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CNN Live Saturday

Tropical Storm Barry Expected to Strengthen

Aired August 04, 2001 - 12:01   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: We begin in the Gulf of Mexico, where Tropical Storm Barry is parked about 165 miles off the Louisiana coast. The storm has top winds of 40 miles an hour, but forecasters say it will strengthen. Storm-wise coastal residents are making early preparations. And offshore oil rigs in Barry's path have evacuated non-essential workers. In Florida, people are still counting their losses from Barry's torrential rains. At least 100 homes around Stuart, Florida suffered flood damage. And NASA had to postpone the launch of the Genesis solar probe.

Kevin Corriveau is with us with the latest now on Barry.

Kevin, what about some watches and warnings? Any of those out at this point?

KEVIN CORRIVEAU, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we do have a new warning that's out for the southern part of Louisiana, including New Orleans as well as the lake areas. And I'll show you where that's located in just a minute, but watches are now be being extended all the way into Florida. And we'll get to that in just a second.

First, we're going to start out. We do have new advisory out that has been put out. It is number nine and it's showing the new track. The track hasn't changed too much from the previous track, but I will you what does happen with that in just few minutes.

Here is the satellite picture showing Barry. You can you see over the last couple hours Barry has gotten a lot brighter. Those colors are more vivid, more orange. That means it is getting a little higher, a little bit probably well developed, a little more developed with that. So we are going to see this potentially getting a little bit stronger. And by forecast time as it makes its way to the north, probably we can see just below minimum strength hurricane with that also.

This the radar symbol. We're not seeing a whole lot of radar activity with this system yet. Here you can see a few bands just to the south of Mobile. It is really too far out to get any radar activity with that, but as it gets closer to land we will see a little bit more associated with that.

Here is the new storm track. And I'll let you take a look at the coordinates. This is Tropical Storm Barry. It is moving basically stationary to the west with winds of 40 miles per hour. But as you can see, it does look like it's going to be making its way just to the east of New Orleans. And that will be probably on Monday morning. But like I say, we do have some tropical storm warnings out.

Here is a tropical storm warning, meaning we could see winds over the next 24 hours reaching the southern section of Louisiana, anywhere from Grand Isle all the way up to Pearl River. And we also do have storm watches out all the way over to Panama City, as well as over here to Morgan City.

So we are going to be watching this. And we are going to see these winds start to increase over next 24 hours and also into the beginning of the week. As we take a look what's happening for the rest of the country, we do see that Barry is down here producing a lot of rain. Florida, you're pretty much out of the woods right now, but we going see possibly some afternoon thunderstorms this afternoon.

Donna, back to you.

KELLEY: OK, Kevin, thanks very much. And while the Gulf coast is bracing for Barry, the weather's giving a break to firefighters in Wyoming. But will it last? Kevin will have a little bit more on that in just a couple of minutes for you.

And as he mentioned, Tropical Storm Barry did leave a soggy legacy in southeast Florida. There was so much flooding in Martin County, that the Red Cross opened a shelter and is offering other services to people whose homes were flooded. For more on that, Debbie Coffey joins us on the phone from Stuart, Florida. She's a family services coordinator with the Red Cross.

Debbie, how many people are you helping right now?

DEBBIE COFFEY, RED CROSS VOLUNTEER: We have about ten families who came in office this morning. And we're helping them in any way we can. Basically what their needs are food, clothing, prescriptions and a place to stay right now.

KELLEY: Are they completely flooded out?

COFFEY: Not really. Well most of them have their water -- their water has gone down. The problem right now is cleaning up and the odors. And sometimes as people have medical problems, they've either lost their medication or can't stand in the area, especially for asthma or allergy-related problems.

KELLEY: I don't know were you able to hear our meteorologist, Kevin Corriveau. He said that probably just some afternoon showers and that the worst was probably over for Florida at this point. How long, with that in mind, how long do you think that these folks will have to stay with you?

COFFEY: Many of the people have already returned to their homes. The problem right now is cleaning up. They're in the process of cleaning up and finding place to stay in the meantime. So for that, we do not have a shelter open at this time. However if we should have rain again, we will be glad to open up our shelter again tonight. What we'd like to encourage people to do right now is prepare for future flooding, especially those in the coastal communities. We've asked them to get their disaster supply kits ready, which include items such as non-perishable food, bottled water, medication, flashlight with extra batteries and a battery operated radio, as well as have an evacuation plan ready with the family.

Don't depend totally on Red Cross shelters. We would ask you to have another plan ready. We ask people to use the Red Cross shelters as a last resort because it's not as comfortable as your neighbor or relative. However, we are there and we are all available to the community.

And in addition, we ask that public if it's possible to provide any help to us. We do have a disaster relief fund, a 1-800-help-now fund. And it helps victims of this disaster and any future disasters.

KELLEY: OK. Let's repeat that number for folks, 1-800-help-now. And good advise on the disaster supply kits. Thanks very much. Debbie Coffey, who is with the Red Cross out of Stuart, Florida currently.

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