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CNN Live Saturday

Hurricane Frances; Interview With Jeb Bush

Aired September 04, 2004 - 17:00   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. All along the Florida coast, wind gusts are being felt everywhere from about 45 miles per hour wind gusts to about 91 miles per hour wind gusts. And we've got some new pictures coming in right now out of Hollywood Beach, just south of Ft. Lauderdale, where you can see the result of some of the wind gusts that they've been experiencing -- a lot of blown around furniture and a very brave driver there, trying to make their way through, and a few palm tree fronds on the road as well, a very common sight we've been seeing all day long along the Florida coast.
But you know what? Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center has been warning us that really, the worst of the sustained, maximum hurricane force winds are going to be felt at nightfall, and that's along the Florida coast. Our meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is in the weather center, although they had evacuation orders that were affecting about 2.5 million people, it's hard to believe, Jacqui, that there are always still a few folks who decide, you know what, category II, this is nothing. I'm going to wait and just ride it out.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I know. What can do you about those people? They're going to do what they want to do. Some people don't want to leave their homes. Certainly we don't advise that, but if you are still in your home, you want to get away from the outside walls of the home. You want to get to the interior into a safe, safe place. Of course, depending how close you are to the coastline and how serious of a concern flooding may be, you know, your basement may not be your best bet. You might want to get into a closet on the lowest level of your home and be certainly alert to the potential of some of those rising waters.

A 5:00 advisory is in now. So here's your latest information on Hurricane Frances. The latest information is no big change. It's still the same. We still have 105 mile per hour winds. Still a strong category II and it's still moving slowly to the west-northwest, maybe four or five miles per hour at best. It's only moved about 20 miles in the last three hours. The location has it coming in 50 miles east northeast of Palm Beach. Here you can see on the radar picture that huge eye we've been talking about. And it is inching closer towards west palm beach.

So it's getting very close to the shoreline now. We're going to start to see this moving in and in the next couple of hours those sustained hurricane force winds should be arriving really at any time. They should be pushing in with the next hour. Certainly we're seeing the gusts in that range already. And also take note on the backside, this is the bad side of the storm, that is now moving over Freeport. So now they were hit the first time around. They're getting the back side of the storm. Forecast track is still staying the same. We're not anticipating any major changes. This should be making landfall likely sometime overnight for tonight. The bottom line, current winds 105. Landfall sometime tonight and very prolonged event with massive flooding, up to 24 inches can be expected around the center of the path. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much.

Well, Florida has been under a lot of pressure in the last few weeks after dealing with Hurricane Charley on the west coast of Florida and now the threats of Hurricane Frances on the east coast all along the Atlantic coast, hurricane warnings are in effect.

The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, is joining me now from Tallahassee. Governor, you asked people 72 hours ago to get prepare for this storm. And just earlier today, you said if you didn't do that, now is the time. But certainly it's too late for any straddlers who decided to stay along the coast to get on the road. What should they do?

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: Absolutely. They should -- if they're not in the shelters now or in their own homes, then -- most people are. I mean, no one's going to be out in the streets right now. Most -- a great majority of people have prepared. They have prepared their home or they went to the shelter or they left the area. And I'm proud of their efforts, because it saved lives.

WHITFIELD: Well, let's talk about what you all are up against. You're still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Charley. Billions of dollars in damage, more than 25 people killed in that. And you've got an awful lot of state workers and volunteers from all over the country who are trying to help out the folks. How strapped are you now, given that this is a much more sizable storm, and could sustain much greater widespread damage given that you're dealing with a greater populace?

BUSH: Well, we're going to need a lot of help. And thankfully, we're going to get it. I've talked to the CEO of the Red Cross, and she's told me that this will be the largest recovery effort, relief effort that they've ever been involved in. And FEMA probably has the largest effort under way that they've ever been involved in, and our state clearly this is -- we've never done anything quite like this.

So we are staging trucks and water and ice and food and volunteers in safe harbors, in Atlanta and other places, ready to come down when the storm finishes, and we'll be on the ground as quickly as possible.

WHITFIELD: And particularly, I saw some numbers that said that you all arranged to deliver something like one million meals a day, along with 600 trucks of water and more than 200 trucks of ice. Getting all of that to the people in need is going to be probably your first challenge, however, right, with a lot of downed trees and power lines, just getting around is going to be a nightmare? BUSH: It is going to be a challenge. And then you consider the fact that a sizable number of people have left the state or have moved -- have gotten up into the northern part of the state, are going to want to come back home to their -- go back to their houses. So we're developing strategies to allow people to come back. But over time, they need to be patient so that we can get the relief workers tomorrow and the day after, particularly, into -- on the ground so that we can help people.

WHITFIELD: Part of that strategy, you have other states that are already at the ready to help. Alabama, they've lined up their trucks, they're ready to start coming into your state. In what capacity are many of these other state agencies going to be helping?

BUSH: Oh, the support has been fantastic, from National Guard to C-130s to all of the utility trucks. Most of the power lines that are down will be put up by utility workers from different parts of the country. The faith-based groups and the Red Cross volunteers are coming from around the country. It is remarkable. And I appreciate my fellow governors' offers of support. We've taken them up on it, and we're really grateful for it.

WHITFIELD: Already something like 450,000 customers of FP&L are without power. And that's primarily just on the east coast and some of the central parts of Florida. For the areas like Punta Gorda, that are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Charley, what are some of the complications that you're dealing with there, as you try to get -- resume some sort of normalcy on the west coast of Florida?

BUSH: Well, I mean, these are heroic people. For example, that the schools are double shifting schools, because the schools were damaged. So schools are open from 7:00 to 7:00 almost. And now, starting Monday, they're going to have to get up and do it again, and they may not be able to immediately.

So we've got to get power back on, we've got to get the roads cleaned, as you said. We need to remove the debris, fix the houses, make sure kids go to school, make sure the hospitals are open. This is a huge challenge, but I love my state, and I know my state will respond to this.

WHITFIELD: You know, you talk about the challenges. As one of the challenges that you all faced, I remember Marty Evans from the Red Cross talking about this for the folks in the Punta Gorda area is the psychological help that many of these residents are going to need, particularly those who have decided to stick around and ride out the storm.

How are you prepared to help those people along the east coast?

BUSH: Well, that's one of the things that we've discussed with the federal government is to try in the supplemental that the president will submit to Congress to include additional moneys for mental health counseling, because there's going to be a great need for people in Charlotte County -- but don't forget, Orlando as well where the storm passed, as well. And a lot of people are still struggling there as well, and the storm certainly will go through central Florida again. So we're going to seek additional support to allow for our mental health system to have the money to make a difference.

WHITFIELD: And right now, your emergency preparedness offices are like what? I mean, you know, you...

BUSH: Can you see it back there?

WHITFIELD: I guess you have kind of -- yeah, I can see some of it, and I'm wondering if you've kind of got the layers of kind of dove-tailing shifts so that you don't have folks who are exhausted before the storm actually hits.

BUSH: Well, we're on 12-hour shifts, and people have been working for the last three weeks. But you know, these are dedicated public servants, and they are inspired by the people that are struggling to rebuild theirselves in Hurricane Charley, and concerned about their fellow man that -- in the middle of this storm.

So they're just taking it up a notch. I am really impressed with them, and the local emergency operation centers around the state that are in harm's way. I mean, these are true heroes, and they don't get the credit they deserve.

WHITFIELD: And governor, how nervous are you personally about this storm?

BUSH: I'm not nervous. I'm concerned. And I'm sad. I'm sad for people that are going to have a lot of trauma and a lot of tragedy in their life because of this storm. And it just makes me want to reenergize and to do all I can to lead this army of people to help them.

WHITFIELD: Governor Jeb Bush, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us from Tallahassee.

BUSH: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Much further south from Tallahassee and along the Atlantic coast of Florida is Melbourne and already our Chad Myers and Anderson Cooper earlier were talking about the wind gusts they experienced. Anderson Cooper by yourself, there, all by your lonesome along with that lonely bending palm tree right there, wind gusts you experienced over 50 miles per hour a bit earlier. What are you feeling now?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fredricka, it is still pretty bad here as you can see by this palm tree. These winds are just constant. It is just this constant--this tree is not having any chance to kind of snap back and rest at all. The winds have just been going and going. We're just going to try to show you even walking anywhere is difficult. The rain is still coming in almost horizontally. It's very hard to look into the on coming storm because it just feels like pin pricks. They're really advising people obviously, sensibly, to stay out of this. We have seen a couple people walking around which is just moronic basically. We're being very careful where we go because we're trying to be in an area where there is not the potential for debris coming around. Here's--this kind of stuff just flies around. This is just came off of that lamppost which we're anticipating breaking away so we're going to get away from there for a little bit. But as you can see, if you look out in the marina now, the Intercostal Waterway white caps getting bigger, those winds just chopping the top off the waves. It looks like the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, I said it before, but it is just remarkable when you consider this is the Intercostal Waterway. This is not the ocean. And yet this looks like the ocean was yesterday.

A lot of these boats just bobbing around. There's going to be a lot of worried people who own these boats, a lot of people worried today how their boat is doing. So far we haven't seen any boats or anything sink. But this thing is just building--hold on there. Cameraman almost got blown away. At this point you can still walk you can still get around. But we're anticipating winds picking up 20 more miles an hour. The last reading we had here, one of the gusts was about 71. Jacqui Jeras saying in the next 30 minutes or so, we could be getting winds up into the 80s. It is definitely getting nasty out here, Fredricka. This is a battle right here.

WHITFIELD: And Anderson, you're feeling the first bands of the wind and rain right now often as it goes, it's kind of on and off again. Have you had that little moment of respite and it picked up again or has it been just sustained winds?

COOPER: You know, it's funny. I would have anticipated sort of picking up and slowing down because it is this band, as you said, but it feels very sustained. It feels just constant pressure just knocking away. There are gusts which on top of it, you know, it picks up from time to time. But it never lets down at all to the point where it doesn't feel like anything. And now we're really starting to get more rain and previously in the last couple hours, it has just been this wind we are fighting. But now you're getting a lot more rain and we anticipate much more rain and the potential for very severe flooding in this area, truly (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So it's now getting to be wind and rain, the double threat of those, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Anderson Cooper, thanks so much. Already starting to feel sustained forceful wind and rain there, and you know, that rain hitting against the face feels like just sand, just coming at like he said, these 50-60 mile per hour wind gusts. It is painful, it's not comfortable at all. We're going to continue our coverage of Hurricane Frances when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The first bands of wind and rain from Hurricane Frances are already starting to battery Florida's Atlantic coast. WPLG now brings us some images of Boca Raton which is just north of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Let's take a look.

ROBIN KISH, WFOR CORRESPONDENT: I'm here in downtown Boca Raton at the corner of Camino Real and South Federal Highway and you can see the winds are really gusting right now, the rains coming down, and it's actually prickling our skin. You can see a lot of debris on the roads. In fact, right down the street, there was a power line that went down earlier today. And some power has been out throughout the day, scattered power outages throughout the city and people are complaining actually. There was a car that just drove by, someone inside was saying "When is the power going to come back on?" Well, as the winds blows, it's going to knock down trees. We've seen trees down, tree limbs down, and we know there are at least two large trees that are blocking roadways north of here and when that happens, sometimes they bring down the power lines. The winds can do it on their own.

So FP&L is working as fast as it can and from the information that I received they can't work if the winds are gusting higher than 35 miles an hour. So it's going to take sometime before that power is restored in certain areas. And we went out to the beach earlier and saw the surf. It was amazing. We were out there yesterday. And I can tell you the waves are twice the size that they were yesterday. In fact, the surf came in all the way up to the pavilion, it's basically devouring the beach. And erosion is definitely going to be a problem after Hurricane Frances blows through. As slowly as she's moving. So that's the situation here in downtown Boca Raton. You can see, there are a lot of people out, some people are actually driving, believe it or not, and rolling their video cameras to get pictures, which is not a good idea when the weather is good much less when the weather is as bad as it is now and could get worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you Robin Kish in Boca Raton. I tell you what. If you're driving your automobile, especially in something like this, you don't need to be holding a video camera at the same time. We're going to move down to the beach now where...

WHITFIELD: Those images out of Boca Raton actually coming from our CBS affiliate, WFOR. Tens of thousands of Floridians are in shelters statewide and in southernmost Georgia. CNN's Jason Bellini met quite a few of them and he's in Melbourne.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fredricka. I'm in Melbourne. I'm at Brevard Community College. Here is where 850 people have been sheltered. This shelter is now at capacity. And to give you a little sense of what's going on around me, it's about dinnertime. There's some trays here that are marked PB&J, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They've got granola bars.

Also, you'll see in the background behind me, there are a lot of people watching the TV set, people watching the weather. That's what we see in just about every corridor of this community college. People watching, waiting to hear what's going on, hoping to see pictures of-- hoping to see that no damage has been done to their area. Most of these people were not evacuees. People who lived in homes they felt were not adequately safe for these conditions here during this hurricane. We've talked to a lot of people today. There's a lot of concern, of course, in this building and also concern about when they're going to be able to go home. People have been here since Thursday, many of them and may be here for several more days before-- hunker down, brought a lot of stuff with them.

Most people brought coolers, some people brought TV sets. People set up camp here. There's even some children were playing video games. People trying to make the best of this situation and keeping an eye on what's happening through the windows as they're seeing the storm come through and rustle the palm trees and looks like a pretty ferocious storm outside. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Jason Bellini in Melbourne and it is ferocious so far and it's only going to get worse outdoors there in Melbourne this evening. We're going to take a short break for now, we'll be right back with more of our coverage of Hurricane Frances.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More of our hurricane coverage in a moment, but first another of the big stories that this weekend that we're following out of Russia, one with some very disturbing images. For the first time, we see the destruction and devastation that occurred during a three- day siege at a school in southern Russia. Here's Ryan Chilcote.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is where it all began. This is the school's gymnasium where most of the hostages were being kept. Let's go have a look.

This is the first time the relatives of the hostages have been allowed into the school to take a look. This is where it all began; this is where one of the two bombs went off. That's what caused the roof to then collapse. Russian soldiers blew a hole in this wall to give the children a way to get out. This is another part of the gym and there are still children's clothes on the ground.

One of the first things the hostage takers did was blow out all of the windows. They were afraid Russian forces might try to pump gas into this building like they did in the Moscow theater siege. Russian authorities think it all began when two bombs went off. They think a group of the hostages decided to make a run for it, they would have gone that way. That was when snipers on the roof opened fire on them as they fled.

These guys are telling me they lost a lot of their friends in this school and they would have swapped themselves and would have preferred they themselves were killed.

These are bullet holes and this is a blood spot. Russian officials now believe that a lot of the weapons were brought to the school even before it was seized and hidden in the floor in places like this.

Lots of bullet holes here.

This is a notebook from one of the children that was in the ninth grade.

You can still see the blood in the water.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: Ryan Chilcote with that disturbing report coming out of southern Russia now.

Now another big developing story, of course, we're following for you throughout the day, Hurricane Frances and our own Gary Tuchman is joining us live from Fort Pierce which is just north of West Palm Beach and apparently you're in the place, Gary, that is supposed to be right in the middle of the projected path of this storm.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, that's what makes it amazing. The last seven hours we've basically been trying to build an arc. And now the rain is completely stopped. It is not raining at all. It is not as windy as it was. That's why I give testament to our meteorologists at CNN, the meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center, all the meteorologists everywhere because before they had radar and their satellite, people would come out of their homes now and say it is not nearly bad and then they'd be in trouble because we know the worst is yet still to come.

Especially here, in St. Lucie County where it does look like the eye and the eye wall is headed. This is the Fort Pierce City Marina. It is just us and the yachts right now. Everyone is gone. I've never covered a hurricane where I've seen fewer curiosity seekers than this one. To that we give credit to Hurricane Charley. That has made people very aware. Fort Pierce City Center right here in the downtown is right next to the Intercostal Waterway, which is this, and then a half a mile in this direction to the Atlantic Ocean. And the barrier island of Hutchinson Island which is there.

Almost everyone has gone. We've driven around to see some of the damage. We've seen police. We've seen once in awhile a couple of stragglers and curiosity seekers but not nearly as many as my colleagues as we usually see and not nearly as many as some of my colleagues have seen in other areas. People are in the shelters in this county. An estimated 5,000 people in a county of over 200,000 people are in shelters. And I ride around Fort Pierce, this city of 39,000 people, there's lots of damage already. What's unusual about that is the worst of the hurricane is still to come. Yet, we see trees down all over, we saw a McDonald's sign down, we saw a taco restaurant sign down. We saw a gas station sign down. We've seen power lines down. We saw a minivan parked on a street and there was a tree on top of it. We haven't seen any people around and that authorities say, they're very happy about with a lot more of this still to come. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: And those effects, Gary, really a serious warning of what is to come. We're talking about a storm that at last estimates was about 75 miles wide. When you talk to the authorities there in Fort Pierce, are they equipped, do they have the resources to try to respond to any kind of emergencies if indeed they do come about? Perhaps a straggler or two who decides to stick around?

TUCHMAN: Right. We've talked with police officers and although they're very concerned about their families they know that this is what they're paid for, this kind of emergency. They're out there to help people if they need the help. One thing we should tell you, though, is that on this barrier island and barrier islands all throughout South Florida, we were just in West Palm Beach yesterday. And when we talked to police in Palm Beach, the barrier island just to the east of West Palm Beach, and they were saying, listen, the people in Palm Beach need help, we're not going to be able to provide it, that's too dangerous to be there. We've had them sign next of kin forms. So in the evacuated areas where we are right now, Hutchinson Island just a half mile to my left, police aren't going to go there if you need help. Everywhere else, inland is where you often where you have the biggest problem, police say they are ready for those emergencies.

WHITFIELD: All right. Gary Tuchman in Fort Pierce, Florida, thanks so much for that report. And we'll have more of our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. More on our continuing coverage of hurricane Frances in a moment. But first these headlines.

Los Angeles International Airport has reopened and is getting back to normal after being shut down for several hours by two unrelated security incidents. In one, a man bypassed security screeners entering the terminal by climbing up the exit stairs. In the second, defective batteries in a flashlight caused a small explosion in some baggage. Eight people suffered minor injuries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling for a national mobilization against terrorism in the wake of this week's deadly school siege, 323 people; half of them children were killed during a standoff, explosion and gun battle at a school in the southern city of Beslan. Twenty-six hostage takers were also killed. More than 700 people in all were injured.

These ferocious flames are the result of an attack on the oil pipeline near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Firefighters are working seriously to try and put out the fire. Police say the pipeline has been shut down but that shutdown is not expected to have a significant impact on Iraq's overall oil exports.

Welcome back to our special coverage of hurricane Frances. Want to take you straight to southern Florida and thanks to our affiliate, WFOR, we're going to join them live so that they can give us a sense as to what is taking place along the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

ELLIOTT RODRIGUEZ, CBS 4 NEWS: For our viewers to interact with us and send us some of these pictures and information about what's happening in their neighborhood and there's a lot going on out there. We just want to stress again for people to stay inside. Remember, while it's calm for a while, all of a sudden those winds can whip up.

So you don't want to do anything that's going to get you in danger. But we do have some pictures there from your own home, right there in your own neighborhood and you want to e-mail them to us, if you're lucky enough to have power right now, we might show them on the air. That's it from the breaking news desk. I'm Elliott Rodriguez. Now back to Robin and Maggie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right thanks Elliott. You know Maggie, I'm going to check with the computer folks here and see if you can even send in those short clips of streaming video of the storm, we will check on that and get back to the viewers on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to reiterate to our viewers, that we only want you to take pictures or shoot video when it is absolutely safe to go outside. The way it looks right now in Juno Beach, it would not be a good time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No and Jennifer Santiago has at times had to hunker down and actually just hang on because the winds have been so bad there. And Jen the storm is not really moving at all right now.

JENNIFER SANTIAGO, WFOR: No Rob, that's terrible news for everybody out here. It certainly as well, we know the storm isn't moving. It's at a crawl speed or just kind of completely slowed down at this point. You're looking at pictures of the surf in Juno Beach and I got my footing so I can come in front of the camera right now.

We're being told that the bans through here have winds in them that can exceed 109 miles per hour. And basically what that means for us is you know we're seeing this steady wind right now. But every now and then one gust comes by and knocks you off your feet and hopefully it won't happen to you while I'm talking to you right now. But if it does I will grab on to Mike Modrano (ph) the photographer down here.

He is sitting down; he is doing the smart thing. To give you a perspective of where of I am. You may have seen Art Barrett earlier in this condominium complex he was on a balcony further up facing west. That's of course east and I'm facing a terrace here that's been shuttered up and there's a patio doors that are all shuttered down. All these are condos that are right on the water, 100 mile per hour winds is what we were expecting. And to give you a perspective of that feels like you certainly see what some of it looks like.

I have experienced a 90 per mile wind gust.

WHITFIELD: That's what it looks like in Juno Beach just north of Fort Lauderdale. And now let's take you to Fort Lauderdale. Thanks to our affiliate WSBM and see what they coverage is like.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Try to grasp as much of it from what we are showing you, there's just absolutely no need to be driving out in these conditions. A few minutes ago, we actually talked to one man, and he says that he and about 24 of his neighbors are holed up in that condominium that is right over there to our left. As you can see, it's pretty much holed up and shuttered up, but he's saying that him and his neighbors are in there and they have decided that they will be -- that they will be weathering this one out. He says that he just doesn't think it's going to get any worse than this, and of course, Max Mayfield over at the National Hurricane Center and our very own Bill Kamal (ph) at times beg to differ. Over here, in the ocean, as you can see, huge swells still coming across. About six feet at times and when we first got here around 3:00, we had this huge wave crest and Steve if you'll show them here, sad, now absolutely just filled this whole barrier here, obviously breaking the sea wall, coming very close to A 1 A.

And this is obviously going to be probably the worst that we're going to see here on the beach. It's just the massive erosion that we're going to see probably throughout south Florida. If you take a close look at these swells, you'll see the brown murky color of sand. And that's it just washing away from us. If you look further out, you'll see another huge breaking point. I'm told there is a huge coral reef and we're still seeing huge breaks in these waves.

You know what, they're still not breaking enough because we're still seeing huge swells here on shore. We, of course, will keep monitoring the situation here from our vantage point and let you know what happens next.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Diane have you seen any more people out there? Last time we checked in with you there were a couple people out there on the beach. Have you seen any more curiosity seekers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Luckily no. That is about it. We saw four teenagers about an hour ago. We interviewed that man live about I think it was 4:00, but ever since, we haven't seen anymore. That has to absolutely be because Fort Lauderdale police are doing such a good job of keeping people and cars and curiosity seekers far away from the beach. Obviously dangerous conditions, conditions that continue to deteriorate, and of course, we have some lulls. That's what we're experiencing right now. I've got to tell you, in the past two and a half hours since we've been here, the winds have picked up seriously.

They've been amazing gusts that just come out of nowhere. We've actually driven around now a bit just to get a good feel about what's going on. We haven't seen many downed power lines luckily, but what we have noticed is just as the ocean continues to creep closer and closer, canals in the area are continuing to almost get to a flooding point. And that's going to be a scary condition here.

On the Barrier Islands. The Finger Islands that a butt A 1 A. We have million dollar homes just a couple of miles away from here. And all of them are perilously close to the water at this point. And we know from hearing Bill Kamal (ph) and Max Mayfield that this is just going to be a slow soggy mess that is going to continue to drench south Florida with incredible rainfall and that's obviously going to be the big concern. That and erosion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, Diane.

WHITFIELD: Well those new pictures, live pictures coming in from Fort Lauderdale. That's to our affiliate, WSVN. Well Frances is just kind of sitting alongside the sunshine state. The longer it does so and the longer it takes to actually get through the state, the greater the chances of flooding. That's a major concern and keeping a key eye on that is Thaddeus Cohen, secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs.

He joins us from Tallahassee. Good to see you. Well, Thaddeus, let's talk about the concerns of flooding. Already in some areas, you're seeing some minor flooding, and the brunt of the storm really hasn't even hit the Atlantic Coast.

THADDEUS COHEN, SECRETARY, FLORIDA'S DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AFFAIRS: Well, you're correct. And what you're seeing now is the outer bands of the storm starting to reach the eastern coast of Florida. As the governor and director Few Gate has talked about is that now is the time for people to be prepared. Flooding will become more of an issue as it's expected to have 10 to 12 inches of average rainfall going across the state. The fact that this will be a slow moving storm at about five to eight miles per hour is going to exacerbate the situation.

WHITFIELD: It has to be pretty nerve-racking especially when you're hearing some forecasts. You talk about the 12 inches of rain. There are some forecasts that are putting some of this flooding at possibly 25 inches of rain in very low-lying areas. What can you do if anything to try to prepare for what could be a real disaster?

COHEN: Well, what we know is that most Floridians have heeded the early warnings that we put out 72 hours ago that they need to secure their properties and to protect their families by being able to move to higher ground, to move to sheltered areas that are typically located in higher ground. So we think that most individuals have heeded the word that we indicated, that storm surge along the coastal areas were going to be significant events as well as low lying areas.

I think most Floridians have taken these opportunities to protect themselves. And I think that as we move forward and we start moving our folks in position for search and rescues that are going to be one of the key priority areas that we're going to have.

WHITFIELD: Part of the problem when you've got flood waters in these low lying areas, you just don't have any place for this water to go. Once this water is standing in some of these low lying areas, then you're dealing with some major health hazards, aren't you, mosquitoes problem and all kinds of nuisance, animals there in Florida. That's a very significant concern. What can you do or what have you done to prepare for that kind of onslaught?

COHEN: Well part of what we have is that we'll have our first responders will be able to be in the position to provide and render aid to folks that find themselves in that position. Part of what we've been doing is putting out PSAs both in English and Spanish to our communities and informing them of the health hazards, being able to prepare after the storm passes through, small children should not be playing in the water for electrocution problems. Being able as you indicated having animals and other health hazards being able to be in the water. So I think we've done a fairly good job of being able to get that message out there. In order to stay safe even after the storm has passed through, that it's important to be able to get to the areas that are more safe if you have an opportunity to do that.

WHITFIELD: Go ahead sorry.

COHEN: I said I think one of the things that we looked at very early on is by being able to put out those health messages that we've had folks to be able to take that opportunity to prepare themselves with sand bags and other opportunities to be able to render the flood situation to be less hazardous than it could be.

WHITFIELD: It's certainly helpful in deed that so many people heeded the warnings of the mandatory evacuations. When I spoke with Governor Bush just moments ago inside this hour, he talked about one of the big obstacles is going to be when you've got all these power lines and trees down, it's going to be difficult for the emergency crews to make their way around to try to pick up some of the pieces so that some of those roads are passable.

That's likely to be still another big concern if you're dealing with floodwaters as well.

COHEN: Well I think one of the things that we were able to tell our citizens very early on is we're doing an analysis of this particular storm that each storm event has its own unique challenges. And I think as the governor has indicated, we've had opportunities to have folks as far as Oregon to be able to come down and be able to provide assistance to us. As you know from Charlie, we've had a phenomenal response by our own Floridians but as well as our neighbors and other states as well as the National Guard to be able to clear roads quickly and we think that as this particular storm event goes through.

We'll have the processes, we'll have the manpower, and we'll have the resources in place to be able to have a dramatic impact on the lives of Floridians to be able to assist them through that next phase which will be part of the response and recovery.

WHITFIELD: And I know Floridians are already very thankful of all of those efforts you guys have into place already. Thaddeus Cohen, Secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs. Thanks so much for joining us from Tallahassee.

COHEN: And thank you for helping us keep our citizens informed.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's take a look at the weather picture and see what this hurricane is doing. We know it's been just been sitting along the coast, something like about 70 miles outside of the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Jacqui Jeras is in the Weather Center and it's been moving very slow, Jacqui. And that's the big concern because the slower it moves, the more potential flooding, as Thaddeus and I were just discussing is apparent.

JERAS: That's right. The longer it sits there, the longer it takes to move across the Peninsula here, the more trouble we're going to have. We've been focusing a lot Fredricka on the landfall and the location where some of the worst winds are right now. But this is a huge storm coming up in just a minute. We'll show you just how big it is and where some of these rain bands are right now. It might surprise you. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: August 24th, 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated southeastern Florida. The category 5 hurricane flattened the town of Homestead, killing 15 people there and leaving a quarter of a million others looking for shelter. Andrew was the most expensive natural disaster to ever hit the U.S. Doing $26.5 billion in damage. So many Andrew-related claims were filed; nearly a dozen insurance companies went out of business.

JERAS: And we're going to be talking about Frances here also in the history books, we think. This is one of the biggest storms we've seen. It's very wide, hundreds of miles across. And it is about the size of the state of Texas just to put it in perspective for you. Just how big this cloud cover is. You can see it covers much of Florida already. And look at some of these outer bands. We'll change some of the radar mode and you can see that the showers and thunderstorms are affecting people across southern Georgia into South Carolina.

Of course, the heaviest showers and thunderstorms right now are honing in on the east coast of Florida. So we'll zoom in and show you a good look at some of these feeder bands that have been coming in. The winds are going to be very strong with these bands; we're getting reports of between 60-and 80 mile an hour gusts now. And we'll start to see those sustained winds starting to pick up as well. They have been pretty calm and about 45, even pushing towards 50 mile per hour sustain winds.

And we're going to watch those bump up as some of these outer bands that are closer to the center of this storm begin to move in. Now the rainfall totals so far haven't been too impressive. Average amounts right in the range of one to three inches. There you can see around Fort Pierce, about three inches there. Right along I-95 a little lesser as you head towards Melbourne about an inch and a half. And in the blue areas here that is less than one inch of rainfall.

However it's coming down at a rate of about half an inch to an inch an hour. So by midnight tonight, you're going to see another three to six inches on top of what you already had. These are forecast rain totals between now and 12:00 p.m. Noon on Monday. I mean, this bright pink area, we're talking 20, maybe 25 inches of rainfall. That is going to be causing some massive flooding here right into the coastal areas and down Daytona Beach extending down towards Cape Canaveral and extending down towards Melbourne, as well.

But we'll expand this out and show you how many people are going to be affected by these flooding rains all across central Florida. Because it's going to take so long to move across the Peninsula, maybe as long as 24 hours before this moves on through and we're likely also going to see some flash flooding up into the Florida panhandle and into parts of South Georgia. So not just the east central Florida coast Fredricka. We're going to be looking at some big flooding problems all across the state.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jacqui Jeras thanks so much. Well these first bands of wind and rain along the Florida coast are a bit deceiving. But you know what the focus in the Bahamas know firsthand the force of Hurricane Frances and that is because this hurricane has been traveling over those islands since Wednesday. Our Karl Penhaul is in Freeport and he joins us on the telephone from to give his first hand account of what it's been like enduring Hurricane Frances. Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the tail end of Hurricane Frances is proving much more vicious than the leading edge. Grand Bahama is currently being battered by that tail end and there are probably six or seven hours still to go.

Police are already reporting one man drowned, there is another elderly man and 80-year-old missing and right now assistant police commissioner is heading out he is trying to get an emergency party together to go to a shelter where the more than 80 people, most of them patients taken out from one of the hospitals some of them even on oxygen/

They're in a shelter and the wind is just about, he tells us, to whip the roof off that shelter and he's trying to get out, get some trucks out to rescue those patients before anything further happens to them. But he says with the strength of these winds, it's even proven almost impossible for emergency services to operate, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Karl Penhaul in Freeport, thanks so much.

Well West Palm Beach, Florida, is bracing for the punch of Hurricane Frances. And John Zarrella is there. When we come right back, a report from John on how things are looking in West Palm Beach.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances as it continues to tease the Florida Atlantic Coast. The sequels have been on and off again along the coast, particularly in West Palm Beach and apparently the hurricane's eye now sits barely 50 miles due east of West Palm Beach and that is where we find our John Zarrella. And it looks like you're kind of in that in between stage again. It's just teasing you, isn't it?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I tell you Fredricka it really is. You know, I was in Venice, Florida, during Charlie and we had nothing, which was only about 30 miles from the center of that storm, and of course this thing is such a broad, broad circulation, that the rain is pounding us again. The wind has picked up and sequels. I have a wind meter. And we've been using the wind meter. A few minutes ago, it's only gusting right now if you can believe it, it's only gusting to 45. We had it up to 54 a few minutes ago.

And that's here at ground level. And when you measure wind speed, it's usually up at about 33 feet. It's going to be considerably higher than that up at 33 feet. So certainly strong tropical storm force winds here at ground level in West Palm Beach. If you take a look out over the water there that's Palm Beach across on the other side of the inter coastal here, you can see how the wind is just whipping the waves and the tops of the water and this sequel blowing in here like this.

There's a yacht that is sitting over here that had broke loose from its anchors out in the middle earlier this morning and they managed to tie it up over there. It seems to be fairly secured. Now, we've seen some damage all around the West Palm Beach area, primarily a lot of trees down everywhere. Some power lines are down everywhere.

Some minor damage to structures and buildings. Nothing that we have seen throughout the day of any major nature, at least certainly not down here in the Palm Beach area. It's somewhat similar to what you would find in a category 2 hurricane and what we're getting, of course, Fredricka are the tropical storm force winds.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, a pretty ugly scene so far, only bound to get much uglier there because of the backdrop only there. John Zarrella in West Palm Beach with the famous Breakers Hotel not far behind him to his right as well.

Let's check in with CNN's Jason Bellini who joins us now from a shelter in Melbourne just north of West Palm Beach where outside we know the winds gusts have been pretty brutal. But let's take a look at what things are looking like inside. Jason.

BELLINI: Well, you're absolutely right it's a brutal storm outside and when people aren't at the windows watching the storm, watching the palm trees blow, they're in here inside this hall. And you can see a lot of people behind me doing what they have been doing all day. Mostly just sitting, reading, talking to one another. Other halls in this enormous shelter. There are 850 people in this shelter, many of them watching TV and eating the food they brought here.

But I want to introduce you to a man named Jake Saylor. And Jake come over here for just a second. You can tell us -- Jake Saylor is with the American Red Cross. And you can tell us a little bit about the conditions at these shelters. There are many other shelters like this one correct?

JAKE SAYLOR, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Correct, there is about 161 open throughout Florida, Georgia and parts of southern Alabama. So we're meeting needs, we're providing meals; we're giving them a safe place to ride the storm out.

BELLINI: And most people here they don't know when they're going to get home correct?

SAYLOR: That's correct. Just because of the nature of the storm, we've gotten different information so we're waiting to see what the most up-to-date will be once the storm has passed and it is safe to go out.

BELLINI: At what point are people going to need more resources in these shelters, in with there is not enough food or not enough other supplies? Are you running short in any way?

SAYLOR: Well a lot of the people in the shelter came prepared, they brought a three day supply of food, they brought their meals, they brought their bedding and we have resources that we can pull from, as well as we have pre-positioned resources here in the area so that if we need to we can pull from them, as well.

BELLINI: So Fredricka a lot of people here. Thank you very much, Jake. A lot of people here who are hunkered down waiting out this the storm and hoping that their home is OK.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right well at least there is safe haven for now. Thanks so much, Jason Bellini in Melbourne. Well that's going to do it for me. Hurricane Frances coverage however continues in a moment with Carol Lynn and Miles O'Brien. Thanks for joining me the last couple of hours. And our continuing coverage here on CNN of Hurricane Frances continues right after this break.

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 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. All along the Florida coast, wind gusts are being felt everywhere from about 45 miles per hour wind gusts to about 91 miles per hour wind gusts. And we've got some new pictures coming in right now out of Hollywood Beach, just south of Ft. Lauderdale, where you can see the result of some of the wind gusts that they've been experiencing -- a lot of blown around furniture and a very brave driver there, trying to make their way through, and a few palm tree fronds on the road as well, a very common sight we've been seeing all day long along the Florida coast.
But you know what? Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center has been warning us that really, the worst of the sustained, maximum hurricane force winds are going to be felt at nightfall, and that's along the Florida coast. Our meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is in the weather center, although they had evacuation orders that were affecting about 2.5 million people, it's hard to believe, Jacqui, that there are always still a few folks who decide, you know what, category II, this is nothing. I'm going to wait and just ride it out.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I know. What can do you about those people? They're going to do what they want to do. Some people don't want to leave their homes. Certainly we don't advise that, but if you are still in your home, you want to get away from the outside walls of the home. You want to get to the interior into a safe, safe place. Of course, depending how close you are to the coastline and how serious of a concern flooding may be, you know, your basement may not be your best bet. You might want to get into a closet on the lowest level of your home and be certainly alert to the potential of some of those rising waters.

A 5:00 advisory is in now. So here's your latest information on Hurricane Frances. The latest information is no big change. It's still the same. We still have 105 mile per hour winds. Still a strong category II and it's still moving slowly to the west-northwest, maybe four or five miles per hour at best. It's only moved about 20 miles in the last three hours. The location has it coming in 50 miles east northeast of Palm Beach. Here you can see on the radar picture that huge eye we've been talking about. And it is inching closer towards west palm beach.

So it's getting very close to the shoreline now. We're going to start to see this moving in and in the next couple of hours those sustained hurricane force winds should be arriving really at any time. They should be pushing in with the next hour. Certainly we're seeing the gusts in that range already. And also take note on the backside, this is the bad side of the storm, that is now moving over Freeport. So now they were hit the first time around. They're getting the back side of the storm. Forecast track is still staying the same. We're not anticipating any major changes. This should be making landfall likely sometime overnight for tonight. The bottom line, current winds 105. Landfall sometime tonight and very prolonged event with massive flooding, up to 24 inches can be expected around the center of the path. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much.

Well, Florida has been under a lot of pressure in the last few weeks after dealing with Hurricane Charley on the west coast of Florida and now the threats of Hurricane Frances on the east coast all along the Atlantic coast, hurricane warnings are in effect.

The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, is joining me now from Tallahassee. Governor, you asked people 72 hours ago to get prepare for this storm. And just earlier today, you said if you didn't do that, now is the time. But certainly it's too late for any straddlers who decided to stay along the coast to get on the road. What should they do?

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: Absolutely. They should -- if they're not in the shelters now or in their own homes, then -- most people are. I mean, no one's going to be out in the streets right now. Most -- a great majority of people have prepared. They have prepared their home or they went to the shelter or they left the area. And I'm proud of their efforts, because it saved lives.

WHITFIELD: Well, let's talk about what you all are up against. You're still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Charley. Billions of dollars in damage, more than 25 people killed in that. And you've got an awful lot of state workers and volunteers from all over the country who are trying to help out the folks. How strapped are you now, given that this is a much more sizable storm, and could sustain much greater widespread damage given that you're dealing with a greater populace?

BUSH: Well, we're going to need a lot of help. And thankfully, we're going to get it. I've talked to the CEO of the Red Cross, and she's told me that this will be the largest recovery effort, relief effort that they've ever been involved in. And FEMA probably has the largest effort under way that they've ever been involved in, and our state clearly this is -- we've never done anything quite like this.

So we are staging trucks and water and ice and food and volunteers in safe harbors, in Atlanta and other places, ready to come down when the storm finishes, and we'll be on the ground as quickly as possible.

WHITFIELD: And particularly, I saw some numbers that said that you all arranged to deliver something like one million meals a day, along with 600 trucks of water and more than 200 trucks of ice. Getting all of that to the people in need is going to be probably your first challenge, however, right, with a lot of downed trees and power lines, just getting around is going to be a nightmare? BUSH: It is going to be a challenge. And then you consider the fact that a sizable number of people have left the state or have moved -- have gotten up into the northern part of the state, are going to want to come back home to their -- go back to their houses. So we're developing strategies to allow people to come back. But over time, they need to be patient so that we can get the relief workers tomorrow and the day after, particularly, into -- on the ground so that we can help people.

WHITFIELD: Part of that strategy, you have other states that are already at the ready to help. Alabama, they've lined up their trucks, they're ready to start coming into your state. In what capacity are many of these other state agencies going to be helping?

BUSH: Oh, the support has been fantastic, from National Guard to C-130s to all of the utility trucks. Most of the power lines that are down will be put up by utility workers from different parts of the country. The faith-based groups and the Red Cross volunteers are coming from around the country. It is remarkable. And I appreciate my fellow governors' offers of support. We've taken them up on it, and we're really grateful for it.

WHITFIELD: Already something like 450,000 customers of FP&L are without power. And that's primarily just on the east coast and some of the central parts of Florida. For the areas like Punta Gorda, that are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Charley, what are some of the complications that you're dealing with there, as you try to get -- resume some sort of normalcy on the west coast of Florida?

BUSH: Well, I mean, these are heroic people. For example, that the schools are double shifting schools, because the schools were damaged. So schools are open from 7:00 to 7:00 almost. And now, starting Monday, they're going to have to get up and do it again, and they may not be able to immediately.

So we've got to get power back on, we've got to get the roads cleaned, as you said. We need to remove the debris, fix the houses, make sure kids go to school, make sure the hospitals are open. This is a huge challenge, but I love my state, and I know my state will respond to this.

WHITFIELD: You know, you talk about the challenges. As one of the challenges that you all faced, I remember Marty Evans from the Red Cross talking about this for the folks in the Punta Gorda area is the psychological help that many of these residents are going to need, particularly those who have decided to stick around and ride out the storm.

How are you prepared to help those people along the east coast?

BUSH: Well, that's one of the things that we've discussed with the federal government is to try in the supplemental that the president will submit to Congress to include additional moneys for mental health counseling, because there's going to be a great need for people in Charlotte County -- but don't forget, Orlando as well where the storm passed, as well. And a lot of people are still struggling there as well, and the storm certainly will go through central Florida again. So we're going to seek additional support to allow for our mental health system to have the money to make a difference.

WHITFIELD: And right now, your emergency preparedness offices are like what? I mean, you know, you...

BUSH: Can you see it back there?

WHITFIELD: I guess you have kind of -- yeah, I can see some of it, and I'm wondering if you've kind of got the layers of kind of dove-tailing shifts so that you don't have folks who are exhausted before the storm actually hits.

BUSH: Well, we're on 12-hour shifts, and people have been working for the last three weeks. But you know, these are dedicated public servants, and they are inspired by the people that are struggling to rebuild theirselves in Hurricane Charley, and concerned about their fellow man that -- in the middle of this storm.

So they're just taking it up a notch. I am really impressed with them, and the local emergency operation centers around the state that are in harm's way. I mean, these are true heroes, and they don't get the credit they deserve.

WHITFIELD: And governor, how nervous are you personally about this storm?

BUSH: I'm not nervous. I'm concerned. And I'm sad. I'm sad for people that are going to have a lot of trauma and a lot of tragedy in their life because of this storm. And it just makes me want to reenergize and to do all I can to lead this army of people to help them.

WHITFIELD: Governor Jeb Bush, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us from Tallahassee.

BUSH: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Much further south from Tallahassee and along the Atlantic coast of Florida is Melbourne and already our Chad Myers and Anderson Cooper earlier were talking about the wind gusts they experienced. Anderson Cooper by yourself, there, all by your lonesome along with that lonely bending palm tree right there, wind gusts you experienced over 50 miles per hour a bit earlier. What are you feeling now?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fredricka, it is still pretty bad here as you can see by this palm tree. These winds are just constant. It is just this constant--this tree is not having any chance to kind of snap back and rest at all. The winds have just been going and going. We're just going to try to show you even walking anywhere is difficult. The rain is still coming in almost horizontally. It's very hard to look into the on coming storm because it just feels like pin pricks. They're really advising people obviously, sensibly, to stay out of this. We have seen a couple people walking around which is just moronic basically. We're being very careful where we go because we're trying to be in an area where there is not the potential for debris coming around. Here's--this kind of stuff just flies around. This is just came off of that lamppost which we're anticipating breaking away so we're going to get away from there for a little bit. But as you can see, if you look out in the marina now, the Intercostal Waterway white caps getting bigger, those winds just chopping the top off the waves. It looks like the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, I said it before, but it is just remarkable when you consider this is the Intercostal Waterway. This is not the ocean. And yet this looks like the ocean was yesterday.

A lot of these boats just bobbing around. There's going to be a lot of worried people who own these boats, a lot of people worried today how their boat is doing. So far we haven't seen any boats or anything sink. But this thing is just building--hold on there. Cameraman almost got blown away. At this point you can still walk you can still get around. But we're anticipating winds picking up 20 more miles an hour. The last reading we had here, one of the gusts was about 71. Jacqui Jeras saying in the next 30 minutes or so, we could be getting winds up into the 80s. It is definitely getting nasty out here, Fredricka. This is a battle right here.

WHITFIELD: And Anderson, you're feeling the first bands of the wind and rain right now often as it goes, it's kind of on and off again. Have you had that little moment of respite and it picked up again or has it been just sustained winds?

COOPER: You know, it's funny. I would have anticipated sort of picking up and slowing down because it is this band, as you said, but it feels very sustained. It feels just constant pressure just knocking away. There are gusts which on top of it, you know, it picks up from time to time. But it never lets down at all to the point where it doesn't feel like anything. And now we're really starting to get more rain and previously in the last couple hours, it has just been this wind we are fighting. But now you're getting a lot more rain and we anticipate much more rain and the potential for very severe flooding in this area, truly (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So it's now getting to be wind and rain, the double threat of those, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Anderson Cooper, thanks so much. Already starting to feel sustained forceful wind and rain there, and you know, that rain hitting against the face feels like just sand, just coming at like he said, these 50-60 mile per hour wind gusts. It is painful, it's not comfortable at all. We're going to continue our coverage of Hurricane Frances when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The first bands of wind and rain from Hurricane Frances are already starting to battery Florida's Atlantic coast. WPLG now brings us some images of Boca Raton which is just north of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Let's take a look.

ROBIN KISH, WFOR CORRESPONDENT: I'm here in downtown Boca Raton at the corner of Camino Real and South Federal Highway and you can see the winds are really gusting right now, the rains coming down, and it's actually prickling our skin. You can see a lot of debris on the roads. In fact, right down the street, there was a power line that went down earlier today. And some power has been out throughout the day, scattered power outages throughout the city and people are complaining actually. There was a car that just drove by, someone inside was saying "When is the power going to come back on?" Well, as the winds blows, it's going to knock down trees. We've seen trees down, tree limbs down, and we know there are at least two large trees that are blocking roadways north of here and when that happens, sometimes they bring down the power lines. The winds can do it on their own.

So FP&L is working as fast as it can and from the information that I received they can't work if the winds are gusting higher than 35 miles an hour. So it's going to take sometime before that power is restored in certain areas. And we went out to the beach earlier and saw the surf. It was amazing. We were out there yesterday. And I can tell you the waves are twice the size that they were yesterday. In fact, the surf came in all the way up to the pavilion, it's basically devouring the beach. And erosion is definitely going to be a problem after Hurricane Frances blows through. As slowly as she's moving. So that's the situation here in downtown Boca Raton. You can see, there are a lot of people out, some people are actually driving, believe it or not, and rolling their video cameras to get pictures, which is not a good idea when the weather is good much less when the weather is as bad as it is now and could get worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you Robin Kish in Boca Raton. I tell you what. If you're driving your automobile, especially in something like this, you don't need to be holding a video camera at the same time. We're going to move down to the beach now where...

WHITFIELD: Those images out of Boca Raton actually coming from our CBS affiliate, WFOR. Tens of thousands of Floridians are in shelters statewide and in southernmost Georgia. CNN's Jason Bellini met quite a few of them and he's in Melbourne.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fredricka. I'm in Melbourne. I'm at Brevard Community College. Here is where 850 people have been sheltered. This shelter is now at capacity. And to give you a little sense of what's going on around me, it's about dinnertime. There's some trays here that are marked PB&J, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They've got granola bars.

Also, you'll see in the background behind me, there are a lot of people watching the TV set, people watching the weather. That's what we see in just about every corridor of this community college. People watching, waiting to hear what's going on, hoping to see pictures of-- hoping to see that no damage has been done to their area. Most of these people were not evacuees. People who lived in homes they felt were not adequately safe for these conditions here during this hurricane. We've talked to a lot of people today. There's a lot of concern, of course, in this building and also concern about when they're going to be able to go home. People have been here since Thursday, many of them and may be here for several more days before-- hunker down, brought a lot of stuff with them.

Most people brought coolers, some people brought TV sets. People set up camp here. There's even some children were playing video games. People trying to make the best of this situation and keeping an eye on what's happening through the windows as they're seeing the storm come through and rustle the palm trees and looks like a pretty ferocious storm outside. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Jason Bellini in Melbourne and it is ferocious so far and it's only going to get worse outdoors there in Melbourne this evening. We're going to take a short break for now, we'll be right back with more of our coverage of Hurricane Frances.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More of our hurricane coverage in a moment, but first another of the big stories that this weekend that we're following out of Russia, one with some very disturbing images. For the first time, we see the destruction and devastation that occurred during a three- day siege at a school in southern Russia. Here's Ryan Chilcote.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is where it all began. This is the school's gymnasium where most of the hostages were being kept. Let's go have a look.

This is the first time the relatives of the hostages have been allowed into the school to take a look. This is where it all began; this is where one of the two bombs went off. That's what caused the roof to then collapse. Russian soldiers blew a hole in this wall to give the children a way to get out. This is another part of the gym and there are still children's clothes on the ground.

One of the first things the hostage takers did was blow out all of the windows. They were afraid Russian forces might try to pump gas into this building like they did in the Moscow theater siege. Russian authorities think it all began when two bombs went off. They think a group of the hostages decided to make a run for it, they would have gone that way. That was when snipers on the roof opened fire on them as they fled.

These guys are telling me they lost a lot of their friends in this school and they would have swapped themselves and would have preferred they themselves were killed.

These are bullet holes and this is a blood spot. Russian officials now believe that a lot of the weapons were brought to the school even before it was seized and hidden in the floor in places like this.

Lots of bullet holes here.

This is a notebook from one of the children that was in the ninth grade.

You can still see the blood in the water.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: Ryan Chilcote with that disturbing report coming out of southern Russia now.

Now another big developing story, of course, we're following for you throughout the day, Hurricane Frances and our own Gary Tuchman is joining us live from Fort Pierce which is just north of West Palm Beach and apparently you're in the place, Gary, that is supposed to be right in the middle of the projected path of this storm.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, that's what makes it amazing. The last seven hours we've basically been trying to build an arc. And now the rain is completely stopped. It is not raining at all. It is not as windy as it was. That's why I give testament to our meteorologists at CNN, the meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center, all the meteorologists everywhere because before they had radar and their satellite, people would come out of their homes now and say it is not nearly bad and then they'd be in trouble because we know the worst is yet still to come.

Especially here, in St. Lucie County where it does look like the eye and the eye wall is headed. This is the Fort Pierce City Marina. It is just us and the yachts right now. Everyone is gone. I've never covered a hurricane where I've seen fewer curiosity seekers than this one. To that we give credit to Hurricane Charley. That has made people very aware. Fort Pierce City Center right here in the downtown is right next to the Intercostal Waterway, which is this, and then a half a mile in this direction to the Atlantic Ocean. And the barrier island of Hutchinson Island which is there.

Almost everyone has gone. We've driven around to see some of the damage. We've seen police. We've seen once in awhile a couple of stragglers and curiosity seekers but not nearly as many as my colleagues as we usually see and not nearly as many as some of my colleagues have seen in other areas. People are in the shelters in this county. An estimated 5,000 people in a county of over 200,000 people are in shelters. And I ride around Fort Pierce, this city of 39,000 people, there's lots of damage already. What's unusual about that is the worst of the hurricane is still to come. Yet, we see trees down all over, we saw a McDonald's sign down, we saw a taco restaurant sign down. We saw a gas station sign down. We've seen power lines down. We saw a minivan parked on a street and there was a tree on top of it. We haven't seen any people around and that authorities say, they're very happy about with a lot more of this still to come. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: And those effects, Gary, really a serious warning of what is to come. We're talking about a storm that at last estimates was about 75 miles wide. When you talk to the authorities there in Fort Pierce, are they equipped, do they have the resources to try to respond to any kind of emergencies if indeed they do come about? Perhaps a straggler or two who decides to stick around?

TUCHMAN: Right. We've talked with police officers and although they're very concerned about their families they know that this is what they're paid for, this kind of emergency. They're out there to help people if they need the help. One thing we should tell you, though, is that on this barrier island and barrier islands all throughout South Florida, we were just in West Palm Beach yesterday. And when we talked to police in Palm Beach, the barrier island just to the east of West Palm Beach, and they were saying, listen, the people in Palm Beach need help, we're not going to be able to provide it, that's too dangerous to be there. We've had them sign next of kin forms. So in the evacuated areas where we are right now, Hutchinson Island just a half mile to my left, police aren't going to go there if you need help. Everywhere else, inland is where you often where you have the biggest problem, police say they are ready for those emergencies.

WHITFIELD: All right. Gary Tuchman in Fort Pierce, Florida, thanks so much for that report. And we'll have more of our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances right after this.

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WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. More on our continuing coverage of hurricane Frances in a moment. But first these headlines.

Los Angeles International Airport has reopened and is getting back to normal after being shut down for several hours by two unrelated security incidents. In one, a man bypassed security screeners entering the terminal by climbing up the exit stairs. In the second, defective batteries in a flashlight caused a small explosion in some baggage. Eight people suffered minor injuries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling for a national mobilization against terrorism in the wake of this week's deadly school siege, 323 people; half of them children were killed during a standoff, explosion and gun battle at a school in the southern city of Beslan. Twenty-six hostage takers were also killed. More than 700 people in all were injured.

These ferocious flames are the result of an attack on the oil pipeline near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Firefighters are working seriously to try and put out the fire. Police say the pipeline has been shut down but that shutdown is not expected to have a significant impact on Iraq's overall oil exports.

Welcome back to our special coverage of hurricane Frances. Want to take you straight to southern Florida and thanks to our affiliate, WFOR, we're going to join them live so that they can give us a sense as to what is taking place along the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

ELLIOTT RODRIGUEZ, CBS 4 NEWS: For our viewers to interact with us and send us some of these pictures and information about what's happening in their neighborhood and there's a lot going on out there. We just want to stress again for people to stay inside. Remember, while it's calm for a while, all of a sudden those winds can whip up.

So you don't want to do anything that's going to get you in danger. But we do have some pictures there from your own home, right there in your own neighborhood and you want to e-mail them to us, if you're lucky enough to have power right now, we might show them on the air. That's it from the breaking news desk. I'm Elliott Rodriguez. Now back to Robin and Maggie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right thanks Elliott. You know Maggie, I'm going to check with the computer folks here and see if you can even send in those short clips of streaming video of the storm, we will check on that and get back to the viewers on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to reiterate to our viewers, that we only want you to take pictures or shoot video when it is absolutely safe to go outside. The way it looks right now in Juno Beach, it would not be a good time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No and Jennifer Santiago has at times had to hunker down and actually just hang on because the winds have been so bad there. And Jen the storm is not really moving at all right now.

JENNIFER SANTIAGO, WFOR: No Rob, that's terrible news for everybody out here. It certainly as well, we know the storm isn't moving. It's at a crawl speed or just kind of completely slowed down at this point. You're looking at pictures of the surf in Juno Beach and I got my footing so I can come in front of the camera right now.

We're being told that the bans through here have winds in them that can exceed 109 miles per hour. And basically what that means for us is you know we're seeing this steady wind right now. But every now and then one gust comes by and knocks you off your feet and hopefully it won't happen to you while I'm talking to you right now. But if it does I will grab on to Mike Modrano (ph) the photographer down here.

He is sitting down; he is doing the smart thing. To give you a perspective of where of I am. You may have seen Art Barrett earlier in this condominium complex he was on a balcony further up facing west. That's of course east and I'm facing a terrace here that's been shuttered up and there's a patio doors that are all shuttered down. All these are condos that are right on the water, 100 mile per hour winds is what we were expecting. And to give you a perspective of that feels like you certainly see what some of it looks like.

I have experienced a 90 per mile wind gust.

WHITFIELD: That's what it looks like in Juno Beach just north of Fort Lauderdale. And now let's take you to Fort Lauderdale. Thanks to our affiliate WSBM and see what they coverage is like.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Try to grasp as much of it from what we are showing you, there's just absolutely no need to be driving out in these conditions. A few minutes ago, we actually talked to one man, and he says that he and about 24 of his neighbors are holed up in that condominium that is right over there to our left. As you can see, it's pretty much holed up and shuttered up, but he's saying that him and his neighbors are in there and they have decided that they will be -- that they will be weathering this one out. He says that he just doesn't think it's going to get any worse than this, and of course, Max Mayfield over at the National Hurricane Center and our very own Bill Kamal (ph) at times beg to differ. Over here, in the ocean, as you can see, huge swells still coming across. About six feet at times and when we first got here around 3:00, we had this huge wave crest and Steve if you'll show them here, sad, now absolutely just filled this whole barrier here, obviously breaking the sea wall, coming very close to A 1 A.

And this is obviously going to be probably the worst that we're going to see here on the beach. It's just the massive erosion that we're going to see probably throughout south Florida. If you take a close look at these swells, you'll see the brown murky color of sand. And that's it just washing away from us. If you look further out, you'll see another huge breaking point. I'm told there is a huge coral reef and we're still seeing huge breaks in these waves.

You know what, they're still not breaking enough because we're still seeing huge swells here on shore. We, of course, will keep monitoring the situation here from our vantage point and let you know what happens next.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Diane have you seen any more people out there? Last time we checked in with you there were a couple people out there on the beach. Have you seen any more curiosity seekers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Luckily no. That is about it. We saw four teenagers about an hour ago. We interviewed that man live about I think it was 4:00, but ever since, we haven't seen anymore. That has to absolutely be because Fort Lauderdale police are doing such a good job of keeping people and cars and curiosity seekers far away from the beach. Obviously dangerous conditions, conditions that continue to deteriorate, and of course, we have some lulls. That's what we're experiencing right now. I've got to tell you, in the past two and a half hours since we've been here, the winds have picked up seriously.

They've been amazing gusts that just come out of nowhere. We've actually driven around now a bit just to get a good feel about what's going on. We haven't seen many downed power lines luckily, but what we have noticed is just as the ocean continues to creep closer and closer, canals in the area are continuing to almost get to a flooding point. And that's going to be a scary condition here.

On the Barrier Islands. The Finger Islands that a butt A 1 A. We have million dollar homes just a couple of miles away from here. And all of them are perilously close to the water at this point. And we know from hearing Bill Kamal (ph) and Max Mayfield that this is just going to be a slow soggy mess that is going to continue to drench south Florida with incredible rainfall and that's obviously going to be the big concern. That and erosion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, Diane.

WHITFIELD: Well those new pictures, live pictures coming in from Fort Lauderdale. That's to our affiliate, WSVN. Well Frances is just kind of sitting alongside the sunshine state. The longer it does so and the longer it takes to actually get through the state, the greater the chances of flooding. That's a major concern and keeping a key eye on that is Thaddeus Cohen, secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs.

He joins us from Tallahassee. Good to see you. Well, Thaddeus, let's talk about the concerns of flooding. Already in some areas, you're seeing some minor flooding, and the brunt of the storm really hasn't even hit the Atlantic Coast.

THADDEUS COHEN, SECRETARY, FLORIDA'S DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AFFAIRS: Well, you're correct. And what you're seeing now is the outer bands of the storm starting to reach the eastern coast of Florida. As the governor and director Few Gate has talked about is that now is the time for people to be prepared. Flooding will become more of an issue as it's expected to have 10 to 12 inches of average rainfall going across the state. The fact that this will be a slow moving storm at about five to eight miles per hour is going to exacerbate the situation.

WHITFIELD: It has to be pretty nerve-racking especially when you're hearing some forecasts. You talk about the 12 inches of rain. There are some forecasts that are putting some of this flooding at possibly 25 inches of rain in very low-lying areas. What can you do if anything to try to prepare for what could be a real disaster?

COHEN: Well, what we know is that most Floridians have heeded the early warnings that we put out 72 hours ago that they need to secure their properties and to protect their families by being able to move to higher ground, to move to sheltered areas that are typically located in higher ground. So we think that most individuals have heeded the word that we indicated, that storm surge along the coastal areas were going to be significant events as well as low lying areas.

I think most Floridians have taken these opportunities to protect themselves. And I think that as we move forward and we start moving our folks in position for search and rescues that are going to be one of the key priority areas that we're going to have.

WHITFIELD: Part of the problem when you've got flood waters in these low lying areas, you just don't have any place for this water to go. Once this water is standing in some of these low lying areas, then you're dealing with some major health hazards, aren't you, mosquitoes problem and all kinds of nuisance, animals there in Florida. That's a very significant concern. What can you do or what have you done to prepare for that kind of onslaught?

COHEN: Well part of what we have is that we'll have our first responders will be able to be in the position to provide and render aid to folks that find themselves in that position. Part of what we've been doing is putting out PSAs both in English and Spanish to our communities and informing them of the health hazards, being able to prepare after the storm passes through, small children should not be playing in the water for electrocution problems. Being able as you indicated having animals and other health hazards being able to be in the water. So I think we've done a fairly good job of being able to get that message out there. In order to stay safe even after the storm has passed through, that it's important to be able to get to the areas that are more safe if you have an opportunity to do that.

WHITFIELD: Go ahead sorry.

COHEN: I said I think one of the things that we looked at very early on is by being able to put out those health messages that we've had folks to be able to take that opportunity to prepare themselves with sand bags and other opportunities to be able to render the flood situation to be less hazardous than it could be.

WHITFIELD: It's certainly helpful in deed that so many people heeded the warnings of the mandatory evacuations. When I spoke with Governor Bush just moments ago inside this hour, he talked about one of the big obstacles is going to be when you've got all these power lines and trees down, it's going to be difficult for the emergency crews to make their way around to try to pick up some of the pieces so that some of those roads are passable.

That's likely to be still another big concern if you're dealing with floodwaters as well.

COHEN: Well I think one of the things that we were able to tell our citizens very early on is we're doing an analysis of this particular storm that each storm event has its own unique challenges. And I think as the governor has indicated, we've had opportunities to have folks as far as Oregon to be able to come down and be able to provide assistance to us. As you know from Charlie, we've had a phenomenal response by our own Floridians but as well as our neighbors and other states as well as the National Guard to be able to clear roads quickly and we think that as this particular storm event goes through.

We'll have the processes, we'll have the manpower, and we'll have the resources in place to be able to have a dramatic impact on the lives of Floridians to be able to assist them through that next phase which will be part of the response and recovery.

WHITFIELD: And I know Floridians are already very thankful of all of those efforts you guys have into place already. Thaddeus Cohen, Secretary of Florida's Department of Community Affairs. Thanks so much for joining us from Tallahassee.

COHEN: And thank you for helping us keep our citizens informed.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's take a look at the weather picture and see what this hurricane is doing. We know it's been just been sitting along the coast, something like about 70 miles outside of the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Jacqui Jeras is in the Weather Center and it's been moving very slow, Jacqui. And that's the big concern because the slower it moves, the more potential flooding, as Thaddeus and I were just discussing is apparent.

JERAS: That's right. The longer it sits there, the longer it takes to move across the Peninsula here, the more trouble we're going to have. We've been focusing a lot Fredricka on the landfall and the location where some of the worst winds are right now. But this is a huge storm coming up in just a minute. We'll show you just how big it is and where some of these rain bands are right now. It might surprise you. Stay tuned.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: August 24th, 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated southeastern Florida. The category 5 hurricane flattened the town of Homestead, killing 15 people there and leaving a quarter of a million others looking for shelter. Andrew was the most expensive natural disaster to ever hit the U.S. Doing $26.5 billion in damage. So many Andrew-related claims were filed; nearly a dozen insurance companies went out of business.

JERAS: And we're going to be talking about Frances here also in the history books, we think. This is one of the biggest storms we've seen. It's very wide, hundreds of miles across. And it is about the size of the state of Texas just to put it in perspective for you. Just how big this cloud cover is. You can see it covers much of Florida already. And look at some of these outer bands. We'll change some of the radar mode and you can see that the showers and thunderstorms are affecting people across southern Georgia into South Carolina.

Of course, the heaviest showers and thunderstorms right now are honing in on the east coast of Florida. So we'll zoom in and show you a good look at some of these feeder bands that have been coming in. The winds are going to be very strong with these bands; we're getting reports of between 60-and 80 mile an hour gusts now. And we'll start to see those sustained winds starting to pick up as well. They have been pretty calm and about 45, even pushing towards 50 mile per hour sustain winds.

And we're going to watch those bump up as some of these outer bands that are closer to the center of this storm begin to move in. Now the rainfall totals so far haven't been too impressive. Average amounts right in the range of one to three inches. There you can see around Fort Pierce, about three inches there. Right along I-95 a little lesser as you head towards Melbourne about an inch and a half. And in the blue areas here that is less than one inch of rainfall.

However it's coming down at a rate of about half an inch to an inch an hour. So by midnight tonight, you're going to see another three to six inches on top of what you already had. These are forecast rain totals between now and 12:00 p.m. Noon on Monday. I mean, this bright pink area, we're talking 20, maybe 25 inches of rainfall. That is going to be causing some massive flooding here right into the coastal areas and down Daytona Beach extending down towards Cape Canaveral and extending down towards Melbourne, as well.

But we'll expand this out and show you how many people are going to be affected by these flooding rains all across central Florida. Because it's going to take so long to move across the Peninsula, maybe as long as 24 hours before this moves on through and we're likely also going to see some flash flooding up into the Florida panhandle and into parts of South Georgia. So not just the east central Florida coast Fredricka. We're going to be looking at some big flooding problems all across the state.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jacqui Jeras thanks so much. Well these first bands of wind and rain along the Florida coast are a bit deceiving. But you know what the focus in the Bahamas know firsthand the force of Hurricane Frances and that is because this hurricane has been traveling over those islands since Wednesday. Our Karl Penhaul is in Freeport and he joins us on the telephone from to give his first hand account of what it's been like enduring Hurricane Frances. Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the tail end of Hurricane Frances is proving much more vicious than the leading edge. Grand Bahama is currently being battered by that tail end and there are probably six or seven hours still to go.

Police are already reporting one man drowned, there is another elderly man and 80-year-old missing and right now assistant police commissioner is heading out he is trying to get an emergency party together to go to a shelter where the more than 80 people, most of them patients taken out from one of the hospitals some of them even on oxygen/

They're in a shelter and the wind is just about, he tells us, to whip the roof off that shelter and he's trying to get out, get some trucks out to rescue those patients before anything further happens to them. But he says with the strength of these winds, it's even proven almost impossible for emergency services to operate, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Karl Penhaul in Freeport, thanks so much.

Well West Palm Beach, Florida, is bracing for the punch of Hurricane Frances. And John Zarrella is there. When we come right back, a report from John on how things are looking in West Palm Beach.

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WHITFIELD: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Frances as it continues to tease the Florida Atlantic Coast. The sequels have been on and off again along the coast, particularly in West Palm Beach and apparently the hurricane's eye now sits barely 50 miles due east of West Palm Beach and that is where we find our John Zarrella. And it looks like you're kind of in that in between stage again. It's just teasing you, isn't it?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I tell you Fredricka it really is. You know, I was in Venice, Florida, during Charlie and we had nothing, which was only about 30 miles from the center of that storm, and of course this thing is such a broad, broad circulation, that the rain is pounding us again. The wind has picked up and sequels. I have a wind meter. And we've been using the wind meter. A few minutes ago, it's only gusting right now if you can believe it, it's only gusting to 45. We had it up to 54 a few minutes ago.

And that's here at ground level. And when you measure wind speed, it's usually up at about 33 feet. It's going to be considerably higher than that up at 33 feet. So certainly strong tropical storm force winds here at ground level in West Palm Beach. If you take a look out over the water there that's Palm Beach across on the other side of the inter coastal here, you can see how the wind is just whipping the waves and the tops of the water and this sequel blowing in here like this.

There's a yacht that is sitting over here that had broke loose from its anchors out in the middle earlier this morning and they managed to tie it up over there. It seems to be fairly secured. Now, we've seen some damage all around the West Palm Beach area, primarily a lot of trees down everywhere. Some power lines are down everywhere.

Some minor damage to structures and buildings. Nothing that we have seen throughout the day of any major nature, at least certainly not down here in the Palm Beach area. It's somewhat similar to what you would find in a category 2 hurricane and what we're getting, of course, Fredricka are the tropical storm force winds.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, a pretty ugly scene so far, only bound to get much uglier there because of the backdrop only there. John Zarrella in West Palm Beach with the famous Breakers Hotel not far behind him to his right as well.

Let's check in with CNN's Jason Bellini who joins us now from a shelter in Melbourne just north of West Palm Beach where outside we know the winds gusts have been pretty brutal. But let's take a look at what things are looking like inside. Jason.

BELLINI: Well, you're absolutely right it's a brutal storm outside and when people aren't at the windows watching the storm, watching the palm trees blow, they're in here inside this hall. And you can see a lot of people behind me doing what they have been doing all day. Mostly just sitting, reading, talking to one another. Other halls in this enormous shelter. There are 850 people in this shelter, many of them watching TV and eating the food they brought here.

But I want to introduce you to a man named Jake Saylor. And Jake come over here for just a second. You can tell us -- Jake Saylor is with the American Red Cross. And you can tell us a little bit about the conditions at these shelters. There are many other shelters like this one correct?

JAKE SAYLOR, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Correct, there is about 161 open throughout Florida, Georgia and parts of southern Alabama. So we're meeting needs, we're providing meals; we're giving them a safe place to ride the storm out.

BELLINI: And most people here they don't know when they're going to get home correct?

SAYLOR: That's correct. Just because of the nature of the storm, we've gotten different information so we're waiting to see what the most up-to-date will be once the storm has passed and it is safe to go out.

BELLINI: At what point are people going to need more resources in these shelters, in with there is not enough food or not enough other supplies? Are you running short in any way?

SAYLOR: Well a lot of the people in the shelter came prepared, they brought a three day supply of food, they brought their meals, they brought their bedding and we have resources that we can pull from, as well as we have pre-positioned resources here in the area so that if we need to we can pull from them, as well.

BELLINI: So Fredricka a lot of people here. Thank you very much, Jake. A lot of people here who are hunkered down waiting out this the storm and hoping that their home is OK.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right well at least there is safe haven for now. Thanks so much, Jason Bellini in Melbourne. Well that's going to do it for me. Hurricane Frances coverage however continues in a moment with Carol Lynn and Miles O'Brien. Thanks for joining me the last couple of hours. And our continuing coverage here on CNN of Hurricane Frances continues right after this break.

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