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Millions Prepare for Charley; N.J. GOP Want McGreevey Resignation Now

Aired August 13, 2004 - 13:00   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Charley blowing in. Millions of people getting out of the way. We're live from the Florida coast where millions more are hunkering down.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: With winds more than 100 miles an hour, Charley is forcing more than one state to brace for the worst. We're tracking the storm as it moves ashore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOVERNOR JAMES MCGREEVEY, NEW JERSEY: Shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: New Jersey's governor, out of the closet and, soon, out of political office. Opponents say the stunning announcement is not enough.

WHITFIELD: Everyone considers her the icon of the kitchen. Julia Childs, the woman who taught French cooking to millions of Americans, has died. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in for Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now. It's going to be a long night for many Florida residents. That's the somber prediction from the state's director of emergency management. He's one of the hundreds of thousands of people bracing for Hurricane Charley. It brushed the Florida Keys this morning. It is now closing in on the Tampa Bay area.

Charley expected to make landfall in just a matter of hours. The hurricane is centered less than 100 miles south-southwest of Fort Myers. Let's check the conditions not far from there -- Al Zimmerman, with CNN affiliate Bay News 9, is in Venice. That's halfway between Fort Myers and Tampa. Al, what's the latest there?

AL ZIMMERMAN, BAY NEWS 9 REPORTER: Well, it was a great beach day, actually, out here on Venice Beach -- we're in Sarasota County -- out here on Venice Beach about 30 minutes ago. But now, the weather has moved in, or it's starting to move in. It's probably about 10 degrees cooler than it was 30 minutes ago. We're feeling quite a breeze right now.

The water's still not very choppy, though, and the surfers, or at least one of them anyway, has made his way out already. We see this a lot during tropical storms and hurricanes off the Florida coast. This guy is apparently waiting for the waves to get a little bit bigger, which, obviously, they will.

And way down the way, there are people that we hope have gotten the message that this is not the place to be. They are swimming out there. In fact, I think we saw a couple girls, a couple children out here earlier. I don't know if those are the children in the water, but you can see people are out there in the water, and again, hopefully realizing that this storm is on the way.

Now, people who live around here were evacuated about 25 hours ago. So it's like a ghost town along Venice Beach. However, there are a few people who live near the beach that say they are going to stick this out. They are going to stay here until the hurricane passes through.

But again, the weather conditions starting to change here. You can tell a storm is out there. We're told it's going to hit right here, so obviously bracing ourselves for the big one -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, Al, we're going to have to move on. Unfortunately, we've got a little bit of breaking news...

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks a lot, Miles. Well, parts of Tampa look like a virtual ghost town already today, ahead of the hurricane. Much of the city is closed for business, obviously, and many people have heeded the warning to evacuate. Our Keith Oppenheim is still in Tampa, and he joins us with an update. What's it look like there right now, Keith?

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Big weather change, Fredricka. The rain has finally arrived, but as you've indicated, a lot of the people around here have left. In the past couple of days, people have really been paying attention to the very serious warnings that they have been getting, and they have decided, many of them at least, the wisest thing to do is go.

And we'll show you right now what people have been seeing on their newscasts. They've been seeing video of the storm as it's been making its way up from Cuba and to the Keys of Florida. And as it has been doing that, it has allowed people to make their plans. And as we came into the City of Tampa yesterday, Fredricka, what we saw was a pretty organized outflow of traffic from Tampa, and it was unusual.

There were no tolls for anyone to pay on all the bridges and the causeways going out of both Tampa and St. Pete, and it allowed for the officials to focus more on the storm as it comes rather than trying to get people out of here on the day it comes. We're taking you back live now to a view of the channel that's behind me. This channel actually will take you into Tampa Bay itself, but it also takes you pretty close to downtown. You can see the convention center over here.

Now, depending on where the storm actually hits -- will have an effect on this spot. If it does veer to the right a bit, as Orelon Sidney was suggesting, that would probably reduce the storm surge here a bit. But even if it is somewhat reduced, it could still -- and it's likely to be pretty bad here all the same. A storm surge of 10 to 13 feet right in the heart of the city, even with buildings kind of sloping down to this channel, it's going to cause a lot of flooding.

And St. Petersburg has similar problems. So what you have is a metropolitan area which is very vulnerable to this kind of a storm. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: And Keith, you mentioned you're already starting to feel some of the rain, but it doesn't look like you're getting much of the wind with Charley -- about 70 miles south-southwest, according to Orelon's report just moments ago. About when do you expect to start feeling those bands of wind?

OPPENHEIM: Yeah, we're just getting the initial bands of rain now, but the power of the storm really hasn't arrived yet at all.

WHITFIELD: All right, Keith Oppenheim in Tampa, thanks very much. Well, Florida isn't the only state bracing for Hurricane Charley. The storm is expected to head up the Atlantic coast as well. The nation's capital already feeling the effects from remnants of tropical storm Bonnie. What's left of Hurricane Charley should arrive in Washington by tomorrow.

People living in low laying areas are already starting to pile up the sandbags, and the forecast calls for several inches of rain and gusty winds in that area. The remnants of tropical storm Bonnie are already hitting parts of Virginia. Officials in Danville are trying to tally up the damage a day after a possible tornado touched down in that city.

And the southeastern tip of the state is deluged with rain today. What's left of Hurricane Charley will make it a soggy weekend in the area, as expected. Well, ever wonder which hurricanes were most devastating? Well, you can get that information plus a look at how hurricanes are formed and all the latest on Charley on our Web site at CNN.com/weather -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, they're in overdrive, as you might imagine, at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. We'll take you there live just ahead. And what must it be like to pack up and pray that your home will be there when you go back? We'll go live to a storm shelter a little later on LIVE FROM. And a Democratic governor admits a homosexual affair on national television. Today, Republican opponents say not good enough. That's just ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people know my style of leadership. They know what to expect. And they understand that the commander in chief must not waver in this era.

(END VIDEO CLIP) O'BRIEN: And President Bush on leadership and the upcoming election -- part of his conversation with our own Larry King still to come. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: New Jersey Governor James McGreevey is spending the weekend with his family after revealing that he had an affair with a man and will quit his job. Yesterday's announcement left colleagues and voters dumbstruck. Today, the daze is wearing off and CNN's Alina Cho brings us some of the reaction from Trenton. Hello to you, Alina.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Fredricka. In fact, we just spoke to a close friend of Governor McGreevey who told us that, indeed, he will be spending the weekend with his family somewhere away from this area, and he is expected back at work on Monday.

This close friend also told us that McGreevey's wife Dina only learned about this extra-martial affair two days ago when it was becoming clear that a sexual harassment suit against the governor might be filed. A little bit about the pending lawsuit and the plaintiff. His name is Golan Cipel. He is a 35-year-old Israeli citizen.

CNN has learned that he worked at the Consulate General of Israel in New York in the mid-1990s before taking on the job of Homeland Security advisor to Governor McGreevey. Not long after taking that job, Cipel abruptly resigned amid several questions about his qualifications.

Now, it is important to note that at this hour in Trenton, a lawsuit against McGreevey has not been filed, and a law enforcement source tells the Associated Press that Cipel, in recent days, tried to get McGreevey to pay him, Cipel, $5 million to keep quiet about the suit and the affair.

Sources tell CNN that it is unclear at this point whether Cipel will now go forward with legal action. Now, one day after McGreevey's stunning announcement that he would resign, New Jersey Republicans are calling on the governor to step down immediately, saying this scandal is bigger than Governor McGreevey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH KYRILLOS, (R), NEW JERSEY: I am joined today by Republican leaders in asking the governor to do the right thing, to go beyond what he did yesterday and resign now, resign now... for a few reasons. Number one, as I have intimated, it will be extremely difficult for him and his administration to govern effectively over the course of the next three months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHO: McGreevey will step down, he says, effective November 15th. And under state law, another Democrat, New Jersey's senate president, will be able to serve out his term, which ends in January of 2006. Of course, Republicans, again, want him to step down immediately so a special election can be held in November.

We should also mention, coming up here on CNN, that Senate President Richard Codey, who is also a Democrat, the senate president, soon to be acting governor, will hold a news conference here in New Jersey at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. We hope to bring you that live -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Alina Cho in New Jersey -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, as Hurricane Charley bears down on the Florida Peninsula, it's causing all kinds of havoc on the ground and, of course, in the air as well. Take a look at this live imagery. This is real time information of aircraft in and around Florida from FlightExplorer.com. Obviously, there you see the hurricane itself, and this is the pattern of aircraft being routed all around this huge storm.

Let me zoom in a little bit and give you a sense of what's going on here. All of these airports up and down the west coast of Florida are shutdown. What I'll do is I'll show you what they call an airport graph. We'll just put in "TPA," which is the three-letter identifier for Tampa International Airport... complete flat line. That airport is, for all intents and purposes, dead right now, for obvious reasons.

Clearly, if you have somebody going to or fro this part of the world today, they're not going to get there, and they're not going to get to you if they're trying to leave from it. So I know that's sort of an obvious statement, but it's a very visual point of what is going on with air traffic right now as they contend with this now category 3 hurricane.

Let's get the latest on all this now from the National Hurricane Center. Ed Rappaport, the deputy director there, he's in Miami looking at some of the same imagery we were just showing you there. We just overlaid the aircraft on it. Ed, the storm has taken a bit of a right turn, which proves no matter how sophisticated those computer models are, there's a little bit of guesswork in this, isn't there?

ED RAPPAPORT, DEPUTY DIR. NATL. HURRICANE CENTER: That's right. The track is a little bit to the right of where we had it before, still well within our hurricane warning area along the southwest coast, but more towards the Charlotte Harbor, Fort Myers area. But we do have an important piece of information we want to pass along.

We've recently upgraded Hurricane Charley to category 3 based on reconnaissance aircraft data. The plane is still out there, and the indications are now that it's even stronger than what we had in our most recent advisory. And it looks like now the maximum winds have actually increased to category 4 in a very small area near the center. Right where this eye wall is, maximum winds are as high as about 145 miles per hour, and we think there will be some fluctuations, but it's important to note now that it's even stronger than what we estimated only an hour or two ago. O'BRIEN: All right, Ed, help us out here. If you see winds near the eye, they're at that category 4 level, at what point do you actually declare the storm category 4? Does it have to be more widespread throughout the storm?

RAPPAPORT: No. At this point, we're going to consider this to be a category 4 hurricane with 145 mile per hour winds -- very small area, but they do exist there. So those strong winds will, of course, be generating a high storm surge, and we're still talking about storm surge of 10 feet or perhaps a little bit more.

O'BRIEN: All right, and historically, a category 4, put it in terms of some storms we've been familiar with.

RAPPAPORT: Well, there aren't many category 4 hurricanes that made landfall in the United States in recent years. Hurricane Hugo would have been a category 4 in the Carolinas. That was a wider storm, but that's the kind of damage that will occur in a small area -- not as strong as an Andrew, which was category 5, but the strongest we've had in a number of years making landfall in the United States.

O'BRIEN: Ed Rappaport, you heard it here first. It's now a category 4 storm. We're watching it every step of the way. Thank you, Ed Rappaport, who is the deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami... just upgraded it right now to category 4.

Now, believe it or not, 100 mile an hour winds are still not enough to convince some people to get out of Charley's path. We'll talk with an emergency official about how she's preparing to protect those choosing to ride it out. And did Google goof? As the company prepares to go public, apparently it should not have opened up to Playboy magazine. We'll explain that one, details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hurricane Charley is off Florida's west coast, way too close for comfort. Charley passed by Key West this morning. Right now, all the instruments that science can muster are watching for the storm's center to make its move toward Florida's west coast, where it may only be about 70 miles away and actually come later on this afternoon, possibly two to three hours from now.

Forecasters say the worst of the weather will likely be late this afternoon and into the evening. Well, down near the southern end of Tampa Bay and waiting for the storm is Bradenton, Florida. The Police Chief Mike Radzilowski joins us on the telephone right now. And Chief, how does it look right now?

MICHAEL RADZILOWSKI, CHIEF OF POLICE, BRADENTON POLICE DEPT: Well, so far, so good. We have a little bit of wind picking up and a little bit of rain once in a while, but it looks like it's still a couple hours away from us if it maintains its current track.

WHITFIELD: Bradenton is fairly densely populated, isn't it? And you have some very important business there, from Tropicana to Champ Sports, and even an important tennis facility and training ground there, right?

RADZILOWSKI: Oh, absolutely, Bradenton City is about 50,000, and Mantey (ph) County is in excess of 300,000 people, so it's well populated. We're a gulf coast community.

WHITFIELD: So then, how difficult was it to try to coordinate an evacuation?

RADZILOWSKI: Well, I think the problem is it's been so long since the area got hit with a hurricane, people just didn't want to leave their homes. But thankfully, through the news media and TV, they see how serious it is, and a lot of people have left, and we have a lot of people in shelters. So now is the time everybody should be where they're going to be to weather the storm.

WHITFIELD: So it concerns you that there may be some level of complacency because it's been over 40 years since Tampa has been hit by a hurricane, and maybe a lot of people there don't realize the seriousness of what may lie ahead.

RADZILOWSKI: Exactly. There were still a lot of people in the bars drinking last night, and even when we closed off the Baria (ph) Island to Anna Maria Island that people were still trying to get out to the Island.

WHITFIELD: So then, what do you do about those folks who've resisted leaving? At some point, it's going to be too late for them to get on the road and leave in a panic at the last minute, right?

RADZILOWSKI: Well, we try and be very up front with them and ask them their name and address and who their next of kin is, so we can notify the next of kin... it's that serious... that if it's a mandatory evacuation, they should be out of the area.

WHITFIELD: And at the same time, you all don't want to risk your lives unnecessarily in the midst of a storm, do you?

RADZILOWSKI: Absolutely. We tell them once the winds reach sustained winds of 45, 50 miles an hour, all emergency personnel are going to be off the street, and we will not be able to respond until the storm subsides.

WHITFIELD: All right, in Bradenton, Florida, Police Chief Mike Radzilowski, thanks so much for joining us, and best wishes to you.

RADZILOWKI: All right, thank you.

WHITFIELD: Miles...

O'BRIEN: Well, ask any guy why he reads Playboy magazine... he'll tell you, straight-faced, "It's for the articles." Well, apparently, the FCC does it for the same reason...

(MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 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 August 13, 2004 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Charley blowing in. Millions of people getting out of the way. We're live from the Florida coast where millions more are hunkering down.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: With winds more than 100 miles an hour, Charley is forcing more than one state to brace for the worst. We're tracking the storm as it moves ashore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOVERNOR JAMES MCGREEVEY, NEW JERSEY: Shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: New Jersey's governor, out of the closet and, soon, out of political office. Opponents say the stunning announcement is not enough.

WHITFIELD: Everyone considers her the icon of the kitchen. Julia Childs, the woman who taught French cooking to millions of Americans, has died. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in for Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now. It's going to be a long night for many Florida residents. That's the somber prediction from the state's director of emergency management. He's one of the hundreds of thousands of people bracing for Hurricane Charley. It brushed the Florida Keys this morning. It is now closing in on the Tampa Bay area.

Charley expected to make landfall in just a matter of hours. The hurricane is centered less than 100 miles south-southwest of Fort Myers. Let's check the conditions not far from there -- Al Zimmerman, with CNN affiliate Bay News 9, is in Venice. That's halfway between Fort Myers and Tampa. Al, what's the latest there?

AL ZIMMERMAN, BAY NEWS 9 REPORTER: Well, it was a great beach day, actually, out here on Venice Beach -- we're in Sarasota County -- out here on Venice Beach about 30 minutes ago. But now, the weather has moved in, or it's starting to move in. It's probably about 10 degrees cooler than it was 30 minutes ago. We're feeling quite a breeze right now.

The water's still not very choppy, though, and the surfers, or at least one of them anyway, has made his way out already. We see this a lot during tropical storms and hurricanes off the Florida coast. This guy is apparently waiting for the waves to get a little bit bigger, which, obviously, they will.

And way down the way, there are people that we hope have gotten the message that this is not the place to be. They are swimming out there. In fact, I think we saw a couple girls, a couple children out here earlier. I don't know if those are the children in the water, but you can see people are out there in the water, and again, hopefully realizing that this storm is on the way.

Now, people who live around here were evacuated about 25 hours ago. So it's like a ghost town along Venice Beach. However, there are a few people who live near the beach that say they are going to stick this out. They are going to stay here until the hurricane passes through.

But again, the weather conditions starting to change here. You can tell a storm is out there. We're told it's going to hit right here, so obviously bracing ourselves for the big one -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, Al, we're going to have to move on. Unfortunately, we've got a little bit of breaking news...

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks a lot, Miles. Well, parts of Tampa look like a virtual ghost town already today, ahead of the hurricane. Much of the city is closed for business, obviously, and many people have heeded the warning to evacuate. Our Keith Oppenheim is still in Tampa, and he joins us with an update. What's it look like there right now, Keith?

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Big weather change, Fredricka. The rain has finally arrived, but as you've indicated, a lot of the people around here have left. In the past couple of days, people have really been paying attention to the very serious warnings that they have been getting, and they have decided, many of them at least, the wisest thing to do is go.

And we'll show you right now what people have been seeing on their newscasts. They've been seeing video of the storm as it's been making its way up from Cuba and to the Keys of Florida. And as it has been doing that, it has allowed people to make their plans. And as we came into the City of Tampa yesterday, Fredricka, what we saw was a pretty organized outflow of traffic from Tampa, and it was unusual.

There were no tolls for anyone to pay on all the bridges and the causeways going out of both Tampa and St. Pete, and it allowed for the officials to focus more on the storm as it comes rather than trying to get people out of here on the day it comes. We're taking you back live now to a view of the channel that's behind me. This channel actually will take you into Tampa Bay itself, but it also takes you pretty close to downtown. You can see the convention center over here.

Now, depending on where the storm actually hits -- will have an effect on this spot. If it does veer to the right a bit, as Orelon Sidney was suggesting, that would probably reduce the storm surge here a bit. But even if it is somewhat reduced, it could still -- and it's likely to be pretty bad here all the same. A storm surge of 10 to 13 feet right in the heart of the city, even with buildings kind of sloping down to this channel, it's going to cause a lot of flooding.

And St. Petersburg has similar problems. So what you have is a metropolitan area which is very vulnerable to this kind of a storm. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: And Keith, you mentioned you're already starting to feel some of the rain, but it doesn't look like you're getting much of the wind with Charley -- about 70 miles south-southwest, according to Orelon's report just moments ago. About when do you expect to start feeling those bands of wind?

OPPENHEIM: Yeah, we're just getting the initial bands of rain now, but the power of the storm really hasn't arrived yet at all.

WHITFIELD: All right, Keith Oppenheim in Tampa, thanks very much. Well, Florida isn't the only state bracing for Hurricane Charley. The storm is expected to head up the Atlantic coast as well. The nation's capital already feeling the effects from remnants of tropical storm Bonnie. What's left of Hurricane Charley should arrive in Washington by tomorrow.

People living in low laying areas are already starting to pile up the sandbags, and the forecast calls for several inches of rain and gusty winds in that area. The remnants of tropical storm Bonnie are already hitting parts of Virginia. Officials in Danville are trying to tally up the damage a day after a possible tornado touched down in that city.

And the southeastern tip of the state is deluged with rain today. What's left of Hurricane Charley will make it a soggy weekend in the area, as expected. Well, ever wonder which hurricanes were most devastating? Well, you can get that information plus a look at how hurricanes are formed and all the latest on Charley on our Web site at CNN.com/weather -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, they're in overdrive, as you might imagine, at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. We'll take you there live just ahead. And what must it be like to pack up and pray that your home will be there when you go back? We'll go live to a storm shelter a little later on LIVE FROM. And a Democratic governor admits a homosexual affair on national television. Today, Republican opponents say not good enough. That's just ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people know my style of leadership. They know what to expect. And they understand that the commander in chief must not waver in this era.

(END VIDEO CLIP) O'BRIEN: And President Bush on leadership and the upcoming election -- part of his conversation with our own Larry King still to come. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: New Jersey Governor James McGreevey is spending the weekend with his family after revealing that he had an affair with a man and will quit his job. Yesterday's announcement left colleagues and voters dumbstruck. Today, the daze is wearing off and CNN's Alina Cho brings us some of the reaction from Trenton. Hello to you, Alina.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Fredricka. In fact, we just spoke to a close friend of Governor McGreevey who told us that, indeed, he will be spending the weekend with his family somewhere away from this area, and he is expected back at work on Monday.

This close friend also told us that McGreevey's wife Dina only learned about this extra-martial affair two days ago when it was becoming clear that a sexual harassment suit against the governor might be filed. A little bit about the pending lawsuit and the plaintiff. His name is Golan Cipel. He is a 35-year-old Israeli citizen.

CNN has learned that he worked at the Consulate General of Israel in New York in the mid-1990s before taking on the job of Homeland Security advisor to Governor McGreevey. Not long after taking that job, Cipel abruptly resigned amid several questions about his qualifications.

Now, it is important to note that at this hour in Trenton, a lawsuit against McGreevey has not been filed, and a law enforcement source tells the Associated Press that Cipel, in recent days, tried to get McGreevey to pay him, Cipel, $5 million to keep quiet about the suit and the affair.

Sources tell CNN that it is unclear at this point whether Cipel will now go forward with legal action. Now, one day after McGreevey's stunning announcement that he would resign, New Jersey Republicans are calling on the governor to step down immediately, saying this scandal is bigger than Governor McGreevey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH KYRILLOS, (R), NEW JERSEY: I am joined today by Republican leaders in asking the governor to do the right thing, to go beyond what he did yesterday and resign now, resign now... for a few reasons. Number one, as I have intimated, it will be extremely difficult for him and his administration to govern effectively over the course of the next three months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHO: McGreevey will step down, he says, effective November 15th. And under state law, another Democrat, New Jersey's senate president, will be able to serve out his term, which ends in January of 2006. Of course, Republicans, again, want him to step down immediately so a special election can be held in November.

We should also mention, coming up here on CNN, that Senate President Richard Codey, who is also a Democrat, the senate president, soon to be acting governor, will hold a news conference here in New Jersey at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. We hope to bring you that live -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Alina Cho in New Jersey -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, as Hurricane Charley bears down on the Florida Peninsula, it's causing all kinds of havoc on the ground and, of course, in the air as well. Take a look at this live imagery. This is real time information of aircraft in and around Florida from FlightExplorer.com. Obviously, there you see the hurricane itself, and this is the pattern of aircraft being routed all around this huge storm.

Let me zoom in a little bit and give you a sense of what's going on here. All of these airports up and down the west coast of Florida are shutdown. What I'll do is I'll show you what they call an airport graph. We'll just put in "TPA," which is the three-letter identifier for Tampa International Airport... complete flat line. That airport is, for all intents and purposes, dead right now, for obvious reasons.

Clearly, if you have somebody going to or fro this part of the world today, they're not going to get there, and they're not going to get to you if they're trying to leave from it. So I know that's sort of an obvious statement, but it's a very visual point of what is going on with air traffic right now as they contend with this now category 3 hurricane.

Let's get the latest on all this now from the National Hurricane Center. Ed Rappaport, the deputy director there, he's in Miami looking at some of the same imagery we were just showing you there. We just overlaid the aircraft on it. Ed, the storm has taken a bit of a right turn, which proves no matter how sophisticated those computer models are, there's a little bit of guesswork in this, isn't there?

ED RAPPAPORT, DEPUTY DIR. NATL. HURRICANE CENTER: That's right. The track is a little bit to the right of where we had it before, still well within our hurricane warning area along the southwest coast, but more towards the Charlotte Harbor, Fort Myers area. But we do have an important piece of information we want to pass along.

We've recently upgraded Hurricane Charley to category 3 based on reconnaissance aircraft data. The plane is still out there, and the indications are now that it's even stronger than what we had in our most recent advisory. And it looks like now the maximum winds have actually increased to category 4 in a very small area near the center. Right where this eye wall is, maximum winds are as high as about 145 miles per hour, and we think there will be some fluctuations, but it's important to note now that it's even stronger than what we estimated only an hour or two ago. O'BRIEN: All right, Ed, help us out here. If you see winds near the eye, they're at that category 4 level, at what point do you actually declare the storm category 4? Does it have to be more widespread throughout the storm?

RAPPAPORT: No. At this point, we're going to consider this to be a category 4 hurricane with 145 mile per hour winds -- very small area, but they do exist there. So those strong winds will, of course, be generating a high storm surge, and we're still talking about storm surge of 10 feet or perhaps a little bit more.

O'BRIEN: All right, and historically, a category 4, put it in terms of some storms we've been familiar with.

RAPPAPORT: Well, there aren't many category 4 hurricanes that made landfall in the United States in recent years. Hurricane Hugo would have been a category 4 in the Carolinas. That was a wider storm, but that's the kind of damage that will occur in a small area -- not as strong as an Andrew, which was category 5, but the strongest we've had in a number of years making landfall in the United States.

O'BRIEN: Ed Rappaport, you heard it here first. It's now a category 4 storm. We're watching it every step of the way. Thank you, Ed Rappaport, who is the deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami... just upgraded it right now to category 4.

Now, believe it or not, 100 mile an hour winds are still not enough to convince some people to get out of Charley's path. We'll talk with an emergency official about how she's preparing to protect those choosing to ride it out. And did Google goof? As the company prepares to go public, apparently it should not have opened up to Playboy magazine. We'll explain that one, details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hurricane Charley is off Florida's west coast, way too close for comfort. Charley passed by Key West this morning. Right now, all the instruments that science can muster are watching for the storm's center to make its move toward Florida's west coast, where it may only be about 70 miles away and actually come later on this afternoon, possibly two to three hours from now.

Forecasters say the worst of the weather will likely be late this afternoon and into the evening. Well, down near the southern end of Tampa Bay and waiting for the storm is Bradenton, Florida. The Police Chief Mike Radzilowski joins us on the telephone right now. And Chief, how does it look right now?

MICHAEL RADZILOWSKI, CHIEF OF POLICE, BRADENTON POLICE DEPT: Well, so far, so good. We have a little bit of wind picking up and a little bit of rain once in a while, but it looks like it's still a couple hours away from us if it maintains its current track.

WHITFIELD: Bradenton is fairly densely populated, isn't it? And you have some very important business there, from Tropicana to Champ Sports, and even an important tennis facility and training ground there, right?

RADZILOWSKI: Oh, absolutely, Bradenton City is about 50,000, and Mantey (ph) County is in excess of 300,000 people, so it's well populated. We're a gulf coast community.

WHITFIELD: So then, how difficult was it to try to coordinate an evacuation?

RADZILOWSKI: Well, I think the problem is it's been so long since the area got hit with a hurricane, people just didn't want to leave their homes. But thankfully, through the news media and TV, they see how serious it is, and a lot of people have left, and we have a lot of people in shelters. So now is the time everybody should be where they're going to be to weather the storm.

WHITFIELD: So it concerns you that there may be some level of complacency because it's been over 40 years since Tampa has been hit by a hurricane, and maybe a lot of people there don't realize the seriousness of what may lie ahead.

RADZILOWSKI: Exactly. There were still a lot of people in the bars drinking last night, and even when we closed off the Baria (ph) Island to Anna Maria Island that people were still trying to get out to the Island.

WHITFIELD: So then, what do you do about those folks who've resisted leaving? At some point, it's going to be too late for them to get on the road and leave in a panic at the last minute, right?

RADZILOWSKI: Well, we try and be very up front with them and ask them their name and address and who their next of kin is, so we can notify the next of kin... it's that serious... that if it's a mandatory evacuation, they should be out of the area.

WHITFIELD: And at the same time, you all don't want to risk your lives unnecessarily in the midst of a storm, do you?

RADZILOWSKI: Absolutely. We tell them once the winds reach sustained winds of 45, 50 miles an hour, all emergency personnel are going to be off the street, and we will not be able to respond until the storm subsides.

WHITFIELD: All right, in Bradenton, Florida, Police Chief Mike Radzilowski, thanks so much for joining us, and best wishes to you.

RADZILOWKI: All right, thank you.

WHITFIELD: Miles...

O'BRIEN: Well, ask any guy why he reads Playboy magazine... he'll tell you, straight-faced, "It's for the articles." Well, apparently, the FCC does it for the same reason...

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