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American Morning

Interview with Governor Michael Easley of North Carolina

Aired September 18, 2003 - 09:10   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: As Isabel battles North Carolina, the governor has declared a state of emergency putting the National Guard and state police on alert. Governor Michael Easley joins us from Raleigh, right now.
Good morning to you, governor. Thanks for joining us.

GOV. MICHAEL F. EASLEY (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Glad to be with you.

O'BRIEN: Well, thank you. We've been watching what's happening, and of course, the conditions are getting worse. It doesn't look too bad right yet, but of course, we're still a fair way out from the actual eye hitting land.

Give me a sense of the preparations in your state and how confident you feel about being able to with stand the storm?

EASLEY: Well, we feel pretty good about what we've done. Most of the work is done. We've been working for almost a solid week on this now. We feel like we're in place to be able to assess immediately after the storm passes. We got an awful lot of support from our people with evacuations -- three quarters of Derek (ph) county up around the outer banks has been evacuated -- that helps us tremendously.

And we that hope we can get just a little bit of break. If the storm continues to move a little faster that will help us to get some help on the surge of the storm surge of water out on the coast because it will come in, maybe not at high tide, up on the outer banks. That'll help a lot.

O'BRIEN: You've said three-quarters of the county around the outer banks has been evacuated. Give me a sense, if you can, of the number of people who have opted to remain behind? And also a sense of what's being put in place, if anything, for shelters in the area for the people who are staying behind?

EASLEY: We have more people in shelters across the state right now than we've ever had in any other hurricane that's taken place. About 100 of the 150,000 that were asked to evacuate did so, and they did it in an orderly way. So we feel they'll be a lot safer there. The main thing now is to keep them -- if they're not into shelters with family or friends -- keep them there until the storm is passed and they're told by the local officials it's OK to go back in.

Because we know we're going to have a lot of inland rain coming with this. We're going to have trees down, power lines down, lot of those wires are going to be hot -- they won't know about that -- the inland flooding. It's the day after the storm that we're most worried about, that's when we lost 24 lives to flooding, people driving out in what they thought was two or three inches of water and end up in a ditch six feet deep. Those are the type things that concern us right now and that's why we have the National Guard, the state highway patrol in place -- ready to go -- just as soon as that storm passes through North Carolina.

O'BRIEN: Are you feeling pretty confident that people are starting to get that message, that inland where there's flooding, it really can be the most dangerous, you don't have to be right on the surf, right on the beach to be at risk?

EASLEY: Yes, I think people know now. The storm surge is not just on the beach, it's up the rivers, up the Pimlico, up the Albemarle. And then, as you get water dumped on the inner counties, you get root system that gets weak and trees begin to fall, and they fall on houses, they fall on power lines. And you have to be patient. Stay inside and let the forestry service and the department of transportation and these thousand new utility crews that we've brought in for this particular event, let them get out there, get things fixed before you go out and get into the streets. Don't let your kids touch wires, don't touch wires yourself. Those are the important things for people to understand.

And yes, I think we've had enough people ride these storms out now to know that it's not any fun. And they getting on out of the coastal ares and recognizing that the danger still does exist in all of these eastern counties.

O'BRIEN: Governor, do you feel that you're sufficiently covered with the number of National Guardsman who are protecting your community -- as you well know, many of them gone over seas -- do you feel like you have enough people, you're not under manned in this way?

EASLEY: Yes, you're right, we did have a large number deployed to Iraq from North Carolina National Guard. But right now, yes, we have 600 out in the field, we have 2,264 on alert ready to go to work on Friday morning as soon as the storm goes through. And we've talked with Homeland Security and I'm working in cooperation with Mark Warner -- a good governor and a good friend up in Virginia -- and we have an additional 5,000 National Guards that have been made available to us, along with the resources such as helicopters, swift water rescue teams, and Med Evac units should they become necessary. We hope they're not, but I'd rather have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

O'BRIEN: Well, no question about that since your state is right in the path of the storm at this hour.

Governor Easley, it's nice to have you. Thanks for joining us. Good luck to you. And we will, of course, check back in to see how everything passes as the storm goes through.

Thank you.

EASLEY: Thank you, Soledad.

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 18, 2003 - 09:10   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: As Isabel battles North Carolina, the governor has declared a state of emergency putting the National Guard and state police on alert. Governor Michael Easley joins us from Raleigh, right now.
Good morning to you, governor. Thanks for joining us.

GOV. MICHAEL F. EASLEY (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Glad to be with you.

O'BRIEN: Well, thank you. We've been watching what's happening, and of course, the conditions are getting worse. It doesn't look too bad right yet, but of course, we're still a fair way out from the actual eye hitting land.

Give me a sense of the preparations in your state and how confident you feel about being able to with stand the storm?

EASLEY: Well, we feel pretty good about what we've done. Most of the work is done. We've been working for almost a solid week on this now. We feel like we're in place to be able to assess immediately after the storm passes. We got an awful lot of support from our people with evacuations -- three quarters of Derek (ph) county up around the outer banks has been evacuated -- that helps us tremendously.

And we that hope we can get just a little bit of break. If the storm continues to move a little faster that will help us to get some help on the surge of the storm surge of water out on the coast because it will come in, maybe not at high tide, up on the outer banks. That'll help a lot.

O'BRIEN: You've said three-quarters of the county around the outer banks has been evacuated. Give me a sense, if you can, of the number of people who have opted to remain behind? And also a sense of what's being put in place, if anything, for shelters in the area for the people who are staying behind?

EASLEY: We have more people in shelters across the state right now than we've ever had in any other hurricane that's taken place. About 100 of the 150,000 that were asked to evacuate did so, and they did it in an orderly way. So we feel they'll be a lot safer there. The main thing now is to keep them -- if they're not into shelters with family or friends -- keep them there until the storm is passed and they're told by the local officials it's OK to go back in.

Because we know we're going to have a lot of inland rain coming with this. We're going to have trees down, power lines down, lot of those wires are going to be hot -- they won't know about that -- the inland flooding. It's the day after the storm that we're most worried about, that's when we lost 24 lives to flooding, people driving out in what they thought was two or three inches of water and end up in a ditch six feet deep. Those are the type things that concern us right now and that's why we have the National Guard, the state highway patrol in place -- ready to go -- just as soon as that storm passes through North Carolina.

O'BRIEN: Are you feeling pretty confident that people are starting to get that message, that inland where there's flooding, it really can be the most dangerous, you don't have to be right on the surf, right on the beach to be at risk?

EASLEY: Yes, I think people know now. The storm surge is not just on the beach, it's up the rivers, up the Pimlico, up the Albemarle. And then, as you get water dumped on the inner counties, you get root system that gets weak and trees begin to fall, and they fall on houses, they fall on power lines. And you have to be patient. Stay inside and let the forestry service and the department of transportation and these thousand new utility crews that we've brought in for this particular event, let them get out there, get things fixed before you go out and get into the streets. Don't let your kids touch wires, don't touch wires yourself. Those are the important things for people to understand.

And yes, I think we've had enough people ride these storms out now to know that it's not any fun. And they getting on out of the coastal ares and recognizing that the danger still does exist in all of these eastern counties.

O'BRIEN: Governor, do you feel that you're sufficiently covered with the number of National Guardsman who are protecting your community -- as you well know, many of them gone over seas -- do you feel like you have enough people, you're not under manned in this way?

EASLEY: Yes, you're right, we did have a large number deployed to Iraq from North Carolina National Guard. But right now, yes, we have 600 out in the field, we have 2,264 on alert ready to go to work on Friday morning as soon as the storm goes through. And we've talked with Homeland Security and I'm working in cooperation with Mark Warner -- a good governor and a good friend up in Virginia -- and we have an additional 5,000 National Guards that have been made available to us, along with the resources such as helicopters, swift water rescue teams, and Med Evac units should they become necessary. We hope they're not, but I'd rather have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

O'BRIEN: Well, no question about that since your state is right in the path of the storm at this hour.

Governor Easley, it's nice to have you. Thanks for joining us. Good luck to you. And we will, of course, check back in to see how everything passes as the storm goes through.

Thank you.

EASLEY: Thank you, Soledad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com