Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Research to Weaken Hurricanes

Aired June 07, 2002 - 05:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well the native people of the Caribbean called the mighty storm hurricon (ph) for which means the god of evil. Today, we know a hurricane carries the energy comparable to hundreds of nuclear bombs.

Miami bureau chief John Zarrella has the story of a controversial experiment to defuse that power before it makes landfall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Rather than prepare for the next major hurricane, why not just prevent it? Sounds ambitious, maybe even ridiculous. But for decades, scientists have toyed with ways to attack nature's most powerful storms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Project Storm Fury, a join effort...

ZARRELLA: Project Storm Fury looked for the Achilles' heel in hurricanes. The plan was to seed clouds in hurricanes to force precipitation and hopefully slow the hurricane's spinning winds.

GOLDEN: Everybody involved knew that this was -- we were blazing some new trails here. This was cutting edge science.

ZARRELLA: The experiments began in 1961.

SIMPSON: We felt that we had, through the first three to four experiments, gotten very encouraging results.

ZARRELLA: In 1969, Project Storm Fury seeded a strong hurricane twice. Both times the wind slowed as much as 30 percent. It was the strongest evidence yet that cloud seeding could work.

SIMPSON: I was overjoyed. I said, now we're ready, we're getting a really clear-cut example of what appears to be a response to the seeding.

ZARRELLA: Some government officials worried cloud seeding might cause a hurricane to strengthen. Mexico charged that tampering with hurricanes would deprive Mexican agriculture of rain.

SIMPSON: After each experiment, we had more and more constraints put on us as to where we could seed.

ZARRELLA: There were also challenges to Storm Fury's scientific merit.

SHEETS: What we were never able to document, was it a result of the actual seeding, or was it a natural sequence of events that took place?

ZARRELLA: The combination of liability concerns, politics and scientific doubts were too much. Storm Fury shut down in 1983 with inconclusive results and a ripple effect on other research.

SIMPSON: It essentially ended up drying up all government funds for weather modification research, and I think that that was wrong.

ZARRELLA: Now, nearly 20 years later, the National Academy of Sciences says our understanding of weather has improved enough that weather modification research should resume, including hurricanes.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: John's full report on hurricanes will be the focus of "CNN PRESENTS" this weekend. Tune in Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern for "HURRICANE: WHEN THE BIG ONE HITS."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com