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American Morning

Tropical Storm Barry Losing Steam

Aired August 06, 2001 - 10:00   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about Tropical Storm Barry this morning.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: OK.

HARRIS: Why not? All right, that storm blasted the shore this morning in Florida's Panhandle just a puff shy of a full blown hurricane, if you will. And now Barry has turned from a blustery bad boy into a soggy nuisance that is sloshing northward through Alabama.

The big concern now is inland flooding. Barry swept ashore before dawn at Santa Rosa Beach. It had been meandering across the Gulf of Mexico for several days and then late yesterday it suddenly straightened and then took aim at the Florida Panhandle.

The mainland knocked the wind out of Barry this morning, but its rains triggered flood watches along its path all the way through Alabama. We'll have a full forecast from Chad Myers shortly. He's getting ready for that. But right now we've got two reports on the storm from the thick of it.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and Mark Potter is standing by in Panama City Beach, Florida.

Let's start with you, Mark. Go ahead.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning again, Leon.

The weather here is getting better. It may not look like it. We still have some bands coming through here. But I can tell you that the wind is down from evening this morning and certainly when compared to last night when the brunt of the storm came through.

The tide is still kicking a little bit here. A while ago it was coming pretty close to the sea wall where we're standing, but it seems to be receding a little bit now and authorities say the tide is not going to be a problem. They don't think it will be. And the tide figured prominently last night when the brunt of the storm came ashore. It was low tide and that was really good news for the residents here because that reduced the chance of coastal flooding.

Now, so far the damage estimates are looking pretty good. The authorities are out checking out the outlying areas to see whether there are any problems. But authorities say right now they, fortunately they have found no major problems.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MAJAK, BAY COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES: We have seen about 14 inches of rain over the last 24 hour period, the two day period, and in the last 12 hours less than three inches of rain here at the EFC in the downtown area. We have had road closures as a result of some low land flooding. We've had trees down on homes, trees and power lines and damages associated with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: Now, they had about half as much rain as they anticipated, and, again, that's good news. No reports, we're told, yet of water getting up into anyone's houses. And most importantly, no reports of fatalities. No reports of injuries.

A short while ago, Governor Jeb Bush, Florida's governor, spoke, saying that some 32,000 homes throughout the Panhandle area were without power. He also urged people to be very careful, not to be out walking around, particularly in puddling areas, noting that the problem there could be live wires. That's not an idle threat. We sadly remember what happened two years ago in Broward County after Hurricane Irene when four people were killed, electrocuted, and that included three children.

So the threat is still out there and the authorities here are just urging everyone to stay inside. If they don't have to be out on the roads, don't go out there. The employers are making it easy. Most places are closed today. A good time for people to be inside with their families, just waiting out this storm, which should be passing through fairly quickly -- back to you.

HARRIS: Well, Mark, real quickly, the people that you talked to, do you get a sense that they took this one seriously or did they just pooh-pooh it?

POTTER: A little bit of both. They did take it seriously enough not to be out on the roads last night. But they knew that this was not going to be a major storm. They've been through big ones here. Opal came through in 1995. That was a relatively big hurricane. This was nothing like that. We never saw, or we saw very few people, let me put it that way, actually boarding up.

So they knew what this was. They took it seriously, but they also took it for what it was.

HARRIS: All right, good deal.

Mark Potter from Panama City Beach, thanks much.

Let's go down to our Ed Lavandera, who is standing by at Fort Walton Beach. How is it shaping up there? It looks better than -- you know what? You look a lot drier than you did when I saw you last night, that's for sure, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I sure am, and I've been able to get rid of the raincoat.

Here on the beach in Fort Walton Beach the red danger flags are still up and a few people are starting to make their way back out onto the beaches here. There have only been some reports, the most major reports that we've had is power outages in the Destin area, which is about six miles to the east of us, and that's where most of the power outages have been in a few communities over in that area. And that is about the extent of what most folks have had to deal with here this morning.

The surf is still higher than usual, but by no means any bigger than what we were seeing yesterday and a few surfers were also starting to make their way back. There's a little thunderstorm passing its way. It's kind of kept itself offshore and heading toward the east toward Panama City and the Destin area. But that is the extent of what we've seen here.

We also have a few reports of some trees that were down throughout the inland areas of this area and a little bit of street flooding, but we've made a couple of passes this morning. A lot of the stores opening back up, everyone getting back to normal, and a lot of the tourists that were here kind of waiting the storm out said that's it, we're back on the beach -- Leon.

HARRIS: Were any of them out last night or did you think everybody went down, went back indoors and locked everything up or what?

LAVANDERA: Well, I think most folks that were tourists here along the beach area kind of were staying in their rooms but kind of meandering out just to catch a glimpse. A lot of folks are from the Midwest area that we've talked to and they've never seen anything like this or been anywhere close to a tropical storm. So they kind of came out, ventured out. But for the most part people, as well, folks in this area they just know what to do, as Mark was alluding to. They have dealt with hurricanes much more, and storms much more powerful than this. They know what to do and what threats to take seriously.

HARRIS: All right, good deal.

Ed Lavandera, reporting live this morning, thanks much -- Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, has been following the damage reports from the storm. We had a chance to speak with him earlier here on CNN. He is urging Floridians to be cautious in the storm zone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOVERNOR JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: This is, this was a very powerful tropical storm. It did not reach hurricane status. The wind damage may not be as much as some of the hurricanes that we've had in the past, but there's been a lot of rain and as the storm goes north, the rivers will bring that water right back down to us and we expect to see a significant amount of flooding, which does make it a little bit different than other storms that have gone through that area. We expect to see quite a bit of damage in the Panhandle area west of Tallahassee and east of Pensacola. There's going to be lots of flooding and we're still concerned. This storm has hit shore but people need to be very careful when they go outside. If they see low lying, in their low lying areas that there's water, standing water, they've got to be careful with downed power lines. Thirty-four thousand homes don't have power right now. So we're asking people to be very cautious today and tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: All right, Chad Myers is checking in right now to give us the very latest on what's happening with Barry.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, and in general, compared to what Barry could have been -- knock on Plexiglas -- it's been pretty good.

KAGAN: Or wood.

MYERS: Or wood. Right. Exactly. What a blockhead.

We had, we've had some flooding. We've had a couple reports of some tornadoes. But nothing that's made any damage. No one's been really injured with this system. And if we all take our time now and we don't get out there and wait for these storms that come over to hit, this, we could just come out of this completely unscathed.

HARRIS: Well, it just seems to me just last week we were talking about how you said it was parking itself or taking its time coming off the Gulf...

MYERS: I remember that.

HARRIS: ... which was, generally was just fueling the thing and you said that could lead to some really bad potentiality there.

MYERS: This thing really got very large. Yesterday on the satellite and on the radar it was as big as probably seven or eight states put together. It was raining in Tennessee and it was raining in Havana, Cuba, all from the same thing.

HARRIS: No kidding?

MYERS: So we got a bowling ball spinning around rather than a baseball, but the bowling ball was spinning at the same speed as the baseball. So it got bigger, it just didn't get faster. And you can take more of those. We'll get a bunch of those.

HARRIS: Yes.

KAGAN: Here we are well into hurricane season. Where are the hurricanes?

HARRIS: Now you're like now he's got to produce?

MYERS: Now you've jinxed us for the rest of the year. We'll be up to Tanya by the end of the year now.

KAGAN: Sorry.

MYERS: We do have some H.R.s coming in and they're still kind of coming onshore here from Tallahassee back to about Panama City. So be careful today. There's still some thunderstorm activity riding around through this system, but for the most part we have really dodged a significant bullet.

Here's the rain right now spinning around Panama City. It just moved right over Destin last night, 3:00 A.M., 4:00 A.M. as it moved onshore. Winds were about 60 to 70 miles per hour.

So yes, a minimal hurricane or a maximum tropical storm, whatever. Right now the heaviest rainfall is basically north of Montgomery. We will have all these storms, though, firing up just like yesterday. Although you don't see them here, you see a lot of humidity in the air and you can see the puffy clouds -- Atlanta, Athens, all the way up to South Carolina. This storm is going to enlarge itself again just like any afternoon when we get the storms bigger and bigger and bigger, and even this afternoon, this entire system that's right here will begin to get stronger. The rain showers will be in Florida. They'll be in South Carolina, parts of Tennessee and all the way back even into Louisiana.

So watch out for some street flooding. Watch out for the potential for tornadoes. Still a tornado watch is going to be issued later on this afternoon and also the chance of any kind of things flying through the air with some of these winds still at about 30 or 40 miles per hour.

That's all I have for you right now -- Leon, back to you.

HARRIS: All right, thanks, Chad.

You know, you were just saying a second ago about how you saw that huge system that went from Tennessee all the way down to Cuba? Well, it left quite a mess behind in the Appalachians there. Hundreds of people in that area are struggling to recover from the deadly weekend flooding.

Flooding hit hardest in northeast Tennessee and eastern Kentucky. One person died and one is still missing. Water up to 20 feet deep destroyed homes, roads and bridges in Tennessee. Mud and debris still cover the countryside. Twelve inches of rain fell in one 24 hour period.

Authorities say more than 1,000 homes were damaged at a cost estimated to run into the millions. About 200 people were left homeless.

Now, when you're away from the television but still near a computer, you can get all the unfolding details about tropical storm Barry and the flooding in Kentucky and Tennessee, as well. Just go to cnn.com. In fact, go there anytime for a complete forecast of almost any city in the world. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com