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Lili Could Have Been Worse

Aired October 03, 2002 - 14:08   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 Lili lashing out at Louisiana, but as bad as it's been, it could have been a lot worse.
CNN's Jeff Flock is in Morgan City, where he has been drenched and blown all over town, but he is drying off a little bit, I guess.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, pretty much drenched again, Kyra. Wish you were here at this moment. It's a good time, as you can imagine.

Actually, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse.

Some of the damage, maybe you see back behind me that sheered off telephone pole. That's representative of some of the stuff that has been out here, and I do want to show you the very latest pictures of the damage, and to do that, I want to bring in the Hurricane Intercept Research Team, Mark Sudith (ph), John Van Pelt (ph). You were attempting to get to the eye, you certainly got in the eye wall. What did you see out there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what did we see? We saw 70, 80 miles an hour wind, we saw a lot of heavy rain, a lot of news media out, a lot of -- what do you call it -- law enforcement, kind of keeping things in order.

FLOCK: We had a crew out there with you and shot some of the pictures. We saw -- you saw poles sheered off...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yes -- we saw -- going to lose the hat here. Let's see, John, what do you think? We saw...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of oak trees down, and some were out by the root balls, like we had a lot from Fran in North Carolina, but a lot of them were just huge, 12 to 18 inch limbs snapped off.

FLOCK: So you had a pretty good blow out there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. And we took some good buffeting in the vehicle, as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is definitely not safe to be out in a hurricane. That's one of the things we are going to take back from this, also trying to understand why it weakened so dramatically, which I am sure everybody is very thankful for. Nobody complaining there.

But we have got to figure out -- we have got to talk about the safety in a vehicle. That's going to be a good thing to take back from this, because it really -- as the guys that were with us from CNN will tell you from the van they were in, it felt like it was going to lift up and fly away a couple of times.

FLOCK: I was going to say, you even lost -- this is your pole, your sort of outrigger here, that typically you have a pole your anamometer (ph) goes on. I see it's bent. How did that happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even we're not immune to mistakes and having problems. We hit a guy wire very early on, not a telephone wire, but just a guy wire from a pole, and it sheered off everything we had, and we lost it.

FLOCK: Lucky you didn't turn it into a convertible there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. That's right. And it just goes to show that you know, you can't take anything for granted, even though we're out here taking it seriously, we are still prone to having problems. And in the future, maybe that will help us get better prepared ourselves.

FLOCK: I hear you. Well, we ought to have prepared with a bigger umbrella here today, by golly, because there is a lot of water associated with this, too, Kyra.

So -- at any rate, the headline is, actually, first landfalling storm of the century. No -- you know, no hurricanes the past two years, so this is the first one, and it certainly could have been a lot worse.

That's the latest from Morgan City -- Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. A bit of good news, and I hope you get to dry off now. Grab a towel and get inside that truck, Jeff.

FLOCK: You got it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Jeff Flock bearing down there. Thank you.

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 October 3, 2002 - 14:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Lili lashing out at Louisiana, but as bad as it's been, it could have been a lot worse.
CNN's Jeff Flock is in Morgan City, where he has been drenched and blown all over town, but he is drying off a little bit, I guess.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, pretty much drenched again, Kyra. Wish you were here at this moment. It's a good time, as you can imagine.

Actually, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse.

Some of the damage, maybe you see back behind me that sheered off telephone pole. That's representative of some of the stuff that has been out here, and I do want to show you the very latest pictures of the damage, and to do that, I want to bring in the Hurricane Intercept Research Team, Mark Sudith (ph), John Van Pelt (ph). You were attempting to get to the eye, you certainly got in the eye wall. What did you see out there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what did we see? We saw 70, 80 miles an hour wind, we saw a lot of heavy rain, a lot of news media out, a lot of -- what do you call it -- law enforcement, kind of keeping things in order.

FLOCK: We had a crew out there with you and shot some of the pictures. We saw -- you saw poles sheered off...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yes -- we saw -- going to lose the hat here. Let's see, John, what do you think? We saw...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of oak trees down, and some were out by the root balls, like we had a lot from Fran in North Carolina, but a lot of them were just huge, 12 to 18 inch limbs snapped off.

FLOCK: So you had a pretty good blow out there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. And we took some good buffeting in the vehicle, as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is definitely not safe to be out in a hurricane. That's one of the things we are going to take back from this, also trying to understand why it weakened so dramatically, which I am sure everybody is very thankful for. Nobody complaining there.

But we have got to figure out -- we have got to talk about the safety in a vehicle. That's going to be a good thing to take back from this, because it really -- as the guys that were with us from CNN will tell you from the van they were in, it felt like it was going to lift up and fly away a couple of times.

FLOCK: I was going to say, you even lost -- this is your pole, your sort of outrigger here, that typically you have a pole your anamometer (ph) goes on. I see it's bent. How did that happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even we're not immune to mistakes and having problems. We hit a guy wire very early on, not a telephone wire, but just a guy wire from a pole, and it sheered off everything we had, and we lost it.

FLOCK: Lucky you didn't turn it into a convertible there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. That's right. And it just goes to show that you know, you can't take anything for granted, even though we're out here taking it seriously, we are still prone to having problems. And in the future, maybe that will help us get better prepared ourselves.

FLOCK: I hear you. Well, we ought to have prepared with a bigger umbrella here today, by golly, because there is a lot of water associated with this, too, Kyra.

So -- at any rate, the headline is, actually, first landfalling storm of the century. No -- you know, no hurricanes the past two years, so this is the first one, and it certainly could have been a lot worse.

That's the latest from Morgan City -- Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. A bit of good news, and I hope you get to dry off now. Grab a towel and get inside that truck, Jeff.

FLOCK: You got it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Jeff Flock bearing down there. Thank you.

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