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Soon: Biden Remarks On Hurricane Idalia As Storm Crosses Georgia; Idalia Now A Cat One Hurricane As It Batters South Georgia; Idalia Moves Toward Savanah, Three-Five Feet Storm Surge Expected. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 30, 2023 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: As we continue to follow Hurricane Idalia, and cover all of its effects, we are waiting for remarks from President Biden on what is proving to be an historic storm. Right now, Idalia crossing through Georgia as a Category 1. It is expected to move through the state for several more hours before then crossing into South Carolina. And pretty much wherever it's hit, it's left a trail of destruction.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, it was Florida getting battered resulting in record storm surges and life-threatening wind gusts. It did make landfall as a Category 3. That is the strongest storm to hit what is known as the Big Bend Region since the 1800s. And this is what that looked like.

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SCIUTTO: Yes. You got to wonder who stuck around to be close to that as it was happening. Both Florida and Georgia are experiencing significant power outages. We heard from FEMA of 300,000 and counting. Serious flooding as well. Areas in Florida are now undertaking search and rescue missions assisted by the National Guard.

We're going to go down to St. Simons Island in South Georgia. CNN affiliate Action News Jax reporter Jimmy Marlow. He is there. Tell us what you're seeing as the storm moves through.

JIMMY MARLOW, ACTION NEWS JACK REPORTER: Guys, I've been in the Glynn County area since yesterday. I started off the day in Brunswick where folks were preparing for the storm by filling sandbags. A lot of people were worried about localized flooding.

We haven't seen any of that in the Glynn County area. I started the day in Brunswick, the same thing. The story of the day really in Glynn County, Brunswick, and St. Simons Island where I am right now, has really been the wind. There has been a steady wind going from 20 to 30 knots up to 50 to 60 knots.

And I'm in an area of St. Simons Island that has a lot of trees. So, I just want to show you guys what the wind has been doing to this area. We haven't seen very many down-to-tree limbs or trees, but you can see that there is quite a bit of debris that is Meadow Drive here in St. Simons Island.

And this is Broadway Street. Again, we can take a look down this street, not very much debris, not very many trees down until we get a report about this. A massive oak tree that has fallen on power lines. And you can see that it is being held up by those power lines.

I actually spoke to the homeowner in the house to our left just now. He said that this tree fell down at around 11:00. And thankfully, they still have power on this particular block.

But suffice it to say that this is the type of issue that this area will be experiencing as of course we know there is a high water table in the southeast Florida and northern Georgia. And if we take a look at the base of this tree, it did not break. It actually came up from the root, which means that the ground is soft, and the high winds that have been blowing through this area for the last couple of days is what caused this massive tree again to topple over on the power lines. Now, again, the homeowner told me that this happened around 11:00.

City works came out and actually put these cones here to block the road. The fire department also came out to assess the situation with city workers and homeowners. We're not given a timetable as of yet as to when this massive tree will be removed from the power lines.

The same homeowner that gave me this information told me also that over the last hour, they have seen the power lines that this tree is being held up by begin to sag by about a foot. So, again, the story of the day really here in Southeast Georgia has been the wind. It's not really a water storm. It is more of a windstorm. As I'm sure you can hear the wind blowing through the trees.

Again, we're going to be out here covering this for the rest of the day. But again, this is really more of a windstorm than it is a water storm. And we'll continue to have updates when available. Guys, back to you.

KEILAR: All right, Jimmy, thank you so much. And that is the story everywhere. Big winds meeting those big beautiful old trees and you're going to have them coming down on power lines. It's why in neighboring Florida, there are 30 to 40,000 technicians who are mobilized from other states to try to help restore power. It's a very serious thing.

And with the storm's worst impacts now making their way across Southeast Georgia, coastal communities are bracing for Idalia. We have CNN national correspondent Ryan Young who is in Savannah monitoring the conditions there. Ryan, tell us you know what are people seeing. What are they expecting?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, they were of course expecting early on heavy rains but that hasn't happened so much. This right now has been mostly a wind event.

If you look behind this though, the bridge right now is becoming part of the story. That's the Talmadge Bridge. The beautiful bridge here in Savannah. That's been closed officially as of 2:00. We watch those emergency crews go across the bridge for the last time as they shut this down as it were precaution.

[14:05:01]

Also, the Port of Savannah which is just behind this right over here, all boat traffic has been shut down for the temporary time being. But they are worried about flooding later on. We've seen businesses all along the riverwalk put these bags up to make sure the water can't get under the doors here. And of course, they put the tape just in case. They keep it from piercing into the building.

So really, the story so far is no emergency. So far, they did have some heavy rain a little further south in Richmond Hill about 60 miles away from here, but they are worried about the impact of the rain coming in later on this evening. So, all emergency crews are getting ready.

They were talking about a curfew, not sure if that's still going to stand in place because we're not getting the heavy rain that everyone was talking about before. It's really become the anticipation of maybe getting the heavy winds over 70 miles per hour.

When you think about a holiday weekend like we're going to be approaching, so many people have been flooding into town. The airport hasn't ceased operations just yet. But there have been several cancellations when it comes to airlines flying into the Savannah area.

But when you look back in this direction, we've seen the water drop here in the Savannah River. Last night, it was a lot higher. So, the good news is we haven't been impacted by the rain, heavy winds have been knocked over a lot of trees but we're still waiting because they say around 7:00 tonight is when things could get hairy around here.

SCIUTTO: Well, keep yourself and your team safe, Ryan Young. Thanks so much.

KEILAR: I mean, I think what we're also seeing is there a lot of people who left and they're not where some of the storm has been the worst, right? So, we're not seeing --

SCIUTTO: And that's good news.

KEILAR: That is good news.

SCIUTTO: I mean, we could hear that from one of the communities that folks did largely -- well, many areas listen to those evacuation orders, which you and I have covered a lot of the storms. Oftentimes, it doesn't happen.

KEILAR: Yes. But also, as we heard out of Dixie County, one of those cameras was overtopped at 10 feet.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: So, they don't even have video of the worst of the storm because it actually, you know, hit a record and got so high there. And there are search and rescue efforts that are now underway in one of Florida's hardest-hit cities. That is Crystal River, which is where CNN's Ivan Rodriguez is live for us on the scene. Ivan, we know that the high tide there is happening right about now. Can you tell us what you're seeing?

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, Brianna, we've been standing in at least ankle-deep water for the last two hours. And in fact, in the last 30 minutes or so, we're starting to see some of that water recede. What's been very interesting specifically here with Crystal River is the fact that we're seeing these rescues by boat.

About an hour and a half ago, we saw two fire rescue boats from Citrus County come out and perform at least two separate rescues of groups. And as I'm speaking, I can still hear that buzzing of the boat going around these nearby neighborhoods. But that's how deep the water here has gotten. And this high tide is concerning as well.

Now, I mentioned those two groups that were rescued. one of them groups rescued with all their belongings, rescued alongside their dog as well then take into Highway 19 behind me where it's a lot more shallow. And if you can hear that noise ramping up, that's the noise of a boat that is approaching, a Fire Rescue boat.

I'll step out so you can take a look. This is a group here that appears to be rescued yet again by Citrus County Fire Rescue. They've been performing these rescues now for several hours. And you can see just how much more shallow it is on this side.

Again, we've been seeing this happen over and over again. One of the rescues even evolved the massive birdcage that these fire rescue teams were able to take out of one of these homes. So, once they're able to get them out of their home, which probably they were hunkered in to see out the storm, they take them there which is shallow, and then emergency crews will assess them, assist them with anything that they may need and then they're able to escape.

But many of these people have been waiting for hours now at this point, especially this last group getting rescued here just to be able to get out of their own homes. It takes us back to that conversation of those who were able to evacuate, chose to evacuate and those who decided to stay behind, we heard from officials none of this that we're seeing here is necessarily surprising, but the images are shocking.

SCIUTTO: No question. Good to see teams out there making those rescues. Ivan Rodriguez, thanks so much. We'll check back in with you later.

Joining us now is Ken Frink. He's on the city council in Crystal River, Florida. Ken, good to have you on. We were speaking earlier to the mayor there who said that he was hopeful the waters might be receding. Have you seen any more evidence of that?

KEN FRINK, CITY COUNCIL, CRYSTAL RIVER, FLORIDA: Yes, I appreciate you guys looking out for us. Yes, the waters dropped about a foot in the last hour so it's definitely receding. But it's all physics, you know. We've got a -- high tide were supposed to be coming in right now, but the water is going out. So, God willing the weight of the water from the surge will outrun the tide, and when will be OK.

But right now, it's still a catastrophic event. There's water -- we stayed in our home. We're well above the flood stage but all the homes around us, they're all underwater, unfortunately.

KEILAR: And when you're talking about underwater, I mean, how high up is this water come -- has it come in, and what kind of damage is it doing?

[14:10:01]

FRINK: Well, we can just see from looking at it from the outside from the street, some of these homes got probably at least a foot of water in them, which at that point, it's pretty devastating for those individuals that live there.

SCIUTTO: We spoke earlier, as I was mentioning with Mayor Joe Meek. He said thankfully, and we've heard this in a lot of communities, which is encouraging that most residents did heed the evacuation orders. Can you give us any updates on folks left behind and whether any rescues are underway?

FRINK: Well, we're -- we stay behind because we're well above the flood elevation. We did lose power, but we can hear airboats all around us, you know, doing search and rescue looking for people. Most of the folks that I know that were in lower-lying houses, they did get out, you know, they did heed the warnings and got out. And we've been keeping them abreast as to what's going on just via whatever means we can talk to them, mostly text messages at this point.

KEILAR: At this point, I think too, a lot of people are gone. That's the good news. They might not be there to survey the damage to see what's happening in their homes when it's flooded with, you know, a foot or more of water. When do you think it'll be safe for people to return it and see what's happening?

FRINK: Well, that ultimately is going to be a call of our emergency management officials. But as from what we can see, as fast as this water's going out, probably in two or three hours, the water should be passable.

KEILAR: All right.

FRINK: I live at least on the streets where people can get back in here. But you know, there's going to be emergency management officials at the point of where the flood starts to you know let people in or not.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be looking for that after that. High tide comes through the area. Crystal River, Councilmember Ken Frank, thank you so much for being with us. Best of luck.

SCIUTTO: Yes. KEILAR: And we know that obviously, the recovery ahead is going to be huge there in your community. Let's get now an update on where the storm is expected to travel next because it really is a Georgia story at this point, even as Florida is going to be dealing with the cleanup. We have Chad Myers in the weather center with the very latest. Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. You know, I mean, the whole storm surge issue now really is kind of a backburner problem. The problem we see right now, our flash flood problems.

We've had nine inches of rainfall in one county in southern Georgia, just over the past eight hours. So, that's obviously the problem. These areas that are still in red, yes, they're still 75-mile-per-hour winds, bringing down trees and some power lines. But that threat of 13o, 140 miles per hour, that's all gone.

All we're seeing now is the threats of some tornadoes that could come down, and also the very, very heavy rainfall that's yet to hit Charleston, yet to really hit Savannah, but it's on its way. And then of course, that tornado threat as waterspouts coming on short.

Anytime you have a big cell in a rotating system like this, any of these cells could actually rotate themselves and so therefore put down a potential tornado. But there's the very, very heavy rainfall, Valdosta just your West. Some spots there, eight inches of rain on the ground already. And also southeast of Valdosta, the same story. So, flash flood warnings, and even some flash flooding emergencies are likely today.

Look at all the power outages. I just checked Google Earth maps for the I-10. It is shut down for miles and miles and miles with all the signs saying debris, debris, debris all across Interstate-10. No travel going through there.

Some of the smaller highways are open. But if you take a look at all these red lines that are the highway's traffic flow, there's just no reason to go east or west across northern Florida today. It will be a very big nightmare with all of those trees that we showed everywhere, you see -- every picture we see of a live shot, there's either a tree or a branch or something down. That's what all the Florida -- the northern part of Florida and now southern Georgia is dealing with.

But it's the heavy rainfall. That's the next real threat here. It's the flash flooding. If you're in a flood-prone area, you already probably know it here across the Carolinas and into Georgia. And that flooding will be going all day long.

SCIUTTO: So, Chad, I know it's early and we're still going to be digging out from this for a number of days and also assessing for a number of days. But based on the forecast going in, in terms of storm surge wind speeds, I know it's strengthened to a Category 4 is approaching the coast for instance.

MYERS: Sure.

SCIUTTO: Has this been as bad as you expected?

MYERS: I think we knew that it wasn't going to be as bad as it could have been, simply because of the population or lack thereof in the area. You know if you only have to evacuate 500 people, you can get 500 people out or at least 490 of them. But you know when trying to evacuate your population around Tampa St. Pete, you have millions of people that have to get on the highway, and the highways are clogged and you can't go anywhere. That's when it really is a problem. So yes, this hit the probably the -- I don't want to say the best part but the least I think probably coming into damage and also personal property damage, there couldn't have been a different place that this hit in Florida and made less damage.

[14:15:04]

So, it was a big storm. It was a lot of surge. A lot of people are still suffering here. We probably expect a loss of life. I mean, that's kind of a given here if you stayed in your house and there's 12 feet of surge.

We just haven't found that person yet. Hopefully, they're all still OK. But this was a major event for the Big Bend, by population density being let's say, you know 300,000 compared to three or four million

KEILAR: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It's a good point. Listen, and of course, as you said there's a lot of danger. Trees coming down, big danger as well.

MYERS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Chad Myers, we know you're going to stay on top of it. Thanks so much.

Any moment now, President Biden. He's going to speak at the White House about Hurricane Idalia. We're going to bring you that live when it happens. Our breaking news coverage continues right after a short break.

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KEILAR: We are continuing to follow our major breaking news, which is Hurricane Idalia churning across South Georgia right now, is a Category 1 hurricane. Hundreds of thousands of people without power in Florida and Georgia.

[14:20:03]

SCIUTTO: Along the Big Bend as it's known, of Florida's Gulf Coast, we're seeing a lot of evidence of destruction, search and rescue operations are underway. Here's a Keaton Beach resident who did listen to those evacuation warnings.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My house at Danna, Keaton, I don't know if it's there or not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got anyone that you're in touch with that no know what's going on?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. There's a guy. He's a -- he's a couple of miles up the -- off the coast. He says horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's the trees are falling in the yard. He says scared. We've never seen this before. Category 1 has scared us, man. I mean, we've -- usually, a Category 1 or a tropical storm, we come to parry and ride it out. It sure is bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is bad.

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SCIUTTO: It landed Category 4 strength. Let's get down to Florida's capital, Tallahassee. City commissioner, Jack Porter joins us now by phone. Good to have you on, Sir.

We know you've got a lot on your plate right now. There have been a lot of concerns about trees around Tallahassee, big elements of pride there, but also a danger with the high winds. What's your assessment of the damage at this point?

JACQUELINE PORTER, CITY COMMISSIONER, TALLAHASSEE: Hi, thank you for having me. You know, we really got lucky. Wind gusts were I believe, up to 53 miles per hour. I've definitely seen some significant debris, some trees that have fallen down, and several roadblocks. But we really dodged a bullet here, so we're very lucky.

SCIUTTO: That's great to hear.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly is. When do you think people at this point in time, are -- have left the area, are they going to be returning? What is the status right now?

PORTER: I think several people did evacuate. I've heard of people who are coming back. About a third of our residents are without power right now, which is pretty significant.

KEILAR: Yes.

PORTER: But we're doing a great job getting people back online. We've had a lot of support from other utilities across the country that made all the difference.

SCIUTTO: We did hear from FEMA earlier, 300,000 people are without power, not just in Tallahassee and in all the affected areas so far. Though, they do expect that number to rise. Do you have a sense of how quickly you can get power back and exactly how many customers in your area in Tallahassee lost power? PORTER: I think that upwards of you know, 70,000 customers lost power in Tallahassee. We are -- my power was out most of today. I just got it back a couple of hours ago. We're making steady progress.

It is a concern, though. And -- but we're so far -- I mean, we were very well prepared. We did a great job of preparing for this. And so, we had a crew working all night restoring power. I mean, as early as I think 11:00 last night, the power was going out and people were responding.

KEILAR: Yes, I think that may be this -- the story is just how prepared people were for this storm, and that it hit areas that perhaps were not as populated as some of these cities farther down the coast of Florida. What do you need at this point in time?

PORTER: You know, frankly, I think that at this point for Tallahassee, as we continue to restore power, and do, you know assessments, I think we're -- we want to focus on our friends and neighboring communities who have experienced the truly devastating effects of the storm. We have in our local agreements with folks, that we're going to help them out and just come together as a community and just be grateful that we were spared.

KEILAR: Well, we thank you so much. Tallahassee City Commissioner Jack Porter, thanks so much for joining us.

PORTER: Thank you.

KEILAR: So, when we come back, we're going to be speaking to the director of the National Hurricane Center about the latest on Idalia. It really at this point is a Georgia story -- a South Georgia story. Inches and inches of rain, and lots of flooding risks there, not out of the woods certainly for Georgia. Our breaking news coverage continuing after this short break.

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[14:28:40]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Idalia which charged ashore in Florida early this morning as a dangerous Category 3 storm. The pictures you're seeing here are from Keaton Beach, exactly where the hurricane made landfall.

KEILAR: Much of this so-called Big Bend area has seen disastrous flooding. And that includes Cedar Key which is an island that has seen a record water level during the storm surge. Just a short time ago, Florida's governor pledged state support to help the less developed counties cover the costs of damages and cleanup.

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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I would imagine that the state would want to help these fiscally constrained counties. The legislatures typically wanted to do that. You know, we may be -- we may be seeking you know better cost share as well.

But yes, there's going to be things that are -- that are going to need to be taken care of. And these are the counties among the Big Bend. They just have very small budgets. And expenses like this are not things that they could absorb the way some of our wealthier counties could.

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KEILAR: And the storm also hitting close to home for the governor. You see that there. This is a tweet from his wife, Casey DeSantis.

That is a picture of a massive oak tree that toppled. It looked like on to the governor's mansion. What DeSantis said in that news conference was that it was sort of adjacent to the governor's mansion. So, that is certainly good news. No one injured.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now is the Deputy Director of the National Hurricane Center, Jamie Rhome.

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