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CNN Live Saturday

Hurricane Frances Advances on Florida; LAX Opened After Being Shut Down

Aired September 04, 2004 - 15:00   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.


LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Here is the latest news happening right now. Hurricane Frances advances on to Florida, kicking up waves, wind and rain, just ahead of the center's landfall. It is now a strong category 2 storm. Millions of people have evacuated the state or sought shelter and rescue centers and you can stay with us for continued coverage of Frances all day on right here on CNN.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And Los Angeles International Airport is now open after it was shut down earlier today because of two separate security incidents. One of the incidents was described as a small explosion that injured several people. Authorities believe the explosion was caused by batteries inside a flashlight and another involved a person who entered an exit area of a baggage claim area.

STOUFFER: Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the massacre at a school in Beslan a terrorist attack on his country. Hundreds of children are among those killed and wounded in an armed take over. We will bring you a live report from the tragic scene there in just about 20 minutes.

WHITFIELD: And in an exclusive telephone interview, Former President Bill Clinton tells CNN's Larry King, he's a little scared but feels great and is ready for his next week's scheduled bypass surgery. Clinton says Republicans aren't the only people who want four more years.

WHITFIELD: Hello again everyone. It is 3:00 p.m. on the east coast, noon out west. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

STOUFFER: Hi everybody. I'm Linda Stouffer. Glad you could join us. It is a very busy news day so far.

WHITFIELD: And we begin this busy hour with the latest on the path of the massive hurricane Frances, it is poised to strike the fragile east coast of Florida in the next few hours. But exactly when the category 2 storm will hit is your uncertain. We have CNN correspondents stationed up and down the Florida coastline. Our Anderson Cooper and Chad Myers are weathering the hurricane in the city of Melbourne.

Well already you're feeling some pretty significant wind gusts right Anderson?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes that is right Fredricka. The wind is really been picking up over the last hour or so. Not as much rain right now as we expect but what rain there is really starting to feel pinpricks in this rain coming into you right in the face, it is a little painful. I just want to show out, this is the inland waterway. You can really get a sense of the white caps.

I mean this is what the ocean looked like on the Barrier Island yesterday. A lot of the boats here in the marina here in Melbourne, Florida. Really rocking back and forth. There are going to be a lot of nervous boat owners. And this is really only a small taste of what's to come. We got some word from Florida power that as many as 1.4 million people without electricity at this point, and this storm is still very far away. We can only imagine how many people will be without power very shortly. We want to bring in Chad Myers, CNN's meteorologist.

Chad how strong are the winds right now?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I have got this instantaneous meter here and I got about 42 on it, sometimes gusts to about 48. You know, this is just the beginning, Anderson, literally, just the beginning. And if you can take a look back out here on the water. Go back out to the inter coastal. There's a little bit of haze. Here it comes.

There's a little bit of haze on the inter coastal. That's where the next squall is coming from. And you can see them coming literally you can see them coming for about two minutes and you go, get ready, get ready here it comes and we got one getting much closer to us. So we're going to get hit with probably 65 or 70 here, in about 35 seconds.

COOPER: Right now we are not seeing that much damage. I mean there are a lot of downed trees, you see a lot of pompoms on the streets, there is one light post down over there, it is going to get much worse.

MYERS: It really is. I'm concerned about us being able to travel at all tonight or anybody else being able to travel. I'll tell you what though I've been out on the roads. It's the police, it's the fire and it's media. That is it; there is nobody else out there. Everybody else is hunkered down.

COOPER: Certainly good news. I mean Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been saying all along, they have been giving a lot of warning on this. People really have seem to have heeded the warning. We drove to this location and we did see about three or four young women out kind of taking pictures, running around and waving and but it looked like they were going to be getting back indoors very soon and they should because this think is going to get much worse.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Anderson and Chad thanks so much. Anderson you must have velcro on your hat. I'm surprised it's still on your head with that kind of wind gusts. All right, take cover and take care. Linda.

STOUFFER: One thing that is not on everywhere is the electricity. There have been some power outages. We want to talk to Bill Swank, he is with Florida Power and Light. He joins us on the phone right now. Bill can you hear me?

BILL SWANK, FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT: Yes I can. Good afternoon.

STOUFFER: Good afternoon to you. What this is situation in terms of power outages in Florida so far?

SWANK: Well unfortunately we've been experiencing power outages here since yesterday afternoon when the first feeder bans came onshore. As of noon today we had about 740,000 customers impacted by the storm. We worked all night long with our crews between wind bans, we were able to put them back out in the field, we were able to restore about 281,000 of those customers that were out.

So we were looking this morning at noon having about 459,000 still out of service. But that number changes almost by minute. When the heavier wind bans have come onshore now, I know our customer's outages are much higher at this point.

STOUFFER: I'm sure they are. And will you continue to try to do it that way, get out between rain bans and do what repair work you can or at some point will you have to pull back and wait until the storm gets further along?

SWANK: Unfortunately that's where we are right now. We've worked all night long and we were able to get in between but now the wind are fairly consistently at least 35 miles an hour. It's no longer safe to put our people up in buckets out in the area. So we pulled them all back. We're going to rest them and have them fresh to begin again tomorrow morning or as soon as we can possibly get people back out, when the winds die down.

STOUFFER: Bill, is there anything you want to say about the safety of folks as they may see downed power lines?

SWANK: Safety is incredibly important, that is something we pushed from the beginning of this even in preparations, telling people that we strongly encouraged people to stay in their homes. Do not go out, wading around in puddles. You don't know what's there, there could be an energize wire there, there could be an open manhole cover, it is just very dangerous for people to do that.

Also if people choose to run generators for electricity, we want to make sure that they plug their appliances into the generator and do not try to wire the generator into their home electrical network. It could cause a back feed on the line, which could energize lines that maybe down across your neighbor's fence. Your neighbor or one of his family could lean up against the fence and be severely injured. So we encourage everyone to follow the instructions on generators. And if they can stay inside, do so. STOUFFER: Good advice. And you know Florida is used to dealing with storms every year and every couple of years. But given the slow and rainy nature of this storm Frances, what kind of damage are you expecting?

SWANK: We're expecting a lot more damage than we had in Charley a few weeks ago. Charley came though, it was very fast, it was powerful, but it was a category 4 when it hit Charlotte County. It exited the other side of the state at about a category one. So we were basically dealing with two different types of storms with a very quick time frame.

This one has just been hanging on and hanging on. We're told by the weather service that it is going to be very wet; we are going to have an awful lot of rain with this one. The eye hasn't even come onshore yet. So we're going to be faced with an awful lot of outages. And part of the problem that we're seeing is we're compounding the inability of getting crews, additional crews from out-of-state.

We have got about 6,000 additional people ready to bring in to go to work but we can't get them down here because we can't bring them into the jaws of the storm.

STOUFFER: And the safety of those crews is so important too, as you point out. Bill Swank of Florida Power and Light. Good luck to you. Thanks for the updates on the repairs over night.

SWANK: Thank you.

STOUFFER: Good luck from here on out with that.

SWANK: I appreciate that.

STOUFFER: 459,000 customers still without power and as you said it changes minute by minute as the bans come through.

WHITFIELD: That's an amazing number and we know it's because of in part you got a lot of trees down, power lines snapping. It's happening all the way from as far south as Ft. Lauderdale, and all the way as far north as Melbourne and even inland to Orlando.

In fact when we come back, we're going to be talking to the Orlando Mayer to see how things are shaping up there.

STOUFFER: That is right. We will have a lot more coverage for you right after this break. More CNN after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Welcome back to our live coverage of Frances as the outer bans of this storms just batter in slow motion the east coast of Florida. And those other bans have already caused some damage in injury in Ft. Lauderdale for instance. A man was injured when a tree was uprooted by the storms powerful winds and it fell down and landed on his home. You can you see the damage that has been done to some of these boats that have just been tossed around, the moorings unable to keep up with the strength of the winds at times, just tossed around like toy boats in some areas. We're continuing to follow all the damage.

WHITFIELD: Orlando's Emergency Operation Center went into lockdown mode early this morning in preparation for hurricane Frances. Mayor Buddy Dyer is riding out the storm there and he is on the telephone with us. Mayor glad you could take the time to talk with us a little bit.

MAYOR BUDDY DYER, ORLANDO: Thank you we're just starting to get the effects of Frances.

WHITFIELD: In what way?

DYER: Well we've got some sustained winds here in the 40 miles an hour wind and out at the airport they had some gusts up to 69 already.

WHITFIELD: Well during Charlie a few weeks ago there was some surprise that Orlando felt the brunt of that storm in terms of some flooding, power outages, now with hurricane Frances just hours away what are your expectations of the kind of impact you are going to feel after today?

DYER: Well it had been 44 years since we had a major hurricane in Orlando and now it has been just three weeks since we had the last one. Frances is a much different storm than Charlie, Charlie went through Orlando in just a couple of hours and really wasn't very wet at all but it did tremendous damage to our tree canopy.

So we've been facing debris removal for the last three weeks. And there's still a lot of debris on the streets even though there's been a Herculean effort to get it removed. Frances on the other hand is going to be with us for 12, 14 hours potentially and could have as much as 8 to 20 inches a rain. So it is going to be much different. The flooding aspect is going to be much different.

WHITFIELD: And during Charlie, there was an awful lot of damage caused to your citrus groves. Tourism is another huge industry for your city, for your state. What kind of economic impact are you expecting as a result of this storm now?

DYER: Well substantial economic impact and of course this has hit on the Labor Day holiday. So I'm sure thousand of people changed their holiday plans of this weekend, but the good side of that is I guess that hotel rooms became available for those that needed to evacuate from other areas of the state.

WHITFIELD: And pre and post storm it really is a collaborative effort isn't it you have got a Florida state emergency agencies working together with FEMA, which already apparently sent in about 4,500 workers throughout the state of Florida, as well as certain neighboring states like Alabama who are at the ready to help in any way, shape or form. So given all these entities, how does one coordinate so that no one is stepping on one another's toes?

DYER: Well it really is a cooperative effort and it starts at the state level and then regional and then to the local governments. And I know you just had somebody on from Florida power and light before the break. That's an area that we get substantial assistance from around the country. After Charlie, we had linemen from as far away as Minnesota and Ohio and Texas that were here in central Florida helping us repair.

And I know that many of those same linemen are now positioned at the Georgia/Florida border waiting for the storm to pass so that they can come help again.

WHITFIELD: Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando. Thanks so much for joining us.

DYER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: In Orlando, they're feeling some rain already. Well along the coast, like in places like Juno Beach they're feeling a lot of rain and a lot of wind. Lets picking up with our coverage with WFOR affiliate. Who is taking us there to Juno Beach?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to point out that we have been throughout Palm Beach County for a good part of the day, and when photographer Mike Majohno (ph) and I drove up the turnpike today, very few cars, it is interesting to see not that many people out there with you, you know that you're venturing into dangerous territory. Because we have been telling you all along that officials do not want anybody venturing out.

But obviously we have a job to do, we need to bring you the pictures and show you what is going on and to keep you informed about the nature of this hurricane. And as soon as we got off Lake Worth Drive, we started venturing down; we saw tree limbs all over the place. At that point we knew that this was not going to be an easy storm to deal with. Uprooted trees no matter where we're driving. A lot of fencing, ripped out, a lot of signs strewn across the street. We kept venturing to the east and then approached I-95. Not a single car, maybe we saw one or two cars while we're driving I-95 to the north for about 15 or 20 minutes.

We then got off in West Palm Beach. We continued to go down to the downtown area and the neighborhoods down there. A lot of debris flying everywhere. A lot of down power lines, trees limbs that type of thing. We have video from Juno that I believe that you're looking at right now, looking at the damage caused by the strong winds, a lot of uprooted trees, broken limbs and the like. So it is -- really it is a very dangerous situation, something you don't want to go out and venture.

The other concerns of course are downed power lines. We've been telling you all along that's a risky proposition, especially if you have puddles. Because you don't know what's underneath those puddles. And people have been electrocuted by venturing out. Now all of us here are taking extreme caution and we are all are looking for flying debris, because that is a big concern when you're dealing with these kinds of winds. Ninety mile per hour winds.

We showed you about 15, 20 minutes ago a neighborhood, where heavy trees were blocking entire roadway out there, and we had to take cover ourselves because we saw metal and other stuff flying at us. It's something you don't want to be fooling around with. But the basic situation right now is that the winds are strong. Right now, it's a little bit of lull. You'll get that from time-to-time, but the winds will pick up when you least expect it.

Guys.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We have seen that over and over again. Today Art and you're talking about the danger of downed power lines. And we saw some of the drama play out live here on CBS for us. Shamri Stone was reporting to us earlier from Fort Lauderdale along Sunrise and A1A, suddenly we heard all these weird sounds and we saw some sparks and we didn't know what was going on and we since gotten the bottom of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes it was a dangerous situation for a while there. Shamri are you available?

SHAMRI STONE: You're now looking at a broken power line. Just look at this video. This thing right now, as I speak, is popping. You can see it. It's by that tree. Authorities are telling me that the wind associated from the ban of hurricane Frances came through, hit that power line and now it's broken. There's a cautionary yellow tape telling people to stay away from this area.

Firefighters, if you look over here, by my photographer Waking Guysea (ph), sorry about folks for the water on the lens, that's what happens when you're covering this thing, the firefighters just arrived, only on CBS 4 here. If you walk with me back over here, just take a look. Unbelievable. This thing continues to pop. That is extremely dangerous.

Firefighters want you to stay away. I'm now joined by an official just to explain what exactly is going on here. This is breaking right now, as we speak. Please, first of all, state your name for me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lieutenant Joseph (ph).

STONE: Lieutenant Joseph, what's going on here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we have here is a broken power line that powers the building here. With the strong winds, it has snapped and arcing on some of the other power lines.

STONE: All right and we just got here, rushed here immediately after I saw this. What street are we at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in the 500 block Borden Ave. STONE: Borden Ave, when we saw the smoke in the air from Sunrise and A1A, we immediately jumped in our cars and came here. Look at it, just let it run. This thing just keeps on popping. Sir what would happen? How many volts is that? That's amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not really sure. It is definitely high voltage.

STONE: And what as you look right over here, there is some spectators who are seeing it as well, a guy drinking his coffee. What would happen sir, are they allowed to come over here and get as close as we are to see this thing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all.

STONE: What's your concern about them over there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing really with them over there. My concern is the buildings here catching on fire from the live wire there.

STONE: Well on behalf of CBS 4, our anchors, we want to thank you for allowing us to get so close to share this with our viewers. This is exactly why officials strongly recommend that you be careful. That's why we have the mandatory evacuations, according to Broward officials. Why? Because things like this can happen. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) hurricane Frances can continue to come on in. Sorry about the low visibility on your lens. There is a light drizzle right now, and the gusty winds continues to come in. Reporting live only on 4, I'm Shamri Stone, CBS 4 News this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shamri Stone reporting from earlier today on that arcing power line there. The deal with the storm now, is that it appears to be parking itself. And so we're expecting it to move in the same time as it's not moving in very quickly. And for the folks who already experienced the bulk of the storm, it just won't go away.

WHITFIELD: Our affiliates in Florida helping us to continue our live around the clock coverage of hurricane Frances. That coverage coming from WFOR based out of Miami. However we have seen that last shot. They were showing those power lines out of Ft. Lauderdale.

STOUFFER: And some half a million homes at this point without power in Florida. And some of the most dramatic footage we've seen so far is the wind damage. But all the experts are saying it's really going to be the rain that will add up to be the most problem 12 inches, 15 inches, 20, inches predicted in some parts of Florida. So it will be a long weekend ahead of them.

And we're also following a lot of other news today. It is a busy day. The latest developments in this story, the death toll it is still climbing after the horrific end to a terrorist school siege in Russia. Hundreds of victims are children. That is next.

And we're of course staying on top of hurricane Frances as it begins its very slow but dangerous assault on the Florida coast. More of that to come straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Now in the news, hurricane Frances is on a slow course into Florida advance winds already are whipping up waves, uprooting trees and downing power lines. CNN's live coverage of the storm continues in just one minute.

WHITFIELD: Los Angeles International Airport is slowly getting back to normal. Two separate security incidents shut the airport down for nearly four hours today. Authorities say neither were related to terrorism in just a few minutes a travel analyst rather will look at how the airport shut down on one coast and Frances on the other is playing havoc with holiday travel this weekend.

STOUFFER: Denouncing a deadly hostage tragedy, Russian president, Vladimir Putin says it was not just a massacre at a Russian school, but a terror attack on his country. He's comparing the slaughter of 323 hostages to the September 11 attacks in the U.S. Emergency crews are nearly finished recovering all the bodies at the school.

WHITFIELD: In Iraq, more violence today, the deadliest was in the town of Kirkuk. A car fled with explosives and driven by a suicide bomber detonated next to the Iraqi Police Academy. A second bomb detonated simultaneously. At least 25 people were killed, 40 others were injured.

Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.

STOUFFER: More information now on the tragedy in Russia. The Russian people are comparing the bloody siege in Beslan, Russia to the 9/11 terrorists attacks on the United States. Recovery teams are wrapping up their search for bodies, so far 323 hostages are dead, many of them children. Hundreds being treated for wounds today. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, called on all Russians to unite and fight terror movements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA: Russia is one of the greatest nuclear powers in the world and in this sense, it still presents a threat, and that is a threat which we need to remove, and terrorism, of course, is only an instrument for the attainment of this objective. Where more than once, we have -- I have said that we cannot meet a crisis with involving terrorist acts in this way, with force. But in this unprecedented series of attacks by terrorists, this -- no call from the president or by the government or parliament, this was a calling out, a call-out to all of Russia, to our entire people. This was an attack on our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STOUFFER: And CNN's Matthew Chance joins us. He is live outside the school where the hostage situation unfolded.

Matthew, what's the latest?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest in there is that the people of Beslan are having to come to terms as best they can with some of the most tragic days that this town in southern Russia has experienced. The true magnitude of losses experienced in the ending of this siege of school No. 1, here in Beslan are only now starting to emerge with official figures saying that 323 people have so far been confirmed as dead, 156 of them are children. By any measure a painfully high cost.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): The people of Beslan are mourning their terrible loss. Whole families have been torn to pieces in this Russian tragedy, so many have died, so many are beside themselves with utter grief.

Mothers like Ala, who's lost her twins age 10. She's speechless with despair. Her friend gives her support and words.

"One of the twins has been identified as dead," she tells us. "We're still looking in the hospitals for the other."

It is a terrible search, but one which virtually every family in Beslan is now engaged in. The tragedy in Beslan has left the community shattered.

(on camera): It seems that almost everybody here knows someone else who's lost a child or a brother or a sister. In the final count, the death toll is expected to reach the hundreds. But, for the moment, there's such confusion, people are desperately scanning the walls for lists of names of injured and the hospital wards for their loved ones.

(voice-over): And in this grim aftermath, they're scouring the mortgages, too. Hundreds are laid out unidentified, some unrecognizable anymore. This is where the sheer horror of what's happened in this town hits home. And there's anger among the people of Beslan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The governments have done nothing. The kids had to defend themselves. Russian troops just shot into the windows. What have they helped with?

CHANCE: The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, says he shares the grief of this stricken town, but the people of Beslan want fully answered why their children were lost.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, President Putin has again, in the last few hours, appeared on Russian state television speaking to the Russian nation, restating his commitment to fighting terrorism and saying that he and the Russian people share the grief of the people of Beslan at this very difficult time for them. But, at the same time, as that the report mentioned President Putin, the Russian government are facing a good deal of criticism from the families of the victims in this southern Russian town, many people we've spoke to saying they don't believe the Russian government has done enough, or did enough in order to save the children of Beslan from this terrible fate -- Linda.

STOUFFER: Those are powerful pictures, a sickening situation, there. Matthew Chance, Thank you.

WHITFIELD: We're also continuing our live coverage of a different stormy situation, that of Hurricane Frances along the Florida coast and we get help now from our affiliate WSVN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The boats have been hit hard, there are trees down everywhere. We've shown you some fencing, a lot of roofs and we're getting to more video of roofs that have been blown off in the area around Juno Beach and inland as you go over the intercostal towards Jupiter and also towards Palm Beach Garden.

But, like we said earlier, Right now, it's pretty dry, all things considered, but the wind is so strong that it's like a thousand tiny pinpricks on your face when the sand blows up in your face. The tide has come back onshore and -- you know we're listening -- yeah -- we've got a lot of apartment complexes around here and we've got a lot of video and what you just saw was an apartment complex that lost its rooftop. You've seen the metal paneling off of these town homes come off, you've seen black top off these apartment complexes come off and we showed you some mobile homes earlier that had their aluminum roofing coming off, also.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Already early signs of damage we're seeing along the Florida coast. Thanks to our coverage being joined there by WSVN. Lots of power lines down, trees down, and we know, some serious power outages, 450,000 plus.

STOUFFER: That's true and I'm sure more will be added each hour. There is so much of the storm yet to come. If you just look at the images of it, to the east of the eye it is massive and it isn't even close to shore at this point, that part of the storm, anyway. We'll continue to follow it and have a lot more on CNN right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Well, look at this. Frances has already taken the roof of one it gas station that wasn't going to stick around to see what else the storm had in mind. That damage that we're getting from our affiliate, WSVN. Damage in Florida, just the first of many pictures like that we are likely to see this weekend and that's just the outer squalls of Hurricane Frances. Federal and state emergency officials are preparing for the worst from the massive storm, the center of it is due to make landfall tonight or tomorrow. But, to get the latest on that, meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is here, she is tracking it. Jacqui, it seems like next few hour -- in the last few hours, rather, this thing has barely moved.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it really hasn't, actually. It is expected to pick up a little bit forward speed. Hopefully by the 5:00 advisory, we'll see that it picks up a little bit, but it's only been moving maybe four miles-an-hour at best and so that is a problem.

You mentioned those feeder bands, well were starting to get some of that damage and some of those higher winds, I'd say. And I want to show you our radar picture now, and show you some of these squalls that have moving in. There's two different areas of big concern right now. This is that first squall band that's moving on in and we're going to put a storm tracker on this for you because this has a potential to produce some wind gusts around 80 miles-per-hour. It is pushing off in this direction and so be -- should be arriving in Melbourne before the top of the hour. So, 60 to 80 miles-an-hour guests can be expected in Melbourne here pretty shortly.

Now, this second band that's going to be moving on in, we're going to put a storm tracker on this on this one for you too. And it's producing winds like 80 to 100 miles-per-hour. And this is the inner core, this is that eye wall that we talk about here, where the strongest of winds are, maximum sustained winds right now, at 105 miles-per-hour. There you can see, as that band moves towards Fort Pierce should be moving in also, near the top of the hour, right around 5:00. So, look out for strong wind gusts, hurricane force wind gusts are already beginning to push in here within the next half an hour.

Let's back to our weather maps here now, to keep in track. Here are the latest statistics on Hurricane Frances. Location, about 70 miles east of Palm Beach. Maximum sustained winds, 105 miles-per- hour, you're going to see some gusts beyond that. Still keeping at that strong category two status. As I mentioned, hopefully it's going to pick up a little bit of forward speed.

But is our bottom line here with Frances? What can we tell you here? The main things that you need to expect? Well, since it has slows down a little bit, that heightens our concern for a prolonged events. Landfall is going to be likely in central Florida, late tonight maybe right when we turn into tomorrow. But, landfall's not all that important really, other than getting in those big -- the eye wall as it moves in. And eight to 12 inches of rain expected, but locally up to 20, maybe 25 inches of rainfall, so there is a very significant flood threat.

It's probably going to take a good 24 hours for this to move over the Florida peninsula. Here is where all of your watches and warnings are in place. They have not moved throughout the day for today. And also remember, we don't want to forget about storm surge and also problems with Lake Okeechobee. Forecast track staying the same at this hour.

Linda, back to you. STOUFFER: Jacqui Jeras, thanks for the update.

WHITFIELD: Well, with the storm slowly moving toward the coast it's only pounding, but each area as it hits, especially with those out band, feeder bands. Our Anderson Cooper and Chad Myers are watching and, in fact, they're experiencing the hurricane first hand from Melbourne, Florida -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, Fredricka. The fact Jacqui just said that here in Melbourne we're going to be getting winds of 60 to 80 miles-an-hour within the hour. That is certainly bad news. The last reading Chad had was about at 48 miles-an-hour, so for some of the high winds. What's interesting though, is that you think even though the winds may not be as high as they get, you think it doesn't cause a lot of damage, but these sustained constant blowing of the wind really does cause a lot of damage. Here already you see -- you see a bunch of these -- these are light poles which are made out of fiberglass, which have just snapped, have fallen down. There are a number them which are still standing. There's one over here that we're anticipating looks like it's going to go -- really it could go any time now. It's been wobbling back and forth pretty steadily in these winds. Want to bring in Chad Myers now, our CNN's meteorologist.

Jacqui Jeras saying within an hour we're looking at 60 to 80 miles-an-hour.

MYERS: Yes. Yes.

COOPER: What do you think they're about now?

MYERS: I just had a gust of 52. So every time the wind doubles you get a lot more than double the power, you get between four and eight times the force. So, if it's going to double from where we are now during landfall, we have a lot to deal with here. And already now getting scattered reports of damage along the island there. The only way to get information here is either to listen to the scanner in the car or listen to the local radio stations. And now a lot of damage is coming in. A bowling alley damaged down the street, and there's just going to be so much more.

COOPER: And what we're -- this is really just one of the outer bands of the storm, I mean; this is not even the full force of the storm.

MYERS: Oh, not even close. We're not even close to the eye wall, in fact, the eye wall is much -- if you look at the radar that Jacqui just had it up, much farther south and you're almost down like West Palm Beach, that's the closest part to the eye wall. We are on the hypotenuse, if you will, to that eye wall, so we're still at least 100 miles away from our strongest winds. But, they keep getting -- they just keep getting bigger and bigger every minute. Every minute these winds just keep going up and up.

COOPER: And at this point, I mean, we had talked about an eye which was really enormous. Is it still that size, is it still so big?

MYERS: It is so big, but there's -- it's right over the warm water of the Gulf Stream now.

COOPER: And that's not good news.

MYERS: That is not good news. A hurricane wants warm water, just like if you're putting in premium unleaded in your car, it goes faster, theoretically. If you give hurricane warm water, it's going to go faster and now it's the warmest part of the water between here and the Bahamas. I think that eye wall's going to shrink down. As the eye wall shrinks down, the wind speeds go up, we could easily be above cat three any time now.

COOPER: And we were already getting kind of push around by this wind. Can you stand in 80 miles-an-hour wind?

MYERS: Well, the problem is, we're doing OK when we can lean into it. Right? You're leaning into it and it's 40 and it's 50 and then all of a sudden it's zero, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fall off, it's the gusts that you can't stand up in, because you just can't -- you can't balance yourself in those gusts, absolutely no way.

COOPER: All right. Well, be waiting for those winds.

Fredricka, it is -- it's getting nasty here.

WHITFIELD: Yeah, nasty and indeed. Understatement of the day. All right, thanks very much.

Well, let's get an update of Frances' vital signs with Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center joining us from Miami.

All right Max, good to see you.

MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: Well, you heard and saw from our reporters there. They're reporting 52 miles-per-hour wind gusts and that's in Melbourne and they still feel that they're about 100 miles away from much more significant winds. Of what magnitude are we talking about, the maximum kinds of winds that cities like Melbourne might be experiencing?

MAYFIELD: Well, they certainly are. Their maximum sustained winds are still up around 105 miles-an-hour to the north to northeast of the center. I think I heard somebody say it could be well above a category three hurricane. We're really not forecasting that. It's a strong category two hurricane right now. It could strengthen a little but, but normally, when you get a large (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eye like this, you don't see any -- you know, real rapid change in intensity there, so -- you know, it's already moving over the Gulf Stream. Not all hurricanes that move over the Gulf Stream strengthen, some of them actually weaken. So, I don't think that we'll see any big change there, but I don't want to downplay this. This is really going to cause tremendous damage, massive power outages across the state. And then that wind, I doubt if it'll be a hurricane when it comes out on the Gulf of Mexico, but we're going to have wind strong enough to down a lot of those large trees. The rainfall is a big concern; there'll be widespread very significant flooding to deal with also.

WHITFIELD: So, even though this storm is sitting and moving very slowly over very warm waters, waters that are averaging between 85 and 88 degrees, your belief is that's not enough for it to pick up strength and potentially leave that category two and make its way to a category three?

MAYFIELD: No. We're forecasting it will strengthen just a little bit -- you know, I think the wisest thing to do, well actually, people are already preparing for a category three hurricane and this is going to be a borderline category two, category three. I don't think that's going to be the concern. If we had that small diameter eye, we might start to see -- you know, some significant strengthening, but that's not what we see and we don't expect it to happen. But, this is going to have a big, big impact over a very large state for the state of Florida.

WHITFIELD: Category two still obviously very serious. The kind of rain we're talking about, in some areas upwards of 24 inches of that kind of standing water that some of these low-lying areas can experience?

MAYFIELD: Right, and the National Weather Service has a program, we like to say, "turn around, don't drown." If you can't see that road in front of you, don't drive your car there. That's how some people lose their lives in tropical storms and hurricanes they -- you know, drive across those flowed out roadways and get swept away. Be very, very careful with that and also be very careful of those strong winds going all the way across the peninsula, because even if you don't have hurricane force winds, those trees and squalls can be blown down, power lines be blown down and when they fall on cars and homes it has potential to kill people. If you look at how people die in hurricanes, they don't always die in areas where you have hurricane force winds.

WHITFIELD: All right, that storm surge is a very serious and life-threatening, as well. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. Thanks so much for joining us from Miami.

MAYFIELD: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Linda.

STOUFFER: One of the places to look out for is Fort Pierce. It could be ground zero for this hurricane because the eye of the storm is expected to pass directly over the city sometime later today. Gary Tuchman is there, he's going to join us live by videophone right now to show us what the conditions are like -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well by now, Linda, the people of Fort Pierce, Florida, are well aware of the eye -- the key to the eye wall. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) This is downtown Fort Pierce, it's Very picturesque. And what makes it picturesque is also what makes it vulnerable. It's right on the intercostal waterway, and it's the marina next to me. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a half a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, but is right in front of us. Barrier Island next to Fort Pierce and Hutchinson Island and that has been totally evacuated now since Thursday. Fort Pierce, this portion of the intercostals has also been evacuated. An estimated 5,000 people are in shelters in this county, Saint Lucie County, 213,000 people live in the county, to give you an idea of just how high of a percentage of people who live here have decided to go into shelters because of the fear of this storm. They haven't been directly hit by a hurricane, in the Fort Pierce area, since 1939, and that was category one hurricane.

With us right now, we're coming indoors right now, the Tiki Bar and Restaurant, owned by the city of Fort Pierce. This is our respite, this is where we are resting between the times on television and standing here right with us right now is the mayor, Mayor Bob Benton of Fort Pierce.

Mayor, thanks for joining us from the Tiki Bar and Restaurant, which has been completely evacuated, as you can see. Outdoor restaurant.

MAYOR BOB BENTON, FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

TUCHMAN: That's right, happy hour between 4:00 and 7:00. We hope it doesn't get blown into the Polynesia by the end of the day.

BENTON: We hope not.

TUCHMAN: How is the city coping right now?

BENTON: So far so good. We've had some tree damage, a lot of power lines down and -- but the worst just started, right now. We've got about 12 hours of what we're getting right now.

TUCHMAN: What are you hearing from your experts about sustained winds that we have here right now?

BENTON: Well, I'm hearing right now, we're 80 miles-an-hour and within the next hour somewhere between 80 and 100 and they're saying it should stay hurricane force until about 4:00 in the morning.

TUCHMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) walking and give our viewers a look at what the wind does. But, how concerned are you for the people that live in the city? Has everyone that is vulnerable gotten to safe places, that you know?

BENTON: I think the majority of people, I think, Hurricane Charles really woke a lot of people up, especially on the Barrier Island being and I think being this storm did have 145 miles-an-hour winds, it was a category four, I think a lot of people did leave. So, that's good. I saw a lot of people at the last minute leave. But, my concern now is the extended period of rain and wind with the storm almost stopping. You know, the ground is so wet and so trees come down so much easier.

TUCHMAN: Mayor, thank you for joining us.

BENTON: Thank you.

TUCHMAN: Appreciate it. Stay safe.

About the last person who will be staying here, this guy right here will be out of this thatched hut before it gets too dangerous here, at the Tiki Bar and Restaurant. Back to you, Linda.

STOUFFER: You just standing guard, Gary Tuchman live in Fort Pierce. That is south of Melbourne, north of West Palm Beach. You take care. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. We're getting a lot of help in our live coverage, our continuing coverage of hurricane Frances. Let's dip into the coverage of WSVN, our affiliate based in Miami, right now.

RALPH RENICK, WSVN CORRESPONDENT: You see those folks over there, they came out to relatch the boat because apparently the position they had it in, they had it pointed a little bit more toward the northwest, and the winds now, and Bill Kamal can verify this, there -- where we are now, it looks like they're coming almost due west. So, they're relatching that boat they're trying to change the direction. Now, the owner of the other boat, the one that we had in the original shot, he's not going to be able to do anything like that because the winds are too strong. And, the police department has told these people that they're going to give them a limited amount of time to take care of their boats and then they're going to ask them to move off the property.

BILL KAMAL, WSVN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Ralph. Ralph, it's Bill. I want to make an interesting point, when you said the wind direction. If the wind is west, that means the storm right not is moving, basically, or drifting to the west. If the storm is moving more to the northwest, our winds right now would be more out of the northwest. So, that wind direction is going to be very important as to the exact movement of center of the circulation of Frances. It is due west, you're exactly right.

RENICK: Yeah, well we're about -- our location is 108th Street and Collins Avenue, and as I look across towards the FIU campus and the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) park, that area over there, that's on 150 -- I think it's 151st Street, where it starts and it goes all the way down to around 135th Street. That puts that, I would say, even more west than west/northwest, if there is such a compass heading as that. It's pretty close to west, due west right now.

KAMAL: Yep, that's right. The storm is moving and drifting to the west, it's a tight circulation, so we would have a due west wind if it didn't change course. And that's how you look at that now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill, as you mentioned earlier that the thinking was that at some point whatever's going to help steer this thing might kick in later in the afternoon. I know we're another hour or so from another advisory. Do you anticipate that by that next advisory, just before 5:00 we might get the word it's starting to move at least? RENICK: Well, you know what? We're showing you the close up Doppler now, out of Miami. But, you know, if we can show you the large Doppler in the weather office, if you can put that up on either source. Thank you.

If you notice, and look at that very closely, that circle that's spinning, the open circle, there is a definite westward drift there, because look when it starts, the end of the circle is over the "A" Palm and when it ends, the end of the circle is over the "P" in Palm. So, it is drifting to the west. I'm sure the net motion on this, in the 5:00 advisory, will be to a westerly or west northwest direction maybe at five miles-an-hour, but I think the stationary thing was just temporary, which is good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And clarify this, Bill, and I know you've mentioned this several times, but...

STOUFFER: And that was coverage from our affiliate WSVN in south Florida, the Miami area. Another south Florida station, WFOR, has coverage out of the Bahamas. We're going to join their coverage, right now.

JOY PRUDY, CBS4 NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You can't see them. We've seen trees poke holes through roofs, and that kind of thing, power lines, telephone lines just dangling in the wind, but they say that Hurricane Floyd was a lot worse, it just wasn't this long. That is what's making this so painful. Everyone here, they're feelings are on high alert. No time to really complain or roll your eyes, when is this going to be over, you're so busy trying to feel and see and sense, trying to gauge what's coming next that you don't have time to complain or even think about complaining, you're just very wide-eyed. Folks here are waking up, they're moving around, but no one has really slept through the night, 30, 40 minutes at most and then the wind comes knocking on the shutters and the doors to wake you up, saying "no, no, no, you're not going to sleep." That is the very latest from the Abacos Islands of the Bahamas. Joy Prudy, CBS4 News.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After the storm moved from the Abacos, it went west towards Grand Bahama, that's where Freeport is located, and is now making its way west into our neck of the woods. And I have some information to pass along from Florida Power and Light. More than 450,000 people stated-wide, 450,000, nearly half a million customers of FPL, without power and that is just FPL.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, the city of Hollywood also lost its power west of I-95 at about 12:45, today. The deal is, once the winds are this high, the electric crews cannot get out there and get up on the poles and fix them until the storm passes, so unfortunately once you lose the electricity, you got to make do for quite some time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Remember, you can hear us on the radio if you don't have power...

STOUFFER: And a lot of folks will be in that situation, with no electricity. That was WFOR, one of our affiliates in south Florida.

WHITFIELD: And we continue with our live coverage of Hurricane Frances, right after this short 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 - 15:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Here is the latest news happening right now. Hurricane Frances advances on to Florida, kicking up waves, wind and rain, just ahead of the center's landfall. It is now a strong category 2 storm. Millions of people have evacuated the state or sought shelter and rescue centers and you can stay with us for continued coverage of Frances all day on right here on CNN.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And Los Angeles International Airport is now open after it was shut down earlier today because of two separate security incidents. One of the incidents was described as a small explosion that injured several people. Authorities believe the explosion was caused by batteries inside a flashlight and another involved a person who entered an exit area of a baggage claim area.

STOUFFER: Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the massacre at a school in Beslan a terrorist attack on his country. Hundreds of children are among those killed and wounded in an armed take over. We will bring you a live report from the tragic scene there in just about 20 minutes.

WHITFIELD: And in an exclusive telephone interview, Former President Bill Clinton tells CNN's Larry King, he's a little scared but feels great and is ready for his next week's scheduled bypass surgery. Clinton says Republicans aren't the only people who want four more years.

WHITFIELD: Hello again everyone. It is 3:00 p.m. on the east coast, noon out west. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

STOUFFER: Hi everybody. I'm Linda Stouffer. Glad you could join us. It is a very busy news day so far.

WHITFIELD: And we begin this busy hour with the latest on the path of the massive hurricane Frances, it is poised to strike the fragile east coast of Florida in the next few hours. But exactly when the category 2 storm will hit is your uncertain. We have CNN correspondents stationed up and down the Florida coastline. Our Anderson Cooper and Chad Myers are weathering the hurricane in the city of Melbourne.

Well already you're feeling some pretty significant wind gusts right Anderson?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes that is right Fredricka. The wind is really been picking up over the last hour or so. Not as much rain right now as we expect but what rain there is really starting to feel pinpricks in this rain coming into you right in the face, it is a little painful. I just want to show out, this is the inland waterway. You can really get a sense of the white caps.

I mean this is what the ocean looked like on the Barrier Island yesterday. A lot of the boats here in the marina here in Melbourne, Florida. Really rocking back and forth. There are going to be a lot of nervous boat owners. And this is really only a small taste of what's to come. We got some word from Florida power that as many as 1.4 million people without electricity at this point, and this storm is still very far away. We can only imagine how many people will be without power very shortly. We want to bring in Chad Myers, CNN's meteorologist.

Chad how strong are the winds right now?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I have got this instantaneous meter here and I got about 42 on it, sometimes gusts to about 48. You know, this is just the beginning, Anderson, literally, just the beginning. And if you can take a look back out here on the water. Go back out to the inter coastal. There's a little bit of haze. Here it comes.

There's a little bit of haze on the inter coastal. That's where the next squall is coming from. And you can see them coming literally you can see them coming for about two minutes and you go, get ready, get ready here it comes and we got one getting much closer to us. So we're going to get hit with probably 65 or 70 here, in about 35 seconds.

COOPER: Right now we are not seeing that much damage. I mean there are a lot of downed trees, you see a lot of pompoms on the streets, there is one light post down over there, it is going to get much worse.

MYERS: It really is. I'm concerned about us being able to travel at all tonight or anybody else being able to travel. I'll tell you what though I've been out on the roads. It's the police, it's the fire and it's media. That is it; there is nobody else out there. Everybody else is hunkered down.

COOPER: Certainly good news. I mean Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been saying all along, they have been giving a lot of warning on this. People really have seem to have heeded the warning. We drove to this location and we did see about three or four young women out kind of taking pictures, running around and waving and but it looked like they were going to be getting back indoors very soon and they should because this think is going to get much worse.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Anderson and Chad thanks so much. Anderson you must have velcro on your hat. I'm surprised it's still on your head with that kind of wind gusts. All right, take cover and take care. Linda.

STOUFFER: One thing that is not on everywhere is the electricity. There have been some power outages. We want to talk to Bill Swank, he is with Florida Power and Light. He joins us on the phone right now. Bill can you hear me?

BILL SWANK, FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT: Yes I can. Good afternoon.

STOUFFER: Good afternoon to you. What this is situation in terms of power outages in Florida so far?

SWANK: Well unfortunately we've been experiencing power outages here since yesterday afternoon when the first feeder bans came onshore. As of noon today we had about 740,000 customers impacted by the storm. We worked all night long with our crews between wind bans, we were able to put them back out in the field, we were able to restore about 281,000 of those customers that were out.

So we were looking this morning at noon having about 459,000 still out of service. But that number changes almost by minute. When the heavier wind bans have come onshore now, I know our customer's outages are much higher at this point.

STOUFFER: I'm sure they are. And will you continue to try to do it that way, get out between rain bans and do what repair work you can or at some point will you have to pull back and wait until the storm gets further along?

SWANK: Unfortunately that's where we are right now. We've worked all night long and we were able to get in between but now the wind are fairly consistently at least 35 miles an hour. It's no longer safe to put our people up in buckets out in the area. So we pulled them all back. We're going to rest them and have them fresh to begin again tomorrow morning or as soon as we can possibly get people back out, when the winds die down.

STOUFFER: Bill, is there anything you want to say about the safety of folks as they may see downed power lines?

SWANK: Safety is incredibly important, that is something we pushed from the beginning of this even in preparations, telling people that we strongly encouraged people to stay in their homes. Do not go out, wading around in puddles. You don't know what's there, there could be an energize wire there, there could be an open manhole cover, it is just very dangerous for people to do that.

Also if people choose to run generators for electricity, we want to make sure that they plug their appliances into the generator and do not try to wire the generator into their home electrical network. It could cause a back feed on the line, which could energize lines that maybe down across your neighbor's fence. Your neighbor or one of his family could lean up against the fence and be severely injured. So we encourage everyone to follow the instructions on generators. And if they can stay inside, do so. STOUFFER: Good advice. And you know Florida is used to dealing with storms every year and every couple of years. But given the slow and rainy nature of this storm Frances, what kind of damage are you expecting?

SWANK: We're expecting a lot more damage than we had in Charley a few weeks ago. Charley came though, it was very fast, it was powerful, but it was a category 4 when it hit Charlotte County. It exited the other side of the state at about a category one. So we were basically dealing with two different types of storms with a very quick time frame.

This one has just been hanging on and hanging on. We're told by the weather service that it is going to be very wet; we are going to have an awful lot of rain with this one. The eye hasn't even come onshore yet. So we're going to be faced with an awful lot of outages. And part of the problem that we're seeing is we're compounding the inability of getting crews, additional crews from out-of-state.

We have got about 6,000 additional people ready to bring in to go to work but we can't get them down here because we can't bring them into the jaws of the storm.

STOUFFER: And the safety of those crews is so important too, as you point out. Bill Swank of Florida Power and Light. Good luck to you. Thanks for the updates on the repairs over night.

SWANK: Thank you.

STOUFFER: Good luck from here on out with that.

SWANK: I appreciate that.

STOUFFER: 459,000 customers still without power and as you said it changes minute by minute as the bans come through.

WHITFIELD: That's an amazing number and we know it's because of in part you got a lot of trees down, power lines snapping. It's happening all the way from as far south as Ft. Lauderdale, and all the way as far north as Melbourne and even inland to Orlando.

In fact when we come back, we're going to be talking to the Orlando Mayer to see how things are shaping up there.

STOUFFER: That is right. We will have a lot more coverage for you right after this break. More CNN after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Welcome back to our live coverage of Frances as the outer bans of this storms just batter in slow motion the east coast of Florida. And those other bans have already caused some damage in injury in Ft. Lauderdale for instance. A man was injured when a tree was uprooted by the storms powerful winds and it fell down and landed on his home. You can you see the damage that has been done to some of these boats that have just been tossed around, the moorings unable to keep up with the strength of the winds at times, just tossed around like toy boats in some areas. We're continuing to follow all the damage.

WHITFIELD: Orlando's Emergency Operation Center went into lockdown mode early this morning in preparation for hurricane Frances. Mayor Buddy Dyer is riding out the storm there and he is on the telephone with us. Mayor glad you could take the time to talk with us a little bit.

MAYOR BUDDY DYER, ORLANDO: Thank you we're just starting to get the effects of Frances.

WHITFIELD: In what way?

DYER: Well we've got some sustained winds here in the 40 miles an hour wind and out at the airport they had some gusts up to 69 already.

WHITFIELD: Well during Charlie a few weeks ago there was some surprise that Orlando felt the brunt of that storm in terms of some flooding, power outages, now with hurricane Frances just hours away what are your expectations of the kind of impact you are going to feel after today?

DYER: Well it had been 44 years since we had a major hurricane in Orlando and now it has been just three weeks since we had the last one. Frances is a much different storm than Charlie, Charlie went through Orlando in just a couple of hours and really wasn't very wet at all but it did tremendous damage to our tree canopy.

So we've been facing debris removal for the last three weeks. And there's still a lot of debris on the streets even though there's been a Herculean effort to get it removed. Frances on the other hand is going to be with us for 12, 14 hours potentially and could have as much as 8 to 20 inches a rain. So it is going to be much different. The flooding aspect is going to be much different.

WHITFIELD: And during Charlie, there was an awful lot of damage caused to your citrus groves. Tourism is another huge industry for your city, for your state. What kind of economic impact are you expecting as a result of this storm now?

DYER: Well substantial economic impact and of course this has hit on the Labor Day holiday. So I'm sure thousand of people changed their holiday plans of this weekend, but the good side of that is I guess that hotel rooms became available for those that needed to evacuate from other areas of the state.

WHITFIELD: And pre and post storm it really is a collaborative effort isn't it you have got a Florida state emergency agencies working together with FEMA, which already apparently sent in about 4,500 workers throughout the state of Florida, as well as certain neighboring states like Alabama who are at the ready to help in any way, shape or form. So given all these entities, how does one coordinate so that no one is stepping on one another's toes?

DYER: Well it really is a cooperative effort and it starts at the state level and then regional and then to the local governments. And I know you just had somebody on from Florida power and light before the break. That's an area that we get substantial assistance from around the country. After Charlie, we had linemen from as far away as Minnesota and Ohio and Texas that were here in central Florida helping us repair.

And I know that many of those same linemen are now positioned at the Georgia/Florida border waiting for the storm to pass so that they can come help again.

WHITFIELD: Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando. Thanks so much for joining us.

DYER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: In Orlando, they're feeling some rain already. Well along the coast, like in places like Juno Beach they're feeling a lot of rain and a lot of wind. Lets picking up with our coverage with WFOR affiliate. Who is taking us there to Juno Beach?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to point out that we have been throughout Palm Beach County for a good part of the day, and when photographer Mike Majohno (ph) and I drove up the turnpike today, very few cars, it is interesting to see not that many people out there with you, you know that you're venturing into dangerous territory. Because we have been telling you all along that officials do not want anybody venturing out.

But obviously we have a job to do, we need to bring you the pictures and show you what is going on and to keep you informed about the nature of this hurricane. And as soon as we got off Lake Worth Drive, we started venturing down; we saw tree limbs all over the place. At that point we knew that this was not going to be an easy storm to deal with. Uprooted trees no matter where we're driving. A lot of fencing, ripped out, a lot of signs strewn across the street. We kept venturing to the east and then approached I-95. Not a single car, maybe we saw one or two cars while we're driving I-95 to the north for about 15 or 20 minutes.

We then got off in West Palm Beach. We continued to go down to the downtown area and the neighborhoods down there. A lot of debris flying everywhere. A lot of down power lines, trees limbs that type of thing. We have video from Juno that I believe that you're looking at right now, looking at the damage caused by the strong winds, a lot of uprooted trees, broken limbs and the like. So it is -- really it is a very dangerous situation, something you don't want to go out and venture.

The other concerns of course are downed power lines. We've been telling you all along that's a risky proposition, especially if you have puddles. Because you don't know what's underneath those puddles. And people have been electrocuted by venturing out. Now all of us here are taking extreme caution and we are all are looking for flying debris, because that is a big concern when you're dealing with these kinds of winds. Ninety mile per hour winds.

We showed you about 15, 20 minutes ago a neighborhood, where heavy trees were blocking entire roadway out there, and we had to take cover ourselves because we saw metal and other stuff flying at us. It's something you don't want to be fooling around with. But the basic situation right now is that the winds are strong. Right now, it's a little bit of lull. You'll get that from time-to-time, but the winds will pick up when you least expect it.

Guys.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We have seen that over and over again. Today Art and you're talking about the danger of downed power lines. And we saw some of the drama play out live here on CBS for us. Shamri Stone was reporting to us earlier from Fort Lauderdale along Sunrise and A1A, suddenly we heard all these weird sounds and we saw some sparks and we didn't know what was going on and we since gotten the bottom of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes it was a dangerous situation for a while there. Shamri are you available?

SHAMRI STONE: You're now looking at a broken power line. Just look at this video. This thing right now, as I speak, is popping. You can see it. It's by that tree. Authorities are telling me that the wind associated from the ban of hurricane Frances came through, hit that power line and now it's broken. There's a cautionary yellow tape telling people to stay away from this area.

Firefighters, if you look over here, by my photographer Waking Guysea (ph), sorry about folks for the water on the lens, that's what happens when you're covering this thing, the firefighters just arrived, only on CBS 4 here. If you walk with me back over here, just take a look. Unbelievable. This thing continues to pop. That is extremely dangerous.

Firefighters want you to stay away. I'm now joined by an official just to explain what exactly is going on here. This is breaking right now, as we speak. Please, first of all, state your name for me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lieutenant Joseph (ph).

STONE: Lieutenant Joseph, what's going on here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we have here is a broken power line that powers the building here. With the strong winds, it has snapped and arcing on some of the other power lines.

STONE: All right and we just got here, rushed here immediately after I saw this. What street are we at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in the 500 block Borden Ave. STONE: Borden Ave, when we saw the smoke in the air from Sunrise and A1A, we immediately jumped in our cars and came here. Look at it, just let it run. This thing just keeps on popping. Sir what would happen? How many volts is that? That's amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not really sure. It is definitely high voltage.

STONE: And what as you look right over here, there is some spectators who are seeing it as well, a guy drinking his coffee. What would happen sir, are they allowed to come over here and get as close as we are to see this thing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all.

STONE: What's your concern about them over there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing really with them over there. My concern is the buildings here catching on fire from the live wire there.

STONE: Well on behalf of CBS 4, our anchors, we want to thank you for allowing us to get so close to share this with our viewers. This is exactly why officials strongly recommend that you be careful. That's why we have the mandatory evacuations, according to Broward officials. Why? Because things like this can happen. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) hurricane Frances can continue to come on in. Sorry about the low visibility on your lens. There is a light drizzle right now, and the gusty winds continues to come in. Reporting live only on 4, I'm Shamri Stone, CBS 4 News this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shamri Stone reporting from earlier today on that arcing power line there. The deal with the storm now, is that it appears to be parking itself. And so we're expecting it to move in the same time as it's not moving in very quickly. And for the folks who already experienced the bulk of the storm, it just won't go away.

WHITFIELD: Our affiliates in Florida helping us to continue our live around the clock coverage of hurricane Frances. That coverage coming from WFOR based out of Miami. However we have seen that last shot. They were showing those power lines out of Ft. Lauderdale.

STOUFFER: And some half a million homes at this point without power in Florida. And some of the most dramatic footage we've seen so far is the wind damage. But all the experts are saying it's really going to be the rain that will add up to be the most problem 12 inches, 15 inches, 20, inches predicted in some parts of Florida. So it will be a long weekend ahead of them.

And we're also following a lot of other news today. It is a busy day. The latest developments in this story, the death toll it is still climbing after the horrific end to a terrorist school siege in Russia. Hundreds of victims are children. That is next.

And we're of course staying on top of hurricane Frances as it begins its very slow but dangerous assault on the Florida coast. More of that to come straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Now in the news, hurricane Frances is on a slow course into Florida advance winds already are whipping up waves, uprooting trees and downing power lines. CNN's live coverage of the storm continues in just one minute.

WHITFIELD: Los Angeles International Airport is slowly getting back to normal. Two separate security incidents shut the airport down for nearly four hours today. Authorities say neither were related to terrorism in just a few minutes a travel analyst rather will look at how the airport shut down on one coast and Frances on the other is playing havoc with holiday travel this weekend.

STOUFFER: Denouncing a deadly hostage tragedy, Russian president, Vladimir Putin says it was not just a massacre at a Russian school, but a terror attack on his country. He's comparing the slaughter of 323 hostages to the September 11 attacks in the U.S. Emergency crews are nearly finished recovering all the bodies at the school.

WHITFIELD: In Iraq, more violence today, the deadliest was in the town of Kirkuk. A car fled with explosives and driven by a suicide bomber detonated next to the Iraqi Police Academy. A second bomb detonated simultaneously. At least 25 people were killed, 40 others were injured.

Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.

STOUFFER: More information now on the tragedy in Russia. The Russian people are comparing the bloody siege in Beslan, Russia to the 9/11 terrorists attacks on the United States. Recovery teams are wrapping up their search for bodies, so far 323 hostages are dead, many of them children. Hundreds being treated for wounds today. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, called on all Russians to unite and fight terror movements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA: Russia is one of the greatest nuclear powers in the world and in this sense, it still presents a threat, and that is a threat which we need to remove, and terrorism, of course, is only an instrument for the attainment of this objective. Where more than once, we have -- I have said that we cannot meet a crisis with involving terrorist acts in this way, with force. But in this unprecedented series of attacks by terrorists, this -- no call from the president or by the government or parliament, this was a calling out, a call-out to all of Russia, to our entire people. This was an attack on our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STOUFFER: And CNN's Matthew Chance joins us. He is live outside the school where the hostage situation unfolded.

Matthew, what's the latest?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest in there is that the people of Beslan are having to come to terms as best they can with some of the most tragic days that this town in southern Russia has experienced. The true magnitude of losses experienced in the ending of this siege of school No. 1, here in Beslan are only now starting to emerge with official figures saying that 323 people have so far been confirmed as dead, 156 of them are children. By any measure a painfully high cost.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): The people of Beslan are mourning their terrible loss. Whole families have been torn to pieces in this Russian tragedy, so many have died, so many are beside themselves with utter grief.

Mothers like Ala, who's lost her twins age 10. She's speechless with despair. Her friend gives her support and words.

"One of the twins has been identified as dead," she tells us. "We're still looking in the hospitals for the other."

It is a terrible search, but one which virtually every family in Beslan is now engaged in. The tragedy in Beslan has left the community shattered.

(on camera): It seems that almost everybody here knows someone else who's lost a child or a brother or a sister. In the final count, the death toll is expected to reach the hundreds. But, for the moment, there's such confusion, people are desperately scanning the walls for lists of names of injured and the hospital wards for their loved ones.

(voice-over): And in this grim aftermath, they're scouring the mortgages, too. Hundreds are laid out unidentified, some unrecognizable anymore. This is where the sheer horror of what's happened in this town hits home. And there's anger among the people of Beslan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The governments have done nothing. The kids had to defend themselves. Russian troops just shot into the windows. What have they helped with?

CHANCE: The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, says he shares the grief of this stricken town, but the people of Beslan want fully answered why their children were lost.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, President Putin has again, in the last few hours, appeared on Russian state television speaking to the Russian nation, restating his commitment to fighting terrorism and saying that he and the Russian people share the grief of the people of Beslan at this very difficult time for them. But, at the same time, as that the report mentioned President Putin, the Russian government are facing a good deal of criticism from the families of the victims in this southern Russian town, many people we've spoke to saying they don't believe the Russian government has done enough, or did enough in order to save the children of Beslan from this terrible fate -- Linda.

STOUFFER: Those are powerful pictures, a sickening situation, there. Matthew Chance, Thank you.

WHITFIELD: We're also continuing our live coverage of a different stormy situation, that of Hurricane Frances along the Florida coast and we get help now from our affiliate WSVN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The boats have been hit hard, there are trees down everywhere. We've shown you some fencing, a lot of roofs and we're getting to more video of roofs that have been blown off in the area around Juno Beach and inland as you go over the intercostal towards Jupiter and also towards Palm Beach Garden.

But, like we said earlier, Right now, it's pretty dry, all things considered, but the wind is so strong that it's like a thousand tiny pinpricks on your face when the sand blows up in your face. The tide has come back onshore and -- you know we're listening -- yeah -- we've got a lot of apartment complexes around here and we've got a lot of video and what you just saw was an apartment complex that lost its rooftop. You've seen the metal paneling off of these town homes come off, you've seen black top off these apartment complexes come off and we showed you some mobile homes earlier that had their aluminum roofing coming off, also.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Already early signs of damage we're seeing along the Florida coast. Thanks to our coverage being joined there by WSVN. Lots of power lines down, trees down, and we know, some serious power outages, 450,000 plus.

STOUFFER: That's true and I'm sure more will be added each hour. There is so much of the storm yet to come. If you just look at the images of it, to the east of the eye it is massive and it isn't even close to shore at this point, that part of the storm, anyway. We'll continue to follow it and have a lot more on CNN right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STOUFFER: Well, look at this. Frances has already taken the roof of one it gas station that wasn't going to stick around to see what else the storm had in mind. That damage that we're getting from our affiliate, WSVN. Damage in Florida, just the first of many pictures like that we are likely to see this weekend and that's just the outer squalls of Hurricane Frances. Federal and state emergency officials are preparing for the worst from the massive storm, the center of it is due to make landfall tonight or tomorrow. But, to get the latest on that, meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is here, she is tracking it. Jacqui, it seems like next few hour -- in the last few hours, rather, this thing has barely moved.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it really hasn't, actually. It is expected to pick up a little bit forward speed. Hopefully by the 5:00 advisory, we'll see that it picks up a little bit, but it's only been moving maybe four miles-an-hour at best and so that is a problem.

You mentioned those feeder bands, well were starting to get some of that damage and some of those higher winds, I'd say. And I want to show you our radar picture now, and show you some of these squalls that have moving in. There's two different areas of big concern right now. This is that first squall band that's moving on in and we're going to put a storm tracker on this for you because this has a potential to produce some wind gusts around 80 miles-per-hour. It is pushing off in this direction and so be -- should be arriving in Melbourne before the top of the hour. So, 60 to 80 miles-an-hour guests can be expected in Melbourne here pretty shortly.

Now, this second band that's going to be moving on in, we're going to put a storm tracker on this on this one for you too. And it's producing winds like 80 to 100 miles-per-hour. And this is the inner core, this is that eye wall that we talk about here, where the strongest of winds are, maximum sustained winds right now, at 105 miles-per-hour. There you can see, as that band moves towards Fort Pierce should be moving in also, near the top of the hour, right around 5:00. So, look out for strong wind gusts, hurricane force wind gusts are already beginning to push in here within the next half an hour.

Let's back to our weather maps here now, to keep in track. Here are the latest statistics on Hurricane Frances. Location, about 70 miles east of Palm Beach. Maximum sustained winds, 105 miles-per- hour, you're going to see some gusts beyond that. Still keeping at that strong category two status. As I mentioned, hopefully it's going to pick up a little bit of forward speed.

But is our bottom line here with Frances? What can we tell you here? The main things that you need to expect? Well, since it has slows down a little bit, that heightens our concern for a prolonged events. Landfall is going to be likely in central Florida, late tonight maybe right when we turn into tomorrow. But, landfall's not all that important really, other than getting in those big -- the eye wall as it moves in. And eight to 12 inches of rain expected, but locally up to 20, maybe 25 inches of rainfall, so there is a very significant flood threat.

It's probably going to take a good 24 hours for this to move over the Florida peninsula. Here is where all of your watches and warnings are in place. They have not moved throughout the day for today. And also remember, we don't want to forget about storm surge and also problems with Lake Okeechobee. Forecast track staying the same at this hour.

Linda, back to you. STOUFFER: Jacqui Jeras, thanks for the update.

WHITFIELD: Well, with the storm slowly moving toward the coast it's only pounding, but each area as it hits, especially with those out band, feeder bands. Our Anderson Cooper and Chad Myers are watching and, in fact, they're experiencing the hurricane first hand from Melbourne, Florida -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, Fredricka. The fact Jacqui just said that here in Melbourne we're going to be getting winds of 60 to 80 miles-an-hour within the hour. That is certainly bad news. The last reading Chad had was about at 48 miles-an-hour, so for some of the high winds. What's interesting though, is that you think even though the winds may not be as high as they get, you think it doesn't cause a lot of damage, but these sustained constant blowing of the wind really does cause a lot of damage. Here already you see -- you see a bunch of these -- these are light poles which are made out of fiberglass, which have just snapped, have fallen down. There are a number them which are still standing. There's one over here that we're anticipating looks like it's going to go -- really it could go any time now. It's been wobbling back and forth pretty steadily in these winds. Want to bring in Chad Myers now, our CNN's meteorologist.

Jacqui Jeras saying within an hour we're looking at 60 to 80 miles-an-hour.

MYERS: Yes. Yes.

COOPER: What do you think they're about now?

MYERS: I just had a gust of 52. So every time the wind doubles you get a lot more than double the power, you get between four and eight times the force. So, if it's going to double from where we are now during landfall, we have a lot to deal with here. And already now getting scattered reports of damage along the island there. The only way to get information here is either to listen to the scanner in the car or listen to the local radio stations. And now a lot of damage is coming in. A bowling alley damaged down the street, and there's just going to be so much more.

COOPER: And what we're -- this is really just one of the outer bands of the storm, I mean; this is not even the full force of the storm.

MYERS: Oh, not even close. We're not even close to the eye wall, in fact, the eye wall is much -- if you look at the radar that Jacqui just had it up, much farther south and you're almost down like West Palm Beach, that's the closest part to the eye wall. We are on the hypotenuse, if you will, to that eye wall, so we're still at least 100 miles away from our strongest winds. But, they keep getting -- they just keep getting bigger and bigger every minute. Every minute these winds just keep going up and up.

COOPER: And at this point, I mean, we had talked about an eye which was really enormous. Is it still that size, is it still so big?

MYERS: It is so big, but there's -- it's right over the warm water of the Gulf Stream now.

COOPER: And that's not good news.

MYERS: That is not good news. A hurricane wants warm water, just like if you're putting in premium unleaded in your car, it goes faster, theoretically. If you give hurricane warm water, it's going to go faster and now it's the warmest part of the water between here and the Bahamas. I think that eye wall's going to shrink down. As the eye wall shrinks down, the wind speeds go up, we could easily be above cat three any time now.

COOPER: And we were already getting kind of push around by this wind. Can you stand in 80 miles-an-hour wind?

MYERS: Well, the problem is, we're doing OK when we can lean into it. Right? You're leaning into it and it's 40 and it's 50 and then all of a sudden it's zero, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fall off, it's the gusts that you can't stand up in, because you just can't -- you can't balance yourself in those gusts, absolutely no way.

COOPER: All right. Well, be waiting for those winds.

Fredricka, it is -- it's getting nasty here.

WHITFIELD: Yeah, nasty and indeed. Understatement of the day. All right, thanks very much.

Well, let's get an update of Frances' vital signs with Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center joining us from Miami.

All right Max, good to see you.

MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: Well, you heard and saw from our reporters there. They're reporting 52 miles-per-hour wind gusts and that's in Melbourne and they still feel that they're about 100 miles away from much more significant winds. Of what magnitude are we talking about, the maximum kinds of winds that cities like Melbourne might be experiencing?

MAYFIELD: Well, they certainly are. Their maximum sustained winds are still up around 105 miles-an-hour to the north to northeast of the center. I think I heard somebody say it could be well above a category three hurricane. We're really not forecasting that. It's a strong category two hurricane right now. It could strengthen a little but, but normally, when you get a large (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eye like this, you don't see any -- you know, real rapid change in intensity there, so -- you know, it's already moving over the Gulf Stream. Not all hurricanes that move over the Gulf Stream strengthen, some of them actually weaken. So, I don't think that we'll see any big change there, but I don't want to downplay this. This is really going to cause tremendous damage, massive power outages across the state. And then that wind, I doubt if it'll be a hurricane when it comes out on the Gulf of Mexico, but we're going to have wind strong enough to down a lot of those large trees. The rainfall is a big concern; there'll be widespread very significant flooding to deal with also.

WHITFIELD: So, even though this storm is sitting and moving very slowly over very warm waters, waters that are averaging between 85 and 88 degrees, your belief is that's not enough for it to pick up strength and potentially leave that category two and make its way to a category three?

MAYFIELD: No. We're forecasting it will strengthen just a little bit -- you know, I think the wisest thing to do, well actually, people are already preparing for a category three hurricane and this is going to be a borderline category two, category three. I don't think that's going to be the concern. If we had that small diameter eye, we might start to see -- you know, some significant strengthening, but that's not what we see and we don't expect it to happen. But, this is going to have a big, big impact over a very large state for the state of Florida.

WHITFIELD: Category two still obviously very serious. The kind of rain we're talking about, in some areas upwards of 24 inches of that kind of standing water that some of these low-lying areas can experience?

MAYFIELD: Right, and the National Weather Service has a program, we like to say, "turn around, don't drown." If you can't see that road in front of you, don't drive your car there. That's how some people lose their lives in tropical storms and hurricanes they -- you know, drive across those flowed out roadways and get swept away. Be very, very careful with that and also be very careful of those strong winds going all the way across the peninsula, because even if you don't have hurricane force winds, those trees and squalls can be blown down, power lines be blown down and when they fall on cars and homes it has potential to kill people. If you look at how people die in hurricanes, they don't always die in areas where you have hurricane force winds.

WHITFIELD: All right, that storm surge is a very serious and life-threatening, as well. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. Thanks so much for joining us from Miami.

MAYFIELD: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Linda.

STOUFFER: One of the places to look out for is Fort Pierce. It could be ground zero for this hurricane because the eye of the storm is expected to pass directly over the city sometime later today. Gary Tuchman is there, he's going to join us live by videophone right now to show us what the conditions are like -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well by now, Linda, the people of Fort Pierce, Florida, are well aware of the eye -- the key to the eye wall. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) This is downtown Fort Pierce, it's Very picturesque. And what makes it picturesque is also what makes it vulnerable. It's right on the intercostal waterway, and it's the marina next to me. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a half a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, but is right in front of us. Barrier Island next to Fort Pierce and Hutchinson Island and that has been totally evacuated now since Thursday. Fort Pierce, this portion of the intercostals has also been evacuated. An estimated 5,000 people are in shelters in this county, Saint Lucie County, 213,000 people live in the county, to give you an idea of just how high of a percentage of people who live here have decided to go into shelters because of the fear of this storm. They haven't been directly hit by a hurricane, in the Fort Pierce area, since 1939, and that was category one hurricane.

With us right now, we're coming indoors right now, the Tiki Bar and Restaurant, owned by the city of Fort Pierce. This is our respite, this is where we are resting between the times on television and standing here right with us right now is the mayor, Mayor Bob Benton of Fort Pierce.

Mayor, thanks for joining us from the Tiki Bar and Restaurant, which has been completely evacuated, as you can see. Outdoor restaurant.

MAYOR BOB BENTON, FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

TUCHMAN: That's right, happy hour between 4:00 and 7:00. We hope it doesn't get blown into the Polynesia by the end of the day.

BENTON: We hope not.

TUCHMAN: How is the city coping right now?

BENTON: So far so good. We've had some tree damage, a lot of power lines down and -- but the worst just started, right now. We've got about 12 hours of what we're getting right now.

TUCHMAN: What are you hearing from your experts about sustained winds that we have here right now?

BENTON: Well, I'm hearing right now, we're 80 miles-an-hour and within the next hour somewhere between 80 and 100 and they're saying it should stay hurricane force until about 4:00 in the morning.

TUCHMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) walking and give our viewers a look at what the wind does. But, how concerned are you for the people that live in the city? Has everyone that is vulnerable gotten to safe places, that you know?

BENTON: I think the majority of people, I think, Hurricane Charles really woke a lot of people up, especially on the Barrier Island being and I think being this storm did have 145 miles-an-hour winds, it was a category four, I think a lot of people did leave. So, that's good. I saw a lot of people at the last minute leave. But, my concern now is the extended period of rain and wind with the storm almost stopping. You know, the ground is so wet and so trees come down so much easier.

TUCHMAN: Mayor, thank you for joining us.

BENTON: Thank you.

TUCHMAN: Appreciate it. Stay safe.

About the last person who will be staying here, this guy right here will be out of this thatched hut before it gets too dangerous here, at the Tiki Bar and Restaurant. Back to you, Linda.

STOUFFER: You just standing guard, Gary Tuchman live in Fort Pierce. That is south of Melbourne, north of West Palm Beach. You take care. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. We're getting a lot of help in our live coverage, our continuing coverage of hurricane Frances. Let's dip into the coverage of WSVN, our affiliate based in Miami, right now.

RALPH RENICK, WSVN CORRESPONDENT: You see those folks over there, they came out to relatch the boat because apparently the position they had it in, they had it pointed a little bit more toward the northwest, and the winds now, and Bill Kamal can verify this, there -- where we are now, it looks like they're coming almost due west. So, they're relatching that boat they're trying to change the direction. Now, the owner of the other boat, the one that we had in the original shot, he's not going to be able to do anything like that because the winds are too strong. And, the police department has told these people that they're going to give them a limited amount of time to take care of their boats and then they're going to ask them to move off the property.

BILL KAMAL, WSVN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Ralph. Ralph, it's Bill. I want to make an interesting point, when you said the wind direction. If the wind is west, that means the storm right not is moving, basically, or drifting to the west. If the storm is moving more to the northwest, our winds right now would be more out of the northwest. So, that wind direction is going to be very important as to the exact movement of center of the circulation of Frances. It is due west, you're exactly right.

RENICK: Yeah, well we're about -- our location is 108th Street and Collins Avenue, and as I look across towards the FIU campus and the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) park, that area over there, that's on 150 -- I think it's 151st Street, where it starts and it goes all the way down to around 135th Street. That puts that, I would say, even more west than west/northwest, if there is such a compass heading as that. It's pretty close to west, due west right now.

KAMAL: Yep, that's right. The storm is moving and drifting to the west, it's a tight circulation, so we would have a due west wind if it didn't change course. And that's how you look at that now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill, as you mentioned earlier that the thinking was that at some point whatever's going to help steer this thing might kick in later in the afternoon. I know we're another hour or so from another advisory. Do you anticipate that by that next advisory, just before 5:00 we might get the word it's starting to move at least? RENICK: Well, you know what? We're showing you the close up Doppler now, out of Miami. But, you know, if we can show you the large Doppler in the weather office, if you can put that up on either source. Thank you.

If you notice, and look at that very closely, that circle that's spinning, the open circle, there is a definite westward drift there, because look when it starts, the end of the circle is over the "A" Palm and when it ends, the end of the circle is over the "P" in Palm. So, it is drifting to the west. I'm sure the net motion on this, in the 5:00 advisory, will be to a westerly or west northwest direction maybe at five miles-an-hour, but I think the stationary thing was just temporary, which is good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And clarify this, Bill, and I know you've mentioned this several times, but...

STOUFFER: And that was coverage from our affiliate WSVN in south Florida, the Miami area. Another south Florida station, WFOR, has coverage out of the Bahamas. We're going to join their coverage, right now.

JOY PRUDY, CBS4 NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You can't see them. We've seen trees poke holes through roofs, and that kind of thing, power lines, telephone lines just dangling in the wind, but they say that Hurricane Floyd was a lot worse, it just wasn't this long. That is what's making this so painful. Everyone here, they're feelings are on high alert. No time to really complain or roll your eyes, when is this going to be over, you're so busy trying to feel and see and sense, trying to gauge what's coming next that you don't have time to complain or even think about complaining, you're just very wide-eyed. Folks here are waking up, they're moving around, but no one has really slept through the night, 30, 40 minutes at most and then the wind comes knocking on the shutters and the doors to wake you up, saying "no, no, no, you're not going to sleep." That is the very latest from the Abacos Islands of the Bahamas. Joy Prudy, CBS4 News.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After the storm moved from the Abacos, it went west towards Grand Bahama, that's where Freeport is located, and is now making its way west into our neck of the woods. And I have some information to pass along from Florida Power and Light. More than 450,000 people stated-wide, 450,000, nearly half a million customers of FPL, without power and that is just FPL.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, the city of Hollywood also lost its power west of I-95 at about 12:45, today. The deal is, once the winds are this high, the electric crews cannot get out there and get up on the poles and fix them until the storm passes, so unfortunately once you lose the electricity, you got to make do for quite some time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Remember, you can hear us on the radio if you don't have power...

STOUFFER: And a lot of folks will be in that situation, with no electricity. That was WFOR, one of our affiliates in south Florida.

WHITFIELD: And we continue with our live coverage of Hurricane Frances, right after this short break.

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