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Live From...

Hurricane Isabel Lashes North Carolina

Aired September 18, 2003 - 14:00   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: In the crosshairs of Hurricane Isabel as it slams ashore right where it was predicted. We're live from the storm's center.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The barrier island beach of Kill Devil Hills, right near Kitty Hawk, the birthplace of aviation. We'll tell you about that, on how that area is holding up.

PHILLIPS: And to the south, Topsail Beach withstands the pounding of surf and flooding rain, live from the beach.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. This is CNN's "LIVE FROM."

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. Hurricane Isabel is ashore, and the wind, rain and pounding surf is causing some problems.

Seems like we've been talking about this storm for a month now, but it's been coming for days, actually, and now Isabel is a reality from the Carolinas all the way to Capitol Hill.

The Outer Banks are getting a one-two punch from the two sides of Isabel's eye wall, slamming ashore beginning late this morning. The storm's top winds are clocked at 100 miles an hour, although on the ground we haven't seen anywhere near that. A tidal surge of five to ten feet is preceding the normal high tides, which are happening at the same time.

Last report, more than half a million homes and businesses had lost electricity in North Carolina and Virginia. And North Carolina is already seeking a disaster declaration from the federal government, which incidentally pretty much shuttered up today, at least in our nation's capitol because of Isabel.

CNN's Jeff Flock is staring the hurricane in the face at this hour, as he is wont to do. He is in the Outer Banks community of Atlantic Beach. And he been -- it looks like it's gotten worse since we last checked in with you, Jeff. What's going on?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I tell you. The wind's no worse, but we're for some reason getting, I think it shifted in such a way that we're getting sandblasted here. You talk about facing it head on. I don't want to put my face into this, because it's really nasty.

We were trying to find some folks here who have come down to check out their damage and that sort of thing.

Sir, you live just a few doors down here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we live about a quarter of a mile down on the beach.

FLOCK: How's your place?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The house has been fine. There's a few shingles off around the area but (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Yes this is rather mild, compared to some of them down here.

FLOCK: Well, as I stand out here and get sand blasted, it sounds pretty good. What about you, ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've seen this motel that I assume you're staying in being blown to piece before.

FLOCK: I think Bonnie. Did Bonnie get this one?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Got the roof and all the windows and everything. So you're doing well now.

FLOCK: They told us when we were checking in last night. They said, "You know what? This was knocked down before, but you know, we think it's built better now." I hope so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks pretty good. We've seen a lot higher winds.

FLOCK: OK. I appreciate it, folks. Look like we're past worst of it, I hope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hang tight.

FLOCK: Hang tight, she says.

Boy, I'll tell you, Miles, it's funny when the wind shifts. Now we're getting the sand off the beach. It started coming from the north, and then started coming out from the west, and now we're getting it from right off the beach. So all this sand is coming and flowing, and I'll tell you, I'm covered with grit. It's amazing, very fun.

O'BRIEN: Jeff, you've been through so many hurricanes before. Have you ever encountered quite this, this sandblasting effect that you're getting right now?

FLOCK: A little bit in Bertha. You remember when we did Bertha, we were -- stayed on the street, because we didn't even want to go down by the beach. At one point we went down by the beach and we did get a little of it sandblasted. But for some reason, this is stinging. Or maybe I'm just getting older and a little less tolerant of it.

O'BRIEN: All right, Jeff Flock, thanks very much. Appreciate your insights there on the ground. And once again, stay safe.

PHILLIPS: All right. Kill Devil Hills is having a devil of a Thursday afternoon. CNN's Brian Cabell is covering things from there.

Brian, set the scene for us.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we've had a couple of developments since we talked to you about an hour or so ago. We've had problems here at the hotel. For one thing, the power is off. It's been off for about an hour.

For another thing -- let me disappear behind this for just a moment -- some of the building is starting to fall apart. Take a look over here. Siding has fallen off of the building over the last hour, piece by piece. It's been a little dangerous at time. Also, a piece of a gutter has come off. People are now hiding, basically, underneath this building here to make sure that they don't get hit by any of the siding that has come off.

But the winds clearly have picked up over the last, I'd say, hour, hour and a half. I think we're getting hurricane-force winds, perhaps beyond at this point.

Also we have roads that have washed out. Further up the road here, a couple miles up the road this way a couple miles, that way, and as I say, the winds have indeed picked up.

But take a look across the street over here. These homes, these rental homes that were evacuated a couple of days ago, they seem to be holding up reasonably well. We don't see any structures that have been damaged yet. So apparently they have bolstered those fairly well.

But again, the winds have picked up considerably now. I'd say we have at least 75- to 90-mile-per-hour winds.

The power lines overhead. One thing you certainly have to be careful of here, because if they come down, they're live here and you're in major trouble. But as I say, power has gone down here in the last hour or so.

Our hotel has some serious problems. The enclosure over the pool seems to be about to give way, and frankly it's starting to hurt coming out here. So let me be less fool hearted here and get back inside.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Brian Cabell, who actually cannot hear me. He's having some technical problems. But he mentioned the evacuations going on. About 300,000 plus ordered to evacuate there from the Kill Devil area. We'll continue to check in with Brian and the conditions.

Well, Topsail Beach is south of the hurricane's center, but very much in the impact zone and under siege right now. Our national correspondent Gary Tuchman is in that part of the beach.

Gary, OK, it looks a little more calm. GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, exactly. I have a contrast to what Jeff and Brian are reporting. We are on the south side of the center of this hurricane.

And we're starting to see, and I emphasize a little, a little tiny bit of improvement. The visibility has increased. The winds have died down a little bit, and the rains have definitely died down a little bit also.

This is the beach over here. This is north Topsail Beach. High tide just came about 35 minutes ago. There was some fear that the high tide could wash over the dunes and the dune fence. It did not. The water has now gone back, and that is good news.

The island is only three blocks wide at its widest point. It's 26 miles long. It is a very fragile piece of barrier island, very close to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

So far there has been no major damage here, despite the fact there has been tropical storm-force and hurricane-force winds since 7 a.m. this morning. Police are telling us there is some minor damage to homes. There are some trees and limbs down. But as of now no power lines down, a great contrast to what we saw in Bermuda two weeks ago, where there were hundreds of power lines down from the category three Hurricane Fabian that came through here.

There is still a curfew in effect in town. Police are telling people who decided to stay behind, and they're estimating about 25 percent of the residents stayed behind, that they are not to leave their homes or their property until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: But so far it looks like this area pretty much out of the clear. It's looking good, right, Gary?

TUCHMAN: Well, I wouldn't say they're in the clear yet, but it's certainly died down a bit. So I think we may be getting towards that point where they will eventually be in the clear.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Gary Tuchman on the south side there in Topsail Beach. Thanks, Gary.

O'BRIEN: A hurricane as physically big as Isabel can present a bigger danger from flooding than from the strong winds, as we've been telling you.

We get more on this now from CNN's John Zarrella. He's in Elizabeth City. Hello, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.

It's gotten considerably worse here during the last couple of hours, and that's to be expected as the storm moves inland. And we're on the right side of the storm, the worst part of the storm. Probably appropriately so, a sign just blew off of a pole a minute ago. And that's the -- you may have some video of that -- and it's the Water Street/Main Street sign that just blew down here in Elizabeth City.

That's two people out on the street but for the most part not too many people.

Now the big concern is the water. And this is a video, folks, so we're going to try to move a little bit slowly and try to show you what's going on. Back here to where the water is, and that back here in the distance, I know it doesn't look great, but that's the Paxputank (ph) River. It looks like fog out there, and that's because the wind is whipping the waves right off the top of the river, pounding onto the pilings there. And it is beginning to overwash there.

And during Hurricane Floyd four years ago, they had about four feet of water up here on Water Street, appropriately named. And that is the big concern as the storm moves inland, it will push that wall of water inland with it. And we may get some flooding here, may get some flooding in other parts of interior North Carolina.

But again, the winds approaching what we think are probably hurricane force. We clocked them ourselves up to about 60 miles an hour with a wind meter a little while ago. So it is deteriorating here, and that will probably go on for the next couple of hours -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John, right there on Main Street, pretty much all the businesses shuttered and boarded up. I mean, is there any evidence of buildings that might be exposed to all this wind?

ZARRELLA: Yes, a lot of the buildings are. A lot of people put up plywood and shutters, but just as many people didn't put up plywood and shutters. And you can see we're getting one of those gusts that's approaching hurricane force.

So we had one house that, one building that one of the signs went through about an hour ago, and the owner of the store was trying to put plywood over his exposed shop, because one of his pictures windows was blown out when one of the signs went right through it.

So there certainly is that concern that there are a lot of exposed windows, a lot of exposed areas here. A lot of the tarps are beginning to fall off. The canopies coming off and signs coming off. But no major structural damage. Aluminum flying around, the kinds of things that you would expect to see in a category two hurricane -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, watch out for that flying debris there, John Zarrella. Stay under cover. We appreciate it.

All right. Air travel, big problem today all up and down the eastern seaboard. Cancellations will ripple across the country, affecting travelers all over the country, all the way to Los Angeles. Rally Caparas is our travel specialist. He works for Travelocity and spends a good deal of time here.

What's the latest, Rally?

RALLY CAPARAS, CNN TRAVEL SPECIALIST: Well, Miles, as you know yourself, from what I understand, air travel in the East Coast, especially in Virginia and North Carolina, nonexistent along the coast lines.

Let's take a look -- Well, let's visit Reagan National Airport. You see the airplanes parked. That's all you're going to see. Very few airplanes in or out of the airport. That's the runway behind those two airplanes. No activity. I can tell you firsthand that I was an air traffic controller there. And you couldn't wait two or three seconds before you'd see another airplane crossing down the runway there. It's very strange to see it that way.

Flightexplorer.com shows you the picture. There is Isabel. It's taking over the entire state of North Carolina and parts of Virginia. The airports beneath the storm right now, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Raleigh, Durham, Norfolk, Richmond, they're not experiencing hardly any operations as we speak, maybe one or two an hour at the max. I see very few airplanes there.

Minimal operations and indefinite delays at those locations throughout the rest of today and into tomorrow.

Now later on today, Washington, Dulles, Reagan National, Baltimore, Philadelphia, North and La Guardia, they'll all see limited operations, also. As a matter of fact, they've seen 1,000 canceled flights into those locations alone.

A terrible day if you're trying to get someplace and especially if you're in a hurry. This evening, that word suspended operations is probably a little misleading. The airports will remain open, folks. They're doing their best to get you out on time or as close to your scheduled time as possible. But it's not likely to happen.

Yet, they will implement ground delay programs, controlling the flow into and out of those airports. You can forget about being anywhere close to on time if your flight is going to fly at all.

Take advantage of what the airlines are offering you. Reschedule your flight. Take a refund without any penalty. You'll stay dry; you'll stay safe; and you'll be much happier for it.

I'll be back throughout the show with the latest from the eye on the sky. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Rally, a question for you. You know, the real ripple effect on the situation is affecting far-flung cities happens when a big hub like Atlanta gets affected. I'm looking out window right now here in Atlanta, and it's sunny.

What hubs are really affected by this? Or maybe not any crucial ones and thus the ripple effect is not as much?

CAPARAS: Exactly, Miles, right now if it were Atlanta, if it were Chicago's midway, if it were Cincinnati-Covington, another Delta hub. If it was something like that, then we could see this spread throughout the country.

But it's isolated to the northeast right now. We do have Newark with Continental Airlines. However, they do have appropriate weather minimums to fly. But they have had many cancellations.

So there will be some ripple effect, but nothing like if, say, DFW, Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare were under the weather or canceling all their flights.

O'BRIEN: All right. And all heck breaks loose after that. All right. Rally Caparas, thanks very much. Check in with you in just a little bit. Back with more "LIVE FROM" momentarily.

PHILLIPS: Aren't you going to check some live -- live pictures real quickly from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

We just want to let folks know that we're following all parts of, of course, the areas where the hurricane is coming through. This Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Our Brian Cabell is there. Picking up speeds, the winds and the water surge. The Holiday Inn, the Ramada already losing parts of their hotels.

We're following this area, along with all the other areas, from Atlantic Beach to Topsail Beach. We'll be right back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: We've been talking about the high tide this hour in North Carolina.

O'BRIEN: High tide and the arrival of a hurricane. That is -- Well, that's perfect storm kind of stuff, right, Orelon Sydney? You don't want that to happen if you can avoid it.

ORELON SYDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, those are two things you don't want to happen at the same time, that's for sure.

But Miles, here I wanted to give you some perspective.

Steve Galley (ph), our weather supervisor, looked up some information for me. In Hurricane Camille, 1969, category five story, the storm surge was 20 to 25 feet, compared to 7 to 10 feet that we expect from our storm today.

Give you a little history there and give you current conditions right now. Some current events. We've got the eye of the storm now working its way into the Pamlico Sound, just about halfway -- a little bit more than halfway now, onto the coast, if you count the barrier islands. Hasn't really moved inland. This, of course, just mostly all water. But you can see that we still have quite a bit of squally weather, especially through the north. And that's what we expect. In a hurricane, generally that right front quadrant is where you're going to see most of the activity. And that, you notice, is where the tornado watch box is, tornado watch in effect until 8 p.m. Eastern time this evening.

We are still watching a very powerful storm move in. The winds are still holding 100 miles an hour. The next update from the National Hurricane Center is due in at any minute.

Tropical storm warnings extend now northward all the way into New York, and I wanted to show you on our keyhole satellite picture -- I believe this is from the Lansat (ph) satellite -- just what we're looking at.

Of course, the storm now is coming inland here just between Cape Lookout -- that's here -- and Cape Hatteras here. But as we head northward, you're going to notice that we start to see cities like Washington, D.C., Richmond, Chesapeake and then continuing on up into the New York City area.

Now you guys, you have a tropical storm warning in effect. The reason for that, look at all the buildings. These are very, very tall buildings here, some of them up to 1,000 feet. As you get into this area, winds that are blowing, say, at about 20 miles an hour this way, as they're channeled between the buildings will actually start to speed up. And some of these buildings are very, very tall. So you could see easily tropical storm-force winds in some the higher elevations of the buildings, perhaps even up to hurricane force. Some of the buildings again, 1,000 feet up at their highest.

So we are certainly going to see some problems there.

Flooding also going to be a problem, as we talked about, with heavy rains. Right now it looks like the storm is going to make its way pretty rapidly northward, which is good news. It's moving at almost 20 miles an hour. That will help to diminish the flooding.

Kyra, Miles.

PHILLIPS: All right, Orelon. Thank you.

Well, a reminder, you can track the storm and get the details on Hurricane Isabel at CNN.com, AOL key word, CNN.

O'BRIEN: Isabel slamming ashore in North Carolina. Coming up, we're live with the latest.

And why people far to the north, including Washington need to be far from the storm.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: As Isabel storms through Virginia it's packing a pretty heavy punch. O'BRIEN: Hundreds of thousands are without power as we speak. Emergency officials believe about quarter million homes in all could be in danger.

CNN's Kris Osborn is in Richmond, Virginia, right at the command center there, where the governor and others and emergency management personnel are trying to pick up the pieces.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The war room.

O'BRIEN: They call it the war room. And I guess in a sense it is war, isn't it, Kris?

OSBORN: Without question. Hello to you, Miles. You likely heard that phrase, chance favors the prepared mind. That describes very much the activities here at the emergency operations center. It's near Richmond, Virginia.

A lot of talk about the governor's decision to declare a state of emergency on Monday, which allowed various officials to get in place, pre-positioned, if you will, to respond in the event, of course, of disaster.

Now, what you're looking at here is some video we have from what you describe, Miles. It's called a disaster kind of war room where various officials battle the storm. Everything from FEMA to National Guard, state police officials.

They look at what you're seeing here, computer models of the storm, where it's projected to go. And a big thing, they communicate with local officials to get a sense of where there might be problem spots, additional flooding, heavy rainfall, et cetera.

Now the governor spoke to us earlier, as well, talked about mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas. He said they're going well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MARK WARNER, VIRGINIA: We feel very good about how the evacuations have gone so far. We issued an ability for local governments to evacuate in low-lying areas. And judging on the number of people who've gone into shelters, about 6,300 in shelters, and that's usually a small percentage of the actually people that evacuate, it shows that people are taking this very seriously.

(END VIDEO CIP)

OSBORN: Officials here tell us, as well, they are taking the flooding concerns very seriously, talking about how as little as one foot of running or moving water can ruin the electricity or the floors in certain homes.

Also, the governor mentioned a particular concern about southeast Virginia, Norfolk and Portsmouth areas that are, of course, near the water, where we could see more difficulty -- Miles. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Kris Osborne at the war room there for the Commonwealth of Virginia in Richmond, or near Richmond. Thanks very much.

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Aired September 18, 2003 - 14:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In the crosshairs of Hurricane Isabel as it slams ashore right where it was predicted. We're live from the storm's center.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The barrier island beach of Kill Devil Hills, right near Kitty Hawk, the birthplace of aviation. We'll tell you about that, on how that area is holding up.

PHILLIPS: And to the south, Topsail Beach withstands the pounding of surf and flooding rain, live from the beach.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. This is CNN's "LIVE FROM."

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. Hurricane Isabel is ashore, and the wind, rain and pounding surf is causing some problems.

Seems like we've been talking about this storm for a month now, but it's been coming for days, actually, and now Isabel is a reality from the Carolinas all the way to Capitol Hill.

The Outer Banks are getting a one-two punch from the two sides of Isabel's eye wall, slamming ashore beginning late this morning. The storm's top winds are clocked at 100 miles an hour, although on the ground we haven't seen anywhere near that. A tidal surge of five to ten feet is preceding the normal high tides, which are happening at the same time.

Last report, more than half a million homes and businesses had lost electricity in North Carolina and Virginia. And North Carolina is already seeking a disaster declaration from the federal government, which incidentally pretty much shuttered up today, at least in our nation's capitol because of Isabel.

CNN's Jeff Flock is staring the hurricane in the face at this hour, as he is wont to do. He is in the Outer Banks community of Atlantic Beach. And he been -- it looks like it's gotten worse since we last checked in with you, Jeff. What's going on?

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I tell you. The wind's no worse, but we're for some reason getting, I think it shifted in such a way that we're getting sandblasted here. You talk about facing it head on. I don't want to put my face into this, because it's really nasty.

We were trying to find some folks here who have come down to check out their damage and that sort of thing.

Sir, you live just a few doors down here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we live about a quarter of a mile down on the beach.

FLOCK: How's your place?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The house has been fine. There's a few shingles off around the area but (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Yes this is rather mild, compared to some of them down here.

FLOCK: Well, as I stand out here and get sand blasted, it sounds pretty good. What about you, ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've seen this motel that I assume you're staying in being blown to piece before.

FLOCK: I think Bonnie. Did Bonnie get this one?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Got the roof and all the windows and everything. So you're doing well now.

FLOCK: They told us when we were checking in last night. They said, "You know what? This was knocked down before, but you know, we think it's built better now." I hope so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks pretty good. We've seen a lot higher winds.

FLOCK: OK. I appreciate it, folks. Look like we're past worst of it, I hope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hang tight.

FLOCK: Hang tight, she says.

Boy, I'll tell you, Miles, it's funny when the wind shifts. Now we're getting the sand off the beach. It started coming from the north, and then started coming out from the west, and now we're getting it from right off the beach. So all this sand is coming and flowing, and I'll tell you, I'm covered with grit. It's amazing, very fun.

O'BRIEN: Jeff, you've been through so many hurricanes before. Have you ever encountered quite this, this sandblasting effect that you're getting right now?

FLOCK: A little bit in Bertha. You remember when we did Bertha, we were -- stayed on the street, because we didn't even want to go down by the beach. At one point we went down by the beach and we did get a little of it sandblasted. But for some reason, this is stinging. Or maybe I'm just getting older and a little less tolerant of it.

O'BRIEN: All right, Jeff Flock, thanks very much. Appreciate your insights there on the ground. And once again, stay safe.

PHILLIPS: All right. Kill Devil Hills is having a devil of a Thursday afternoon. CNN's Brian Cabell is covering things from there.

Brian, set the scene for us.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we've had a couple of developments since we talked to you about an hour or so ago. We've had problems here at the hotel. For one thing, the power is off. It's been off for about an hour.

For another thing -- let me disappear behind this for just a moment -- some of the building is starting to fall apart. Take a look over here. Siding has fallen off of the building over the last hour, piece by piece. It's been a little dangerous at time. Also, a piece of a gutter has come off. People are now hiding, basically, underneath this building here to make sure that they don't get hit by any of the siding that has come off.

But the winds clearly have picked up over the last, I'd say, hour, hour and a half. I think we're getting hurricane-force winds, perhaps beyond at this point.

Also we have roads that have washed out. Further up the road here, a couple miles up the road this way a couple miles, that way, and as I say, the winds have indeed picked up.

But take a look across the street over here. These homes, these rental homes that were evacuated a couple of days ago, they seem to be holding up reasonably well. We don't see any structures that have been damaged yet. So apparently they have bolstered those fairly well.

But again, the winds have picked up considerably now. I'd say we have at least 75- to 90-mile-per-hour winds.

The power lines overhead. One thing you certainly have to be careful of here, because if they come down, they're live here and you're in major trouble. But as I say, power has gone down here in the last hour or so.

Our hotel has some serious problems. The enclosure over the pool seems to be about to give way, and frankly it's starting to hurt coming out here. So let me be less fool hearted here and get back inside.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Brian Cabell, who actually cannot hear me. He's having some technical problems. But he mentioned the evacuations going on. About 300,000 plus ordered to evacuate there from the Kill Devil area. We'll continue to check in with Brian and the conditions.

Well, Topsail Beach is south of the hurricane's center, but very much in the impact zone and under siege right now. Our national correspondent Gary Tuchman is in that part of the beach.

Gary, OK, it looks a little more calm. GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, exactly. I have a contrast to what Jeff and Brian are reporting. We are on the south side of the center of this hurricane.

And we're starting to see, and I emphasize a little, a little tiny bit of improvement. The visibility has increased. The winds have died down a little bit, and the rains have definitely died down a little bit also.

This is the beach over here. This is north Topsail Beach. High tide just came about 35 minutes ago. There was some fear that the high tide could wash over the dunes and the dune fence. It did not. The water has now gone back, and that is good news.

The island is only three blocks wide at its widest point. It's 26 miles long. It is a very fragile piece of barrier island, very close to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

So far there has been no major damage here, despite the fact there has been tropical storm-force and hurricane-force winds since 7 a.m. this morning. Police are telling us there is some minor damage to homes. There are some trees and limbs down. But as of now no power lines down, a great contrast to what we saw in Bermuda two weeks ago, where there were hundreds of power lines down from the category three Hurricane Fabian that came through here.

There is still a curfew in effect in town. Police are telling people who decided to stay behind, and they're estimating about 25 percent of the residents stayed behind, that they are not to leave their homes or their property until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: But so far it looks like this area pretty much out of the clear. It's looking good, right, Gary?

TUCHMAN: Well, I wouldn't say they're in the clear yet, but it's certainly died down a bit. So I think we may be getting towards that point where they will eventually be in the clear.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Gary Tuchman on the south side there in Topsail Beach. Thanks, Gary.

O'BRIEN: A hurricane as physically big as Isabel can present a bigger danger from flooding than from the strong winds, as we've been telling you.

We get more on this now from CNN's John Zarrella. He's in Elizabeth City. Hello, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.

It's gotten considerably worse here during the last couple of hours, and that's to be expected as the storm moves inland. And we're on the right side of the storm, the worst part of the storm. Probably appropriately so, a sign just blew off of a pole a minute ago. And that's the -- you may have some video of that -- and it's the Water Street/Main Street sign that just blew down here in Elizabeth City.

That's two people out on the street but for the most part not too many people.

Now the big concern is the water. And this is a video, folks, so we're going to try to move a little bit slowly and try to show you what's going on. Back here to where the water is, and that back here in the distance, I know it doesn't look great, but that's the Paxputank (ph) River. It looks like fog out there, and that's because the wind is whipping the waves right off the top of the river, pounding onto the pilings there. And it is beginning to overwash there.

And during Hurricane Floyd four years ago, they had about four feet of water up here on Water Street, appropriately named. And that is the big concern as the storm moves inland, it will push that wall of water inland with it. And we may get some flooding here, may get some flooding in other parts of interior North Carolina.

But again, the winds approaching what we think are probably hurricane force. We clocked them ourselves up to about 60 miles an hour with a wind meter a little while ago. So it is deteriorating here, and that will probably go on for the next couple of hours -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John, right there on Main Street, pretty much all the businesses shuttered and boarded up. I mean, is there any evidence of buildings that might be exposed to all this wind?

ZARRELLA: Yes, a lot of the buildings are. A lot of people put up plywood and shutters, but just as many people didn't put up plywood and shutters. And you can see we're getting one of those gusts that's approaching hurricane force.

So we had one house that, one building that one of the signs went through about an hour ago, and the owner of the store was trying to put plywood over his exposed shop, because one of his pictures windows was blown out when one of the signs went right through it.

So there certainly is that concern that there are a lot of exposed windows, a lot of exposed areas here. A lot of the tarps are beginning to fall off. The canopies coming off and signs coming off. But no major structural damage. Aluminum flying around, the kinds of things that you would expect to see in a category two hurricane -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, watch out for that flying debris there, John Zarrella. Stay under cover. We appreciate it.

All right. Air travel, big problem today all up and down the eastern seaboard. Cancellations will ripple across the country, affecting travelers all over the country, all the way to Los Angeles. Rally Caparas is our travel specialist. He works for Travelocity and spends a good deal of time here.

What's the latest, Rally?

RALLY CAPARAS, CNN TRAVEL SPECIALIST: Well, Miles, as you know yourself, from what I understand, air travel in the East Coast, especially in Virginia and North Carolina, nonexistent along the coast lines.

Let's take a look -- Well, let's visit Reagan National Airport. You see the airplanes parked. That's all you're going to see. Very few airplanes in or out of the airport. That's the runway behind those two airplanes. No activity. I can tell you firsthand that I was an air traffic controller there. And you couldn't wait two or three seconds before you'd see another airplane crossing down the runway there. It's very strange to see it that way.

Flightexplorer.com shows you the picture. There is Isabel. It's taking over the entire state of North Carolina and parts of Virginia. The airports beneath the storm right now, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Raleigh, Durham, Norfolk, Richmond, they're not experiencing hardly any operations as we speak, maybe one or two an hour at the max. I see very few airplanes there.

Minimal operations and indefinite delays at those locations throughout the rest of today and into tomorrow.

Now later on today, Washington, Dulles, Reagan National, Baltimore, Philadelphia, North and La Guardia, they'll all see limited operations, also. As a matter of fact, they've seen 1,000 canceled flights into those locations alone.

A terrible day if you're trying to get someplace and especially if you're in a hurry. This evening, that word suspended operations is probably a little misleading. The airports will remain open, folks. They're doing their best to get you out on time or as close to your scheduled time as possible. But it's not likely to happen.

Yet, they will implement ground delay programs, controlling the flow into and out of those airports. You can forget about being anywhere close to on time if your flight is going to fly at all.

Take advantage of what the airlines are offering you. Reschedule your flight. Take a refund without any penalty. You'll stay dry; you'll stay safe; and you'll be much happier for it.

I'll be back throughout the show with the latest from the eye on the sky. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Rally, a question for you. You know, the real ripple effect on the situation is affecting far-flung cities happens when a big hub like Atlanta gets affected. I'm looking out window right now here in Atlanta, and it's sunny.

What hubs are really affected by this? Or maybe not any crucial ones and thus the ripple effect is not as much?

CAPARAS: Exactly, Miles, right now if it were Atlanta, if it were Chicago's midway, if it were Cincinnati-Covington, another Delta hub. If it was something like that, then we could see this spread throughout the country.

But it's isolated to the northeast right now. We do have Newark with Continental Airlines. However, they do have appropriate weather minimums to fly. But they have had many cancellations.

So there will be some ripple effect, but nothing like if, say, DFW, Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare were under the weather or canceling all their flights.

O'BRIEN: All right. And all heck breaks loose after that. All right. Rally Caparas, thanks very much. Check in with you in just a little bit. Back with more "LIVE FROM" momentarily.

PHILLIPS: Aren't you going to check some live -- live pictures real quickly from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

We just want to let folks know that we're following all parts of, of course, the areas where the hurricane is coming through. This Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Our Brian Cabell is there. Picking up speeds, the winds and the water surge. The Holiday Inn, the Ramada already losing parts of their hotels.

We're following this area, along with all the other areas, from Atlantic Beach to Topsail Beach. We'll be right back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: We've been talking about the high tide this hour in North Carolina.

O'BRIEN: High tide and the arrival of a hurricane. That is -- Well, that's perfect storm kind of stuff, right, Orelon Sydney? You don't want that to happen if you can avoid it.

ORELON SYDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, those are two things you don't want to happen at the same time, that's for sure.

But Miles, here I wanted to give you some perspective.

Steve Galley (ph), our weather supervisor, looked up some information for me. In Hurricane Camille, 1969, category five story, the storm surge was 20 to 25 feet, compared to 7 to 10 feet that we expect from our storm today.

Give you a little history there and give you current conditions right now. Some current events. We've got the eye of the storm now working its way into the Pamlico Sound, just about halfway -- a little bit more than halfway now, onto the coast, if you count the barrier islands. Hasn't really moved inland. This, of course, just mostly all water. But you can see that we still have quite a bit of squally weather, especially through the north. And that's what we expect. In a hurricane, generally that right front quadrant is where you're going to see most of the activity. And that, you notice, is where the tornado watch box is, tornado watch in effect until 8 p.m. Eastern time this evening.

We are still watching a very powerful storm move in. The winds are still holding 100 miles an hour. The next update from the National Hurricane Center is due in at any minute.

Tropical storm warnings extend now northward all the way into New York, and I wanted to show you on our keyhole satellite picture -- I believe this is from the Lansat (ph) satellite -- just what we're looking at.

Of course, the storm now is coming inland here just between Cape Lookout -- that's here -- and Cape Hatteras here. But as we head northward, you're going to notice that we start to see cities like Washington, D.C., Richmond, Chesapeake and then continuing on up into the New York City area.

Now you guys, you have a tropical storm warning in effect. The reason for that, look at all the buildings. These are very, very tall buildings here, some of them up to 1,000 feet. As you get into this area, winds that are blowing, say, at about 20 miles an hour this way, as they're channeled between the buildings will actually start to speed up. And some of these buildings are very, very tall. So you could see easily tropical storm-force winds in some the higher elevations of the buildings, perhaps even up to hurricane force. Some of the buildings again, 1,000 feet up at their highest.

So we are certainly going to see some problems there.

Flooding also going to be a problem, as we talked about, with heavy rains. Right now it looks like the storm is going to make its way pretty rapidly northward, which is good news. It's moving at almost 20 miles an hour. That will help to diminish the flooding.

Kyra, Miles.

PHILLIPS: All right, Orelon. Thank you.

Well, a reminder, you can track the storm and get the details on Hurricane Isabel at CNN.com, AOL key word, CNN.

O'BRIEN: Isabel slamming ashore in North Carolina. Coming up, we're live with the latest.

And why people far to the north, including Washington need to be far from the storm.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: As Isabel storms through Virginia it's packing a pretty heavy punch. O'BRIEN: Hundreds of thousands are without power as we speak. Emergency officials believe about quarter million homes in all could be in danger.

CNN's Kris Osborn is in Richmond, Virginia, right at the command center there, where the governor and others and emergency management personnel are trying to pick up the pieces.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The war room.

O'BRIEN: They call it the war room. And I guess in a sense it is war, isn't it, Kris?

OSBORN: Without question. Hello to you, Miles. You likely heard that phrase, chance favors the prepared mind. That describes very much the activities here at the emergency operations center. It's near Richmond, Virginia.

A lot of talk about the governor's decision to declare a state of emergency on Monday, which allowed various officials to get in place, pre-positioned, if you will, to respond in the event, of course, of disaster.

Now, what you're looking at here is some video we have from what you describe, Miles. It's called a disaster kind of war room where various officials battle the storm. Everything from FEMA to National Guard, state police officials.

They look at what you're seeing here, computer models of the storm, where it's projected to go. And a big thing, they communicate with local officials to get a sense of where there might be problem spots, additional flooding, heavy rainfall, et cetera.

Now the governor spoke to us earlier, as well, talked about mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas. He said they're going well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MARK WARNER, VIRGINIA: We feel very good about how the evacuations have gone so far. We issued an ability for local governments to evacuate in low-lying areas. And judging on the number of people who've gone into shelters, about 6,300 in shelters, and that's usually a small percentage of the actually people that evacuate, it shows that people are taking this very seriously.

(END VIDEO CIP)

OSBORN: Officials here tell us, as well, they are taking the flooding concerns very seriously, talking about how as little as one foot of running or moving water can ruin the electricity or the floors in certain homes.

Also, the governor mentioned a particular concern about southeast Virginia, Norfolk and Portsmouth areas that are, of course, near the water, where we could see more difficulty -- Miles. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Kris Osborne at the war room there for the Commonwealth of Virginia in Richmond, or near Richmond. Thanks very much.

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