frightening?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, scary, you know.
BELLINI: You're hanging out in the bar, how scared are you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need more drinks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI: I think, Miles, that was the prevailing attitude today, hanging out at the hotels, and there were really hundreds of people. I was surprised that -- the hotels were really packed along the hotel road, near the theme parks, near the Wet 'n Wild Amusement Park. People were there, and they weren't heading to the shelters that were available in the cities. They stayed in their hotel rooms, feeling confident enough, and it turned out OK for them -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: The Wet 'n Wild Amusement Park. On this day, that takes on some new meaning. The whole city was wet and wild, I guess?
BELLINI: It was indeed, and now that the storm is -- has passed, I was just on the streets, and there are quite a few trees down in some areas, and people are staying off the roads. I imagine that woman has called it a night. They're not planning to venture out until the next day, but some of these people are hoping to be leaving on cruises tomorrow, and that they can continue on with their vacation. I also drove past some of the amusement parks, some of the water parks, and they seemed to be intact, so I don't know for sure, but maybe they'll be open again tomorrow.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jason Bellini in Orlando. A few hurricane hangovers, no doubt there tomorrow morning. We appreciate you dropping by.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, it does not look anything like the camps I used to go to. Up next, a group of kids who will do anything to see their names in lights, even go to camp. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, if you are a parent, I need not remind you, it is back to school time, and that means that it's time for kids to tell the rest of the class what they did on their summer vacations. For most, stories of soccer camp and hiking trips, and learning to tie that knot when the rabbit goes into the hole, and runs around the tree and so forth. Well, for some, on the other hand, it's a whole another song and dance entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK CORLEY, DIRECTOR, CAMP BROADWAY: Camp Broadway, we like to call it Broadway bootcamp. It is an intense experience for the kids. They learn the finale, they take classes with Broadway professional. All week long, we have Broadway cast members coming in to talk to them during lunch.. And then, we get them on Monday, and on Friday they're presenting their shows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After dance -- two seconds, back on stage, back dancing, back singing, rehearsing, and doing everything over and over again until you get it right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you wake up in the morning, your feet still hurt, but after -- after you -- when you get here, you're like, I'm so glad to be here, you know, feel fine and everything.
CORLEY: We've been to cities all across the United States, and this week we happened to be doing Camp Broadway in New York, working with 100 kids from all across the country, and from the city of New York as well. It's not talent-based, the kids don't audition. It's just a bunch of kids who are passionate about theater.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be an actress on the Broadway. Because I love singing and dancing, and acting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's fun to act out certain people that you'd love to be.
CORLEY: At the end of the week, their parents and family are all invited to a show in a theater with two 20-minute version of Broadway show. And then ending with the big finale, were all 100 kids are on stage, doing the big number. Tonight is the big -- the big deal of the whole week. Backstage right now, the mood is calm insanity, I'd say. There is 100 kids back there. They're checking last-minute costumes, props. We've drilled them and I have faith that they're going to do it.
LESLEY MAZZOTTA, PRODUCING DIRECTOR, CAMP BROADWAY: It's inspiring, because all the kids are out there, and they may not be going left when they should be going left, or right, or stepping when they should, but they are all out there, giving it their all and smiling and loving it. And that's really what we're about.
CORLEY: Sometimes, I mean, we -- I admit it, I get weepy and I cry now and then. When you look out and you see kids doing stuff that they couldn't do or were really struggling with, and all of a sudden they rise to the level, and they nail it. They do it, and you can see the pride that they do that with. And it gets you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and everyone's clapping, and you don't want it to be over. It's like, I'm a Broadway star, and you never want it to be over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: I think she's got the bug, mom and dad. Thumbs up from this crew right here. Fantastic. You saw them here first.
It has been showtime all day for CNN's Orelon Sidney, up in the weather center. We will check in with her for a final act after a brief intermission.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Before we go tonight, we want to bring you up to date on Hurricane Charley, which may turn out to be the biggest hurricane to hit Florida since Andrew 12 years ago. It is leaving Florida as we speak, but not before taking an unexpected turn and doing an awful lot of damage.
Orelon Sidney has been watching it every step of the way. Orelon, a final report on where things are headed.
SIDNEY: Well, it's definitely headed offshore. And it looks like it's picking up a little bit of strength. I had an unconfirmed report the winds were up to 90 miles an hour again from 85, but still a category one now, moving off the coast here, just almost due northeast currently, of Daytona Beach.
We're going to take a little bit different radar perspective, out of Jacksonville now. This stuff is not rain. That's coming from the cold air back in Georgia. But here comes the storm system. You're getting some of the inner rain bands in St. Augustine. You're going to get a little bit of this rain in Jacksonville. But the storm is not going to make a hit to Jacksonville. It's going to head on northward. And as we saw earlier, it's going to affect the Carolinas on Saturday. These are some of the rain totals we've gotten. These are really starting to rack up now, especially from Orlando out to Daytona Beach. That's where the heaviest rain has fallen so far, in some of those big rain bands. Over three inches, probably four to five in some localized areas. The Doppler does tend to underestimate tropical-type moisture, tropical-type precipitation.
Let me show you the very latest now. Maximum winds, 85; again, unofficially up to 90 now, moving north-northeast at 25; expected to continue up towards the Charleston area; maximum winds about 90 miles an hour; gusts of 115; the forecast as it's just off the coast tomorrow.
My producer, Sean Morris (ph), did point out something to me I wanted to show you before I leave you this evening. We have tropical depression number five here that I mistakenly called Tropical Storm Danielle. Danielle is actually just off the coast of Africa. We're right at the edge of the satellite picture here, so you're not getting a very good view of it. Number five, though, will probably become Tropical Storm Earl later on tonight.
It has been a long day -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Orelon Sidney, it's not off your radar, is it? It may be of ours, but it's never off yours. Great work today. Thank you very much for explaining and walking us through what is a very dangerous, dangerous situation. We appreciate it.
Stay with CNN all throughout the night and all throughout the weekend. As daybreak settles in over Florida, we'll be able to give you a good assessment of what lies ahead for folks in the wake of Hurricane Charley.
I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for being with us at NEWSNIGHT.
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