Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Bracing for Isabel
Aired September 16, 2003 - 08:35 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: How are some people now looking straight into the eye of Isabel getting ready for the storm? Jackie Syzmanski, the hotel manager at a Comfort Inn in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina is our guest.
Jackie, thanks for spending part of your morning with us.
You heard about the mandatory noon evacuation. What's the response from people there now?
JACKIE SYZMANSKI, COMFORT INN MANAGER, KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C.: Well, people actually started leaving yesterday, and we made a decision late evening to go ahead and close today, which we apparently made the correct decision, according to Dare (ph) County Emergency Management. So our guests will be checking out today by 11:00, and we will proceed to protect our air-condition units, caulking around the doors to protect especially the north side of our building, which gets the brunt of any type of weather. So we'll be caulking up and putting plastic, just doing the best we can to keep the wind and the rain out of our rooms and anything of debris that could be blowing around.
I think we're all kind of anxious about this particular storm, no matter where they say it hits, a little up or a little down, I think we're going to get a pretty good brunt of wind, rain and some sort of damage. Hopefully very, very minimal.
HEMMER: You know, Jackie, when you're this close to the storm, as you are, how do you get your information? And how often do you pay attention to the shifting winds in the storm, especially what we have seen over the past 12 hours with that storm weakening?
SYZMANSKI: Well, you always have to -- you know, we're used to the wind here. We get it quite a bit, even just on a nor'eastern. Sometimes a nor'eastern can do worse than some of our hurricanes that have come through. But that's one of the reasons why we're wanting to prepare a bit early this time, because once the winds start picking up, it makes it very difficult to do any preparation, especially if you're an exterior corridor as we are. Interior corridors have a little more advantage and have a little more delay time in getting things prepared.
But our employees are very concerned as well. So we want to make ample time to have us squared away and out so that they can do what they need to do as well on their personal property and making plans to go, you know, further north or west, wherever they choose to go.
HEMMER: Well, listen, good luck to you and everybody else down there. Jackie Syzmanski runs a hotel down there in Kill Devil Hills. You're going to need the help and a lot of work over the next 24, 48, 72 hours.
Best of luck in D.C. Thanks again.
SYZMANSKI: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 16, 2003 - 08:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: How are some people now looking straight into the eye of Isabel getting ready for the storm? Jackie Syzmanski, the hotel manager at a Comfort Inn in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina is our guest.
Jackie, thanks for spending part of your morning with us.
You heard about the mandatory noon evacuation. What's the response from people there now?
JACKIE SYZMANSKI, COMFORT INN MANAGER, KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C.: Well, people actually started leaving yesterday, and we made a decision late evening to go ahead and close today, which we apparently made the correct decision, according to Dare (ph) County Emergency Management. So our guests will be checking out today by 11:00, and we will proceed to protect our air-condition units, caulking around the doors to protect especially the north side of our building, which gets the brunt of any type of weather. So we'll be caulking up and putting plastic, just doing the best we can to keep the wind and the rain out of our rooms and anything of debris that could be blowing around.
I think we're all kind of anxious about this particular storm, no matter where they say it hits, a little up or a little down, I think we're going to get a pretty good brunt of wind, rain and some sort of damage. Hopefully very, very minimal.
HEMMER: You know, Jackie, when you're this close to the storm, as you are, how do you get your information? And how often do you pay attention to the shifting winds in the storm, especially what we have seen over the past 12 hours with that storm weakening?
SYZMANSKI: Well, you always have to -- you know, we're used to the wind here. We get it quite a bit, even just on a nor'eastern. Sometimes a nor'eastern can do worse than some of our hurricanes that have come through. But that's one of the reasons why we're wanting to prepare a bit early this time, because once the winds start picking up, it makes it very difficult to do any preparation, especially if you're an exterior corridor as we are. Interior corridors have a little more advantage and have a little more delay time in getting things prepared.
But our employees are very concerned as well. So we want to make ample time to have us squared away and out so that they can do what they need to do as well on their personal property and making plans to go, you know, further north or west, wherever they choose to go.
HEMMER: Well, listen, good luck to you and everybody else down there. Jackie Syzmanski runs a hotel down there in Kill Devil Hills. You're going to need the help and a lot of work over the next 24, 48, 72 hours.
Best of luck in D.C. Thanks again.
SYZMANSKI: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
