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CNN Live Saturday

Hurricane Frances Batters Florida

Aired September 04, 2004 - 19:00   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: "CAPITAL GANG" is delayed until Sunday at 11:00 PM Eastern so we can bring you continuing coverage of the hurricane. But we may very well be live, as well. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all of it just depends on what happens with Hurricane Frances.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It just depends. If there's something to report, we'll be on.

LIN: You bet.

O'BRIEN: That's for sure.

LIN: Yes. Well, Florida is preparing for the worst. I'm Carol Lin at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, where we're tracking the fury of Frances.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour, we'll continue our special coverage as slow-moving Frances begins to pound Florida. But we're about an hour away from an update forecast from the Hurricane Center. We'll get you that in a little while, as well.

Hurricane Frances spent hour after hour today spinning off of Florida's coast, virtually stationary, pumping in a never-ending blast of wind and rain. The longer the winds blow, the more the damage piles up -- trees down on power lines or houses or just streets, causing fireworks displays like you see there. There's a lot of other debris in the streets, as well, not to mention water. It just won't stop. We have water-logged reporters up and down the Florida coast for you, of course. Many of them have been out all day because the storm just won't seem to blow over.

LIN: That's right. And lucky for us, we have them there in position, ready to go as the worst begins to happen. But let's check and see exactly where Frances is right now. CNN's meteorologist is in the weather center, Jacqui Jeras.

Jacqui, right now, how big is Frances? And where is it? When is it likely to make landfall?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Frances is huge overall, about the size of the state of Texas, Carol. And the effect of it is being felt all across the Florida peninsula at this time. You can see the rain bands even extending up into parts of Georgia. We've even seen some showers and thunderstorms into parts of South Carolina. It's still a very strong category 2 hurricane, packing winds around 105 miles per hour. This is our latest radar picture. This is a Viper doppler radar. You can see it looks rather three-dimensional. And this is the area, the big area of concern. This is the eyewall of the hurricane. And you can see it's not quite on shore just yet. But we are getting these outer feeder bands moving in, and they have been giving some wind gusts between 60 and 70 miles per hour. So that is hurricane force.

I want to zoom in a little bit closer and show you this eyewall a little bit better because we think it should be probably moving on shore before midnight for tonight. We still have a little bit of a window of opportunity because it's really been kind of stalled over the last three to six hours. It's been nudging maybe 3, 4, 5 miles per hour, and that's about it. It took about three hours to move just 20 miles from our last advisory, so we'll have to wait and see what happens here as the 8:00 o'clock advisory becomes available.

I want to show you the forecast now for this, in terms of future radar, and this is our true-view (ph) forecast from WSI. And this is about 2:00 o'clock in the morning on Sunday. It looks like it actually might have already spun through the cycle, unfortunately, but I do want to point out one main thing is that these showers and thunderstorms are kind of -- there it goes into motion, kind of pushing over towards the Tampa Bay area. We've been focusing a lot of what's been going on right here along the east coast, but keep in mind we're going to be seeing these flooding rains all the way across the peninsula, sitting (ph) on up into northern parts of Florida, as well.

We have been talking about when this thing is going to be making landfall, but the thing to keep in mind is that those bad winds are already there, and they're going to be unrelenting. Those rain showers are going to be moving across, and it could take as long as 24 hours for that to move over land. So the bottom line right here, Carol, current winds 105, category 2. Landfall is expected tonight probably between 10:00 and 2:00 AM, and massive flooding can e expected, 8 to 12 inches, widespread, with locally heavy rain up to 24 inches. This is going to be affecting Florida all weekend, moving into parts of Alabama and Georgia by early next week.

LIN: ... Jacqui, and also many of the places that were hard hit by Hurricane Charley.

JERAS: That's right. And they're going to be getting it from the other side. All those timbers fell down this way, and now they're going to be coming down this way, as Frances moves on through.

LIN: Crazy. Thanks, Jacqui. Miles?

O'BRIEN: All right, as we said, we got reporters up and down the east coast, all the way from St. Augustine down to Palm Beach. We're going to check in with all of them, of course, all throughout the course of this hour. Let's begin, though, where the imaginary bullseye is painted right now, Ft. Pierce, Florida. All the latest prognostications from the Hurricane Center indicate Gary Tuchman is standing right where the eye is headed right now. And Gary, it's already whipping up a little bit of -- well, not a little bit, quite a bit of wind so far.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, it's just a pounding. For the last eight hours, we've had the heavy winds and rain. The rain stopped for about 20 minutes an hour-and-a-half ago, and now i's coming down hard again. We're at a waterfront park in the city of Ft. Pierce here in St. Lucie County, and the people of this county and now well know, because they're inundated with their radio reports and their TV reports, if they still have power, that the eye is coming in this direction.

We can tell you, even though we're in the early stages right now of this hurricane, still -- and we've been here eight hours -- there's been a lot of damage in St. Lucie County. Police here are telling us that several businesses and some homes have either partially collapsed or collapsed. About 10 minutes away from us to the north, at a K- Mart, part of the roof has collapsed, and they say the store is now flooding because the drenching rains are coming through the opening on top of the store.

Also, behind me is the intercoastal waterway. On the other side of the intercoastal is Hutchinson Island. It's a barrier island just about a half a mile away from Ft. Pierce, where the Atlantic Ocean is. We are told by the police that there's a seafood restaurant that has been washed into the ocean over on Hutchinson Island. There are no residents left on Hutchinson Island. They have all been told to evacuate. We did take a ride there. Police were behind us. We did not see anybody at all. In this area -- this is an evacuation area, too -- we've seen almost no curiosity seekers all day.

This is very interesting. We have been told by police that they are now getting scores of calls over the last couple of hours from people who are still in their homes who are now scared and want to be escorted to shelters or want to be given information where they can go to. And police are saying, We can give you information, but we cannot risk our lives and we cannot risk the welfare of our families by going out and bringing you to a shelter. You've had plenty of warning. Now go into a room inside your house, surround yourself by as many walls as you can, stay away from the windows, but that's all you can do right now.

We've seen many trees down throughout the city of Ft. Pierce, this city of 39,000 people. We've seen lots of power out. According to authorities, most of the citizens of St. Lucie County, right now, 75,000 total customers, are without power. And pretty soon, within a couple of hours, it'll be very dark out, and for a lot of people -- I'll be frank with you -- it's going to be very scary because the worst is still to come. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Well, Gary, I sure hope those folks who made that decision to stay have all the supplies they need to weather this out because it's going to be a rather long passing of this storm. Behind you, I noticed that the palm trees are braced with some two-by-fours. Is that because they're new, or is that for the storm specifically?

TUCHMAN: Both. They're new, and then for the storm specifically. They had some supports on them, according to authorities here in the city, before this hurricane because this is a new park. This is revitalized downtown area in Ft. Pierce, Miles. They've done a beautiful job with it. One of the things that makes it so charming is that it's right next to the water, and that makes it very vulnerable. They're very concerned about the flooding, but when they knew this hurricane was coming, they put extra supports on the palm trees. The fronds have come off. We can tell you -- I'll show you one more thing, if I can, that's also come off. And I showed this earlier. But you see these light poles? I'm just going to stand here for a second. This right here came off one of these lightpoles, probably weighs 45 or 50 pounds. That's why we're trying to stay as far away from these lightpoles...

O'BRIEN: Gary? Gary? I would give those lightpoles a nice, wide berth for the remainder of the night, for sure. That obviously is a fair amount of weight. And it makes me wonder. Those palm trees, if, in fact, the eye does come across right there, I don't think that those two-by-fours will be much more than matchsticks for the force of this storm.

TUCHMAN: I don't know. I will tell you, in other parts of the city, we've seen lots of trees down. In this part of the city, where you have the new palm trees and the new construction, none of the trees have come down yet. I don't know how much more wind they can take.

O'BRIEN: Of course, palm trees are made for hurricanes. That is part of why they exist, where they exist. Gary, you said you hadn't seen a lot of people out there. Is there an official curfew, evacuation? What is the official ruling, mandatory curfews? In other words, if there are -- if you see a civilian, are they breaking the law?

TUCHMAN: Here is what's going on in St. Lucie County, Miles. From 8:00 PM to 7:00 AM -- and right now, it is 7:10 PM -- there's a curfew. So in 50 minutes, any resident who is out on the streets is liable to be arrested. What police are telling us is that they will warn people if they see them wandering around. If they continue to wander around, they take them in. That's what they're going to do. But the fact is, police -- we haven't seen a lot of them out in the street the last couple of hours. So I think people are taking a silly risk if they do walk around, but at this point, they may not be arrested. But the fact is, technically, it's illegal.

We can also tell you, in this area, there's a mandatory evacuation order all day long, 24 hours. That is not as enforced as much. But police are telling people -- and they're telling them that here on the barrier island of Hutchinson Island and other barrier islands, like Palm Beach -- You can stay. We're not going to grab you and force you to go. But they are having people sign next-of-kin forms so they can notify their next of kin if something happens.

Obviously, there's a practical reason for that. It's mostly, though, for the scare effect. Sometimes when people are told they have to sign a form, then they leave.

O'BRIEN: And you know, Gary, I got to say, I can almost hear our viewers saying, Well, what are you doing there? We get a special dispensation for this? Did you sign the little next-of-kin form and off they went?

TUCHMAN: I'd love to explain that to people. What we do, we've covered a lot of these, my crew and I, and there's four of us standing here. And I should say their names because (UNINTELLIGIBLE) What we try to do is get near the sturdiest buildings near the coast. We know which buildings are the newest. We know which buildings have the best construction. And we do our best to stay out of the way of things like those lightpoles. That's why I ran over there very quickly. But I'm with Dominic (ph), Neil (ph) and Carlos (ph), who are intrepid, brave guys. We are here to show everyone the story. This is what you should stay away from. Let me -- trust us. And when we're done with talking to you on the air, we go into an even safer place. We're just out here minutes at a time. We just don't stand out here having a party.

O'BRIEN: All right. And a final thought. I've been watching you all day, and you've been on, using that very small equipment we have, the videophone equipment. Now it appears you've got a little more bandwidth, as it were. Do you have a full-fledged truck with you? And will you be able to ride out the storm with it?

TUCHMAN: It was hard for me to hear you, Miles, but I think we're talking about the videophone equipment. We were in a little different area before, a little more vulnerable, and we're using the videophone equipment because we can literally pack that up in five minutes if it gets very dangerous. Where we are right now, we consider a little safer area. That's why we're using the different technology, the satellite truck, which is more stationary, can't move as quickly. But when we go back to the old area, which is a little more vulnerable, we'll go back to the videophone equipment.

O'BRIEN: Gary Tuchman, who is in Ft. Pierce -- and by all accounts now, from the Hurricane Center, that remains precisely where this large eye of this slow, lumbering hurricane is headed right now. Gary, you and the crew, please, by all means, safety is our No. 1 priority all throughout this night. And we will check in with you later -- Carol.

LIN: All right. Amazing scene behind Gary, as Hurricane Frances makes its way to the east coast of Florida.

We're going to travel about 50 miles up the coast from where Gary is. That's where we're going to find Anderson Cooper in Melbourne. Anderson, obviously, you're getting the strong winds, as well. We've heard gusts up to 90 miles an hour. How're you doing out there?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We're doing all right. It's about 60 right now, the last reading that we did just about two minutes ago. What we've been seeing, though, are these bands of this storm coming. There'll be high winds, big gusts of winds, a lot of rain for a short period of time. Then there'll be something of a lull. And then all of a sudden, the wind will pick up, just like it did just now.

About 20 minutes ago, though, it was almost -- I wouldn't say balmy, but it -- the winds had died down probably at least 10 miles an hour. There was very little rain. At this point, the rain isn't so much an issue. For a while, the rain has really been sharp, really pelting rain. Right now, it is just this wind.

But what's fascinating as you look out over the marina, as you look out on the water, you can see the squall of the storm coming. You can see these bands. You can see a wall of white out there about a mile or so out. You can just watch the squall as it approaches. You can almost time it. You'll know that in, you know, a few minutes, you're going to have huge gusts of winds, sustained winds for a long period of time. We are anticipating winds probably 20, 30 miles an hour more than this.

That's going to be the real danger, though. As it gets dark, you are not going to be able to see what is around you. We know this location we're in, but we're not going to go into some other location because in the darkness, there's going to be things flying through the air with these high winds, and that presents a real danger for anyone who is outside. That's, of course, why they're cautioning people, Do not go out.

Remarkably, we've seen a couple of people out here just kind of going for a joy -- a joy-walk or a joyride in their car, stopping, taking pictures. Just saw a vehicle filled with a woman with her dogs, just driving around, looking around. Those are the people you do not want to be out here at this point. We're out here for only very short periods of time. We're staying behind a building for most of our time here.

The winds are really picking up now, Carol, and it is really only going to get worse, from what we hear.

LIN: Anderson, just looking behind you, I can see the wind, obviously, blowing against you, blowing through the palm trees. The boats, though, seem to be pretty securely moored.

COOPER: They are. I think, you know, there was so much warning about this, the people who owned these boats really had a lot of time to prepare for it. We have not -- we've seen a lot of the boats tossing around, and the water is definitely higher than it was before. But we have not seen any boats flipping over, thankfully. We have not seen any boats ending up on land.

If you pan over to your left, you can see it's pretty tough over there. That's where the direction of the wind is coming from. There's a line of breakwater there, of wood. The water is just pouring right over there, the boats moving around an awful lot there. But they have been moored very securely. And thankfully, there have been no incidences here so far.

LIN: Anderson, just talking with our meteorologist here. Chad Myers has been reporting next to your side. It's amazing that you're really experiencing near-hurricane-force winds out there throughout the day. When we talk about gusts of 100 miles an hour, what -- what has your experience been throughout the day, in terms of dealing with the wind and -- and how much damage it can -- and actually -- it can actually wreak havoc?

COOPER: Yes. You know, it's interesting. It's these sustained winds which really are a problem. You know, I think when people had anticipated 120-mile-an-hour winds or 140-mile-an-hour winds, as we saw several days ago, you know, when they heard that suddenly, the winds were going to be 60 miles an hour, people said, Oh, you know, that's half as bad. It's not going to be too bad. But the sustained nature of the winds really just causes a problem. It does not give up at all. You know, you see these trees, they're just constantly bent over. Finally, they'll just snap. There's a lightpost over there which has snapped. So you know, it's not as if there's a lot of let- up. You basically have very high sustained winds, and then every now and then, as these bands of the storm hit, it'll be these even higher winds, these gust winds, which can really knock you over.

It's interesting. I can stand perpendicular to the -- to the wind, but if turn full on into it, it can blow me back several paces. So it's kind of tricky just being out here, but it is these sustained winds which -- just hour after hour, and we are anticipating this all night long, Carol.

LIN: You bet. Thanks very much, Anderson. Stay out there. Stay safe. We'll be coming back to you as soon as the -- as Frances hits the shore and moves in. Thank you very much, Anderson Cooper.

Death and damage and dismay -- that is what we are hearing out of the Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Frances. CNN's Karl Penhaul is on the phone from Freeport, which took the brunt of the storm. Karl, you had a bit of a break as the eye of the storm passed over. The rain probably let up. The wind probably let up. And once again, just in the past hour, you have now experienced the second part of the storm, the last -- the second half of the eyewall. What's happening there right now?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's correct, Carol. Grand Bahama is really continuing to take a beating right now. The eye of the storm passed over Grand Bahama in the course of the morning, and things did seem to calm down considerably. There were still high winds, but not the real powerful winds.

And then into the afternoon, things really picked up. And driving rain, the winds are much, much stronger, much more powerful now than they were at the leading edge of the hurricane, and that has taken some of the emergency services by surprise. In fact, the winds are so powerful that right now, it's very difficult for the police and other emergency services to leave the building to go and tend to emergencies that are developing by the second, virtually. They are doing their best, though.

Earlier this afternoon, we joined police on a rescue attempt down onto the north shore of Grand Bahama to try and rescue and elderly couple that had simply refused to abandon their home. That was not possible, though. The power of the wind forced us to turn back. We were traveling in the bucket of a bulldozer, Carol, but even then, the police feared that the high winds would tip that bulldozer or at least that the bulldozer would be flooded by the tidal surges that were coming in.

So far, according to police, one man has been found drowned, an 80-year-old man is missing, and by the second, as I say, calls pouring into the police command center, roofs being ripped off buildings, children being injured by flying glass and other debris. They say it is a very, very difficult situation right now and that the situation could go on for several more hours, Carol.

LIN: And Karl, we're looking at these dramatic pictures sent in. The roofs look like they were made out of paper. The walls look like virtually they made out of cardboard and maybe a little bit of plaster. Obviously, this is not the kind of building or buildings that can sustain this kind of damage. And surely, authorities still don't know what the total death toll must be. They can't even get to some of these places.

PENHAUL: That's correct. The authorities right now say it is way to premature to start talking about -- to talk about damage assessment because precisely that, that they can't get out and do any of that. They're basically just attending to what basic emergencies they can.

But all of the structures on Bahamas aren't of those fragile nature, with the tin roofs. Some of them are much stronger buildings. But even on our drive out on that rescue mission earlier on this afternoon, we did see some of the more solid, more luxury homes that have suffered severe damage from these very powerful winds.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks very much, Karl Penhaul, reporting on the telephone from Freeport, where the situation is very serious now in the virtual aftermath of Hurricane Frances -- flooded streets, people still trapped in their homes. Nobody yet knows the full death toll or the number of people injured.

And there you're looking at a picture out of Orlando, Florida. This is what it looks like right now, this hurricane.

O'BRIEN: Yes. That's in Orlando? Wow. That -- the wind has picked up dramatically in the internal parts of Florida already then. That is something.

Let's go now to a hurricane expert who can fill us in on what's happening on the ground there, Joe Bastardi. He's closely monitoring Frances, well out of harm's way, we should note, up there in State College, Pennsylvania.

Joe, first of all, can you recall, in all your years of forecasting these kinds of storms, a storm of this size? We're trying to wrack our brains thinking of something this big.

JOE BASTARDI, ACCUWEATHER HURRICANE EXPERT: Well -- oh, yes. Well, first there's Carmen in the Gulf of Mexico, and Allen in the Gulf of Mexico -- big storms in there. They've covered almost the entire Gulf of Mexico. This is a mature Atlantic storm. Just last year, Isabel was every bit or as big -- bigger than this particular storm when it was coming ashore, too. This is a mature, fully-grown Atlantic hurricane. It's not in so much it's rapid developing stage, as we saw before. And what's unfortunate is, the steering current's collapsed, and the storm is taking its time coming ashore. But we've seen storms like this before.

O'BRIEN: All right, when you say it's unfortunate that its steering current's collapsed -- when a hurricane slows down like this, is there any up side to that?

BASTARDI: The only up side is that we don't get the kind of deep (ph) storm. And the reason why is you get a lot of upwelling underneath the storm, and it literally takes so much energy out of the atmosphere and out of the water, that water cools down underneath it, that doesn't quite have the potential to be as strong. You have to keep these things moving along to fresh fuel.

One thing we want to add that people aren't -- may not have known about -- this salt spray that's coming inland -- Charley came through very fast, but all of Florida's vegetation is going to be covered with the salt spray from the ocean, and this is going to do a lot of damage to the crops that do survive this storm just because of the salt spray. We saw what happened with Isabel last year, after she came inland. There was all sorts of salt all over the place.

I want to take a look at some things here. First of all, if we look at the cloud photograph, you notice how reluctant the clouds are to spread inland, and it continues to fight its way toward the coast. And again, there's still some ifs, ands and buts about this situation. I want to show you this radar picture, what's going on. What we have here is very interesting -- eyes within the eye. This is the large eye here, but these smaller vortices are rolling around, and the danger here is the frictional effects of the land tighten this eyewall up and these -- one of these vortices actually takes over, tightens up and pumps the wind back up.

Let's remember, a 959-millibar hurricane...

O'BRIEN: Hey, Joe? Joe, slow down.

BASTARDI: Yes?

O'BRIEN: Slow down. I don't get that. I don't get that. They...

BASTARDI: OK, well...

O'BRIEN: The friction of the land tightens the vortices and -- what does that mean?

BASTARDI: OK. OK. Let's -- let's...

O'BRIEN: Yes.

BASTARDI: Let's look it over, OK?

O'BRIEN: Thanks. Yes. BASTARDI: What happens -- what happens is this. This eyewall doesn't want to go on shore. Why? Because its source of energy is the ocean.

O'BRIEN: OK.

BASTARDI: So what happens is, the storm is trying to push on shore. The eyewall tightens up along the shore, so the storm becomes more compact. It's like a skater pulling its arm -- her -- his or her arms in. He'll spin faster and faster and faster. So these little vortices -- you see these little systems that are rolling around in here? This is gradually -- they're gradually getting closer and closer and closer together. If they tighten up as the storm comes ashore, then the wind that we usually see with a 959-millibar hurricane, which is 120, 125 miles an hour, will suddenly appear.

O'BRIEN: All right.

BASTARDI: Right now, we haven't...

O'BRIEN: Joe?

BASTARDI: ... seen that.

O'BRIEN: Joe, I'm -- unfortunately, we're in a spot where we have to take a commercial break.

BASTARDI: OK.

O'BRIEN: Thank you for explaining that, though. I did get it, finally.

BASTARDI: OK.

O'BRIEN: The figure skating thing worked for me. I appreciate it.

And we're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Still ahead, we are continuing to keep an eye -- no pun intended, on the hurricane for you. We're going to find out where Hurricane Frances is right now, and I'm going to be talking to FEMA Director Michael Brown about what his agency is doing to prepare.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Hurricane Frances taking its time getting to the Florida coastline. Later tonight, early tomorrow, the eye will finally reach shore, we can say that with some certainty. Strong winds and heavy rainfall have already their mark on some Florida communities, as you can see. Right now, the eye of the storm is inside of 50 miles off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida. And at its slow pace, it will likely take a long time to get across the Florida Peninsula. It's headed east-northeast. Still headed toward Fort Pierce.

Let's go to CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras, who's got an update for us. We're about 28 minutes away from the latest from the Hurricane Center. Perhaps we'll get a little preview here from Jacqui -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Well, we're starting to get one of the strongest feeder bands in, making its way on shore right now. Fort Pierce, that you just mentioned right here, take a look at this. We're going to be seeing 80- to 100 mile an hour wind gusts, easily, I think, as this band moves on shore now, and those maximum sustained winds are going to be picking up as well. There, you can see the eye wall. This is the eye wall already, so that one, also moving in, and should be arriving later on this evening, maybe 10:00, 11:00 tonight, before the eye makes landfall. You can see that driven motion, those stronger bands making their way in, and they're all coming in, those rain showers are going to be coming in horizontally with these winds as well.

Fort Pierce down towards Walton, Gifford getting in on some of this action right now.

Want to go back to our other computer source now and check out a couple of other graphics, back to GR 115 (ph), if we can take a look at that, and I want to show you what you can expect for some of these rain showers here, if we can go back to that, please.

Want to give you a better view of this eye here, as those rain showers move back on shore. There we go. And you can see how far it's extending back on out to the west.

The other thing to keep in mind -- we've been focusing so much on what's been going on in the East Coast. Take a look at Tampa here. You've been getting nailed with some very strong showers and thunderstorms. First line moved through. Now we're getting in another wave, and you're probably going to see another one, a couple of hours from now.

The rainfall amounts so far have only been about three to four inches at most, but the rain is coming down at a rate of about half of an inch to an inch an hour, so by the time we reach midnight, we're talking about another three to six inches on top of what you already have. So those flooding concerns very evident, and we have flood watches now posted all the way across the strait, except for the extreme western panhandle at this time.

Again, Miles, as you said, that advisory should be coming up very shortly. As soon as we get that, we'll bring it to you. Right now, still at 105 miles per hour.

O'BRIEN: What's your gut, Jacqui? You know, we had a lot of talk over the past few days about how the Gulfstream would actually fuel that, but then I've heard some other things which say that isn't necessarily so.

JERAS: Well, it does happen, absolutely. Just -- the problem is, it's been over the Gulfstream. It's over the Gulfstream right now, and it's been over the Gulfstream pretty much all day, so it's not really moving into a big, dramatic difference in terms of water temperature to help it intensify. And as we've been looking at some of the radar pictures, if we can go back to PA7 (ph), to show you a wider radar loop, back to the radar pictures, we've been looking at a little bit of tightening possibly going on here. And these little vortices, we've heard them mentioned earlier, trying to get going in the center of the eye.

There is still a little bit of time for it to strengthen, but we're talking about, you've got to be up to 111 miles per hour in order for this to become a category three. It's only six miles an hour more than what it is right now, so the difference isn't going to be all that dramatic, if it's a strong two or a weak three.

O'BRIEN: All right. And one more thing, Jacqui. I was talking to this guy from Accuwewather, Joe Bastardi, and he was talking about this effective, when the eye comes across the coast, it can actually tighten up, and you can get in that area there much stronger winds as a result of all of that. Is that likely to happen?

JERAS: Well, sure, it could happen. I mean, anytime you get showers and thunderstorms and they move up towards land, you get a little bit of extra lift there, so that allows the thunderstorms to build a little bit more and become a little bit stronger.

O'BRIEN: All right, Jacqui Jeras. We'll check in with you very shortly. Stay close. And of course, stay busy. I don't need to tell you that.

JERAS: I am.

O'BRIEN: All right. Carol.

LIN: All right, we're staying busy here too. Jacqui was talking about 20 inches of rain hitting the coastal areas of Florida. Obviously, that is going to keep emergency management people pretty busy these days. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA we call them, they've got 19 disaster relief centers in Florida already, and those were for Hurricane Charley. It will likely be opening a few more in the days to come. Joining me now from Tallahassee, Florida, Michael Brown. He's FEMA's director. Michael, what kind of damage are you hearing about so far, because already the winds are beginning to whip up, the rain has been pouring, at least for the last 12 to 15 hours?

MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: And that's exactly what we're hearing here at the emergency operations center in Tallahassee, too. We have, you know, thousands of people without power. The winds are picking up. The rain's coming down. It's just unfortunately what we expected. So as long as the storm continues to move this slowly, we're going to have a lot of massive damage here in Florida.

LIN: And different kind of damage is what I'm hearing from Charley.

BROWN: Right.

LIN: I mean, Charley moved very quickly. The winds were devastating, ripping off rooftops. In this particular case, when you have a sustained hurricane situation sitting over land -- for example, one of the concerns is that the sustained winds against the walls of houses would cause buildings to literally buckle.

BROWN: You know, you have that problem. And then the ground is going to become so saturated that you'll have some structures beginning to lose their ability to withstand and stay atop of the ground. You have telephone polls and trees beginning to fall over and collapse on one another. And then you just have the problem of flooding. You know, typically, most deaths in hurricanes come from the inland flooding. So in this situation, we have a very slow moving hurricane, which is going to cause even more flooding. Plus, I am concerned, quite concerned about the impatience of people wanting to get back into their homes. They just need to take a deep breath and ride this one out as long as they can.

LIN: Especially when the eye passes over, and there is the calm before the second storm.

Governor Jeb Bush was warning people, stay in shelters. Don't be in such a hurry, because frankly, a lot of those people go back in. They wade through the water, and some of them get electrocuted to death, because they don't know what the dangers are below.

BROWN: Well, it's not only just becoming electrocuted, but as those flood waters move across highways or pavement or even open fields, you know, the physics of water is such that it can pick up an SUV and carry it downstream. We cannot fight that water power as it moves down. And so, that's what causes most of these deaths inland.

So people need to recognize. I know they're frustrated. They want to get back home, or get back into their businesses, but it's just not safe to do that yet.

LIN: Michael, a lot of comparisons to Hurricane Andrew 12 years ago, just the size and the massive amount of destruction that you're anticipating. In that particular case, 24,000 troops from the military were brought in to help. Is it time, do you think, to call in the military? Are you anticipating that kind of the breadth of damage?

BROWN: Not yet, because there are -- we don't anticipate that kind of damage. But what we have that's different from Hurricane Andrew is we have such a coordinated response between the state and the federal government. We have poised right now to move into this state literally thousands of personnel, literally hundreds and hundreds of trucks, emergency rescue workers, urban search and rescue, medical teams. They are poised and ready to come in right behind Frances as she slowly moves out. But to come in right behind her and start responding immediately. That's the difference between Andrew and what you're seeing this year.

LIN: Michael Brown, we wish you luck. BROWN: Thank you.

LIN: We'll be following your progress, and we're waiting for this storm to hit full force. Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you.

LIN: Michael Brown of FEMA.

We're going to be right back in just a moment, with the reporters' notebook from two men who are pretty wet, and frankly pretty wind-blown by now. CNN's Anderson Cooper and meteorologist Chad Myers. They are in Melbourne, Florida.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Wind and rain from the storm are already impacting Florida. Even if the hurricane's eye hasn't yet reached shore, but it is coming, very soon. Already, though, there are some reports of damage to coastal communities, and since the storm is moving so slowly, it is likely we're going to hear more in the coming hours. And of course, we're going to bring it to you.

We are going to take you right now, though, to Melbourne, Florida, where Anderson Cooper and CNN meteorologist Chad Myers have been out in the weather. They've been watching as those heavy bands of weather have been coming ashore. Anderson, give me an idea what's going on, and how -- the winds are -- it looks like they're picking up.

COOPER: Yeah, you could say that. The winds are definitely picking up. Chad, what are you reading here?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: 74.5 (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gusts.

COOPER: 74 -- that's really the first hurricane speed winds.

MYERS: That's first, category one, basically hurricane speed we've had. Yeah, finally now. It has taken all day to get there. The winds have gone up by five miles an hour every hour. Now we're finally above cat one strength.

COOPER: And we anticipate those speeds lasting all through the night.

MYERS: Absolutely. All night long. We'll be right here. Probably by midnight, 4 a.m., we could be well into the 90 mile an hour range, because this storm is not even close to us yet, Anderson.

COOPER: And we've been feeling these strong winds, obviously, all day, Carol, as you know, but these bands which have been coming, we're in the middle of a gust -- I mean, this literally just picked up in the last five minutes.

MYERS: Yeah, absolutely. Just another one of those fingers that we've had all day. It comes and goes, it comes and goes, and it's going to be most of the night. It's going to be coming rather than going now, because now we're close enough to the eye. The winds are just going to keep on going.

COOPER: Danger also increases now, because we're starting to lose the light. Obviously, we are out of electricity here, and so there are not going to be any street lights. And so it's going to be very difficult to see exactly what is coming your way. You can feel a big sting in your face, little pieces of rock or pebble. At night, of course, that danger just increases, because you really don't know what's out there.

MYERS: You don't, and even the rain feels bad now. Now the rain feels like you could do with little ice shards, little glass shards -- and all of a sudden, that's why we're so close to the water, because very little is actually going to blow across from the barrier island a mile over to here. But if we were downtown, everything, shingles, everything would be flying around downtown. And obviously, it's going on in downtown Melbourne right now.

COOPER: Yeah. And the barrier islands, you probably -- you can't even see it really at this point, but it's -- it's out there. You can maybe see it on the horizon. There are a few lights visible on the islands. We were out there yesterday, checked it out this morning, but that -- now that -- the barrier island, in between is the intercostal waterway, which just really just looks like a churning ocean now. And this wind again is picking up. Chad, are you getting anything?

MYERS: That was 52 sustained, and a gust of 69.

COOPER: What should we be anticipating in terms -- what do you think the top speed of the winds during the evening?

MYERS: You know, it looks to me like the eye wall, the northernmost eye wall will be a little bit south of us, maybe 15 or 20 miles, just off the Palm Bay. But we're going to be easily 90 to 95 here. If that storm doesn't even get stronger, because it's in that warm water of the Gulfstream. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have gone down on a couple of the Air Force reconnaissance planes in just the past hour or so.

COOPER: Chad has been monitoring the storm on his laptop computer in our vehicle during -- in between our live shots. At what point is the eye supposed to reach us? I mean, because that's when it becomes calm again.

MYERS: Well, I don't think the eye is ever going to get to us. We're going to be on the northern side of the eye wall. The eye will be Fort Pierce, the eye will be south of Sebastian Inlet and north of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We will never see the eye. It will never come down here.

COOPER: And so, the winds are all going to continue until -- at what point, when does it get beyond us?

MYERS: I would say by noon tomorrow, it's down below 50 miles an hour. Until noon tomorrow, another -- gosh, another 16 hours. It will be above hurricane strength. You know, you're losing shingles one at a time now. I got to drive around about an hour ago, and the shingles were coming off the roof, just one, and the next one, then the next one. And it wasn't because we were doing 90 miles an hour; the winds weren't even at 50. But it's that sustained, long-term damage that you're getting at a lot of these places.

COOPER: Now, we've been trying to get damage reports for this area. We have not been able to really get an authoritative source on that. We do know that all throughout Florida, more than 1.4 million Floridians are without electricity right now. As we said before, this area is without electricity, and we do see a number of downed lights, downed power polls. I mean, you know, you look at something like this, this light right here, and it has just been shaking back and forth all day. You know, it could go any second. You just don't know. So we're going to be staying away from it for most of the day. Again, what reading?

MYERS: We're still 57 now, gusting to 71.

We had a little lull there for about 30 seconds. It was kind of nice. You and I could talk, we could actually hear each other, and then all of a sudden, it's coming in again. And it's just one storm, one little squall after another, after another.

COOPER: And you can actually see -- you can actually see the squall come.

MYERS: It's kind of ironic, isn't it? You know it's coming. And if the live shot is coming, you can't do anything about. You can't even run for cover. So we're out here, you can see them coming.

There is another one out there. It's so dark, you can't even see it, but there's another one literally I would say 45 seconds away here, and it's just outside this little barrier. And as it comes by, the winds are going to pick up 20 miles an hour again, and then it's actually going to -- like this one -- it's going to start to rain. Because that what we see out there is actually water in the air. Whether the water is off the ocean or off the river here, or if it's actually coming down you don't even know, but there's been very little rain here.

I've been surprised at the lack, the lack of rain that we've had today.

COOPER: It was the big fear, and of course still a big fear of flooding, so we'll be watching for that. Carol, let's go back to you.

LIN: Anderson, the light is beginning to change. It's almost dark. I mean, it was turning dark, literally, in this live shot. Is that because the storm is moving in, or because the sun is setting where you are?

COOPER: The sun is going down. I mean, we obviously can't see the sun, but I can see on the horizon that way what looks like some sort of a sunset above the clouds. There is a layer of clouds on the ground. So it is just naturally becoming dark, but obviously the storm does not help. It makes it darker than it really should be at this time. But darkness is definitely falling, Carol. It's getting to be about that time.

LIN: Yeah, Anderson, there is this eerie blue glow behind you as this hurricane is beginning to move in. How long is it going to be safe for you to stay out there, you think?

COOPER: You know, we're not sure. You know, we're checking every couple of minutes, and it's just a moment by moment thing. We think we're find out here, because there is not a lot of material that could come flying through the air around this area. It's why we picked this area. And as Chad said, we're close to the water, so there is not a lot of stuff flying off the water that could possibly get to us. You know, if you're in a more populated area, a place with more buildings, there is a lot more debris that could fly off. So we're pretty much fine, and we think that the satellite truck is safe here as well. So we think we're fine for now, Carol.

LIN: All right, because when the eye actually passes over Fort Pierce, 50 miles south of you, where Gary Tuchman is, where it's going to be calm, you're going to still be in the full throes of hurricane winds. It's going to be interesting. We'll try to take a split screen to show people exactly what Chad Myers was talking about, as Hurricane Frances makes landfall.

Thanks very much, Anderson. Stay safe out there.

COOPER: OK, Carol.

LIN: All right. We got much more ahead, so stay right there.

We're going to go back to Miles, who's now at the big board, working some information on Hurricane Frances.

O'BRIEN: All day long, Carol, as you well know, the Bahamas have been battered by Hurricane Frances. Reports of a couple of deaths there, numerous injuries, including one reporter for the Miami affiliate, WPLG, Judy Chavez.

We are joined now live from Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas by the photographer -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) chief photographer for the station, as a matter of fact, Bill Damas. Bill, first of all, just tell us your personal tale, if you could.

BILL DAMAS, WPLG PHOTOGRAPHER: It's actually pretty wild here. The storm lasted a very, very long time. We were surprised by the intensity and the length, the duration of the storm. I mean, it came in somewhere in the morning time, 8:00 in the morning, yesterday, and it was 5:00 in the morning this morning, and it was still pounding pretty hard.

O'BRIEN: And what happened to you and your reporter today?

DAMAS: Well, what happened -- the injury that the reporter sustained was actually us -- we tried to take -- once the storm did come on shore, the full eye of the storm came ashore, we took -- tried to take shelter. We went to -- over to the shelter that the hotel provided for us, and when we did that, in the walk over there, we -- she sustained some debris from the building that hit her on her side. A piece of -- actually, if you look over here, on the floor, something similar to this right here, which is like a (UNINTELLIGIBLE). This is one of the parts of the side of the building from this hotel that we're staying at, Abaco beach resort.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. For a moment there, we had a picture of the reporter you were working with, Judy Chavez. Is she going to be OK, first of all?

DAMAS: Yeah, the doctor from the island came over just a little while ago, and they talked to her, they kind of looked her over, see how she was doing. They're not exactly sure what she may have suffered. They believe maybe a fractured rib is a possibility. Just not sure, because of X-rays and lack of the facilities here on the island right now, because -- due to the storm.

O'BRIEN: If she's got a fractured rib, we know she's uncomfortable.

Let's talk a little bit about what you saw on the island today.

DAMAS: Well, I took a little tour earlier on. The town official had a 4x4 truck, and we went down to the downtown area. There was a lot of flooding. A lot of flooding on the streets. Just all the way up to the storefronts and houses. Power lines down on the ground. Trees everywhere. Debris. The wind was still kicking -- actually, the wind is still kicking now. I heard your reporter in Florida just getting some of it right now, and we're still feeling the after effects, just a kind of a sign to show how wide the storm is.

O'BRIEN: Were you out when the winds peaked? We were told that they peaked in the 90 mile an hour range.

DAMAS: We were out for a long period of time. We tried to, of course, under safety reasons, we stayed in a sheltered area where I could still shoot some video, and I was seeing a long of very strong gusts. The trees were falling. Just tree limbs being ripped off the trees. You could see the leaves, almost like the tree was being shredded completely, right before you. And then, you know, once the 90 mile -- the 100 mile an hour winds kicked in, we took shelter immediately. And for most of the night, I didn't want to come out anymore. We didn't feel safe. We heard things falling outside. The shutters of the room we were being kept in were just being pounded. Even as a matter of fact, when we came out this morning, the roof -- we were having some water leaking into our shelter area, and the roof of the shelter we were staying at was ripped off on one side of it. So now we know -- we kind of know the strength of the storm, and why we're getting the water, and it's better that we would stay inside, at least for the period of time that we needed to be to be safe.

O'BRIEN: And a final thought here. You've obviously only had a limited view, but what you've seen is very widespread damage there in the Bahamas as a result of Frances? DAMAS: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that question.

O'BRIEN: How widespread is the damage, do you think, in the Bahamas, just based on what you've seen there?

DAMAS: We took -- our tour was pretty short. We had -- we went through the downtown area, right around the harbor area, into the port area -- we didn't get to the airport. The flooding was too bad, we couldn't get in there. As we understand, reports from the airport, though, that a lot of damage, and the airport is under water right now. I would imagine throughout the rest of the islands, a lot of damage as well. I mean, the winds -- it wasn't so much -- the strength was intense, but the duration of the storm, so many hours of non-stop pounding wind, consistently pounding 90 to 100 miles an hour when the wind gusts -- higher than that, even. That could seriously do damage, start breaking things apart.

O'BRIEN: Bill Damas is the chief photographer with WPLG, our affiliate in Miami. Give us our best, please, to Judy Chavez, the correspondent you were working with, who suffered an injury, and we wish her and you well. Please stay safe for the remainder there.

We'll be back with more of our coverage of Hurricane Frances in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On any given day over the Florida peninsula, literally hundreds of aircraft going to and fro, either originating in one of those Florida airports, headed that way, or flying over the peninsula as they head on their way to South America.

Take a look at some real-time radar information that we have available to us from FlightExplorer.com, overlaid with the radar, which is the unmistakable sight of Frances, as she comes ashore here, and it's difficult to see, I know, on your screen at home, but these little blue airplane insignias represent about eight airplanes total anywhere near the Florida peninsula. And if you look at them and get some information -- a little more information about them, you see most of them are headed to northern cities from South American points of origination, and are skirting the edges of Hurricane Frances at very high altitude. This one is at 37,000 feet, on its way to Baltimore- Washington International Airport. This one is on its way to Newark, up there at 33,000 feet. And on and on it goes. This one is on its way to Atlanta.

And if you look at the airports all along the East Coast here, of course what you'd expect -- here is Fort Lauderdale. That's the traffic graph, and if you look at that lower line there, that magenta line, those are proposed arrivals, indication of one arrival coming up in an hour's time, although I am very skeptical that that will actually occur.

Look at the airport in Fort Myers, the airport traffic graph. They've had a little bit of activity proposed over the next hour or so. Can probably sneak a few arrivals or departures in there right before the storm hits, but not too many.

Going up to Tampa, International Airport, pretty much a flat line. A few peaks of proposed arrivals and departures. Once again, as the storm closes in, those might get canceled.

And then, of course, the busiest airport in Florida is Orlando Airport, and right now it's virtually a flat line as well, that magenta line indicating just a couple of proposed arrivals.

That means that there is a flight plan on file. Whether that will actually turn into an airplane in the sky, I'm highly skeptical.

Very quiet day for those who are left inside those radar rooms, those FAA radar centers and control Trecon (ph) centers -- Carol.

LIN: All right, Miles. We want to bring, frankly, an amazing picture out of Fort Pierce, Florida, which is basically ground zero for the eye of Hurricane Frances when it does make landfall in about -- anywhere for the next three to six hours. The rain is already just pelting down, an unrelenting rain, as this lumbering, slow-moving hurricane creeps its way across the state of Florida, heading toward the Gulf. The amount of water that it's going to dump -- 20 inches along the coast of Florida.

Stay with us. CNN, as we continue our coverage of Hurricane Frances. We are tracking where Frances is headed. We have reporters all along the cost of Florida. We're going to go there live, and also coming up, at 8:00 in this next hour, we're going to get an updated forecast from the National Hurricane Center. So stay right there.

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 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: "CAPITAL GANG" is delayed until Sunday at 11:00 PM Eastern so we can bring you continuing coverage of the hurricane. But we may very well be live, as well. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all of it just depends on what happens with Hurricane Frances.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It just depends. If there's something to report, we'll be on.

LIN: You bet.

O'BRIEN: That's for sure.

LIN: Yes. Well, Florida is preparing for the worst. I'm Carol Lin at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, where we're tracking the fury of Frances.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour, we'll continue our special coverage as slow-moving Frances begins to pound Florida. But we're about an hour away from an update forecast from the Hurricane Center. We'll get you that in a little while, as well.

Hurricane Frances spent hour after hour today spinning off of Florida's coast, virtually stationary, pumping in a never-ending blast of wind and rain. The longer the winds blow, the more the damage piles up -- trees down on power lines or houses or just streets, causing fireworks displays like you see there. There's a lot of other debris in the streets, as well, not to mention water. It just won't stop. We have water-logged reporters up and down the Florida coast for you, of course. Many of them have been out all day because the storm just won't seem to blow over.

LIN: That's right. And lucky for us, we have them there in position, ready to go as the worst begins to happen. But let's check and see exactly where Frances is right now. CNN's meteorologist is in the weather center, Jacqui Jeras.

Jacqui, right now, how big is Frances? And where is it? When is it likely to make landfall?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Frances is huge overall, about the size of the state of Texas, Carol. And the effect of it is being felt all across the Florida peninsula at this time. You can see the rain bands even extending up into parts of Georgia. We've even seen some showers and thunderstorms into parts of South Carolina. It's still a very strong category 2 hurricane, packing winds around 105 miles per hour. This is our latest radar picture. This is a Viper doppler radar. You can see it looks rather three-dimensional. And this is the area, the big area of concern. This is the eyewall of the hurricane. And you can see it's not quite on shore just yet. But we are getting these outer feeder bands moving in, and they have been giving some wind gusts between 60 and 70 miles per hour. So that is hurricane force.

I want to zoom in a little bit closer and show you this eyewall a little bit better because we think it should be probably moving on shore before midnight for tonight. We still have a little bit of a window of opportunity because it's really been kind of stalled over the last three to six hours. It's been nudging maybe 3, 4, 5 miles per hour, and that's about it. It took about three hours to move just 20 miles from our last advisory, so we'll have to wait and see what happens here as the 8:00 o'clock advisory becomes available.

I want to show you the forecast now for this, in terms of future radar, and this is our true-view (ph) forecast from WSI. And this is about 2:00 o'clock in the morning on Sunday. It looks like it actually might have already spun through the cycle, unfortunately, but I do want to point out one main thing is that these showers and thunderstorms are kind of -- there it goes into motion, kind of pushing over towards the Tampa Bay area. We've been focusing a lot of what's been going on right here along the east coast, but keep in mind we're going to be seeing these flooding rains all the way across the peninsula, sitting (ph) on up into northern parts of Florida, as well.

We have been talking about when this thing is going to be making landfall, but the thing to keep in mind is that those bad winds are already there, and they're going to be unrelenting. Those rain showers are going to be moving across, and it could take as long as 24 hours for that to move over land. So the bottom line right here, Carol, current winds 105, category 2. Landfall is expected tonight probably between 10:00 and 2:00 AM, and massive flooding can e expected, 8 to 12 inches, widespread, with locally heavy rain up to 24 inches. This is going to be affecting Florida all weekend, moving into parts of Alabama and Georgia by early next week.

LIN: ... Jacqui, and also many of the places that were hard hit by Hurricane Charley.

JERAS: That's right. And they're going to be getting it from the other side. All those timbers fell down this way, and now they're going to be coming down this way, as Frances moves on through.

LIN: Crazy. Thanks, Jacqui. Miles?

O'BRIEN: All right, as we said, we got reporters up and down the east coast, all the way from St. Augustine down to Palm Beach. We're going to check in with all of them, of course, all throughout the course of this hour. Let's begin, though, where the imaginary bullseye is painted right now, Ft. Pierce, Florida. All the latest prognostications from the Hurricane Center indicate Gary Tuchman is standing right where the eye is headed right now. And Gary, it's already whipping up a little bit of -- well, not a little bit, quite a bit of wind so far.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, it's just a pounding. For the last eight hours, we've had the heavy winds and rain. The rain stopped for about 20 minutes an hour-and-a-half ago, and now i's coming down hard again. We're at a waterfront park in the city of Ft. Pierce here in St. Lucie County, and the people of this county and now well know, because they're inundated with their radio reports and their TV reports, if they still have power, that the eye is coming in this direction.

We can tell you, even though we're in the early stages right now of this hurricane, still -- and we've been here eight hours -- there's been a lot of damage in St. Lucie County. Police here are telling us that several businesses and some homes have either partially collapsed or collapsed. About 10 minutes away from us to the north, at a K- Mart, part of the roof has collapsed, and they say the store is now flooding because the drenching rains are coming through the opening on top of the store.

Also, behind me is the intercoastal waterway. On the other side of the intercoastal is Hutchinson Island. It's a barrier island just about a half a mile away from Ft. Pierce, where the Atlantic Ocean is. We are told by the police that there's a seafood restaurant that has been washed into the ocean over on Hutchinson Island. There are no residents left on Hutchinson Island. They have all been told to evacuate. We did take a ride there. Police were behind us. We did not see anybody at all. In this area -- this is an evacuation area, too -- we've seen almost no curiosity seekers all day.

This is very interesting. We have been told by police that they are now getting scores of calls over the last couple of hours from people who are still in their homes who are now scared and want to be escorted to shelters or want to be given information where they can go to. And police are saying, We can give you information, but we cannot risk our lives and we cannot risk the welfare of our families by going out and bringing you to a shelter. You've had plenty of warning. Now go into a room inside your house, surround yourself by as many walls as you can, stay away from the windows, but that's all you can do right now.

We've seen many trees down throughout the city of Ft. Pierce, this city of 39,000 people. We've seen lots of power out. According to authorities, most of the citizens of St. Lucie County, right now, 75,000 total customers, are without power. And pretty soon, within a couple of hours, it'll be very dark out, and for a lot of people -- I'll be frank with you -- it's going to be very scary because the worst is still to come. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Well, Gary, I sure hope those folks who made that decision to stay have all the supplies they need to weather this out because it's going to be a rather long passing of this storm. Behind you, I noticed that the palm trees are braced with some two-by-fours. Is that because they're new, or is that for the storm specifically?

TUCHMAN: Both. They're new, and then for the storm specifically. They had some supports on them, according to authorities here in the city, before this hurricane because this is a new park. This is revitalized downtown area in Ft. Pierce, Miles. They've done a beautiful job with it. One of the things that makes it so charming is that it's right next to the water, and that makes it very vulnerable. They're very concerned about the flooding, but when they knew this hurricane was coming, they put extra supports on the palm trees. The fronds have come off. We can tell you -- I'll show you one more thing, if I can, that's also come off. And I showed this earlier. But you see these light poles? I'm just going to stand here for a second. This right here came off one of these lightpoles, probably weighs 45 or 50 pounds. That's why we're trying to stay as far away from these lightpoles...

O'BRIEN: Gary? Gary? I would give those lightpoles a nice, wide berth for the remainder of the night, for sure. That obviously is a fair amount of weight. And it makes me wonder. Those palm trees, if, in fact, the eye does come across right there, I don't think that those two-by-fours will be much more than matchsticks for the force of this storm.

TUCHMAN: I don't know. I will tell you, in other parts of the city, we've seen lots of trees down. In this part of the city, where you have the new palm trees and the new construction, none of the trees have come down yet. I don't know how much more wind they can take.

O'BRIEN: Of course, palm trees are made for hurricanes. That is part of why they exist, where they exist. Gary, you said you hadn't seen a lot of people out there. Is there an official curfew, evacuation? What is the official ruling, mandatory curfews? In other words, if there are -- if you see a civilian, are they breaking the law?

TUCHMAN: Here is what's going on in St. Lucie County, Miles. From 8:00 PM to 7:00 AM -- and right now, it is 7:10 PM -- there's a curfew. So in 50 minutes, any resident who is out on the streets is liable to be arrested. What police are telling us is that they will warn people if they see them wandering around. If they continue to wander around, they take them in. That's what they're going to do. But the fact is, police -- we haven't seen a lot of them out in the street the last couple of hours. So I think people are taking a silly risk if they do walk around, but at this point, they may not be arrested. But the fact is, technically, it's illegal.

We can also tell you, in this area, there's a mandatory evacuation order all day long, 24 hours. That is not as enforced as much. But police are telling people -- and they're telling them that here on the barrier island of Hutchinson Island and other barrier islands, like Palm Beach -- You can stay. We're not going to grab you and force you to go. But they are having people sign next-of-kin forms so they can notify their next of kin if something happens.

Obviously, there's a practical reason for that. It's mostly, though, for the scare effect. Sometimes when people are told they have to sign a form, then they leave.

O'BRIEN: And you know, Gary, I got to say, I can almost hear our viewers saying, Well, what are you doing there? We get a special dispensation for this? Did you sign the little next-of-kin form and off they went?

TUCHMAN: I'd love to explain that to people. What we do, we've covered a lot of these, my crew and I, and there's four of us standing here. And I should say their names because (UNINTELLIGIBLE) What we try to do is get near the sturdiest buildings near the coast. We know which buildings are the newest. We know which buildings have the best construction. And we do our best to stay out of the way of things like those lightpoles. That's why I ran over there very quickly. But I'm with Dominic (ph), Neil (ph) and Carlos (ph), who are intrepid, brave guys. We are here to show everyone the story. This is what you should stay away from. Let me -- trust us. And when we're done with talking to you on the air, we go into an even safer place. We're just out here minutes at a time. We just don't stand out here having a party.

O'BRIEN: All right. And a final thought. I've been watching you all day, and you've been on, using that very small equipment we have, the videophone equipment. Now it appears you've got a little more bandwidth, as it were. Do you have a full-fledged truck with you? And will you be able to ride out the storm with it?

TUCHMAN: It was hard for me to hear you, Miles, but I think we're talking about the videophone equipment. We were in a little different area before, a little more vulnerable, and we're using the videophone equipment because we can literally pack that up in five minutes if it gets very dangerous. Where we are right now, we consider a little safer area. That's why we're using the different technology, the satellite truck, which is more stationary, can't move as quickly. But when we go back to the old area, which is a little more vulnerable, we'll go back to the videophone equipment.

O'BRIEN: Gary Tuchman, who is in Ft. Pierce -- and by all accounts now, from the Hurricane Center, that remains precisely where this large eye of this slow, lumbering hurricane is headed right now. Gary, you and the crew, please, by all means, safety is our No. 1 priority all throughout this night. And we will check in with you later -- Carol.

LIN: All right. Amazing scene behind Gary, as Hurricane Frances makes its way to the east coast of Florida.

We're going to travel about 50 miles up the coast from where Gary is. That's where we're going to find Anderson Cooper in Melbourne. Anderson, obviously, you're getting the strong winds, as well. We've heard gusts up to 90 miles an hour. How're you doing out there?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We're doing all right. It's about 60 right now, the last reading that we did just about two minutes ago. What we've been seeing, though, are these bands of this storm coming. There'll be high winds, big gusts of winds, a lot of rain for a short period of time. Then there'll be something of a lull. And then all of a sudden, the wind will pick up, just like it did just now.

About 20 minutes ago, though, it was almost -- I wouldn't say balmy, but it -- the winds had died down probably at least 10 miles an hour. There was very little rain. At this point, the rain isn't so much an issue. For a while, the rain has really been sharp, really pelting rain. Right now, it is just this wind.

But what's fascinating as you look out over the marina, as you look out on the water, you can see the squall of the storm coming. You can see these bands. You can see a wall of white out there about a mile or so out. You can just watch the squall as it approaches. You can almost time it. You'll know that in, you know, a few minutes, you're going to have huge gusts of winds, sustained winds for a long period of time. We are anticipating winds probably 20, 30 miles an hour more than this.

That's going to be the real danger, though. As it gets dark, you are not going to be able to see what is around you. We know this location we're in, but we're not going to go into some other location because in the darkness, there's going to be things flying through the air with these high winds, and that presents a real danger for anyone who is outside. That's, of course, why they're cautioning people, Do not go out.

Remarkably, we've seen a couple of people out here just kind of going for a joy -- a joy-walk or a joyride in their car, stopping, taking pictures. Just saw a vehicle filled with a woman with her dogs, just driving around, looking around. Those are the people you do not want to be out here at this point. We're out here for only very short periods of time. We're staying behind a building for most of our time here.

The winds are really picking up now, Carol, and it is really only going to get worse, from what we hear.

LIN: Anderson, just looking behind you, I can see the wind, obviously, blowing against you, blowing through the palm trees. The boats, though, seem to be pretty securely moored.

COOPER: They are. I think, you know, there was so much warning about this, the people who owned these boats really had a lot of time to prepare for it. We have not -- we've seen a lot of the boats tossing around, and the water is definitely higher than it was before. But we have not seen any boats flipping over, thankfully. We have not seen any boats ending up on land.

If you pan over to your left, you can see it's pretty tough over there. That's where the direction of the wind is coming from. There's a line of breakwater there, of wood. The water is just pouring right over there, the boats moving around an awful lot there. But they have been moored very securely. And thankfully, there have been no incidences here so far.

LIN: Anderson, just talking with our meteorologist here. Chad Myers has been reporting next to your side. It's amazing that you're really experiencing near-hurricane-force winds out there throughout the day. When we talk about gusts of 100 miles an hour, what -- what has your experience been throughout the day, in terms of dealing with the wind and -- and how much damage it can -- and actually -- it can actually wreak havoc?

COOPER: Yes. You know, it's interesting. It's these sustained winds which really are a problem. You know, I think when people had anticipated 120-mile-an-hour winds or 140-mile-an-hour winds, as we saw several days ago, you know, when they heard that suddenly, the winds were going to be 60 miles an hour, people said, Oh, you know, that's half as bad. It's not going to be too bad. But the sustained nature of the winds really just causes a problem. It does not give up at all. You know, you see these trees, they're just constantly bent over. Finally, they'll just snap. There's a lightpost over there which has snapped. So you know, it's not as if there's a lot of let- up. You basically have very high sustained winds, and then every now and then, as these bands of the storm hit, it'll be these even higher winds, these gust winds, which can really knock you over.

It's interesting. I can stand perpendicular to the -- to the wind, but if turn full on into it, it can blow me back several paces. So it's kind of tricky just being out here, but it is these sustained winds which -- just hour after hour, and we are anticipating this all night long, Carol.

LIN: You bet. Thanks very much, Anderson. Stay out there. Stay safe. We'll be coming back to you as soon as the -- as Frances hits the shore and moves in. Thank you very much, Anderson Cooper.

Death and damage and dismay -- that is what we are hearing out of the Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Frances. CNN's Karl Penhaul is on the phone from Freeport, which took the brunt of the storm. Karl, you had a bit of a break as the eye of the storm passed over. The rain probably let up. The wind probably let up. And once again, just in the past hour, you have now experienced the second part of the storm, the last -- the second half of the eyewall. What's happening there right now?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's correct, Carol. Grand Bahama is really continuing to take a beating right now. The eye of the storm passed over Grand Bahama in the course of the morning, and things did seem to calm down considerably. There were still high winds, but not the real powerful winds.

And then into the afternoon, things really picked up. And driving rain, the winds are much, much stronger, much more powerful now than they were at the leading edge of the hurricane, and that has taken some of the emergency services by surprise. In fact, the winds are so powerful that right now, it's very difficult for the police and other emergency services to leave the building to go and tend to emergencies that are developing by the second, virtually. They are doing their best, though.

Earlier this afternoon, we joined police on a rescue attempt down onto the north shore of Grand Bahama to try and rescue and elderly couple that had simply refused to abandon their home. That was not possible, though. The power of the wind forced us to turn back. We were traveling in the bucket of a bulldozer, Carol, but even then, the police feared that the high winds would tip that bulldozer or at least that the bulldozer would be flooded by the tidal surges that were coming in.

So far, according to police, one man has been found drowned, an 80-year-old man is missing, and by the second, as I say, calls pouring into the police command center, roofs being ripped off buildings, children being injured by flying glass and other debris. They say it is a very, very difficult situation right now and that the situation could go on for several more hours, Carol.

LIN: And Karl, we're looking at these dramatic pictures sent in. The roofs look like they were made out of paper. The walls look like virtually they made out of cardboard and maybe a little bit of plaster. Obviously, this is not the kind of building or buildings that can sustain this kind of damage. And surely, authorities still don't know what the total death toll must be. They can't even get to some of these places.

PENHAUL: That's correct. The authorities right now say it is way to premature to start talking about -- to talk about damage assessment because precisely that, that they can't get out and do any of that. They're basically just attending to what basic emergencies they can.

But all of the structures on Bahamas aren't of those fragile nature, with the tin roofs. Some of them are much stronger buildings. But even on our drive out on that rescue mission earlier on this afternoon, we did see some of the more solid, more luxury homes that have suffered severe damage from these very powerful winds.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks very much, Karl Penhaul, reporting on the telephone from Freeport, where the situation is very serious now in the virtual aftermath of Hurricane Frances -- flooded streets, people still trapped in their homes. Nobody yet knows the full death toll or the number of people injured.

And there you're looking at a picture out of Orlando, Florida. This is what it looks like right now, this hurricane.

O'BRIEN: Yes. That's in Orlando? Wow. That -- the wind has picked up dramatically in the internal parts of Florida already then. That is something.

Let's go now to a hurricane expert who can fill us in on what's happening on the ground there, Joe Bastardi. He's closely monitoring Frances, well out of harm's way, we should note, up there in State College, Pennsylvania.

Joe, first of all, can you recall, in all your years of forecasting these kinds of storms, a storm of this size? We're trying to wrack our brains thinking of something this big.

JOE BASTARDI, ACCUWEATHER HURRICANE EXPERT: Well -- oh, yes. Well, first there's Carmen in the Gulf of Mexico, and Allen in the Gulf of Mexico -- big storms in there. They've covered almost the entire Gulf of Mexico. This is a mature Atlantic storm. Just last year, Isabel was every bit or as big -- bigger than this particular storm when it was coming ashore, too. This is a mature, fully-grown Atlantic hurricane. It's not in so much it's rapid developing stage, as we saw before. And what's unfortunate is, the steering current's collapsed, and the storm is taking its time coming ashore. But we've seen storms like this before.

O'BRIEN: All right, when you say it's unfortunate that its steering current's collapsed -- when a hurricane slows down like this, is there any up side to that?

BASTARDI: The only up side is that we don't get the kind of deep (ph) storm. And the reason why is you get a lot of upwelling underneath the storm, and it literally takes so much energy out of the atmosphere and out of the water, that water cools down underneath it, that doesn't quite have the potential to be as strong. You have to keep these things moving along to fresh fuel.

One thing we want to add that people aren't -- may not have known about -- this salt spray that's coming inland -- Charley came through very fast, but all of Florida's vegetation is going to be covered with the salt spray from the ocean, and this is going to do a lot of damage to the crops that do survive this storm just because of the salt spray. We saw what happened with Isabel last year, after she came inland. There was all sorts of salt all over the place.

I want to take a look at some things here. First of all, if we look at the cloud photograph, you notice how reluctant the clouds are to spread inland, and it continues to fight its way toward the coast. And again, there's still some ifs, ands and buts about this situation. I want to show you this radar picture, what's going on. What we have here is very interesting -- eyes within the eye. This is the large eye here, but these smaller vortices are rolling around, and the danger here is the frictional effects of the land tighten this eyewall up and these -- one of these vortices actually takes over, tightens up and pumps the wind back up.

Let's remember, a 959-millibar hurricane...

O'BRIEN: Hey, Joe? Joe, slow down.

BASTARDI: Yes?

O'BRIEN: Slow down. I don't get that. I don't get that. They...

BASTARDI: OK, well...

O'BRIEN: The friction of the land tightens the vortices and -- what does that mean?

BASTARDI: OK. OK. Let's -- let's...

O'BRIEN: Yes.

BASTARDI: Let's look it over, OK?

O'BRIEN: Thanks. Yes. BASTARDI: What happens -- what happens is this. This eyewall doesn't want to go on shore. Why? Because its source of energy is the ocean.

O'BRIEN: OK.

BASTARDI: So what happens is, the storm is trying to push on shore. The eyewall tightens up along the shore, so the storm becomes more compact. It's like a skater pulling its arm -- her -- his or her arms in. He'll spin faster and faster and faster. So these little vortices -- you see these little systems that are rolling around in here? This is gradually -- they're gradually getting closer and closer and closer together. If they tighten up as the storm comes ashore, then the wind that we usually see with a 959-millibar hurricane, which is 120, 125 miles an hour, will suddenly appear.

O'BRIEN: All right.

BASTARDI: Right now, we haven't...

O'BRIEN: Joe?

BASTARDI: ... seen that.

O'BRIEN: Joe, I'm -- unfortunately, we're in a spot where we have to take a commercial break.

BASTARDI: OK.

O'BRIEN: Thank you for explaining that, though. I did get it, finally.

BASTARDI: OK.

O'BRIEN: The figure skating thing worked for me. I appreciate it.

And we're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Still ahead, we are continuing to keep an eye -- no pun intended, on the hurricane for you. We're going to find out where Hurricane Frances is right now, and I'm going to be talking to FEMA Director Michael Brown about what his agency is doing to prepare.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Hurricane Frances taking its time getting to the Florida coastline. Later tonight, early tomorrow, the eye will finally reach shore, we can say that with some certainty. Strong winds and heavy rainfall have already their mark on some Florida communities, as you can see. Right now, the eye of the storm is inside of 50 miles off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida. And at its slow pace, it will likely take a long time to get across the Florida Peninsula. It's headed east-northeast. Still headed toward Fort Pierce.

Let's go to CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras, who's got an update for us. We're about 28 minutes away from the latest from the Hurricane Center. Perhaps we'll get a little preview here from Jacqui -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Well, we're starting to get one of the strongest feeder bands in, making its way on shore right now. Fort Pierce, that you just mentioned right here, take a look at this. We're going to be seeing 80- to 100 mile an hour wind gusts, easily, I think, as this band moves on shore now, and those maximum sustained winds are going to be picking up as well. There, you can see the eye wall. This is the eye wall already, so that one, also moving in, and should be arriving later on this evening, maybe 10:00, 11:00 tonight, before the eye makes landfall. You can see that driven motion, those stronger bands making their way in, and they're all coming in, those rain showers are going to be coming in horizontally with these winds as well.

Fort Pierce down towards Walton, Gifford getting in on some of this action right now.

Want to go back to our other computer source now and check out a couple of other graphics, back to GR 115 (ph), if we can take a look at that, and I want to show you what you can expect for some of these rain showers here, if we can go back to that, please.

Want to give you a better view of this eye here, as those rain showers move back on shore. There we go. And you can see how far it's extending back on out to the west.

The other thing to keep in mind -- we've been focusing so much on what's been going on in the East Coast. Take a look at Tampa here. You've been getting nailed with some very strong showers and thunderstorms. First line moved through. Now we're getting in another wave, and you're probably going to see another one, a couple of hours from now.

The rainfall amounts so far have only been about three to four inches at most, but the rain is coming down at a rate of about half of an inch to an inch an hour, so by the time we reach midnight, we're talking about another three to six inches on top of what you already have. So those flooding concerns very evident, and we have flood watches now posted all the way across the strait, except for the extreme western panhandle at this time.

Again, Miles, as you said, that advisory should be coming up very shortly. As soon as we get that, we'll bring it to you. Right now, still at 105 miles per hour.

O'BRIEN: What's your gut, Jacqui? You know, we had a lot of talk over the past few days about how the Gulfstream would actually fuel that, but then I've heard some other things which say that isn't necessarily so.

JERAS: Well, it does happen, absolutely. Just -- the problem is, it's been over the Gulfstream. It's over the Gulfstream right now, and it's been over the Gulfstream pretty much all day, so it's not really moving into a big, dramatic difference in terms of water temperature to help it intensify. And as we've been looking at some of the radar pictures, if we can go back to PA7 (ph), to show you a wider radar loop, back to the radar pictures, we've been looking at a little bit of tightening possibly going on here. And these little vortices, we've heard them mentioned earlier, trying to get going in the center of the eye.

There is still a little bit of time for it to strengthen, but we're talking about, you've got to be up to 111 miles per hour in order for this to become a category three. It's only six miles an hour more than what it is right now, so the difference isn't going to be all that dramatic, if it's a strong two or a weak three.

O'BRIEN: All right. And one more thing, Jacqui. I was talking to this guy from Accuwewather, Joe Bastardi, and he was talking about this effective, when the eye comes across the coast, it can actually tighten up, and you can get in that area there much stronger winds as a result of all of that. Is that likely to happen?

JERAS: Well, sure, it could happen. I mean, anytime you get showers and thunderstorms and they move up towards land, you get a little bit of extra lift there, so that allows the thunderstorms to build a little bit more and become a little bit stronger.

O'BRIEN: All right, Jacqui Jeras. We'll check in with you very shortly. Stay close. And of course, stay busy. I don't need to tell you that.

JERAS: I am.

O'BRIEN: All right. Carol.

LIN: All right, we're staying busy here too. Jacqui was talking about 20 inches of rain hitting the coastal areas of Florida. Obviously, that is going to keep emergency management people pretty busy these days. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA we call them, they've got 19 disaster relief centers in Florida already, and those were for Hurricane Charley. It will likely be opening a few more in the days to come. Joining me now from Tallahassee, Florida, Michael Brown. He's FEMA's director. Michael, what kind of damage are you hearing about so far, because already the winds are beginning to whip up, the rain has been pouring, at least for the last 12 to 15 hours?

MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: And that's exactly what we're hearing here at the emergency operations center in Tallahassee, too. We have, you know, thousands of people without power. The winds are picking up. The rain's coming down. It's just unfortunately what we expected. So as long as the storm continues to move this slowly, we're going to have a lot of massive damage here in Florida.

LIN: And different kind of damage is what I'm hearing from Charley.

BROWN: Right.

LIN: I mean, Charley moved very quickly. The winds were devastating, ripping off rooftops. In this particular case, when you have a sustained hurricane situation sitting over land -- for example, one of the concerns is that the sustained winds against the walls of houses would cause buildings to literally buckle.

BROWN: You know, you have that problem. And then the ground is going to become so saturated that you'll have some structures beginning to lose their ability to withstand and stay atop of the ground. You have telephone polls and trees beginning to fall over and collapse on one another. And then you just have the problem of flooding. You know, typically, most deaths in hurricanes come from the inland flooding. So in this situation, we have a very slow moving hurricane, which is going to cause even more flooding. Plus, I am concerned, quite concerned about the impatience of people wanting to get back into their homes. They just need to take a deep breath and ride this one out as long as they can.

LIN: Especially when the eye passes over, and there is the calm before the second storm.

Governor Jeb Bush was warning people, stay in shelters. Don't be in such a hurry, because frankly, a lot of those people go back in. They wade through the water, and some of them get electrocuted to death, because they don't know what the dangers are below.

BROWN: Well, it's not only just becoming electrocuted, but as those flood waters move across highways or pavement or even open fields, you know, the physics of water is such that it can pick up an SUV and carry it downstream. We cannot fight that water power as it moves down. And so, that's what causes most of these deaths inland.

So people need to recognize. I know they're frustrated. They want to get back home, or get back into their businesses, but it's just not safe to do that yet.

LIN: Michael, a lot of comparisons to Hurricane Andrew 12 years ago, just the size and the massive amount of destruction that you're anticipating. In that particular case, 24,000 troops from the military were brought in to help. Is it time, do you think, to call in the military? Are you anticipating that kind of the breadth of damage?

BROWN: Not yet, because there are -- we don't anticipate that kind of damage. But what we have that's different from Hurricane Andrew is we have such a coordinated response between the state and the federal government. We have poised right now to move into this state literally thousands of personnel, literally hundreds and hundreds of trucks, emergency rescue workers, urban search and rescue, medical teams. They are poised and ready to come in right behind Frances as she slowly moves out. But to come in right behind her and start responding immediately. That's the difference between Andrew and what you're seeing this year.

LIN: Michael Brown, we wish you luck. BROWN: Thank you.

LIN: We'll be following your progress, and we're waiting for this storm to hit full force. Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you.

LIN: Michael Brown of FEMA.

We're going to be right back in just a moment, with the reporters' notebook from two men who are pretty wet, and frankly pretty wind-blown by now. CNN's Anderson Cooper and meteorologist Chad Myers. They are in Melbourne, Florida.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Wind and rain from the storm are already impacting Florida. Even if the hurricane's eye hasn't yet reached shore, but it is coming, very soon. Already, though, there are some reports of damage to coastal communities, and since the storm is moving so slowly, it is likely we're going to hear more in the coming hours. And of course, we're going to bring it to you.

We are going to take you right now, though, to Melbourne, Florida, where Anderson Cooper and CNN meteorologist Chad Myers have been out in the weather. They've been watching as those heavy bands of weather have been coming ashore. Anderson, give me an idea what's going on, and how -- the winds are -- it looks like they're picking up.

COOPER: Yeah, you could say that. The winds are definitely picking up. Chad, what are you reading here?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: 74.5 (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gusts.

COOPER: 74 -- that's really the first hurricane speed winds.

MYERS: That's first, category one, basically hurricane speed we've had. Yeah, finally now. It has taken all day to get there. The winds have gone up by five miles an hour every hour. Now we're finally above cat one strength.

COOPER: And we anticipate those speeds lasting all through the night.

MYERS: Absolutely. All night long. We'll be right here. Probably by midnight, 4 a.m., we could be well into the 90 mile an hour range, because this storm is not even close to us yet, Anderson.

COOPER: And we've been feeling these strong winds, obviously, all day, Carol, as you know, but these bands which have been coming, we're in the middle of a gust -- I mean, this literally just picked up in the last five minutes.

MYERS: Yeah, absolutely. Just another one of those fingers that we've had all day. It comes and goes, it comes and goes, and it's going to be most of the night. It's going to be coming rather than going now, because now we're close enough to the eye. The winds are just going to keep on going.

COOPER: Danger also increases now, because we're starting to lose the light. Obviously, we are out of electricity here, and so there are not going to be any street lights. And so it's going to be very difficult to see exactly what is coming your way. You can feel a big sting in your face, little pieces of rock or pebble. At night, of course, that danger just increases, because you really don't know what's out there.

MYERS: You don't, and even the rain feels bad now. Now the rain feels like you could do with little ice shards, little glass shards -- and all of a sudden, that's why we're so close to the water, because very little is actually going to blow across from the barrier island a mile over to here. But if we were downtown, everything, shingles, everything would be flying around downtown. And obviously, it's going on in downtown Melbourne right now.

COOPER: Yeah. And the barrier islands, you probably -- you can't even see it really at this point, but it's -- it's out there. You can maybe see it on the horizon. There are a few lights visible on the islands. We were out there yesterday, checked it out this morning, but that -- now that -- the barrier island, in between is the intercostal waterway, which just really just looks like a churning ocean now. And this wind again is picking up. Chad, are you getting anything?

MYERS: That was 52 sustained, and a gust of 69.

COOPER: What should we be anticipating in terms -- what do you think the top speed of the winds during the evening?

MYERS: You know, it looks to me like the eye wall, the northernmost eye wall will be a little bit south of us, maybe 15 or 20 miles, just off the Palm Bay. But we're going to be easily 90 to 95 here. If that storm doesn't even get stronger, because it's in that warm water of the Gulfstream. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have gone down on a couple of the Air Force reconnaissance planes in just the past hour or so.

COOPER: Chad has been monitoring the storm on his laptop computer in our vehicle during -- in between our live shots. At what point is the eye supposed to reach us? I mean, because that's when it becomes calm again.

MYERS: Well, I don't think the eye is ever going to get to us. We're going to be on the northern side of the eye wall. The eye will be Fort Pierce, the eye will be south of Sebastian Inlet and north of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We will never see the eye. It will never come down here.

COOPER: And so, the winds are all going to continue until -- at what point, when does it get beyond us?

MYERS: I would say by noon tomorrow, it's down below 50 miles an hour. Until noon tomorrow, another -- gosh, another 16 hours. It will be above hurricane strength. You know, you're losing shingles one at a time now. I got to drive around about an hour ago, and the shingles were coming off the roof, just one, and the next one, then the next one. And it wasn't because we were doing 90 miles an hour; the winds weren't even at 50. But it's that sustained, long-term damage that you're getting at a lot of these places.

COOPER: Now, we've been trying to get damage reports for this area. We have not been able to really get an authoritative source on that. We do know that all throughout Florida, more than 1.4 million Floridians are without electricity right now. As we said before, this area is without electricity, and we do see a number of downed lights, downed power polls. I mean, you know, you look at something like this, this light right here, and it has just been shaking back and forth all day. You know, it could go any second. You just don't know. So we're going to be staying away from it for most of the day. Again, what reading?

MYERS: We're still 57 now, gusting to 71.

We had a little lull there for about 30 seconds. It was kind of nice. You and I could talk, we could actually hear each other, and then all of a sudden, it's coming in again. And it's just one storm, one little squall after another, after another.

COOPER: And you can actually see -- you can actually see the squall come.

MYERS: It's kind of ironic, isn't it? You know it's coming. And if the live shot is coming, you can't do anything about. You can't even run for cover. So we're out here, you can see them coming.

There is another one out there. It's so dark, you can't even see it, but there's another one literally I would say 45 seconds away here, and it's just outside this little barrier. And as it comes by, the winds are going to pick up 20 miles an hour again, and then it's actually going to -- like this one -- it's going to start to rain. Because that what we see out there is actually water in the air. Whether the water is off the ocean or off the river here, or if it's actually coming down you don't even know, but there's been very little rain here.

I've been surprised at the lack, the lack of rain that we've had today.

COOPER: It was the big fear, and of course still a big fear of flooding, so we'll be watching for that. Carol, let's go back to you.

LIN: Anderson, the light is beginning to change. It's almost dark. I mean, it was turning dark, literally, in this live shot. Is that because the storm is moving in, or because the sun is setting where you are?

COOPER: The sun is going down. I mean, we obviously can't see the sun, but I can see on the horizon that way what looks like some sort of a sunset above the clouds. There is a layer of clouds on the ground. So it is just naturally becoming dark, but obviously the storm does not help. It makes it darker than it really should be at this time. But darkness is definitely falling, Carol. It's getting to be about that time.

LIN: Yeah, Anderson, there is this eerie blue glow behind you as this hurricane is beginning to move in. How long is it going to be safe for you to stay out there, you think?

COOPER: You know, we're not sure. You know, we're checking every couple of minutes, and it's just a moment by moment thing. We think we're find out here, because there is not a lot of material that could come flying through the air around this area. It's why we picked this area. And as Chad said, we're close to the water, so there is not a lot of stuff flying off the water that could possibly get to us. You know, if you're in a more populated area, a place with more buildings, there is a lot more debris that could fly off. So we're pretty much fine, and we think that the satellite truck is safe here as well. So we think we're fine for now, Carol.

LIN: All right, because when the eye actually passes over Fort Pierce, 50 miles south of you, where Gary Tuchman is, where it's going to be calm, you're going to still be in the full throes of hurricane winds. It's going to be interesting. We'll try to take a split screen to show people exactly what Chad Myers was talking about, as Hurricane Frances makes landfall.

Thanks very much, Anderson. Stay safe out there.

COOPER: OK, Carol.

LIN: All right. We got much more ahead, so stay right there.

We're going to go back to Miles, who's now at the big board, working some information on Hurricane Frances.

O'BRIEN: All day long, Carol, as you well know, the Bahamas have been battered by Hurricane Frances. Reports of a couple of deaths there, numerous injuries, including one reporter for the Miami affiliate, WPLG, Judy Chavez.

We are joined now live from Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas by the photographer -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) chief photographer for the station, as a matter of fact, Bill Damas. Bill, first of all, just tell us your personal tale, if you could.

BILL DAMAS, WPLG PHOTOGRAPHER: It's actually pretty wild here. The storm lasted a very, very long time. We were surprised by the intensity and the length, the duration of the storm. I mean, it came in somewhere in the morning time, 8:00 in the morning, yesterday, and it was 5:00 in the morning this morning, and it was still pounding pretty hard.

O'BRIEN: And what happened to you and your reporter today?

DAMAS: Well, what happened -- the injury that the reporter sustained was actually us -- we tried to take -- once the storm did come on shore, the full eye of the storm came ashore, we took -- tried to take shelter. We went to -- over to the shelter that the hotel provided for us, and when we did that, in the walk over there, we -- she sustained some debris from the building that hit her on her side. A piece of -- actually, if you look over here, on the floor, something similar to this right here, which is like a (UNINTELLIGIBLE). This is one of the parts of the side of the building from this hotel that we're staying at, Abaco beach resort.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. For a moment there, we had a picture of the reporter you were working with, Judy Chavez. Is she going to be OK, first of all?

DAMAS: Yeah, the doctor from the island came over just a little while ago, and they talked to her, they kind of looked her over, see how she was doing. They're not exactly sure what she may have suffered. They believe maybe a fractured rib is a possibility. Just not sure, because of X-rays and lack of the facilities here on the island right now, because -- due to the storm.

O'BRIEN: If she's got a fractured rib, we know she's uncomfortable.

Let's talk a little bit about what you saw on the island today.

DAMAS: Well, I took a little tour earlier on. The town official had a 4x4 truck, and we went down to the downtown area. There was a lot of flooding. A lot of flooding on the streets. Just all the way up to the storefronts and houses. Power lines down on the ground. Trees everywhere. Debris. The wind was still kicking -- actually, the wind is still kicking now. I heard your reporter in Florida just getting some of it right now, and we're still feeling the after effects, just a kind of a sign to show how wide the storm is.

O'BRIEN: Were you out when the winds peaked? We were told that they peaked in the 90 mile an hour range.

DAMAS: We were out for a long period of time. We tried to, of course, under safety reasons, we stayed in a sheltered area where I could still shoot some video, and I was seeing a long of very strong gusts. The trees were falling. Just tree limbs being ripped off the trees. You could see the leaves, almost like the tree was being shredded completely, right before you. And then, you know, once the 90 mile -- the 100 mile an hour winds kicked in, we took shelter immediately. And for most of the night, I didn't want to come out anymore. We didn't feel safe. We heard things falling outside. The shutters of the room we were being kept in were just being pounded. Even as a matter of fact, when we came out this morning, the roof -- we were having some water leaking into our shelter area, and the roof of the shelter we were staying at was ripped off on one side of it. So now we know -- we kind of know the strength of the storm, and why we're getting the water, and it's better that we would stay inside, at least for the period of time that we needed to be to be safe.

O'BRIEN: And a final thought here. You've obviously only had a limited view, but what you've seen is very widespread damage there in the Bahamas as a result of Frances? DAMAS: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that question.

O'BRIEN: How widespread is the damage, do you think, in the Bahamas, just based on what you've seen there?

DAMAS: We took -- our tour was pretty short. We had -- we went through the downtown area, right around the harbor area, into the port area -- we didn't get to the airport. The flooding was too bad, we couldn't get in there. As we understand, reports from the airport, though, that a lot of damage, and the airport is under water right now. I would imagine throughout the rest of the islands, a lot of damage as well. I mean, the winds -- it wasn't so much -- the strength was intense, but the duration of the storm, so many hours of non-stop pounding wind, consistently pounding 90 to 100 miles an hour when the wind gusts -- higher than that, even. That could seriously do damage, start breaking things apart.

O'BRIEN: Bill Damas is the chief photographer with WPLG, our affiliate in Miami. Give us our best, please, to Judy Chavez, the correspondent you were working with, who suffered an injury, and we wish her and you well. Please stay safe for the remainder there.

We'll be back with more of our coverage of Hurricane Frances in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On any given day over the Florida peninsula, literally hundreds of aircraft going to and fro, either originating in one of those Florida airports, headed that way, or flying over the peninsula as they head on their way to South America.

Take a look at some real-time radar information that we have available to us from FlightExplorer.com, overlaid with the radar, which is the unmistakable sight of Frances, as she comes ashore here, and it's difficult to see, I know, on your screen at home, but these little blue airplane insignias represent about eight airplanes total anywhere near the Florida peninsula. And if you look at them and get some information -- a little more information about them, you see most of them are headed to northern cities from South American points of origination, and are skirting the edges of Hurricane Frances at very high altitude. This one is at 37,000 feet, on its way to Baltimore- Washington International Airport. This one is on its way to Newark, up there at 33,000 feet. And on and on it goes. This one is on its way to Atlanta.

And if you look at the airports all along the East Coast here, of course what you'd expect -- here is Fort Lauderdale. That's the traffic graph, and if you look at that lower line there, that magenta line, those are proposed arrivals, indication of one arrival coming up in an hour's time, although I am very skeptical that that will actually occur.

Look at the airport in Fort Myers, the airport traffic graph. They've had a little bit of activity proposed over the next hour or so. Can probably sneak a few arrivals or departures in there right before the storm hits, but not too many.

Going up to Tampa, International Airport, pretty much a flat line. A few peaks of proposed arrivals and departures. Once again, as the storm closes in, those might get canceled.

And then, of course, the busiest airport in Florida is Orlando Airport, and right now it's virtually a flat line as well, that magenta line indicating just a couple of proposed arrivals.

That means that there is a flight plan on file. Whether that will actually turn into an airplane in the sky, I'm highly skeptical.

Very quiet day for those who are left inside those radar rooms, those FAA radar centers and control Trecon (ph) centers -- Carol.

LIN: All right, Miles. We want to bring, frankly, an amazing picture out of Fort Pierce, Florida, which is basically ground zero for the eye of Hurricane Frances when it does make landfall in about -- anywhere for the next three to six hours. The rain is already just pelting down, an unrelenting rain, as this lumbering, slow-moving hurricane creeps its way across the state of Florida, heading toward the Gulf. The amount of water that it's going to dump -- 20 inches along the coast of Florida.

Stay with us. CNN, as we continue our coverage of Hurricane Frances. We are tracking where Frances is headed. We have reporters all along the cost of Florida. We're going to go there live, and also coming up, at 8:00 in this next hour, we're going to get an updated forecast from the National Hurricane Center. So stay right there.

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