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CNN Live At Daybreak
Hurricane Erin is Expected to Miss U.S. Mainland
Aired September 10, 2001 - 08:08 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Erin dumped a boatload of water on Bermuda, but no deaths or major damage are reported. Erin is now heading north-northwest, expected to miss the U.S. mainland. And even though she is the first named hurricane this year, this is the peak of the hurricane season, so CNN will have a report each day this week on the hurricane threat.
Our chief storm chaser Miami bureau chief John Zarrella is in Key Biscayne, Florida.
When did you get promoted to chief storm chaser?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that happened a lot of years ago, Kyra -- many, many storms ago that began.
I can tell you that, you know, it's not surprising that Hurricane Erin is out there, and perhaps Tropical Storm Felix out there a little later today, because today is actually the technical height of hurricane season. That means that over the last 110 years of record keeping, on this day, September 10, you're more likely than any other day of the hurricane season to have a tropical storm or a hurricane out there. And in fact, we certainly do have one and possibly two before the day is out.
Now we have spent more than a year looking in, not to hurricanes themselves, but the problems that people all up and down the East Coast of the United States, from Maine to Texas, face if a major hurricane hits. And what we have found is that most people in the hurricane belt are not prepared if a major hurricane hits.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): When the big one is bearing down on you...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be one of the big national disasters in our nation's history.
ZARRELLA: ... what will you do? If you stay to ride out the storm, will you live to cry about it? Do you have any idea of the terror that you will experience?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you ever heard the devil breathing down your neck? We had the devil here. ZARRELLA: And the devil is coming again, perhaps sooner than you think.
CHRIS LANDSEA, NOAA SCIENTIST: I think we will see a $50 billion hurricane in the next 10, 20 years. It's almost without a doubt.
ZARRELL: The reason: during the past 50 years, the population living on or near the coast from Maine to Texas has nearly doubled to 83 million people.
Coastal development has boomed. In 20 years, property value has increased six-fold to more than $6 trillion. And during the same period of exploding growth, major hurricanes rarely hit the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this is a power keg waiting to go off.
ZARRELL: Now, after 30 years of relative quiet in the tropics, scientists say the climate has cycled back to an era of more frequent, powerful hurricanes. And in the U.S. at least 85 percent of the people living in harm's way have never experienced a major hurricane.
MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: These people do not really know what a major hurricane can do, and that really concerns me.
ZARRELLA: Max Mayfield directs the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
MAYFIELD: And that's why we're agonizing here.
ZARRELLA: Mayfield oversees a team of forecasters. The tools of their trade: orbiting satellites, hurricane hunter aircraft, computer models.
Forecasters can track a storm across the ocean. They can tell when it becomes a hurricane.
(on camera): But two of the most critical questions -- questions that may mean the difference between saving thousands of lives or losing them, they simply can't answer with confidence: Where exactly is the hurricane going, and how powerful will it be when it gets there.
(voice-over): Because of this uncertainty, the forecasters worry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it's moving very slowly.
ZARRELLA: Worried they will be caught off guard...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tropical storm warning for Belize.
ZARRELL: ... ambushed...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's definitely becoming much better organized.
ZARRELLA: ... as they were last year, when Hurricane Keith, in a mere 12 hours, morphed from a weak hurricane to a brute killer as it slammed into Belize in Central America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If that had happened anywhere along the United States coastline, it would have been a disaster.
ZARRELLA: The ingredients are all there.
MICHELE BAKER, EMERGENCY MANAGER: People ignoring the evacuation order, the cry wolf syndrome, insufficient transportation network, shelter deficit -- you name it, these things are all compounding. When you put that on top of this population explosion in the coastal areas, we are building a case for catastrophe. No question about it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: And no one really knows exactly how bad it could be, Kyra, but I can tell you that anybody who lives from Maine to Texas is going to want to watch all week and then watch on Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. on "CNN PRESENTS," because that is a one-hour documentary: "When the big one hits," and what we have found from sheltering to evacuations to ability of forecasters to tell where a storm is going to go -- all of those things -- as Michele Baker, the emergency manager there said -- all of those things compounding to create the scenario for a potential catastrophe unlike any we've seen in the United States -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: John, these orbiting satellites that you talked about in your piece, so you can get an idea that a storm is coming, but you can't judge the absolute intensity or the precise moment it will strike. Is that right?
ZARRELLA: That's exactly right. In fact, the intensity forecasts, some scientists have told us they are really no better now than they were 50, 60 years ago or barely better at predicting how strong it's going to be. Hurricane Keith, a perfect example last year, it was the one that hit Belize that we illustrated in that piece.
And, you know, from the standpoint of destruction, here we are in Miami, major cities that face potential from destruction according to Applied Insurance Research. If you look at Houston-Galveston, the estimate: $21 billion; New Orleans: $12 billion; New York: $48 billion. And right here, Miami, a storm -- major hurricane coming inland exiting the West Coast around Tampa-St. Petersburg, the estimate of damage: $57 billion.
You're going to watch the rest of this week -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I know a lot of people are going to want to move too -- John Zarrella, thank you so much.
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