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CNN Live At Daybreak
Tropical Storm Barry Not Devastating
Aired August 06, 2001 - 07:07 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: We've got Mark Potter now. He is in Panama City Beach, Florida -- the east side of the storm's eye -- joining us by telephone.
Mark, what is it doing there this morning?
MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually, the weather is starting to diminish here. It has picked up a little bit along the beach area, but you would expect that. But in the inland at Panama City, there is hardly any wind at all. The rain is sporadic. It has been coming down a little bit, but there have been times when there has been no rain at all. In fact, we saw some clear skies there earlier this morning.
The waves are kicked up, but they are not threatening the homes along the beach that we can see. This storm itself -- the center of the storm came ashore to the west of us around 11:00 p.m. to midnight Central Time. And it passed through fairly quickly. Emergency officials say that the damage here has actually been very light. There have been some downed power lines, some sporadic outages, a little bit of road flooding. Nothing serious in that regard, they say. The area still is under a flood watch, because more rain bands are coming in. But probably most important of all, they report no serious injuries or fatalities so far.
One official said that he felt that it was more like a big, heavy thunderstorm than anything else. Another said if you're going to have a storm hit your area, this is the one you want, because it just didn't do very much damage.
The area was fortunate in a number of respects. When the storm -- the center of the storm came ashore last night, it coincided with dead low tide, and in during a full moon, which is an even lower than normal tide. So that helped reduce the threat of coastal flooding.
It also remained a relatively minimal storm. It didn't become a hurricane, as you had mentioned. It occurred at the end of the tourist season. This was about the last week of that. And so it didn't disrupt the season. And it occurred just a few days before school was to start. So if you had to pick a time and place, and storm officials here say this would be it.
MCEDWARDS: All right. Mark Potter, and good news, I guess, because it looks like it's going to keep moving. Now, as you were talking -- we're actually looking at a live shot of the beach area. And you can see a couple of people sort of strolling down the beach. Tell us more about how people there, you know, were preparing for this -- whether anybody ever actually had to leave. Just a little bit more about that, if you would.
POTTER: Well, some people left, but they were mostly tourists. And the storm came on a Sunday, a lot of them were going to leave anyway. Others upped their plans and got out.
But the thing that we noticed driving around yesterday was that very few people -- or the residents here were taking extraordinary measures. We hardly saw anybody boarding up. The officials did set up a couple of shelters for people who wanted to come in and who thought perhaps their homes were unsafe. But they did not issue an evacuation order or even a recommendation. And the word we got is that only a few dozen people took advantage of those shelters.
People took this storm in stride. They have had bigger storms here -- Opal in 1995, for example. They knew that this was not going to be a big one. They had their eye on it and took it seriously, but they didn't panic and didn't really seem to be doing very much to prepare for it.
MCEDWARDS: OK. Understood. CNN's Mark Potter in Panama City Beach. Thanks very much -- Vince, over to you.
VINCE CELLINI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, right now, we want to head to Dothan, Alabama and talk to Greg Miller there. He is with the Alabama Emergency Management.
Greg, good morning.
GREG MILLER, ALABAMA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Good morning.
CELLINI: Can you please bring us up to speed now on what's happening in your town? What is the weather like right now?
MILLER: Well, Houston County and Dothan have been very, very fortunate. We have had light rain most of the evening, and the winds haven't been all that bad. We have had a couple of trees down and very minimal damage.
The biggest problem has been with the neighboring county of Covington. They have caught the brunt of it. But we are still anticipating we're under a tornado watch until 10:00 and under a flash flood watch. So we are anticipating problems. Hopefully, we are going to dodge the bullet on this.
CELLINI: Greg, are any roads closed, or is anything out of the ordinary at this point?
MILLER: Not in this county. However, as I said, our neighboring county, Covington, has their roads are closed until around 8:00 this morning, while they are working on debris. CELLINI: What exactly are you doing there to service some of the people in Dothan? I mean, if they have questions or if they might be in a tight spot, do they turn to you? What exactly do you do?
MILLER: Whenever we have any kind of a disaster, the state deploys its personnel to the counties. We support the county. I am here to work with the county emergency manager and provide any support and help that he needs from the state should the occasion arise.
CELLINI: All right. Greg Miller from the Alabama Emergency Management. We appreciate your time and best of luck to you as you ride out this storm as well.
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