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American Morning

Six Florida surfers were bitten in the waters near Daytona Beach over the weekend, adding to the wave of fear already lapping at that state's shoreline.

Aired August 20, 2001 - 10:11   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: Six Florida surfers were bitten in the waters near Daytona Beach over the weekend, adding to the wave of fear already lapping at that state's shoreline.

CNN's Susan Candiotti is on new Smyrna Beach with the latest -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT; Hello, Leon. The beach patrol here reports that the waters here are perfectly safe. They say despite an admittedly abnormal number of shark bites, as you reported, six, over the weekend here in Volusia County, none of those shark bites, we would like to point out, were life threatening.

Now just a little while ago, within the last hour, the beach patrol ordered surfers out of the water here, but not, I repeat, not because of sighting any sharks. They simply said this is not an area for surfers, and they ordered them to move farther north of here, about two miles north. What's called the Ponce De Leon inlet, which is where some of those shark bites occurred over the weekend.

Now earlier this day, we talked to one of the six victims bitten over the weekend, suffered a bite to fee. His name Jeff White. He was involved in surfing contest. And he said, as he paddled out, he even saw shark fins, but because his adrenaline was flowing he kept right on going. Of course, he was bitten after that, and he is being treated. However, he promises to get back into the water as soon as he can, although he promises to be more careful next time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF WHITE, VICTIM: I think possibly a week or two after I get the stitches out if my foot feels strong enough, I'll be out there. But no hesitation if I see a fin, a thrash in the water, I'm out of there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: I'm going to take a look right now, at home video shot during the surfing contest over the weekend, and you can see how close the sharks were to the surfers.

We understand that the contest organizers and the beach patrol did move the contest, and the beach was closed for a time, part of the beach, for a time after the attacks. But again, authorities stress, again, that there is no need to close the beach this day, that everything looks fine. They're keeping a very close eye on things. They've got the beach patrol constantly out here to watch out for sharks. As soon as they see anything, of course, they will order people out.

And no more shark bites this year for this part of Florida in Volusia County than there were the same time last year, just one more in the same period last year, 17 in all. There have been 34 so far worldwide.

Back to you, Leon.

HARRIS: All right, good deal, thank you, Susan Candiotti, reporting live this morning from New Smyrna Beach.

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