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CNN Live At Daybreak
Tropical Storm Barry Moving Quicker
Aired August 06, 2001 - 07:51 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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Barry did overnight. There's a look at what Tropical Storm Barry did overnight. Lots of people in the South waking up to rain. And I guess if you're in the Florida Panhandle, you've probably been up all night with the rain.
VINCE CELLINI, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. Keeping track of this, a day that's been very, very Barry for us...
MCEDWARDS: Yes, indeed.
CELLINI: ... and we want to turn to Jill Brown now for the latest weather update.
JILL BROWN, CNN METEOROLOGISTS: Good morning, guys, we have the new update from the Hurricane Center and some significant changes here. It's now moving more quickly. That's maybe the most important thing at this point. Moving north-northwest at 13 miles per hour. Again, the faster it moves, the less problems we're going to have with flooding, so some good news here.
Also, as we expected, the winds have come down considerably. They're now 40 miles per hour. That's still a minimal tropical storm. Probably when we get the next update at 11:00 Eastern time it will no longer be a tropical storm, but the effects will be the same and that's heavy rain. That's our biggest concern at this point is the rain that may continue for a few days. Again, it all depends on the speed and we think it's going to head up across central Alabama and into Mississippi.
Look at the heavy rain around Montgomery. Birmingham, you'll be next. Atlanta, we think you'll miss the brunt of it, although you may have some afternoon thunderstorms and, of course, we also have the threat of tornadoes, especially as we get the heating of the day when you have a land falling tropical system. That's the usual.
So we'll be watching Barry heading northwest bound and eventually will be remnants of Barry but maybe still two or three days worth of heavy rain expected well inland.
Vince, back to you.
CELLINI: All right, let's go right to the heart of the matter now. Lloyd Sowers is with us. He's a reporter for WTVT and he's in Panama City right now. And, Lloyd, good morning. I guess I understand you're getting hit with a front there right now?
LLOYD SOWERS, WTVT-TV REPORTER: Yes, one of the heavier squalls of the morning has just come in. It's been raining on and off here for about the past four hours. The rain coming right off the Gulf on my back right toward the camera right now. As we look off to the southeast, you can see some of the white caps and the dark skies back there and we're still getting those squall bands coming in. This being one of the heaviest ones. The good news is that most people here on the beach have power, only a few scattered outages, some tree limbs down. No major damage that we've seen so far.
Michelle White joins us right now. She is a vacationer from Columbus, Georgia.
You were here on the beach last night when this came in and you watched it. Tell me what you saw.
MICHELLE WHITE, VACATIONER: It was just raining really, really hard and making a lot of noise and the wind was blowing and whistling and you could feel the building shaking and the waves were just like coming up all over, water just everywhere.
SOWERS: Were you scared at all?
WHITE: A little bit, because we've never been in a hurricane before and we didn't know what to do, you know, if there was one.
SOWERS: And you came down from Columbus, Georgia?
WHITE: Right.
SOWERS: You could have left yesterday and gone home but you chose to stay -- why?
WHITE: I felt like if it was going to be very bad or severe they would have evacuated and told everyone to leave so I felt safe.
SOWERS: Has it - has it been an interesting experience for you?
WHITE: It was different. It made it a little bit more exciting for my vacation, I guess.
SOWERS: Not a lot of suntan but a little bit of rain for you, huh?
WHITE: Yes.
SOWERS: All right, well thanks very much for talking to us. That is Michelle White. She's visiting from Columbus, Georgia, here on Panama City Beach and obviously getting wet as the bands from Barry continue to move ashore.
Back to you in Atlanta.
CELLINI: All right, Lloyd, thank you very much.
That's the story of the day, but it's always nice to have a vacation story to tell...
MCEDWARDS: Yes, exactly.
CELLINI: ... for later, right? Good or bad, it could be worse.
MCEDWARDS: I'm not sure how the pictures will look in the album, though, a lot of rain.
If you're in the South or if you're in that area of the storm where it's going to, send us an e-mail. We're going to put them on the air in about half an hour. Tell us how you're weathering the storm. If you've got a computer and it's not flooded out or you're not too busy worrying about the storm, send us an e-mail.
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