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Assessing the Damage from Hurricane Ike

Aired September 13, 2008 - 13:00   ET

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

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Before this, gas prices started to go up nationally because of lasting ripple effects after Gustav. So if you think about this, we've got them going up already right now. How much longer are those ripple effects going to be after Ike and how much farther can our gas prices possibly go up or maybe they'll shoot back down if supplies aren't hurt as badly as people think.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That would be nice. All right. Josh thanks so much. We'll talk more about those ripple effects then from hurricane Ike, now a category 1 storm with top, sustained wind speeds of 80 miles an hour. The storm is blamed for three deaths so far, but that number could rise as search efforts are getting under way.

Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed in Texas and Louisiana after attacking Galveston and Houston this morning, the center of the storm is now north of Houston near Trinity, Texas. Ike is expected to continue its path through southeastern and eastern Texas today and then right into western Arkansas later on tonight.

Let's talk a little bit more about the effects right there in Texas. Orange, Texas. Just along the Louisiana/Texas border our Rusty Dornin is there. Texas and Louisiana have been hit pretty hard by hurricane Ike. Rusty is joining us now by phone. What are you seeing, Rusty?

VOICE OF RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Fred, right now we're waiting to get into the area of Orange, Texas that was hit very hard by flooding from the Sabine River. Apparently, several people have been trapped in their home, some with children. They're trying to get rescue crews out. We had to make our way from the Beaumont area along Interstate 10 and we could really see the evidence of just the low-lying area and how this flooding is coming in. Some of the trucking yards, you could barely see the tops of the cabs and the tops of the trucks along the highway.

Several businesses, obviously flooded by five or six feet of water. Apparently, nearby Bridge City as well, we understand is flooded by ten feet of water where apparently the pizza huts and the businesses and all you can see are the very tops of the roofs. Again, we understand that people are stuck there. Some people decided to wade out the storm and were unable to get out and now they are trapped in their home and they have rescue teams trying to get out to get them. So critical situation in several areas, still, mostly from surge flooding. Fred.

WHITFIELD: Rusty, when you say a number of these people were trapped in their home, how were they able to get the message out given a lot of phone lines are down, power is down and even cell phones are not very effective in these hours after the hurricane is passed through. How are all these people getting the message out that they need help?

DORNIN: Once again, reminiscent of hurricane Katrina they're climbing on their roof and they're waving flags and tarps and yelling to nearby areas that are not as flooded to people that are in boats and saying help us, we can't get out.

WHITFIELD: So we're seeing a considerable amount of people in that situation?

DORNIN: I'm not saying considerable. There are situations and they have been telling me. We have not seen this yet ourselves and we are just driving to get in there, but I've been told by emergency officials there are a number of people that are trapped in their houses in both Orange, Texas and in Bridge City.

WHITFIELD: OK. Rusty Dornin thanks so much there in Orange, Texas, right along the border with Louisiana and our Lieutenant General Russel Honore will be joining us a little bit later to talk about people in that situation. They need help. Phone lines are down, cell phones aren't in use, power is down, so how do you get the message out to those first responders who can come to you and perhaps rescue you whether it's Coast Guard or local authorities. We'll be talking to Lieutenant General Russel Honore coming up.

Meantime, let's talk more about hurricane Ike and the flooding that's taking place just outside off Houston. Give me an idea, Charles, where we're going right now. Sean Callebs? Sean Callebs, on the road. There you are, Sean, any closer now to this shipping channel because that's where you were headed last.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. We're trying to get down there. I want to show you, we're actually not -- we're a few miles further than (INAUDIBLE)

WHITFIELD: Sometimes that happens especially in situations like this. We have you back, Sean? Try it again. OK.

CALLEBS: Just bear with us. Bear with us.

WHITFIELD: OK.

CALLEBS: We're turning the camera around. Look at this. This is the marina here and look at the amount of damage you see here. There's just some scattered debris and if you go down a little bit further. Look at this. You can see boats just slammed up on to the highway here. A lot of damage and we'll come up around there in just a second. This is the town of Lakeview. This is among the worst damage we've seen and I've heard Rusty talking reminiscent of Katrina. I was in one of those marinas right after hurricane Katrina.

There were scores of boats that were just splintered and tossed all throughout here and there's debris all over the road and the authorities did a pretty good job of keeping traffic moving and boy, there are a lot, a lot of people coming out with their additional cameras, hanging out and taking pictures. These guys will lose their temper a little bit. We've seen that happen.

You know how Texas is when you're on the interstate. It is a world of strip malls and on and off ramps. So we're trying to navigate our way down through here. Stick with us just a little bit because Freddy, there's a police barricade up here. We're trying to get through there, but I don't think we'll have a whole lot of success. This is -- that's about the worst damage we've seen, though. I don't know how close we're going to be able to get to the shipping channel just because if it's flooded as bad as people are saying, everywhere we've driven when we look at these waterways that are just off the road -- just flooding everywhere.

I mean, it's very significant. It's going to be some job to kind of calculate all of the damage up to this. We're showing you the marina on the right. There were homes to us on the left that were just simply inundated -- a lot of tree debris tossed all over the place. Not as bad here as it is other places. A lot of the windows still in some of the buildings, but, boy, this area, El Laggo just taking a beating.

People were coming up to the police barricade and you can kind of see how these guys are completely overwhelmed. They have a megaphone basically saying everybody turn around. Nobody is allowed in. No residents, no lookers, no media. You can hear these gentlemen. Bear with us one second.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All residents, no residents. The city is closed.

CALLEBS: The city is closed, we are told. Hang on; I'll try to find out if they have any idea of when it will be open.

You're on live. Can you make a statement?

Do you know when it will be open?

That's it. OK. Thank you very much.

That's the situation. The city closed. Our cameraman, warning them that we were on live so he didn't come up and say get out of our way. That's the last thing we need people coming here with cameras. You know how it goes.

WHITFIELD: It's astounding to see how many people are actually on the road in the area where you're showing this devastation, a lot of trees down. A lot of property damage and all of those boats we saw in the marina, yet there are a lot of folks that are on the road in their vehicles trying to get from point a to point b and trying to get to the area where the blows barricade is now.

CALLEBS: Right.

WHITFIELD: That really does seem like it would interfere. CALLEBS: But actually --

WHITFIELD: With those first responders.

CALLEBS: We'll try to turn down just up here to the right. Without question. The last thing the first responders need is people coming through with cameras. So is it bad? Of course, it's bad. The question is how bad is it?

We'll go down Lakeshore Drive and see how far we can get down this street. This is where we saw a number of homes that were simply flooded up into this area. This was uncharted territory for us. We haven't been down this area so we don't know exactly what we will find. Clearly, more debris, more police officers and more people with digital cameras. It is a new world. So CNN.com stand by, I-reporters will be (INAUDIBLE) soon.

WHITFIELD: It really is remarkable that you are able to show us as you venture into these communities for the first time because this is exactly what it's like even for first responders as they drive through these areas. They don't know what they're going see and we don't know what we're going see in front of your camera.

CALLEBS: Exactly. If you look up here you can see where water is up on the road. You know what I'm going to try (INAUDIBLE) if these guys are homeowners or just out having a look. Clearly, the water, rainfall, the surf. Somebody -- operating the camera. A lot of cars, a lot of boats have been tossed around pretty well, you know. It's -- it's awed by the power of nature and this damage so widespread. I mean, we know how big Ike was -- it was -- so we've -- (INAUDIBLE)

WHITFIELD: OK, Sean. We'll check back with you because the reception there is pretty dotty, but just to give people an idea, we are talking about the port of Houston there and the shipping channel, the combination of business, commerce as well as residences. It is one of the United States' busiest shipping channels or ports, that is, and that's why Sean has ventured there. You can see just from his images there that there are a lot of people who decided to stay even though they're right on the water there, right up against the Gulf of Mexico.

Lots of damage, as you saw. Lots of boats, et cetera. Let's head out about an hour outside of Houston and west of Galveston and that's where we find Surfside Beach, Texas. They've also sustained a lot of damage, too and we see our Reynolds Wolf. Reynolds, give us an idea of what you're seeing.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Fred, right now things are obviously much better in terms of the storm surge. The storm surge is long gone, but the damage remains, quite a bit of it, too. So now cleanup is going to begin and what a huge mess has been left behind. Coming up we'll give you a full scope of not only what's happening here at Surfside Beach but up and down the coast of Texas and many of the points inland, this story is far from over.

Folks, stay tuned with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hurricane Ike is tossing around a lot of Texas and Louisiana cities. Let's talk about Surfside Beach, Texas, that's just west of Galveston. Our Reynolds Wolf is there. We saw a lot of signs and debris pushed around right where you are. What else?

WOLF: I mean, it's just ridiculous some of the damage we've had in the area. Take a look at what I've got here, Fred. A state sign that says Highway 332. If you look over here, this is actually the intersection of State Highway 332 and County Road 257 standing right now in the middle of the intersection. What is so neat about this is that at one point last night storm surge that was coming through this area last night and into the morning was up about to around eight feet. Just so the viewers at home get an idea. I stand about 6'4", so eight feet would be around some here. Some estimate his it up to ten feet.

So with that kind of storm surge you're going get a lot of damage and some of the damage was moved right over here on the other side of the intersection. So let's jog over here and take a peek. I'm going to stand behind this to give you a scale of how much there is. I'm sure you can see me back here. This stuff reeks of oil and seaweed and all kinds of timbers and all of these things have plenty of long nails so it will be a dangerous prospect for people sifting through the damage trying to step around their homes and avoiding those long nails.

Oil drums, we've seen quite a few of these. This one is actually full and it is leaking oil as we speak. Probably not the best idea for me to tap that, and I'll show you something else. We've been talk about the damage that we'll have here for people's homes and we'll talk about the damage that we have with just the environment with the chemicals and what not. Take a look at this small business over here, T-shirts, $5.99 and up. I don't think anyone will be shopping there today. The only customers they've had over the last 12 to 24 hours have been basically the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

So that has been the story, Fredricka. We've been here bringing in some traffic. These guys coming and you notice the generators and they're going do the good work they're always going do. They're greeting them with open arms. Guys, I'm going to walk right between you here and it's certainly a busy time. We have help above and some people flying up there and they're getting a good idea of what's happening, from the sky to the ground and we, of course, are giving you the very latest at the ground level.

Fred, lets send it back to you in the studio.

WHITFIELD: Unlike some of the other locations right along the coast there, we are seeing people who are walking about. We haven't been seeing that too much in Surfside, so does that indicate that a lot of folks in Surfside did leave or are, you know, emergency workers a little concerned about the people who decide to stay behind?

WOLF: Fredricka everyone at Surfside left except for one person. One guy decided to stay, one fellow, and that was --

WHITFIELD: And it was the guy you talked about earlier.

WOLF: Exactly. You know, Fred, a lot of people when they want to get that surge of, I don't know, exhilaration, they sky dive. They man go surfing, but to stay and face a big storm like this is certainly a crazy thing. Let me show you a hot property. The big thing that's really popular at this type of storm. These generators and you can't see it too much, but it's hidden behind this, and there are millions of people without power compliments of this storm, so these guys will have their work cut out for them.

WHITFIELD: Will they talk to you?

WOLF: You what? We were talking to a few of them earlier and they're kind of business as usual and they're kind of busy right now, I understand that, and we'll see if we can talk a few of them to give me a little chit-chat. We'll see what we can do for you.

WHITFIELD: So the generators are making their way into Surfside Beach. What do they want to restore right away, given that they don't have a lot of residents in the area?

WOLF: You'd think the first thing they would want to do is the simple things like maybe turn on an air conditioner or maybe do something like, oh, I don't know, maybe operate a coffee machine. The things they'll be using with these things is trying to replace the infrastructure and get some computers back up and sort of using skill saws or doing it takes to start getting more help and start cleaning things up.

It will be a tremendous mess and you'll have some people that will probably have some kind of a maybe of a command post and they'll need this for all of the essential things you need for running your computers to your printers and your radios.

Its first step of many that they'll have to take. They'll have to get the city back on its feet and you will see this not just in place of Surfside Beach. You will see this across Galveston and you will see it in Houston and even into parts of Louisiana. It's a rough story that will be played out.

WHITFIELD: So, Reynolds, I'm wondering, too, Surfside Beach. Tell me more about it. Is this the beachside community where it's the summer get away or does the 160-something-year-old man who decided to ride out the storm does he have a lot of year-round residents? Neighbors.

WOLF: You do have some year-round residents, but you also at the same time some people that call this their vacation homes and this is the place that they come to to get a lot of great family memories and they enjoy the summer months that are here to celebrate the Christmas time here and a lot of them will be coming back to a place that's gone through a metamorphosis.

It will be an entirely different world for them. And if you look down the street, we were down there a while ago and we tried to get our live trucks back there but we couldn't because the ground was so soft and there was fear the trucks would actually get stuck.

The lighter vehicle do manage to get back there, and I can tell you you have houses back there, Fredricka, that are actually meshed into other homes that have actually been picked up by the storm surge and smashed into other buildings.

So it's kind of hard to separate a couple of these homes and I will also tell you that closer to the shorelines there are homes that don't even exist anymore. And they're up on the high posts and I'm sure that added safety to some of the homes, but when you have the storm surge that was so strong and it hit so quickly, some of the homes were knocked out and the homes in the water and now they're one with the Gulf of Mexico.

WHITFIELD: Wow!

WOLF: Tremendous mess.

WHITFIELD: You don't want to mess with that force of nature. Reynolds Wolf thanks so much from Surfside Beach. Perhaps you are one of the 20,000 or so folks who decided to stay in Galveston during this storm or perhaps you're somewhere else along the Texas coast and you have satellite radio and you're able to hear us and you want to find out now how do I get assistance?

Lieutenant General Russel Honore, a familiar face during hurricane Katrina leading the National Guard there is going to be joining us to give us and you an idea of exactly how do you try to get help now that you have no power.

You have no phones or working cell phones, but you need some assistance. He'll be joining us to give some information to you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back. I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. So you survived hurricane Ike, but now you have no electricity. You have no phone, you have no clean water. So what do you do? How do you get help to come to you because you have no means of getting to help? Let's talk to Lt. General Russel Honore, a familiar face during hurricane Katrina leading the National Guard that came to the rescue there. Say I am that survivor. I need some assistance. How do I get the word out that I want either a Coast Guard or I want National Guard or I want local author to come find me?

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The obvious reason, try and use some visual signals. Get yourself in a place where you can be seen, you hear the helicopters and they'll start to come in and they may be the first to get there, on the other hand, it may be high-water vehicles with the fire department, followed by reinforcements by the National Guard and Swift Water Boat Rescue teams will be coming in, but be visible. Once you are identified and they've seen you, conserve your energy and stay away from dangerous areas.

Fred, a key way to get out if you still have a cell phone and you can hear this message, and you can't get through because of the phone system becomes degraded, text message. This is why it is so important we teach everyone, particularly folks my age and older how to do text messaging.

WHITFIELD: It is a valuable device.

HONORE: In Katrina we were getting text messages from New Orleans and they'd go back to a Coast Guard helicopter or National Guard helicopter to pick people up.

WHITFIELD: That is interesting, and during Katrina of course we saw that very desperate measure and a lot of people were punching through their rooftops and getting on their roofs and they were spelling out words and waving stuff, et cetera. Let's hope we don't have that kind of situation taking place here, but surely, especially when you talk about Galveston, when you hear that 40 percent of the 57,000 residents likely stayed. That means there are a lot of folks that could possibly need some assistance. So it's something like, you know, I guess waving a t-shirt, anything.

HONORE: To get their attention. The initial winds, the helicopters may not be able to come in and get you. Trust me. They will see you and they'll be marking you with GPS grids and they'll move on because the initial helicopters may not be able to come down.

WHITFIELD: Yeah.

HONORE: The winds will still be too high, as the winds subside they'll start picking you up and we have the high water vehicles coming in with the National Guard and the fire department and the police and sheriff's departments will start patrolling those streets. Light is working against us. We have another four or five hours --

WHITFIELD: It will take time to get everyone moving.

HONORE: This is not the type of operation where you want to do at night because of the dangers of power lines and the dangers of unforeseen roads washed out.

WHITFIELD: Say your family, you're on safe ground, but you have family members that are who out there. I called a number of my family and he can't get through the cell phones and can't get through to the landlines. So how do you alert folks that, hey, emergency responders, I may have family in that area, can you check them out.

Is it as simple as that?

HONORE: People are in trouble.

WHITFIELD: You don't want to send them on a wild goose chase.

HONORE: Social calls need to be stopped in that area. Are you OK? You can text safely and people will text back to you, but we need to stay off the dial phone and leave those for elderly people or people who are really in trouble or really need to get a 911 call in. Otherwise the tech system is probably the best way to check in and see if someone is OK, but stay off in the repeat dialing. It's just tying up existing phone systems.

WHITFIELD: At this stage, what's your greatest worry? Think about what your greatest worry is now about whether it's emergency response or whether it's the survivors, et cetera. I want to ask you about that coming up a little bit later.

We're going to take a short break right now, but when we have you back, I want you to give me an idea of the things that you are most concerned about, especially lessons learned from Katrina and now we're three years out from Katrina. What are those concerns here when we talk about hurricane Ike? Much more right in the NEWSROOM coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hurricane Ike has been blamed for three deaths right now and structural damage assessments are just now starting to get under way along the Texas coast as well as Louisiana. Our Jacqui Jeras is in the Weather Center keeping a close watch on this storm which is now considered a category 1 after being downgraded from a 2, but still considered a hurricane even though it's over land mass.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. We think our advisory coming in at 2:00 at 1:00 Central Time, we think it will be down to a tropical storm at that time and then it loses its tropical characteristics, but that said even though it's weakening we still have some major issues of whether it is still happening and still creating problems.

This is one area that's just been pounded over and over and over again today with storm surge, with heavy rain, with strong, gusty winds and now also a tornado, possibly a tornado warning is in effect for Orange County, there you can see that purple box and this is ripping into the north at 50 plus miles per hour, and the fast-moving storm and it will be arriving in Port Arthur, we think about 12:45. It's a Doppler radar-indicated tornado, but we may have very heavy rain associated with it, so it can be a rain-wrapped tornado and you might not be able to see it.

Take shelter immediately. I want to talk a little bit more about this Port Arthur area because we have had some major problems with the surge. We saw Rusty Dornin's reports of the people in Orange County who are waiting on the rooftops and on top of their vehicles trying to be rescued at this point. Here is Galveston Bay and here is Galveston Island and Surfside Beach is in this area and we know that this whole area was inundated with that storm surge.

Now let's pull over well to the east of where we made landfall. This is Sabine Pass in here. Here's the lake, there's Port Arthur, Beaumont up at the top of the screen and there you can see that river. All of this water has funneled up in the area from those winds and we have seen some tremendous storm surge from this. This is the gauge right there in Port Arthur and you can see how low things were and look at this huge spike.

This was just a couple of hours after official landfall and look at how high that was. That was somewhere around 11 feet, I believe, and still at this time, even though we've dropped down quite a bit is still around nine feet. This is incredible to see the water still this high at this time and part of that had to do with the unique shape of the coastline here and the directions that the winds are going.

The winds have been going much more perpendicular to the coastline. So it's coming straight up this river as opposed to farther west in the Galveston where the coastline is more curved pf so you're not getting that direct shot and that's why we're seeing so much water. Here's Orange County by the way, up in here. I believe that's the area where we have Rusty Dornin and she continues to get more pictures for you and of course, we'll bring them along to you.

In addition to the hurricane warning that we have for Orange County including Port Arthur. We have a watch in effect up to Texarkana. We think that atmosphere conditions are going to become more favorable for tornadoes as we head into the afternoon. A little bit of sunshine trying to peek out and getting things unstable and we also have a bit of dry air trying to mix into there and with all that spin, we do think tornadoes will become more common throughout the afternoon.

Are you tracking this thing at home and you want to know the numbers? The most recent advisory we have is the 80 miles per hour winds and I think that's a little bit of a stretch still at this point, but certainly tropical storm-force wind gusts will be likely coming into the northeastern parts of Texas, and look at how far this storm has traveled.

Way down here, we're talking getting close to being parallel with the Dallas area. We thought Dallas would get hit with some pretty strong tropical storm-force winds, but all of the convection is staying on this side of the storm, so Dallas, you might just get lucky, but be careful and be prepared for some of those gusty conditions as we head into the afternoon.

This storm continues to pick up forward speed and it's going to be ripping through parts of the nation's midsection. The Mississippi River Valley by tomorrow, say midday and then make its way into the Ohio River Valley and forward speed, good news, because this thing is moving very quickly, but the bad news is it's hooking up with a cold front that's already been producing just tremendous rainfall in places like Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, into Illinois and Indiana and now this system's going hook up with that one and just bring more moisture and more of the threat of severe weather right through the weekend.

By Monday, the weather story will be over with. Once it's done with the wet and the wind, it's all new and of course, we know we'll be dealing with that likely for months and months, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: That is a tremendous amount of rain there especially combined with the cold front, as you mentioned.

All right. Jacqui, thank you. Appreciate it.

Let's talk more about Galveston and how folks are faring down there. Rob Marciano has been walking the storm from there and he has been talking to people as well, it's very windy and I know you still have moisture in the air as well.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is windy. The moisture and the sea spray is still here. Ike, long gone, but obviously the remnants are still behind and the many pieces of asphalt that are strewed about the Sea Wall Boulevard here, torn off by the pounding waves that were absolutely relentless last night. There's been a flurry of activity throughout the day. Choppers overhead, both Coast Guard and FEMA choppers as well, just checking out the scene, doing what they've got to do.

Also, we've seen literally truckloads of firemen pass through. They're going thousand house to see if anybody may be in that house, if they maybe waited out the storm in that house and maybe they need medical attention and then they'll mark that house if it's been cleared or not, much like we've seen in other natural disasters.

Here's the sea wall. That railing right there, that was completely covered last night for a solid chunk of six to eight hours and huge four to five-foot story waves crushing over the top of that thing. That sea wall and that spot, that's about 12 feet, maybe, 14 feet and the water came well up and over that so we had a significant surge there. They cleared much of the roadway here. Where those cars are going down there, the front Ford Explorer is about to pass what is a significant monument here in Galveston. It's a monument for the Galveston Hurricane where 8,000 people lost their lives and eerily enough, it's banged up pretty good.

And it was torn off and it tore off the marble slab but it's visible and it's facing up and it tells you vividly the story of that hurricane and maybe beaten up, but it's not washed away and this sea wall may be banged up as well, but for the most part it did its job, Fredricka in protecting at least the core of this city. As you know, we've been talking to people who live on the outskirts, on the bayside that their neighborhoods still have water and those were the communities where the National Weather Service warned if you don't leave or seek higher ground, you may very well lose your life.

We'll know later on today, Fredricka at 3:00 Eastern Time, there will be a press conference held and city officials will finally tell us what their assessment is of damage and rescue efforts and hopefully not too many fatalities.

WHITFIELD: Yeah, and Rob while I know those fire vehicles are concerned about what's ahead and what they're going see once they get to some of those properties. A moment ago we also showed some images of burned-out buildings or houses that were on fire and here we're seeing them again right there in Galveston. Do we know anything more about that contrast? We're talking about wind and water damage and then you see some of the houses that actually burned as a result of hurricane Ike. Have you learned anything more about how that happened?

MARCIANO: Well, no, quite frankly, but we did hear about and we saw the fires from time to time yesterday and heard about the fires jumping from thousand house last night. It could be a number of things. When you have wind blowing through electrical lines and all you need is a spark. You had winds ripping through here easily 80, 90 and in some cases over 100 miles an hour.

We've seen evidence of that kind of power via the brick and masonry torn off reinforced concrete slabs and sides of buildings literally sheered off. So the force of the wind, and we talked a lot of the surge. The force of the wind certainly doing some damage here on Galveston and we'll have a better assessment of that later on this afternoon, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Thanks so much, Rob. I just wanted you to explain because we saw the pictures and it's very perplexing to see the kind of water damage right up against fire damage as well. Strange situation, but we know it's been a very odd storm indeed. Much more from the NEWSROOM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Downtown Houston. One of the areas hard hit by hurricane Ike, a lot of structural damage, but there are some residences who call downtown Houston home as well. Our Jeanne Meserve has been checking the damage there, talking to a number of people as well and so what about that combination of residents versus mostly business and commerce damage there?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've seen largely in this part of town is damage to commercial interest. If you look down the street here, this is the heart of downtown. You can see all kinds of debris on the street here, trees down and a lot of glass. And occasionally we will hear a big pop and a thud and I'll show you what it is. It is this stuff, glass, still coming out of the J.P. Morgan Chase tower here.

If we pan over at that building and take a look, you can see how virtually every window on this side has been blown out for the first 30 stories or so upon and then higher up, actually the buildings looks intact and there is a theory as to why. It has to do with the building that is directly across the street.

That building also has windows out, but the speculation by one city official we talked to is there was probably gravel on the roof of that buildings and when it came through it swept the gravel off into the tower across the street and then back again, so those two buildings were very heavily damaged and they're trying to keep people away from there.

It's been a bit of a challenge because a lot of the people were down here with the cell phones and cameras wanting to memorialize this very unusual event for downtown Houston. Police come through with loud speakers saying please, please, get out of here. Just to give you a sense that those two buildings are badly damaged other ands aren't. Here's another building right next to us, a lot of glass. Not one pane is out. It looks absolutely fine. So spotty damage, but some severe damage to windows here in downtown Houston which has been one of the big fears.

There also is some flooding, Commerce Street down here, the other end of downtown was pretty badly flooded this morning, but we talked to Mayor Bill White, all in all, he said it's about property damage. The city will recover, he thinks Houston will recover faster than people expect it to, and he says of the deaths he knows about last night, none of them were Ike-related. So as far as he's concerned very good news for the city of Houston -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: That is interesting information. A lot of the barricades we are seeing up behind you, certainly Houston police are kind of in charge of barricading most of the downtown streets. Have we seen the presence of National Guard yet?

MESERVE: You know, I have not seen anywhere I am. I must say that a lot of this is cordoned off. They're trying to keep traffic away from here. I saw some down the street, but whether it was National Guard or not, I couldn't tell you. I suspect this is just a goes my part, that there are other parts of Texas that are much more severely damaged than this and perhaps the National Guard has been dispatched to some of those areas.

Here we have an emergency medical service vehicle coming through here now, making a pass through. You can see beyond them other police vehicles. I think a lot of them are here simply for security reasons simply to try to keep people away from the build comings is still very dangerous with this glass coming down.

WHITFIELD: Thanks so much, Jeanne Meserve, downtown Houston. Much more of our coverage of hurricane Ike right after this.

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WHITFIELD: All right. Ike has caused a lot of structural damage particularly in Texas and Louisiana, and if you don't live there, you're being hit hard, too. In the wallet. All ready, Josh Levs has been keeping a close watch on what this fall out has measured into. We're talking about gasoline prices.

LEVS: That's one of the big topics we have going on ireports today. I am going to show you a whole bunch of stuff. We are going to get to that part in just a minute. We love going through the ireports. The first ones inside Houston. This is from Tony who decided to take a walk over to the Buyu and this was taken safely. Some stunning shots.

Let's go to what we've gotten from Chris. This is a different area we haven't heard that much about. This is in Dolphin Island, Alabama. They were about 300 miles from the storm at that point. Still lost power for hours yesterday and again today. You can see a lot of the flooding sweeping through the town there.

We also are getting video ireports. I want to take you to one of these that we have from downtown Houston. He told us he took a 15 to 20 minute walk outside again in that same area and look what he saw. The skies were awful and he could barely see. All of a sudden, he saw a piece of a gas station roof fly near him and hit the ground which when he realized that he had to go back inside. Some amazing images there coming to us from ireport.com.

Let's go in on the screen behind me. You can see the ones we keep getting throughout the day. Here is what Fred was just talking about. The gas prices that are also really striking around the country. We're getting these from Indiana, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia and other states. I counted that we've gotten just so far today, more than 60. People talking about the sudden jump in gas prices. You have ireports you want to share and they were taken safely, you can send them to us at ireport.com. When it comes to the storm and the pain at the pump, our ireports are a tremendous help today in telling these stories.

WHITFIELD: And earlier you mentioned some of the gas stations admit that they hiked up these gas prices in anticipation of I guess, a real shortage of supplies as a result of the hurricane, but not necessarily because they needed to do that right now.

LEVS: It depends where. There are some that have talked about the anticipation and some have said they were cleared out. In some cases, this was a panic. We're also hearing Charlie Crist say that he's had 98 complaints of gouging in his state. So it seems to be all the above for now.

WHITFIELD: All right. Josh thanks so much keeping tabs on that. We thank our ireporters for sending in these images and information but certainly don't put your life in jeopardy while you try conveying a message of what you are seeing outside your window.

Much more from the NEWSROOM right after this.

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WHITFIELD: Hurricane Ike still fierce and it's rolling through Texas, now moving north through the state. Some of the damage that Ike left behind on the coast and around downtown Houston. We have seen some flooding and a lot of debris on the streets, a lot of glass being broken from the buildings. Hundreds of trees limbs were blown off as well. The glass in the street makes it very treacherous getting through that down town area, that glass coming from those windows blown out from the buildings in the city. Some of the worst damage the closer to the coast.

Right now, emergency workers are going door to door in some of the places like Galveston, looking for residents who tried to wait out the storm. We heard from Rob Marciano not long ago that he is already hearing choppers in the area presumably from the U.S. Coast Guard looking for people who may need to be rescued.

After coming to shore as a category 2, it is now a category 1, with sustained winds at 80 miles an hour. Ike is being blamed for at least three deaths in Texas so far, but that number could rise. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed in Texas as well as Louisiana. In Orange County, Texas right along the border with Louisiana are rescuing stranded residents from the rooftops of their homes, we understand. Ike is expected to continue its path into western Arkansas later tonight.

Our Jacqui Jeras is in the Weather Center as well as our Reynolds Wolf is in Surfside Beach, Texas. Let's check in with Jacqui first. JERAS: We were hoping to have that 2:00 advisory Eastern Time for you already Fredricka. We're getting spoiled as they've been putting them in early, but we'll bring it to you as soon as we get it. Heard you mention Rob Marciano talking about he is hearing choppers in the area. We have confirmed information that the winds have calmed down enough that they are doing some chopper rescues at this time. The Coast Guard is reporting now that they have helped about 103 people and nine pets.

All right. Let's talk about where the worst of the conditions are the center of the storm, way up here. This thing is starting to really book up north. That's great news. We're still seeing some nasty conditions in the coastal areas around Savanna Pass up towards Beaumont, Port Arthur and in the Orange area, Doppler radar indicating a possible tornado in that area. You need to be seeking shelter immediately. Even though we're seeing improved conditions on the winds now, we're still going to be dealing with power problems for quite some time.

The center of energy is reporting that it's going to be four plus weeks before everybody has their power restored in the Houston and Gulf Coast area. Earlier reports, two to three weeks, now they are saying it is going to be even longer than that. About 90 percent of their customers are without power. They say they've been in business for 130 years and they have never seen an outage this severe. So this will be a big deal for the people in the upcoming days. As you know Ike is going to be moving out, but it's still pretty warm and muggy in Texas this time of year.

People who can't use their cell phones, communication is going to be difficult. Food supplies are going to be difficult. And they have already been talking about the gas problems in some of the pumps with out. Here's the tornado watch here across eastern Texas and across much of Louisiana. We do think the tornado threat is going to be increasing through out the day today. A little sunshine peeking out there, helping to stabilize the atmosphere.