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CNN Live Saturday
Coverage of Hurricane Frances
Aired September 04, 2004 - 18:00 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: Hello I'm Miles O'Brien in Atlanta. Full coverage of Hurricane Frances coming up in just a moment, but first, a check of some other stories in the headlines for you.
Los Angeles International Airport back in business now, shut down for several hours today because of two unrelated security scares. A man bypassed security using exit stairs to get to the terminal, and a flashlight with defective batteries exploded as a security screener examined it. Eight were hurt, none of them seriously in that incident.
Former President Clinton has received thousands of messages of support since checking into a New York hospital for heart bypass surgery. One was from Vice President Cheney, who called Clinton from Nevada today, wishing him well. Clinton says he's ready to undergo surgery as early as next week.
Hospitals near the southern Russian city of Beslan are filled to capacity as medical personnel treat more than 700 injured during that school siege. The death toll there stands now at 323 hostages, 10 special forces, and 26 hostage takers.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A crazy situation there.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Welcome to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances. I'm Miles O'Brien.
LIN: And I'm Carol Lin. We're going to get started with the very latest developments. We're going to go straight to Melbourne, Florida. That's where we have our own Anderson Cooper.
Anderson, we're expecting Hurricane Frances to make landfall very close to you. And as we look at these pictures, we can see clearly the winds are picking up.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is picking up. There had been a little lull actually about 20 minutes ago. Not much rain, relatively little wind. But you can actually see a squall approaching and it is definitely here. It is very strong. You can see the whitecaps on the Intracoastal Waterway, making it look like the Atlantic Ocean there.
Let's bring in Chad Myers, CNN meteorologist.
Chad, how bad is it right now? What kind of a wind speed... CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right before we came on, it was 71 miles and hour, Anderson. And now, it's probably a good 65. But I was up on top of the causeway just a few minutes ago. We did a package from there, and the wind speeds were well into the category two hurricane. We were at 95 miles an hour up there. But now, you have to remember, that's almost a football field higher than we are down here. A little bit of friction down here slows it down. But up there on the causeway, it was scary. It was scary in a really big truck.
COOPER: We're in Melbourne right now. There's Melbourne Beach, which is a barrier island, and there's a bridge crossing over into Melbourne Beach. And they've shut down the bridge now.
MYERS: Absolutely. We had to show them our I.D. We had to sign a release that said they're not responsible and they're not coming to get us. And that was so -- so we did that and got up there and got back in a big hurry.
COOPER: Yes, we were just looking at radar on your laptop computer in the car. You see -- I mean you can literally see one of these big bands -- one of these bands of the storm, one of these squalls, which we actually saw approaching us.
MYERS: Isn't it amazing? It really is. You can see it coming. You can prepare. You say to yourself, well, there it is. It's two miles away. Oh, there it is. It's one mile away. And all of a sudden, it's 100 yards, and then it picks up. And it just goes from 50 -- it's go from 50 to 75 in a big hurry.
COOPER: And then there's this lull. I mean we were in a lull about 20 minutes ago where it -- where you know you wouldn't know there was a hurricane coming.
MYERS: And it wasn't raining either, right? I mean yes, exactly. Up on top of the bridge when you were down here, I was doing that. It was coming at us in sheets and the rain is now coming at us in sheets here. Every time one of those fingers goes by, one of those outer bands, then you get the wind to pick up. And then when it goes by, it stops. It drops off. But it's going to stop dropping off here pretty quickly. It's just going to be one constant wind speed as soon as the whole core or Mac Daddy part of the eye gets very close to us. Moving to the west, northwest at 5, the eye will pass to our south, which means we're actually in the bad quadrant of the storm. We'll get more wind than...
COOPER: Did you just say the Mac Daddy part of the storm?
MYERS: Mac Daddy, yes.
COOPER: I wish you wouldn't use these fancy meteorological terms with us now. I take it by Mac Daddy of the storm; you mean the heart of the storm, the Big Kahuna?
MYERS: Everybody looks at the eye and they say, oh, the eye is going to make landfall here, but you always want to look at the eastern part or the northern part of the eye wall. There aren't really that much -- there's not that much wind in the eye itself. It'll be gusty, but it won't be 105 or 110 miles per hour. Just outside that eye wall where that big storm is, where that causes the eye, it creates the eye, that's where the heaviest winds will be and we're going to be right in it.
COOPER: At what point does it become too dangerous? I mean at what point does it become too dangerous to stay here?
MYERS: I think we're in good shape because we're about 15 feet above sea level. When the storm surge -- if a storm surge comes in, it's going to be maybe six to 10 feet. So that water is really going to come up pretty high. And many of these boats that are just sitting here actually could come loose. That's when it's going to be dangerous, that's when we're going to get out of here when stuff starts flying, debris starts flying and boats start floating like they shouldn't be.
COOPER: Yes, if you look down at the marina right now, we had actually planned on being down there on the water's edge, but the big fear really is that some big gust could take one of these boats and just bring it up on land and hurt someone.
MYERS: Absolutely. They have little stands on the bottom. And obviously on the hull, you can see there's two little stands on the bottom and one in the middle, but that's not holding very much up. They could easily, easily get knocked over.
COOPER: And you anticipate this all night long? I mean we're probably -- we're here until the morning.
MYERS: Absolutely. We'll be here until 4:00 a.m. no problem and the winds will be a 100 miles an hour then. And they're not going to slack off probably until early tomorrow morning.
We were down the road a little bit and people are already losing shingles and it's just one after another after another. And these winds are yet to pick up. We have another 30 miles an hour to go yet.
COOPER: We're going to talk to Jacqui Jeras right now who's in the CNN weather center, getting the latest on the storm.
Jacqui, what do you have?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you guys, like you said, after you've been there for a couple of hours, you're going to say enough is enough. But it's just going to keep going, almost like the Energizer bunny, right? It just doesn't want to stop because it's moving so very slowly. We've had very little change in terms of the intensity, the forecast track, or the rainfall forecast throughout much of the last 12 hours. So we're still looking at winds around 105 miles per hour. Those feeder bands that you were talking about moving in across the area and we're going to start to see those gusting winds associated with them here.
And you heard Chad talking about the closer in that you get to this storm, into that eye wall area, here's where that eye wall is that we're talking about. Some of those bands that are affecting them right now are just coming out of this way. So each of these bands that you go by, the closer into the storm you get, you are going to start to see those stronger winds and those stronger gusts. And right here, this outer band right here has been reporting winds of 60 to 80 miles per hour. The next one's been reporting winds around -- these are gusts by the way around 80 to 100 miles per hour. So we're going to watch for these intensities to increase pretty dramatically over the next couple of hours.
We have had wind gusts reportedly very high on occasion, up to 91 miles per hour. These are the current gusts as of the top of the hour. The 6:00 hour in Melbourne, 56 miles per hour, so not hurricane force there. It's got to be 74 miles an hour or more to be hurricane gusts. We've got 59 mile per hour in West Palm Beach. Even strong down in Miami, 48 miles per hour. And you head up to Daytona Beach, near tropical storm force at 37 miles per hour.
Let's go ahead and take a look at some of the peak gusts that have been reported since this warning. Ninety-one miles per hour at Jupiter inlet, 76 at Biscayne -- Key Biscayne, 71 miles per hour in to West Palm Beach, and Brevard County reporting the gusts around 67 miles per hour. And we are going to watch the strong part of the storm move on onshore here. These are the forecast winds. As of 8:00 tonight, this dark red area that's where we're looking at the hurricane force winds moving in all the way out to Lake Okeechobee just in the next couple of hours. The eye is going to take its time making landfall, likely sometime around the midnight hour, give or take a couple of hours on either side. So give us a little window here. And look at how long it's going to take for that eye to actually get all the way onshore. We're looking at well into the morning hours for tomorrow and then continuing on west to northwesterly track, likely heading up to the north of Tampa and then heading into parts of the Florida panhandle.
Storm surge also a big problem here. In the red area, storm surges likely between six and 12 feet and four to five foot storm surge into the orange areas highlighted here -- Miles, Carol, back to you.
LIN: Hey Jacqui, this thing is moving so slowly. How long is it going to actually sit over the state of Florida?
JERAS: Well, we could be looking at a good 24 hours before it makes it all the way across the peninsula. From start to finish, it could be about 24 hours and the eye itself may take a good four to eight inches -- or four to eight hours or so to make its way all the way onshore.
O'BRIEN: Well, Jacqui, that eye is 75 miles across, is that correct?
JERAS: Huge. Well, the estimates...
O'BRIEN: So it could even be longer...
JERAS: ...were about 70 to 75.
O'BRIEN: OK, it could even be longer than that. And I bet there's a fair amount of concern that folks will think, oh, it's over.
LIN: Right.
JERAS: Right. You don't want to -- yes, forget about that. And the other thing to keep in mind is the good side of the storm where the winds aren't quite as bad are going to be coming first then you're going to get that eye moving over you. Things are going to calm down, and then the bad side of the storm is going to get you right after that. So yes, you don't let down your guard because you're going to get the punch twice there.
LIN: Yes, Governor Jeb Bush said that earlier, saying that don't leave the shelters too soon. A lot of people go home. They wade through the waters and they get electrocuted. Most of the deaths during Hurricane Charley happened in the aftermath.
O'BRIEN: And of course, when Jacqui said the good side of the storm, it is a relative term, folks. We do need that.
JERAS: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll see you in a bit, Jacqui. Thank you very much. You can also follow Frances online. Log onto CNN.com/hurricanes for Frances' current projected path. We got an update an hour ago. We'll get a new one in two hours. And all of that is put on your screen. It'll also give you links to emergency information and resources and tips on what you should do in the event of a hurricane.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Hurricane Floyd formed into a powerful category 4 on September 14, 1999. It ravaged portions of the Bahamas. Watch its destruction as Floyd tore apart a pier as it hit Daytona Beach, Florida. As Floyd turned north, it weakened a bit but hitting land again near Cape Fear, North Carolina. The high rainfall created massive inland flooding. Floyd is responsible for one death in the Bahamas, but claimed 56 lives in the United States.
LIN: All right, we've been tracking Hurricane Frances and we're expecting now that Frances is going to make official landfall sometime between 10:00 Eastern and 2:00 in the morning Eastern. But already, the East Coast of Florida is feeling the effects. You can see it from the shot where we're going to go to right now. Gary Tuchman is standing by in Ft. Pierce.
Gary, you are literally in ground zero. We understand Hurricane Frances is going to make landfall right about where you are.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In fact, that's why we're using a videophone because it allows you to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) pack up and get out very quickly and get to some more vulnerable areas and we don't have really expensive and elaborate equipment that we usually use that takes awhile to pack up and get out. It gives the storm a chance to show the effects of where the eye of the wall and the eye is going to come across. This is Fort Pierce, Florida. It's a city (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It is roughly halfway between West Palm Beach to the south and Melbourne to the north. And this is the marina, Intracoastal Waterway. The Indian River itself (UNINTELLIGIBLE) right here about a half mile inland. Hutchison Island -- from Hutchinson Island, a half hour away is the Atlantic Ocean. This entire area where we are and the area ore there, evacuated. And we have not been able to find anyone who still in their homes on Hutchinson Island. The authorities are very happy about that.
To give you an idea what kind of devastation you can have during a hurricane and how people get hurt and killed, this is a great example. This here is a light that I think weighs about 50 pounds. We figure this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 45 to 50 miles. It was on top of a 25-foot light pole behind me. And we heard the noise of it falling down. And that's what can happen. That's why you stay away from things like that. I'll put it down here because they can possibly repair that later when this hurricane ends, whenever it ends.
That's the big thing about this. Most of the hurricanes we cover like Charley three weeks ago, it was powerful, it was damaging, it was devastating, but it only took a hours of these heavy winds before it was over and the cleanup began. This is like the eternal hurricane. People have been in shelters since Thursday night and this county of 5,000 people alone who will be in shelters. There are only 200,000 people who live in the county. And as we now know from our meteorologist, this is supposed to continue until tomorrow (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eye isn't even here yet and we've been pelted by rain and winds now from here in this part of Florida for about seven or eight hours.
Carol, back to you.
LIN: Gary, if you can still hear me, earlier I read that there are some businesses that actually decided to stay open right near Fort Pierce and right around there, some restaurants, for example. Do you know of anybody who is frankly dumb enough to stick around?
TUCHMAN: I will tell you, Carol, that in Saint Lucie County here, there is a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Last night, just before 8 p.m., we went out just looking for anything to eat. We were not able to find anything and we are very good searchers. There was absolutely nothing open. The only thing open are a couple of the hotels and the shelters. And I can tell you the hotel where we're staying at, which said they had breakfast in the morning, the breakfast consisted of a piece of sliced bread. That gives you an idea of what's available.
LIN: Gary, stay safe out there. I know you're going to stay as long as you possibly can throughout our live coverage tonight. Once again, the eye of Hurricane Frances expected to make landfall right where Gary is sometime tonight between 10:00 Eastern and 2:00 in the morning -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: About 50 miles south of there, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach is well within the swath of potential hurricane force winds. We're told by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that those hurricane force winds could extend 75 miles in either direction from that eye. And that eye is 75 miles in diameter itself. So let's take a look, first of all, at one of our affiliates, WSVN. This is one of the reporters there in the Palm Beach area. Actually, he's in West Palm, which would mean he's on the inland side of the intracoastal, so he's protected somewhat by the barrier island where the Palm Beach is and all those very, very high priced pieces of real estate. Let's listen for just a moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flooding is going to be a big issue. When you factor in the rainfall in addition to that sea spray or that bay spray coming across, we have breakers on the bay right now. And so the west side of the barrier islands are probably going to be flooded. Well, they will be flooded, but not only from the rainfall, but because of the water coming off of the bay. Biscayne Bay is being deposited across western sections of the barrier islands.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks Tom. Let's take a little time to recap as we keep you out there, maybe take a couple of live pictures to...
O'BRIEN: All right. With that -- that was just a little taste of WSVN's coverage. They're based out of Miami. John Zarrella is in the same neck of the woods. I don't know how close he is to that particular reporter.
John, he was reporting from North Bay and talking about the flooding situations there. Gosh, looking at the Intracoastal there and the bay there, tremendous amount of surf when you consider especially that it's on the leeward side of the barrier island.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Right. You know we had -- the wind was coming pretty much out of the north earlier today, just bringing the water down at Lake Worth, which is the intracoastal down here, and just depositing that water, pushing the boats to the south. Now the wind has switched directions on us and it's coming a little bit more out of the northwest. And you know we wanted to give the viewers a sense of how we do this, how we're able to broadcast in these kinds of conditions. And we've moved our location to behind a building. And you know our satellite truck is literally behind an l- shaped building so that we are somewhat protected from the winds. Otherwise, the dish would be moving around and we physically wouldn't be able to get a signal out. We'd be going in and out of the signal. So here you can see this building that we are behind, a condominium here in West Palm Beach. And it's all -- well, not all boarded up. A lot of it is boarded up.
So -- and we had 54 mile an hour wind gusts on the wind meter when we were out over by the bay in our last live shot that we did about 15, 20 minutes ago. So being protected here, Miles, as we are, you can see it's a lot less. But if you look up at the trees blowing here, you can see that when you get up a little bit, it's really kicking up. And you can see those clouds just rolling around over the tops of the -- through the trees and through that big condominium back there.
So here we're getting tropical storm force winds. Of course, up a little higher at 33 feet, which is where you measure wind speeds, it's going to be considerably higher than the 54 mile an hour gusts that we had. But you know again, it's important to note to viewers that for us to be able to stand out in it, we're not talking about 100 mile an hour winds because a human being, as you know, physically can't stand up in that kind of environment. It's just too strong. So fortunately, we've seen some damage here. Certainly a lot of palm trees with the palm fronds down. Some of the bigger trees thick with branches that have broken loose. Some signs down. Power lines down. The kinds of things that you would expect to see in the tropical storm force winds that we're getting here in Palm Beach.
But it has picked up significantly over the last couple of hours. The wind gusts have been a lot greater during the last hour than they were when I first came on at about 4:00 this afternoon. So clearly, that core of the storm is getting much closer to us. That's pretty evident here in West Palm Beach and I suspect as the -- with the size of the storm that we'll be seeing some higher intense winds as we get later into the evening -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: John Zarrella, probably -- you probably have more notches in your microphone for hurricanes than anybody I know in the business. I want to ask you, do you recall historically what the highest winds you've been able to get a signal out with one of those big trucks that's right beside you there? In other words, at what point are you going to have to shut down for business tonight?
ZARRELLA: Well, I don't know that we're going to have to here because of the protection that we have got. I can tell you during Hurricane Andrew, we were in North Miami at our offices in North Miami. We were literally about 40 miles to the north of ground zero. And about 3:00 in the morning, 3:30 in the morning now, Andrew came inland and made landfall at about 5:00 a.m. on the 24th of August. The back end of the satellite truck, and you see the back end here of the truck -- during Andrew, it was being lifted off the ground. And literally, it was coming up off the ground so we could not broadcast. Now, that was a storm with 175 mile an hour gusts with, you know, a category five, significantly different from this. I'm fairly confident that tonight, although you never can be sure with these things that we should be able to broadcast pretty much throughout all of our coverage this evening and bring the viewers, you know, the best possible pictures of what we've got here -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you got the best crew in the business. I would ask how much that truck weighs but I'm not going to put you on the spot. We'll check in with you in a little bit.
ZARRELLA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: All right.
LIN: Well, we do have some other meaningful numbers. Nearly three million people have been forced to evacuate, more than 50,000 in shelters, a serious situation. You are going to be with us throughout the night as we cover the landfall of Hurricane Frances. I'll talk with Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center shortly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right, a live picture of our affiliate coverage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We are depending heavily on the affiliates to expand our coverage so that we can bring you the most information we can on Hurricane Frances as Hurricane Frances gets ready to make landfall tonight or very early in the morning, shortly after midnight.
You know the big situation that a lot of rescue workers are going to have to face during and especially after this hurricane is the massive flooding that is going to go on in several cities. Twenty-one counties so far have been affected by this hurricane. Jeanne Meserve is standing by in Saint Augustine where she has been watching for herself how urban rescue operations may actually play out across the state of Florida.
Jeanne, what did you see today?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we've been embedded with Virginia Task Force 2, that's one of two urban search and rescue teams that FEMA has prepositioned in the state of Florida in case state and local first responders are overwhelmed. They came down in the wee hours of the morning Friday and are right now set up at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. They came with a caravan of trucks. These contained their specialized equipment and also provisions. They have enough food and water, fuel and other supplies to be self-sufficient for 72 hours at a stretch, if that becomes necessary. Now, a lot of the people on these teams are firefighters. They're used to responding to things on a moment's notice. They acknowledge they're having a little bit of trouble with all the waiting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as we can keep folks moving and keep them working, they're OK. The worst thing we can ever do is sit them down and not have anything for them to do, which doesn't happen. But we have to keep them working.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Now, the team spent part of their time today reorganizing some of that stuff they brought down in their trucks, repacking, but also sort of reviewing procedures and protocols. They're paying special attention to water rescues because so much rain is expected to fall here in the state of Florida. On these teams, which are about 70 men strong, there are dog teams who can find victims in the wreckage. There are structural engineers who can go in and determine whether or not buildings are safe to enter. There are Haz-Mat personnel who can deal with chemical releases, even gas releases if those should occur. And of course, there are the search and rescue personnel who can go in and extricate actual victims of this hurricane.
Now, they don't know how or when they'll be deployed. That will all be settled after the hurricane moves through and authorities have a sense of where the worst damage is. Then if they're needed, they'll be sent to that spot.
Carol, back to you.
LIN: Thanks Jeanne. We'll know certainly in the next 24 to 48 hours what those guys are going to be up to.
O'BRIEN: Well, Frances is not in a hurry. And thus, all of us have to be patient as we watch this unfold. And it should wreak a lot of havoc. Let's take a look at the radar imagery as we see it right now.
(AUDIO GAP)
O'BRIEN: ... size -- it's about the size of the state of Texas. And there is a 300-mile swath of Florida now under a hurricane warning. The current projected path is Fort Pierce. Hurricanes have a way of surprising us, however. Stay with us and we'll keep you posted all along the way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back to our special coverage of Hurricane Frances. Let's bring you up to speed just in case you're tuning in right now. Frances is a disaster in slow motion. The hurricane is lumbering at a few miles per hour which means the damaging rains and winds keep pounding Florida's east coast over and over. The eye of the hurricane is expected to pass directly over Fort Pierce.
Now already we're seeing fireworks of sorts. Take a look at the scene in Fort Lauderdale. That is a power line catching fire on a tree. Almost 1.5 million people don't have electricity in the state of Florida.
Now power lines are also down in the Bahamas. Hurricane Frances tore through there, ripping up trees and shattering windows and flooding homes as it passed over the chain of 700 islands. At least two people died and someone is missing. Now parts of Grand Bahama Island are under at least six feet of water.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you could be in harm's way and within a matter of seconds be the victim of, you know, a storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very courageous Judy Chavez describing what happened to her while they were covering this story on Marsh Harbor in Abaca Island (ph). She was hit in the hip by a piece of construction debris and it knocked the breath out of her. She said that, you know, even there, you could tell she was having problems...
(END VIDEO CLIP) O'BRIEN: We -- by the way, we're going to be doing this all throughout the night, so unfortunately it's going to be a bit jarring. We're just dipping into some of our affiliate coverage. They do, after all, offer quite a force multiplier for us, having that standing army of multiple affiliates from all the TV stations up and down the east coast and that one happens to be WPLG. Every now and then when we do this, it's going to be a little bit awkward because obviously we don't control their newscasts in any way, shape or form. We're just kind of listening in, so bear with us. We think it does add to our coverage quite a bit.
Now let's talk about the theme parks. If you were headed to Disney World, or Universal Studios, or Seaworld this weekend, we're very sorry. Hurricane Frances has really taken the fun out of the whole thing. It's a wet world after all. CNN's Jason Carroll has an update for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Wadel family hoped their Saturday would be spent at an amusement park. Instead, these tourists from England are picking up emergency supplies.
(on camera): What did you pick up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got some Kellogg's cereal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cereal. We've got plenty of water...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...and snacks. We'll just take it as it goes, you know, just weather the storm, as they say.
CARROLL: The Wadels, like tens of thousands of other stranded tourists in Orlando, are waiting out Hurricane Frances in their hotel room. The Samowitzs arrived from New Jersey on Thursday to an unwelcoming hotel clerk.
MARIE SAMOWITZ, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: They asked for us to either go back to the airport and get on a plane and go back to wherever we came from.
CARROLL: The family made their vacation plans shortly after Hurricane Charley.
MARK SAMOWITZ, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: On August 13, we had booked this, thinking there was no way or possibility that it's going to be back-to-back hurricanes. We figured we were home free. We're in good shape and we booked it. And we came down and we found out it's coming in.
CARROLL: Most airlines began canceling flights Thursday night. Orlando's airport closed Friday. On Saturday, it made for an indoor playing field for kids with nothing to do but wait. The Stambergers are waiting too. Their Sunday flight to New Jersey canceled. Now, they're spending money they hadn't counted on for food and hotel rooms.
THERESA STAMBERGER, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: We have two rooms. So we're staying -- you know the price is double the price of each room.
CARROLL: But they say it could be worse. They're booked at the Walt Disney World resort. The park is closed but there's still entertainment inside hotel lobbies.
JAQUEE PAULETTE, DISNEY SPOKESWOMAN: It's going to be a rough couple of days, but hopefully we'll get through it together and have a good time while we're here.
CARROLL (on camera): Many staying in hotels are getting hurricane updates like this one with instructions to stay away from windows, keep curtains drawn. The hurricane's projected path constantly updated as well.
(voice-over): It's not the thrill they came here for. No choice now but to stick it out and see what Frances delivers.
Jason Carroll, CNN, Orlando.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Joining us on the line right now from Orlando, a spokesperson for Walt Disney World, Veronica Clemons.
Miss Clemons, can you hear me OK?
VERONICA CLEMONS, DISNEY WORLD SPOKESPERSON: Yes, I can, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Obviously, you've been shut down today. When do you expect you might be able to reopen or are you even thinking about that at this point?
Well, we're monitoring the storm right now. We haven't made announcements about what's going to happen here tomorrow, or you know after that. We probably will do that shortly. We're just monitoring the storm, keeping up with the weather right now.
O'BRIEN: All right. Labor Day, obviously a busy weekend. It's always a busy weekend at Disney World. Give us a sense of how many people might have been there today were it not for this storm.
CLEMONS: Well, you know I can't even speculate on who would or wouldn't be here Labor Day. Right now, our real focus is on, we have more than 75,000 bests in our resort hotels so we're really focused on them right now, trying to provide them, you know, with entertainment and feed them and make sure they are as comfortable as they can be until the storm gets past us.
O'BRIEN: Now, I note on your Web site, it says here if you're in the hotel, don't expect to see any of the characters. The characters are given the day off.
CLEMONS: Well, no, actually that's -- characters have been in the resorts today. There's some form of entertainment actually in all of our resorts whether it be a band.
O'BRIEN: OK.
CLEMONS: There were some kids that do some character meet and greets as well.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you might want to update your Web site.
CLEMONS: OK.
O'BRIEN: You know put that on there. But the fact is you have a lot of people in a situation like this who may have no experience whatsoever with these kinds of storms.
CLEMONS: Right.
O'BRIEN: How do you handle 75,000 people, make sure everybody's safe and still has as good a time as possible?
CLEMONS: Right. We have an extensive hurricane preparedness plan, Miles, and that includes keeping in close contact with our guests in our resorts. We keep communicating with them to tell them what's happening here, what's available to them, and things that they need to do in the resort while they're there, so that they're safe and as comfortable as possible.
O'BRIEN: Now, of course, Friday the 13th, Charley paid an unwelcome visit to Orlando as well.
CLEMONS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: How did that particular event go? Did you learn some things? Did you -- were you -- are you doing things differently based on what happened three weeks ago?
CLEMONS: Actually, three weeks ago after Charley came through, we still, you know, stuck to our plan and we still communicated with our guests. And as a matter of fact, we were able to open the next day to give our resort guests and some other folks that were coming down, they would have something to do. So you know we haven't really changed our plan at all.
O'BRIEN: And a final thought here, are folks told to just stay in their rooms? Are they put in parts of hotels that are considered safer? How -- or do you just make a real time call as the night goes on?
CLEMONS: Well, we'll make a real time call. What folks are allowed to do now, you're allowed to be in the lobby. And like I said, we did have and we do have some entertainment that's in the hotels and people are able to mill about until we tell them it's not safe to do so, and then we ask our guests to please stay in their rooms.
O'BRIEN: OK, and it's free drinks at the bar, right? OK, all right. Veronica Clemons, I don't want to start any rumors. That's not true. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it.
CLEMONS: Thank you, Miles.
LIN: Notice how she didn't answer you.
O'BRIEN: She didn't go for that one, did she?
LIN: Yes, well, it's...
O'BRIEN: I tried, folks. If you're at Disney, I tried for you, all right?
LIN: The night is still young.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
LIN: All right, let's take a look at this radar picture to give you an idea where Frances is now. What we're hearing so far is that Frances is expected to make landfall officially as soon as three and a half hours from now. We've keeping an eye on this situation and I'm going to be talking with Max Mayfield over at the National Hurricane Center so stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Keeping an eye on Hurricane Frances right now, we want to get some of the best information available in the world. Max Mayfield, no one has more experience than he does. He's with the National Hurricane Center.
Max, good to have you on.
MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Carol, how are you?
LIN: I'm doing just fine. Now give me an idea of how accurate what we've been hearing in terms of landfall, the timing of landfall, really is. We're hearing anytime between 10:00 tonight and 2:00 in the morning.
MAYFIELD: Carol, I appreciate the question. You know let me help educate some of the people. We really don't want to focus on that landfall. You know people -- it's so easy to, you know, plot that little dot on the map. But a hurricane is not a point, it's a large circulation. And the truth is the hurricane has already been hitting Florida all day here.
LIN: You're right.
MAYFIELD: These outer rain bands are over here and you can see the center of the hurricane is right here, about 50 miles east of Jupiter inlet. The center of that big hole there will move onto the coast, you know, after midnight or very, very early tomorrow morning. But those rain bands are already lashing the Florida peninsula.
LIN: No, you're right, and we're seeing much of the damage, power outages, people evacuated and in shelters. Max, if this thing parks itself over the state of Florida for two full high tides, the prediction is that there could be two major storm surges of anywhere between five and 10 feet. What is the likelihood of that?
MAYFIELD: Not very likely at all. The National Hurricane Center forecast in Florida is six feet of storm surge near and to the north of the center part of the coast with these very dangerous battering waves on top of that. The good news where it's coming inland, the water is pretty deep there, so we're not going to have a real big problem with current and storm surge except on the immediate coastline. We really need to focus on the wind and the rainfall inland. We're going to have a large swath of strong winds, a lot of trees down, massive power outages, and then we have to worry about the rainfall.
LIN: Just curious, Max, is there -- are there any natural forces out there that could actually stop this hurricane in its tracks at this point?
MAYFIELD: Well, it just about stopped, you know, this afternoon for a few hours there. It just about became stationary. But overall, there's a ridge of high pressure to the north. That ridge will likely build and eventually push this hurricane over the Florida Peninsula, into the gulf, and then towards the Florida panhandle in all likelihood.
LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center. Max is going to be with us throughout the night.
O'BRIEN: The city of Saint Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565. As a matter of fact, this weekend, the oldest city in America planned to celebrate its 439th birthday, a lot of candles on that cake. Frances, however, had other plans of course. CNN's David Mattingly joining us from Saint Augustine with more on what is going on in that very historic place -- David.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, the wind is picking up right now, a sure sign that Hurricane Frances, at least the outer edges of it, are on the way here. But before it gets here, there are some who are saying that the damage is already done. And I want to show you what it looks like. Take a look down this sidewalk. The sidewalk is empty. There should be thousands of tourists here spending money, shopping, going out to eat, having a good time this weekend for the Labor Day weekend, but instead, there is nobody here hardly. And if they had come, this is what they would have found. They would have seen store fronts boarded up like this and this has been going on for days now. People showing this storm a lot of respect, getting prepared in advance. In fact, the sign across the streets says it all right now, "Fickle Frances, please make up your mind." It shows what sort of mood people have right now. They just want this to be over with.
We did run into one couple here earlier today, however, who were determined to make sure their plans were not going to be run over by a hurricane. Brian and Kristin Cooper actually eloped a year ago when Sergeant Cooper came home from Iraq. And when he did, they made plans to have a commitment ceremony for their families, which is what they decided to do today. But their guest list was supposed to have about 60 people. Instead, only about 20 showed up, 40 no-shows because of the ceremony. But still, they said their I do's and they were happy to do that. That ceremony took place right here in this gazebo. You can see the gazebo is empty right now.
This park is virtually empty right now. There should be a lot of people right now celebrating this city's 439th anniversary. Instead, they're waiting on wind gusts to arrive of 60 to 70 miles per hour and forecasts of rain of eight to 10 inches. And that's what everybody's paying most attention to right now, is the rain, because flooding has been a very rich part of this city's history. Parts of Saint Augustine are below sea level. So when you get that much rain, the long-time residents here say don't be surprised to wake up in the morning and see quite a few city streets underwater -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: David, and that's an important point to make because even though Saint Augustine is, I guess, about a 100 miles north of Fort Pierce, which is the projected site where that eye will go across, this is such a large storm and that city is so vulnerable, isn't it?
MATTINGLY: That's right. Again, parts of it are below sea level. They have a sea wall just a couple of blocks from here. People say they all have memories of waves crashing over that sea wall. In fact, a couple of years ago during a tropical storm, part of that sea wall actually crumbled into the sea because it was undermined. They actually have a project planned for the future to rebuild this sea wall bigger and better, but that project hasn't gotten started yet. It's not going to help them this time, Miles, so everyone just waiting see how bad it's going to be when they wake up in the morning.
O'BRIEN: And David, I'm sure you've talked to some of the long- time residents there. Have they ever really had a direct hit there in recent memory?
MATTINGLY: The last direct hit was back in 1964. Since then, this city has gotten off pretty easy. And they believe they're going to get off relatively easy this time when you look at what's happening in central and south Florida. Again, they believe that it's because of the positioning on the coastline, the fact that the -- well, the ocean currents, the warm ocean currents are way offshore here. That's probably helping them in terms of direct hits with hurricane. But this will not be a direct hit. They're going to get the edges of it, a lot of rainfall.
O'BRIEN: David Mattingly, who is in the -- North America's oldest city. And we hope it weathers Frances well.
Let's dip into WKMG, that's one of our Orlando affiliates. I believe this particular shot we're going to see is coming out of Palm Bay, which is along the coast in that Melbourne neck of the woods, Melbourne, Vero Beach neck of the woods. Let's just listen for just a moment to the reporter there.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... has pulled all of its troopers off the barrier islands because it's too unsafe at the present time for them to be over there. So it's not a good idea right now to be most anywhere although we are finding quite a bit of traffic coming up -- down U.S. 1. We're going to take you to another shot, our bird's-eye shot, of a place right across -- just south of us here on U.S. 1. And you can see that the Indian River is really being kicked up there as well. That's an entrance to a little marina and the water's rising over there as well. Luckily, all the boats over there have been tied up and they are out of the water. And again, the winds are continuing to be pretty ferocious at this point as we just stand here and watch these feeder bands after feeder bands come in and continue to ravage everything in its way.
For now, we're live in Palm Bay, Donald Forbes, Local 6.
O'BRIEN: All right. And once again, as I said, folks, we're going to dip in all throughout the night with some of our affiliates. That one happened to be WKMG. And we do appreciate them helping us tell that story for you all. That was in Palm Bay, which is along that stretch between Melbourne and the Sebastian part of Florida, a little bit north of where the eye is to come. But this eye is so large and the storm is so large, we're talking about a very big swath of Florida affected.
LIN: Right, and much of Florida, that coastline already looks like it's already -- you know it looks like it's already made landfall. And Max Mayfield was just saying already the damage is occurring.
O'BRIEN: The battering waves are something not to be trifled with/
LIN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Just that in and of itself can do a number.
LIN: You bet. And we've seen some really compelling pictures today of, you know, not only people just evacuating, but people trying to save the things that mean the most to them at any cost and any risk. Take this man who was determined to get his yacht, you know, which can cost anywhere from around $1 million, get it out of the waters of south Florida. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is nuts. I have no idea. This guy's got to have engine trouble or just lost control of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably or perhaps having engine trouble or simply not enough power to cope with the wind from Frances coming down this way. But this person, doing a remarkable job of getting the craft into the position that it is. You can see on the front, a couple of anchor lines have been dangling down that allowed this boat to slowly make it up. And look on the front; you can see a couple of gashes. Well, even with the best of efforts -- exactly, best of efforts tying this thing off, simply the storm, too powerful, now apparently trying to make another run back up the way, carrying not only its anchors but now also a pole from the yacht club. So this is quite a drama out here on the intracoastal waterway.
We haven't seen anybody out here trying to help. There are -- apparently, there's some people who are out in the hurricane who probably shouldn't be who have stopped to look at what's going on. You see on the bow with the flight now reaching down in to try and get another rope to try and tie up. So they're doing everything they can. Clearly, these are very experienced people, just to get this yacht in position to even tie up.
The weather out here, the winds have really picked up. It just drifts so quickly. But apparently, they got tied off. An anchor is caught on the front so maybe they'll maneuver in somewhat. And there's a walkway if you look on the stern. So if they can get this tied off maybe they'll be able to moor it as safely as possible. And it's really pretty amazing that this situation didn't work out any worse than it did because this guy wasn't able to get control of this ship right through here. It had nowhere to go except for the bridge.
That was an amazing job. How did you do that?
HENNING HENNEMANN, YACHT'S SKIPPER: Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here with Henning Hennemann and you say that you were contracted to babysit this yacht through the storm?
HENNEMANN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got more than you bargained for, didn't you?
HENNEMANN: Well, I lost a lot of systems, ended up with just one engine, and no steering, and no bow thruster. So I did what I could to anchor the thrust, did what I could to stick it in the hole here and try and save it as much as I could, keep it off the bridge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, did you say it was coming in?
HENNEMANN: Yes, we saw the whole thing played out on CNN.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: He thought it was funny.
O'BRIEN: He had his moment there, yes. And some fine work. I mean to lose the bow thruster, one of the engines, a generator, and he still -- I don't know how he did it quite frankly.
LIN: Yes, yes, but his yacht club membership dues are going up for that pylon he's got to replaced.
O'BRIEN: If it wasn't for a pylon...
LIN: Yes, well, you never know who's going to come out in a storm. Earlier, there was a surfer in the water in Pompano Beach.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I mean I think you could give the skipper of that yacht the smart guy of the day award for pulling that off. This guy, I think gets the dumb guy award at least as far as I've seen. And you know what I know there are a lot of surfers out there who are getting mad at me right now for saying that, but you know -- well, is it worth it for that? I don't know. Is it? I guess I don't get it.
LIN: The answer's no.
O'BRIEN: The answer is no. Practice more later.
LIN: Get out of the water.
O'BRIEN: Quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back to our special coverage of hurricane Frances. Let's bring you up to speed on the latest developments. Frances is a disaster in slow motion. The hurricane is crawling at a few miles per hour which means the damaging rains and winds keep pounding Florida's east coast over and again. Now the eye of the hurricane is expected to pass directly over Fort Pierce where our Gary Tuchman has been reporting.
Already, we're beginning to see fireworks. Take a look at, this was a scene in Fort Lauderdale when a power line caught fire on a tree. Almost 1.5 million people do not have electricity in Florida. Power lines are also down in the Bahamas. And Hurricane Frances tore through there, ripping up trees, shattering windows, and flooding homes as it passed over the chain of 700 islands in the last 24 hours. At least two died, one person is still missing. Parts of Grand Bahama Island are under at least six feet of water.
O'BRIEN: And that does it for this hour but it certainly doesn't do it for our coverage. We're going to be here all night into the morning and probably through the remainder of the holiday weekend as we cover this storm that is really moving about the pace of a brisk walk. On its way, we think, toward Fort Pierce at the moment. Nevertheless, much of the east coast of Florida bracing. We're with it all the way. Stay with us.
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 September 4, 2004 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello I'm Miles O'Brien in Atlanta. Full coverage of Hurricane Frances coming up in just a moment, but first, a check of some other stories in the headlines for you.
Los Angeles International Airport back in business now, shut down for several hours today because of two unrelated security scares. A man bypassed security using exit stairs to get to the terminal, and a flashlight with defective batteries exploded as a security screener examined it. Eight were hurt, none of them seriously in that incident.
Former President Clinton has received thousands of messages of support since checking into a New York hospital for heart bypass surgery. One was from Vice President Cheney, who called Clinton from Nevada today, wishing him well. Clinton says he's ready to undergo surgery as early as next week.
Hospitals near the southern Russian city of Beslan are filled to capacity as medical personnel treat more than 700 injured during that school siege. The death toll there stands now at 323 hostages, 10 special forces, and 26 hostage takers.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A crazy situation there.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Welcome to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances. I'm Miles O'Brien.
LIN: And I'm Carol Lin. We're going to get started with the very latest developments. We're going to go straight to Melbourne, Florida. That's where we have our own Anderson Cooper.
Anderson, we're expecting Hurricane Frances to make landfall very close to you. And as we look at these pictures, we can see clearly the winds are picking up.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is picking up. There had been a little lull actually about 20 minutes ago. Not much rain, relatively little wind. But you can actually see a squall approaching and it is definitely here. It is very strong. You can see the whitecaps on the Intracoastal Waterway, making it look like the Atlantic Ocean there.
Let's bring in Chad Myers, CNN meteorologist.
Chad, how bad is it right now? What kind of a wind speed... CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right before we came on, it was 71 miles and hour, Anderson. And now, it's probably a good 65. But I was up on top of the causeway just a few minutes ago. We did a package from there, and the wind speeds were well into the category two hurricane. We were at 95 miles an hour up there. But now, you have to remember, that's almost a football field higher than we are down here. A little bit of friction down here slows it down. But up there on the causeway, it was scary. It was scary in a really big truck.
COOPER: We're in Melbourne right now. There's Melbourne Beach, which is a barrier island, and there's a bridge crossing over into Melbourne Beach. And they've shut down the bridge now.
MYERS: Absolutely. We had to show them our I.D. We had to sign a release that said they're not responsible and they're not coming to get us. And that was so -- so we did that and got up there and got back in a big hurry.
COOPER: Yes, we were just looking at radar on your laptop computer in the car. You see -- I mean you can literally see one of these big bands -- one of these bands of the storm, one of these squalls, which we actually saw approaching us.
MYERS: Isn't it amazing? It really is. You can see it coming. You can prepare. You say to yourself, well, there it is. It's two miles away. Oh, there it is. It's one mile away. And all of a sudden, it's 100 yards, and then it picks up. And it just goes from 50 -- it's go from 50 to 75 in a big hurry.
COOPER: And then there's this lull. I mean we were in a lull about 20 minutes ago where it -- where you know you wouldn't know there was a hurricane coming.
MYERS: And it wasn't raining either, right? I mean yes, exactly. Up on top of the bridge when you were down here, I was doing that. It was coming at us in sheets and the rain is now coming at us in sheets here. Every time one of those fingers goes by, one of those outer bands, then you get the wind to pick up. And then when it goes by, it stops. It drops off. But it's going to stop dropping off here pretty quickly. It's just going to be one constant wind speed as soon as the whole core or Mac Daddy part of the eye gets very close to us. Moving to the west, northwest at 5, the eye will pass to our south, which means we're actually in the bad quadrant of the storm. We'll get more wind than...
COOPER: Did you just say the Mac Daddy part of the storm?
MYERS: Mac Daddy, yes.
COOPER: I wish you wouldn't use these fancy meteorological terms with us now. I take it by Mac Daddy of the storm; you mean the heart of the storm, the Big Kahuna?
MYERS: Everybody looks at the eye and they say, oh, the eye is going to make landfall here, but you always want to look at the eastern part or the northern part of the eye wall. There aren't really that much -- there's not that much wind in the eye itself. It'll be gusty, but it won't be 105 or 110 miles per hour. Just outside that eye wall where that big storm is, where that causes the eye, it creates the eye, that's where the heaviest winds will be and we're going to be right in it.
COOPER: At what point does it become too dangerous? I mean at what point does it become too dangerous to stay here?
MYERS: I think we're in good shape because we're about 15 feet above sea level. When the storm surge -- if a storm surge comes in, it's going to be maybe six to 10 feet. So that water is really going to come up pretty high. And many of these boats that are just sitting here actually could come loose. That's when it's going to be dangerous, that's when we're going to get out of here when stuff starts flying, debris starts flying and boats start floating like they shouldn't be.
COOPER: Yes, if you look down at the marina right now, we had actually planned on being down there on the water's edge, but the big fear really is that some big gust could take one of these boats and just bring it up on land and hurt someone.
MYERS: Absolutely. They have little stands on the bottom. And obviously on the hull, you can see there's two little stands on the bottom and one in the middle, but that's not holding very much up. They could easily, easily get knocked over.
COOPER: And you anticipate this all night long? I mean we're probably -- we're here until the morning.
MYERS: Absolutely. We'll be here until 4:00 a.m. no problem and the winds will be a 100 miles an hour then. And they're not going to slack off probably until early tomorrow morning.
We were down the road a little bit and people are already losing shingles and it's just one after another after another. And these winds are yet to pick up. We have another 30 miles an hour to go yet.
COOPER: We're going to talk to Jacqui Jeras right now who's in the CNN weather center, getting the latest on the storm.
Jacqui, what do you have?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you guys, like you said, after you've been there for a couple of hours, you're going to say enough is enough. But it's just going to keep going, almost like the Energizer bunny, right? It just doesn't want to stop because it's moving so very slowly. We've had very little change in terms of the intensity, the forecast track, or the rainfall forecast throughout much of the last 12 hours. So we're still looking at winds around 105 miles per hour. Those feeder bands that you were talking about moving in across the area and we're going to start to see those gusting winds associated with them here.
And you heard Chad talking about the closer in that you get to this storm, into that eye wall area, here's where that eye wall is that we're talking about. Some of those bands that are affecting them right now are just coming out of this way. So each of these bands that you go by, the closer into the storm you get, you are going to start to see those stronger winds and those stronger gusts. And right here, this outer band right here has been reporting winds of 60 to 80 miles per hour. The next one's been reporting winds around -- these are gusts by the way around 80 to 100 miles per hour. So we're going to watch for these intensities to increase pretty dramatically over the next couple of hours.
We have had wind gusts reportedly very high on occasion, up to 91 miles per hour. These are the current gusts as of the top of the hour. The 6:00 hour in Melbourne, 56 miles per hour, so not hurricane force there. It's got to be 74 miles an hour or more to be hurricane gusts. We've got 59 mile per hour in West Palm Beach. Even strong down in Miami, 48 miles per hour. And you head up to Daytona Beach, near tropical storm force at 37 miles per hour.
Let's go ahead and take a look at some of the peak gusts that have been reported since this warning. Ninety-one miles per hour at Jupiter inlet, 76 at Biscayne -- Key Biscayne, 71 miles per hour in to West Palm Beach, and Brevard County reporting the gusts around 67 miles per hour. And we are going to watch the strong part of the storm move on onshore here. These are the forecast winds. As of 8:00 tonight, this dark red area that's where we're looking at the hurricane force winds moving in all the way out to Lake Okeechobee just in the next couple of hours. The eye is going to take its time making landfall, likely sometime around the midnight hour, give or take a couple of hours on either side. So give us a little window here. And look at how long it's going to take for that eye to actually get all the way onshore. We're looking at well into the morning hours for tomorrow and then continuing on west to northwesterly track, likely heading up to the north of Tampa and then heading into parts of the Florida panhandle.
Storm surge also a big problem here. In the red area, storm surges likely between six and 12 feet and four to five foot storm surge into the orange areas highlighted here -- Miles, Carol, back to you.
LIN: Hey Jacqui, this thing is moving so slowly. How long is it going to actually sit over the state of Florida?
JERAS: Well, we could be looking at a good 24 hours before it makes it all the way across the peninsula. From start to finish, it could be about 24 hours and the eye itself may take a good four to eight inches -- or four to eight hours or so to make its way all the way onshore.
O'BRIEN: Well, Jacqui, that eye is 75 miles across, is that correct?
JERAS: Huge. Well, the estimates...
O'BRIEN: So it could even be longer...
JERAS: ...were about 70 to 75.
O'BRIEN: OK, it could even be longer than that. And I bet there's a fair amount of concern that folks will think, oh, it's over.
LIN: Right.
JERAS: Right. You don't want to -- yes, forget about that. And the other thing to keep in mind is the good side of the storm where the winds aren't quite as bad are going to be coming first then you're going to get that eye moving over you. Things are going to calm down, and then the bad side of the storm is going to get you right after that. So yes, you don't let down your guard because you're going to get the punch twice there.
LIN: Yes, Governor Jeb Bush said that earlier, saying that don't leave the shelters too soon. A lot of people go home. They wade through the waters and they get electrocuted. Most of the deaths during Hurricane Charley happened in the aftermath.
O'BRIEN: And of course, when Jacqui said the good side of the storm, it is a relative term, folks. We do need that.
JERAS: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll see you in a bit, Jacqui. Thank you very much. You can also follow Frances online. Log onto CNN.com/hurricanes for Frances' current projected path. We got an update an hour ago. We'll get a new one in two hours. And all of that is put on your screen. It'll also give you links to emergency information and resources and tips on what you should do in the event of a hurricane.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Hurricane Floyd formed into a powerful category 4 on September 14, 1999. It ravaged portions of the Bahamas. Watch its destruction as Floyd tore apart a pier as it hit Daytona Beach, Florida. As Floyd turned north, it weakened a bit but hitting land again near Cape Fear, North Carolina. The high rainfall created massive inland flooding. Floyd is responsible for one death in the Bahamas, but claimed 56 lives in the United States.
LIN: All right, we've been tracking Hurricane Frances and we're expecting now that Frances is going to make official landfall sometime between 10:00 Eastern and 2:00 in the morning Eastern. But already, the East Coast of Florida is feeling the effects. You can see it from the shot where we're going to go to right now. Gary Tuchman is standing by in Ft. Pierce.
Gary, you are literally in ground zero. We understand Hurricane Frances is going to make landfall right about where you are.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In fact, that's why we're using a videophone because it allows you to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) pack up and get out very quickly and get to some more vulnerable areas and we don't have really expensive and elaborate equipment that we usually use that takes awhile to pack up and get out. It gives the storm a chance to show the effects of where the eye of the wall and the eye is going to come across. This is Fort Pierce, Florida. It's a city (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It is roughly halfway between West Palm Beach to the south and Melbourne to the north. And this is the marina, Intracoastal Waterway. The Indian River itself (UNINTELLIGIBLE) right here about a half mile inland. Hutchison Island -- from Hutchinson Island, a half hour away is the Atlantic Ocean. This entire area where we are and the area ore there, evacuated. And we have not been able to find anyone who still in their homes on Hutchinson Island. The authorities are very happy about that.
To give you an idea what kind of devastation you can have during a hurricane and how people get hurt and killed, this is a great example. This here is a light that I think weighs about 50 pounds. We figure this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 45 to 50 miles. It was on top of a 25-foot light pole behind me. And we heard the noise of it falling down. And that's what can happen. That's why you stay away from things like that. I'll put it down here because they can possibly repair that later when this hurricane ends, whenever it ends.
That's the big thing about this. Most of the hurricanes we cover like Charley three weeks ago, it was powerful, it was damaging, it was devastating, but it only took a hours of these heavy winds before it was over and the cleanup began. This is like the eternal hurricane. People have been in shelters since Thursday night and this county of 5,000 people alone who will be in shelters. There are only 200,000 people who live in the county. And as we now know from our meteorologist, this is supposed to continue until tomorrow (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eye isn't even here yet and we've been pelted by rain and winds now from here in this part of Florida for about seven or eight hours.
Carol, back to you.
LIN: Gary, if you can still hear me, earlier I read that there are some businesses that actually decided to stay open right near Fort Pierce and right around there, some restaurants, for example. Do you know of anybody who is frankly dumb enough to stick around?
TUCHMAN: I will tell you, Carol, that in Saint Lucie County here, there is a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Last night, just before 8 p.m., we went out just looking for anything to eat. We were not able to find anything and we are very good searchers. There was absolutely nothing open. The only thing open are a couple of the hotels and the shelters. And I can tell you the hotel where we're staying at, which said they had breakfast in the morning, the breakfast consisted of a piece of sliced bread. That gives you an idea of what's available.
LIN: Gary, stay safe out there. I know you're going to stay as long as you possibly can throughout our live coverage tonight. Once again, the eye of Hurricane Frances expected to make landfall right where Gary is sometime tonight between 10:00 Eastern and 2:00 in the morning -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: About 50 miles south of there, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach is well within the swath of potential hurricane force winds. We're told by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that those hurricane force winds could extend 75 miles in either direction from that eye. And that eye is 75 miles in diameter itself. So let's take a look, first of all, at one of our affiliates, WSVN. This is one of the reporters there in the Palm Beach area. Actually, he's in West Palm, which would mean he's on the inland side of the intracoastal, so he's protected somewhat by the barrier island where the Palm Beach is and all those very, very high priced pieces of real estate. Let's listen for just a moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flooding is going to be a big issue. When you factor in the rainfall in addition to that sea spray or that bay spray coming across, we have breakers on the bay right now. And so the west side of the barrier islands are probably going to be flooded. Well, they will be flooded, but not only from the rainfall, but because of the water coming off of the bay. Biscayne Bay is being deposited across western sections of the barrier islands.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks Tom. Let's take a little time to recap as we keep you out there, maybe take a couple of live pictures to...
O'BRIEN: All right. With that -- that was just a little taste of WSVN's coverage. They're based out of Miami. John Zarrella is in the same neck of the woods. I don't know how close he is to that particular reporter.
John, he was reporting from North Bay and talking about the flooding situations there. Gosh, looking at the Intracoastal there and the bay there, tremendous amount of surf when you consider especially that it's on the leeward side of the barrier island.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Right. You know we had -- the wind was coming pretty much out of the north earlier today, just bringing the water down at Lake Worth, which is the intracoastal down here, and just depositing that water, pushing the boats to the south. Now the wind has switched directions on us and it's coming a little bit more out of the northwest. And you know we wanted to give the viewers a sense of how we do this, how we're able to broadcast in these kinds of conditions. And we've moved our location to behind a building. And you know our satellite truck is literally behind an l- shaped building so that we are somewhat protected from the winds. Otherwise, the dish would be moving around and we physically wouldn't be able to get a signal out. We'd be going in and out of the signal. So here you can see this building that we are behind, a condominium here in West Palm Beach. And it's all -- well, not all boarded up. A lot of it is boarded up.
So -- and we had 54 mile an hour wind gusts on the wind meter when we were out over by the bay in our last live shot that we did about 15, 20 minutes ago. So being protected here, Miles, as we are, you can see it's a lot less. But if you look up at the trees blowing here, you can see that when you get up a little bit, it's really kicking up. And you can see those clouds just rolling around over the tops of the -- through the trees and through that big condominium back there.
So here we're getting tropical storm force winds. Of course, up a little higher at 33 feet, which is where you measure wind speeds, it's going to be considerably higher than the 54 mile an hour gusts that we had. But you know again, it's important to note to viewers that for us to be able to stand out in it, we're not talking about 100 mile an hour winds because a human being, as you know, physically can't stand up in that kind of environment. It's just too strong. So fortunately, we've seen some damage here. Certainly a lot of palm trees with the palm fronds down. Some of the bigger trees thick with branches that have broken loose. Some signs down. Power lines down. The kinds of things that you would expect to see in the tropical storm force winds that we're getting here in Palm Beach.
But it has picked up significantly over the last couple of hours. The wind gusts have been a lot greater during the last hour than they were when I first came on at about 4:00 this afternoon. So clearly, that core of the storm is getting much closer to us. That's pretty evident here in West Palm Beach and I suspect as the -- with the size of the storm that we'll be seeing some higher intense winds as we get later into the evening -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: John Zarrella, probably -- you probably have more notches in your microphone for hurricanes than anybody I know in the business. I want to ask you, do you recall historically what the highest winds you've been able to get a signal out with one of those big trucks that's right beside you there? In other words, at what point are you going to have to shut down for business tonight?
ZARRELLA: Well, I don't know that we're going to have to here because of the protection that we have got. I can tell you during Hurricane Andrew, we were in North Miami at our offices in North Miami. We were literally about 40 miles to the north of ground zero. And about 3:00 in the morning, 3:30 in the morning now, Andrew came inland and made landfall at about 5:00 a.m. on the 24th of August. The back end of the satellite truck, and you see the back end here of the truck -- during Andrew, it was being lifted off the ground. And literally, it was coming up off the ground so we could not broadcast. Now, that was a storm with 175 mile an hour gusts with, you know, a category five, significantly different from this. I'm fairly confident that tonight, although you never can be sure with these things that we should be able to broadcast pretty much throughout all of our coverage this evening and bring the viewers, you know, the best possible pictures of what we've got here -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you got the best crew in the business. I would ask how much that truck weighs but I'm not going to put you on the spot. We'll check in with you in a little bit.
ZARRELLA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: All right.
LIN: Well, we do have some other meaningful numbers. Nearly three million people have been forced to evacuate, more than 50,000 in shelters, a serious situation. You are going to be with us throughout the night as we cover the landfall of Hurricane Frances. I'll talk with Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center shortly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right, a live picture of our affiliate coverage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We are depending heavily on the affiliates to expand our coverage so that we can bring you the most information we can on Hurricane Frances as Hurricane Frances gets ready to make landfall tonight or very early in the morning, shortly after midnight.
You know the big situation that a lot of rescue workers are going to have to face during and especially after this hurricane is the massive flooding that is going to go on in several cities. Twenty-one counties so far have been affected by this hurricane. Jeanne Meserve is standing by in Saint Augustine where she has been watching for herself how urban rescue operations may actually play out across the state of Florida.
Jeanne, what did you see today?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we've been embedded with Virginia Task Force 2, that's one of two urban search and rescue teams that FEMA has prepositioned in the state of Florida in case state and local first responders are overwhelmed. They came down in the wee hours of the morning Friday and are right now set up at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. They came with a caravan of trucks. These contained their specialized equipment and also provisions. They have enough food and water, fuel and other supplies to be self-sufficient for 72 hours at a stretch, if that becomes necessary. Now, a lot of the people on these teams are firefighters. They're used to responding to things on a moment's notice. They acknowledge they're having a little bit of trouble with all the waiting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as we can keep folks moving and keep them working, they're OK. The worst thing we can ever do is sit them down and not have anything for them to do, which doesn't happen. But we have to keep them working.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Now, the team spent part of their time today reorganizing some of that stuff they brought down in their trucks, repacking, but also sort of reviewing procedures and protocols. They're paying special attention to water rescues because so much rain is expected to fall here in the state of Florida. On these teams, which are about 70 men strong, there are dog teams who can find victims in the wreckage. There are structural engineers who can go in and determine whether or not buildings are safe to enter. There are Haz-Mat personnel who can deal with chemical releases, even gas releases if those should occur. And of course, there are the search and rescue personnel who can go in and extricate actual victims of this hurricane.
Now, they don't know how or when they'll be deployed. That will all be settled after the hurricane moves through and authorities have a sense of where the worst damage is. Then if they're needed, they'll be sent to that spot.
Carol, back to you.
LIN: Thanks Jeanne. We'll know certainly in the next 24 to 48 hours what those guys are going to be up to.
O'BRIEN: Well, Frances is not in a hurry. And thus, all of us have to be patient as we watch this unfold. And it should wreak a lot of havoc. Let's take a look at the radar imagery as we see it right now.
(AUDIO GAP)
O'BRIEN: ... size -- it's about the size of the state of Texas. And there is a 300-mile swath of Florida now under a hurricane warning. The current projected path is Fort Pierce. Hurricanes have a way of surprising us, however. Stay with us and we'll keep you posted all along the way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back to our special coverage of Hurricane Frances. Let's bring you up to speed just in case you're tuning in right now. Frances is a disaster in slow motion. The hurricane is lumbering at a few miles per hour which means the damaging rains and winds keep pounding Florida's east coast over and over. The eye of the hurricane is expected to pass directly over Fort Pierce.
Now already we're seeing fireworks of sorts. Take a look at the scene in Fort Lauderdale. That is a power line catching fire on a tree. Almost 1.5 million people don't have electricity in the state of Florida.
Now power lines are also down in the Bahamas. Hurricane Frances tore through there, ripping up trees and shattering windows and flooding homes as it passed over the chain of 700 islands. At least two people died and someone is missing. Now parts of Grand Bahama Island are under at least six feet of water.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you could be in harm's way and within a matter of seconds be the victim of, you know, a storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very courageous Judy Chavez describing what happened to her while they were covering this story on Marsh Harbor in Abaca Island (ph). She was hit in the hip by a piece of construction debris and it knocked the breath out of her. She said that, you know, even there, you could tell she was having problems...
(END VIDEO CLIP) O'BRIEN: We -- by the way, we're going to be doing this all throughout the night, so unfortunately it's going to be a bit jarring. We're just dipping into some of our affiliate coverage. They do, after all, offer quite a force multiplier for us, having that standing army of multiple affiliates from all the TV stations up and down the east coast and that one happens to be WPLG. Every now and then when we do this, it's going to be a little bit awkward because obviously we don't control their newscasts in any way, shape or form. We're just kind of listening in, so bear with us. We think it does add to our coverage quite a bit.
Now let's talk about the theme parks. If you were headed to Disney World, or Universal Studios, or Seaworld this weekend, we're very sorry. Hurricane Frances has really taken the fun out of the whole thing. It's a wet world after all. CNN's Jason Carroll has an update for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Wadel family hoped their Saturday would be spent at an amusement park. Instead, these tourists from England are picking up emergency supplies.
(on camera): What did you pick up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got some Kellogg's cereal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cereal. We've got plenty of water...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...and snacks. We'll just take it as it goes, you know, just weather the storm, as they say.
CARROLL: The Wadels, like tens of thousands of other stranded tourists in Orlando, are waiting out Hurricane Frances in their hotel room. The Samowitzs arrived from New Jersey on Thursday to an unwelcoming hotel clerk.
MARIE SAMOWITZ, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: They asked for us to either go back to the airport and get on a plane and go back to wherever we came from.
CARROLL: The family made their vacation plans shortly after Hurricane Charley.
MARK SAMOWITZ, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: On August 13, we had booked this, thinking there was no way or possibility that it's going to be back-to-back hurricanes. We figured we were home free. We're in good shape and we booked it. And we came down and we found out it's coming in.
CARROLL: Most airlines began canceling flights Thursday night. Orlando's airport closed Friday. On Saturday, it made for an indoor playing field for kids with nothing to do but wait. The Stambergers are waiting too. Their Sunday flight to New Jersey canceled. Now, they're spending money they hadn't counted on for food and hotel rooms.
THERESA STAMBERGER, NEW JERSEY TOURIST: We have two rooms. So we're staying -- you know the price is double the price of each room.
CARROLL: But they say it could be worse. They're booked at the Walt Disney World resort. The park is closed but there's still entertainment inside hotel lobbies.
JAQUEE PAULETTE, DISNEY SPOKESWOMAN: It's going to be a rough couple of days, but hopefully we'll get through it together and have a good time while we're here.
CARROLL (on camera): Many staying in hotels are getting hurricane updates like this one with instructions to stay away from windows, keep curtains drawn. The hurricane's projected path constantly updated as well.
(voice-over): It's not the thrill they came here for. No choice now but to stick it out and see what Frances delivers.
Jason Carroll, CNN, Orlando.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Joining us on the line right now from Orlando, a spokesperson for Walt Disney World, Veronica Clemons.
Miss Clemons, can you hear me OK?
VERONICA CLEMONS, DISNEY WORLD SPOKESPERSON: Yes, I can, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Obviously, you've been shut down today. When do you expect you might be able to reopen or are you even thinking about that at this point?
Well, we're monitoring the storm right now. We haven't made announcements about what's going to happen here tomorrow, or you know after that. We probably will do that shortly. We're just monitoring the storm, keeping up with the weather right now.
O'BRIEN: All right. Labor Day, obviously a busy weekend. It's always a busy weekend at Disney World. Give us a sense of how many people might have been there today were it not for this storm.
CLEMONS: Well, you know I can't even speculate on who would or wouldn't be here Labor Day. Right now, our real focus is on, we have more than 75,000 bests in our resort hotels so we're really focused on them right now, trying to provide them, you know, with entertainment and feed them and make sure they are as comfortable as they can be until the storm gets past us.
O'BRIEN: Now, I note on your Web site, it says here if you're in the hotel, don't expect to see any of the characters. The characters are given the day off.
CLEMONS: Well, no, actually that's -- characters have been in the resorts today. There's some form of entertainment actually in all of our resorts whether it be a band.
O'BRIEN: OK.
CLEMONS: There were some kids that do some character meet and greets as well.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, you might want to update your Web site.
CLEMONS: OK.
O'BRIEN: You know put that on there. But the fact is you have a lot of people in a situation like this who may have no experience whatsoever with these kinds of storms.
CLEMONS: Right.
O'BRIEN: How do you handle 75,000 people, make sure everybody's safe and still has as good a time as possible?
CLEMONS: Right. We have an extensive hurricane preparedness plan, Miles, and that includes keeping in close contact with our guests in our resorts. We keep communicating with them to tell them what's happening here, what's available to them, and things that they need to do in the resort while they're there, so that they're safe and as comfortable as possible.
O'BRIEN: Now, of course, Friday the 13th, Charley paid an unwelcome visit to Orlando as well.
CLEMONS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: How did that particular event go? Did you learn some things? Did you -- were you -- are you doing things differently based on what happened three weeks ago?
CLEMONS: Actually, three weeks ago after Charley came through, we still, you know, stuck to our plan and we still communicated with our guests. And as a matter of fact, we were able to open the next day to give our resort guests and some other folks that were coming down, they would have something to do. So you know we haven't really changed our plan at all.
O'BRIEN: And a final thought here, are folks told to just stay in their rooms? Are they put in parts of hotels that are considered safer? How -- or do you just make a real time call as the night goes on?
CLEMONS: Well, we'll make a real time call. What folks are allowed to do now, you're allowed to be in the lobby. And like I said, we did have and we do have some entertainment that's in the hotels and people are able to mill about until we tell them it's not safe to do so, and then we ask our guests to please stay in their rooms.
O'BRIEN: OK, and it's free drinks at the bar, right? OK, all right. Veronica Clemons, I don't want to start any rumors. That's not true. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it.
CLEMONS: Thank you, Miles.
LIN: Notice how she didn't answer you.
O'BRIEN: She didn't go for that one, did she?
LIN: Yes, well, it's...
O'BRIEN: I tried, folks. If you're at Disney, I tried for you, all right?
LIN: The night is still young.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
LIN: All right, let's take a look at this radar picture to give you an idea where Frances is now. What we're hearing so far is that Frances is expected to make landfall officially as soon as three and a half hours from now. We've keeping an eye on this situation and I'm going to be talking with Max Mayfield over at the National Hurricane Center so stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Keeping an eye on Hurricane Frances right now, we want to get some of the best information available in the world. Max Mayfield, no one has more experience than he does. He's with the National Hurricane Center.
Max, good to have you on.
MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Carol, how are you?
LIN: I'm doing just fine. Now give me an idea of how accurate what we've been hearing in terms of landfall, the timing of landfall, really is. We're hearing anytime between 10:00 tonight and 2:00 in the morning.
MAYFIELD: Carol, I appreciate the question. You know let me help educate some of the people. We really don't want to focus on that landfall. You know people -- it's so easy to, you know, plot that little dot on the map. But a hurricane is not a point, it's a large circulation. And the truth is the hurricane has already been hitting Florida all day here.
LIN: You're right.
MAYFIELD: These outer rain bands are over here and you can see the center of the hurricane is right here, about 50 miles east of Jupiter inlet. The center of that big hole there will move onto the coast, you know, after midnight or very, very early tomorrow morning. But those rain bands are already lashing the Florida peninsula.
LIN: No, you're right, and we're seeing much of the damage, power outages, people evacuated and in shelters. Max, if this thing parks itself over the state of Florida for two full high tides, the prediction is that there could be two major storm surges of anywhere between five and 10 feet. What is the likelihood of that?
MAYFIELD: Not very likely at all. The National Hurricane Center forecast in Florida is six feet of storm surge near and to the north of the center part of the coast with these very dangerous battering waves on top of that. The good news where it's coming inland, the water is pretty deep there, so we're not going to have a real big problem with current and storm surge except on the immediate coastline. We really need to focus on the wind and the rainfall inland. We're going to have a large swath of strong winds, a lot of trees down, massive power outages, and then we have to worry about the rainfall.
LIN: Just curious, Max, is there -- are there any natural forces out there that could actually stop this hurricane in its tracks at this point?
MAYFIELD: Well, it just about stopped, you know, this afternoon for a few hours there. It just about became stationary. But overall, there's a ridge of high pressure to the north. That ridge will likely build and eventually push this hurricane over the Florida Peninsula, into the gulf, and then towards the Florida panhandle in all likelihood.
LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center. Max is going to be with us throughout the night.
O'BRIEN: The city of Saint Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565. As a matter of fact, this weekend, the oldest city in America planned to celebrate its 439th birthday, a lot of candles on that cake. Frances, however, had other plans of course. CNN's David Mattingly joining us from Saint Augustine with more on what is going on in that very historic place -- David.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, the wind is picking up right now, a sure sign that Hurricane Frances, at least the outer edges of it, are on the way here. But before it gets here, there are some who are saying that the damage is already done. And I want to show you what it looks like. Take a look down this sidewalk. The sidewalk is empty. There should be thousands of tourists here spending money, shopping, going out to eat, having a good time this weekend for the Labor Day weekend, but instead, there is nobody here hardly. And if they had come, this is what they would have found. They would have seen store fronts boarded up like this and this has been going on for days now. People showing this storm a lot of respect, getting prepared in advance. In fact, the sign across the streets says it all right now, "Fickle Frances, please make up your mind." It shows what sort of mood people have right now. They just want this to be over with.
We did run into one couple here earlier today, however, who were determined to make sure their plans were not going to be run over by a hurricane. Brian and Kristin Cooper actually eloped a year ago when Sergeant Cooper came home from Iraq. And when he did, they made plans to have a commitment ceremony for their families, which is what they decided to do today. But their guest list was supposed to have about 60 people. Instead, only about 20 showed up, 40 no-shows because of the ceremony. But still, they said their I do's and they were happy to do that. That ceremony took place right here in this gazebo. You can see the gazebo is empty right now.
This park is virtually empty right now. There should be a lot of people right now celebrating this city's 439th anniversary. Instead, they're waiting on wind gusts to arrive of 60 to 70 miles per hour and forecasts of rain of eight to 10 inches. And that's what everybody's paying most attention to right now, is the rain, because flooding has been a very rich part of this city's history. Parts of Saint Augustine are below sea level. So when you get that much rain, the long-time residents here say don't be surprised to wake up in the morning and see quite a few city streets underwater -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: David, and that's an important point to make because even though Saint Augustine is, I guess, about a 100 miles north of Fort Pierce, which is the projected site where that eye will go across, this is such a large storm and that city is so vulnerable, isn't it?
MATTINGLY: That's right. Again, parts of it are below sea level. They have a sea wall just a couple of blocks from here. People say they all have memories of waves crashing over that sea wall. In fact, a couple of years ago during a tropical storm, part of that sea wall actually crumbled into the sea because it was undermined. They actually have a project planned for the future to rebuild this sea wall bigger and better, but that project hasn't gotten started yet. It's not going to help them this time, Miles, so everyone just waiting see how bad it's going to be when they wake up in the morning.
O'BRIEN: And David, I'm sure you've talked to some of the long- time residents there. Have they ever really had a direct hit there in recent memory?
MATTINGLY: The last direct hit was back in 1964. Since then, this city has gotten off pretty easy. And they believe they're going to get off relatively easy this time when you look at what's happening in central and south Florida. Again, they believe that it's because of the positioning on the coastline, the fact that the -- well, the ocean currents, the warm ocean currents are way offshore here. That's probably helping them in terms of direct hits with hurricane. But this will not be a direct hit. They're going to get the edges of it, a lot of rainfall.
O'BRIEN: David Mattingly, who is in the -- North America's oldest city. And we hope it weathers Frances well.
Let's dip into WKMG, that's one of our Orlando affiliates. I believe this particular shot we're going to see is coming out of Palm Bay, which is along the coast in that Melbourne neck of the woods, Melbourne, Vero Beach neck of the woods. Let's just listen for just a moment to the reporter there.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... has pulled all of its troopers off the barrier islands because it's too unsafe at the present time for them to be over there. So it's not a good idea right now to be most anywhere although we are finding quite a bit of traffic coming up -- down U.S. 1. We're going to take you to another shot, our bird's-eye shot, of a place right across -- just south of us here on U.S. 1. And you can see that the Indian River is really being kicked up there as well. That's an entrance to a little marina and the water's rising over there as well. Luckily, all the boats over there have been tied up and they are out of the water. And again, the winds are continuing to be pretty ferocious at this point as we just stand here and watch these feeder bands after feeder bands come in and continue to ravage everything in its way.
For now, we're live in Palm Bay, Donald Forbes, Local 6.
O'BRIEN: All right. And once again, as I said, folks, we're going to dip in all throughout the night with some of our affiliates. That one happened to be WKMG. And we do appreciate them helping us tell that story for you all. That was in Palm Bay, which is along that stretch between Melbourne and the Sebastian part of Florida, a little bit north of where the eye is to come. But this eye is so large and the storm is so large, we're talking about a very big swath of Florida affected.
LIN: Right, and much of Florida, that coastline already looks like it's already -- you know it looks like it's already made landfall. And Max Mayfield was just saying already the damage is occurring.
O'BRIEN: The battering waves are something not to be trifled with/
LIN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Just that in and of itself can do a number.
LIN: You bet. And we've seen some really compelling pictures today of, you know, not only people just evacuating, but people trying to save the things that mean the most to them at any cost and any risk. Take this man who was determined to get his yacht, you know, which can cost anywhere from around $1 million, get it out of the waters of south Florida. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is nuts. I have no idea. This guy's got to have engine trouble or just lost control of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably or perhaps having engine trouble or simply not enough power to cope with the wind from Frances coming down this way. But this person, doing a remarkable job of getting the craft into the position that it is. You can see on the front, a couple of anchor lines have been dangling down that allowed this boat to slowly make it up. And look on the front; you can see a couple of gashes. Well, even with the best of efforts -- exactly, best of efforts tying this thing off, simply the storm, too powerful, now apparently trying to make another run back up the way, carrying not only its anchors but now also a pole from the yacht club. So this is quite a drama out here on the intracoastal waterway.
We haven't seen anybody out here trying to help. There are -- apparently, there's some people who are out in the hurricane who probably shouldn't be who have stopped to look at what's going on. You see on the bow with the flight now reaching down in to try and get another rope to try and tie up. So they're doing everything they can. Clearly, these are very experienced people, just to get this yacht in position to even tie up.
The weather out here, the winds have really picked up. It just drifts so quickly. But apparently, they got tied off. An anchor is caught on the front so maybe they'll maneuver in somewhat. And there's a walkway if you look on the stern. So if they can get this tied off maybe they'll be able to moor it as safely as possible. And it's really pretty amazing that this situation didn't work out any worse than it did because this guy wasn't able to get control of this ship right through here. It had nowhere to go except for the bridge.
That was an amazing job. How did you do that?
HENNING HENNEMANN, YACHT'S SKIPPER: Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here with Henning Hennemann and you say that you were contracted to babysit this yacht through the storm?
HENNEMANN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got more than you bargained for, didn't you?
HENNEMANN: Well, I lost a lot of systems, ended up with just one engine, and no steering, and no bow thruster. So I did what I could to anchor the thrust, did what I could to stick it in the hole here and try and save it as much as I could, keep it off the bridge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, did you say it was coming in?
HENNEMANN: Yes, we saw the whole thing played out on CNN.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: He thought it was funny.
O'BRIEN: He had his moment there, yes. And some fine work. I mean to lose the bow thruster, one of the engines, a generator, and he still -- I don't know how he did it quite frankly.
LIN: Yes, yes, but his yacht club membership dues are going up for that pylon he's got to replaced.
O'BRIEN: If it wasn't for a pylon...
LIN: Yes, well, you never know who's going to come out in a storm. Earlier, there was a surfer in the water in Pompano Beach.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I mean I think you could give the skipper of that yacht the smart guy of the day award for pulling that off. This guy, I think gets the dumb guy award at least as far as I've seen. And you know what I know there are a lot of surfers out there who are getting mad at me right now for saying that, but you know -- well, is it worth it for that? I don't know. Is it? I guess I don't get it.
LIN: The answer's no.
O'BRIEN: The answer is no. Practice more later.
LIN: Get out of the water.
O'BRIEN: Quick break.
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LIN: Welcome back to our special coverage of hurricane Frances. Let's bring you up to speed on the latest developments. Frances is a disaster in slow motion. The hurricane is crawling at a few miles per hour which means the damaging rains and winds keep pounding Florida's east coast over and again. Now the eye of the hurricane is expected to pass directly over Fort Pierce where our Gary Tuchman has been reporting.
Already, we're beginning to see fireworks. Take a look at, this was a scene in Fort Lauderdale when a power line caught fire on a tree. Almost 1.5 million people do not have electricity in Florida. Power lines are also down in the Bahamas. And Hurricane Frances tore through there, ripping up trees, shattering windows, and flooding homes as it passed over the chain of 700 islands in the last 24 hours. At least two died, one person is still missing. Parts of Grand Bahama Island are under at least six feet of water.
O'BRIEN: And that does it for this hour but it certainly doesn't do it for our coverage. We're going to be here all night into the morning and probably through the remainder of the holiday weekend as we cover this storm that is really moving about the pace of a brisk walk. On its way, we think, toward Fort Pierce at the moment. Nevertheless, much of the east coast of Florida bracing. We're with it all the way. Stay with us.
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