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Aired October 07, 2016 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: ... that's not for several hours from now. But we are getting these intermittent bands with winds effective about 40 miles an hour. And that takes you into tropical storm status. And the only reason that's relevant is it triggers certain things. That is when emergency services stop getting out and organizing to make calls because it becomes too dangerous. And it is just the beginning of what they're going to see in Jacksonville.

[08:30:24] We'll put up on the screen what's going on right now in Daytona Beach. That is really the ghost of Christmas present for people who are trying to figure out what Hurricane Matthew might mean to them. Expert after experts are sayying the same thing. Everybody hopes that they are wrong about what can happen with a bad storm. But this storm is doing what they expected. This is just the beginning. They keep saying that Matthew is big, it is slow, and has a long way to go. Daytona Beach has been getting pounded.

Let's bring in Chad Myers right now. You're hearing it and I'm hearing it, people who were saying, "Ah, this wind isn't that bad. It hasn't been that bad."

First of all, almost every locality has not been able to do impact assessments yet so they don't know what has been done. And as you keep saying, still got a long way to go.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: As you just said, there was a little wobble to the left. And you saw it, too on your little radar you can look at on the phone. There has been just a slight wobble to the left and now that the eyewall is completely on land here, right along the cape, that's like Playa Linda if you know the area, just not that far from Oak Hill, New Smyrna Beach would be to the north. But this is the first real time that we've seen an eyewall on land, wind gusts there at 107 miles per hour. And that's what we expect if the eyewall stays on land all the way up the east coast.

But what you're also talking about Chris was the onshore flow. The onshore flow of what's happening here across parts of Daytona. There should be a beach here. And every once in awhile a massive wave comes all the way through, runs all the way up past the light pole. This is on our surf line. Here's Flagler Beach. I've watched this. People -- I watched this live shot from surf line for many hours at a time. People should be on here fishing, and there should be another 6 feet of distance between the top of that pier and the bottom of the water in there, and I think that pier may have a little bit of damage before we're all said and done here. Here's the onshore flow that we've been talking about. I'm going to make some arrows here so that you kind of get the idea. The wind is coming this way on this side of the storm. The wind is coming this way on this side of the storm. So those arrows will push that water all the way in to Jacksonville. And it will continue to do that as we work our way in to the rest of the day.

Chris, your forecast is still going to be 10 hours from where we are right now, compared to where we will be by the time the storm gets as close to you as possible. So we have a long way to go. We have a significance distance before this storm makes its way up the east coast. It will eventually turn to the right away from the Carolinas and away from even Georgia. But for now, we are in a slow motion. It feels like, it feels like we're in quicksand with this storm because it should come right onshore and move and be done. But this isn't coming onshore. It's not dying. It's not doing that. It's lumbering up the East Coast. So we'll have hurricane conditions in Jacksonville and Savannah. Jacksonville probably, I would say four hours before you really get hurricane conditions. And 8 to 12 before it's the worst it will be.

And then finally a Category 2 of Savannah, of Hilton Head, finally up to almost Myrtle Beach, and then completely offshore. That's the problem we've been talking about all day is 11 feet of water. You have high tide Chris, 4 more feet. Can you imagine 4 feet plus another 11 feet and where you would be at that time? Our satellite truck would be completely under water. That's why I think you might need to scramble at some point in time during this day.

CUOMO: Yeah. I mean, CNN's got another shot set up and everybody's thinking ahead here. Because we know what comes but just over my shoulder this is the St. John River. And as Chad is explaining there aren't that many cuts in the East Coast of Florida for storm surge, for water to flow through the ocean and come inland. We're about 15 miles inland here in this part of Jacksonville. But this is it. This is the St. John River. Look where it is already. It's almost to the top of the promenade. There's still 2.5 feet until high tide here without any storm surge. That's why things could change so quickly. That's why people keep telling you, that's the risk with Hurricane Matthew. And even someone with mild common sense should heed the governor's latest advisory. The I-10 corridor is still open. You have time to move. Be safe, be safe.

And then if it's not what people expected, great, the laugh is on everybody who told you to be careful. But right now, be safe. Somebody who wants that message to be very, very heard is Senator Bill Nelson here of Florida.

[08:35:01] Senator, I saw you with Vice President Biden under very different circumstances earlier in the week. And now here we are with a hurricane upon us.

SEN. BILL NELSON, (D) FLORIDA: What a difference a few days makes, Chris. Right now, the eye of the storm is off the Kennedy Space Center, about 15 miles off the two launch pads that are perilously close to the water. I spoke to the head of the Kennedy Space Center, former astronaut, Bob Cabana. They're all buttoned down. But he's worried about the erosion and the damage that is going to be done to the structures there. But it's moving right up the coast, exactly as you said.

CUOMO: Now, we keep hearing from local authorities Senator, and I'm wondering if you have better information or you can echo the sentiment that they just don't know what the impact has been in the hardest-hit areas yet because they're not able to get out and do evaluations because the conditions aren't safe enough. Is that what you're hearing?

NELSON: Yes. And they don't know the people who disobeyed the mandatory evacuation orders from the coastal barrier islands, they don't know because they can't get in there, in the middle of the storm. So that hopefully we're not going to have any loss of life. But, watch out.

CUOMO: God willing. And also, you're also building in the surprise factor here, not because there hasn't been word. I mean, this storm is being track for well over a week. But the eastern coast of Florida, we always think of Florida as being very storm savvy. But the East Coast has not seen anything like what we're having here in Jacksonville. Let alone what's expected to come. Is that true?

NELSON: Not for a dozen years. And the real monster was way back in 1992, Hurricane Andrew. We thought as this approached, it was going to be a strong Category 4. Fortunately it's down to a Category 3.

CUOMO: Right. Right now it's staying at Category 3. Unfortunately, it is a very slow storm. It's moving at about 10 miles an hour. And obviously that adds to the duration of impact. What is your caution to people who are saying, "Oh, this is isn't Andrew that was a much more powerful storm?"

NELSON: Well, you better take cover and keep cover, because the wind is blowing. I'm some 30 miles inland at Orlando and you ought to see how it is blowing here. So they better stay indoors, don't become an accident that the emergency crews are then going to have to worry about you.

Let me say that the good news is that all levels of government in the six emergency operations centers up and down the coast that I have visited, all of them are working seamlessly between the federal state and local level. And I think you'll see in the aftermath of the storm, all the people start coming together as Florida has done so many times after tragedy, after tragedy.

CUOMO: And let's hope that we don't add to the list of great comebacks that are necessary. We do know that President Obama declared a state of emergency for the states that have been under the warning for Hurricane Matthew, freeing up funds to help with anything that is in the aftermath.

Senator Bill Nelson, thank you very much for joining us. And as we've been saying to all the authorities, as you get information that you need to get out, please allow us to use our audience to help you. That's why we're here. Thank you very much Senator.

NELSON: Thanks Chris.

CUOMO: All right. We're -- absolutely. We're showing you live pictures right now of Daytona Beach. That is Hurricane Matthew present. There are still hours of intensity to grow, even in what you're seeing right now there at Daytona Beach.

There is an old expression that the definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity. The authorities have prepared as well as they can and they have told people in the relevant areas to leave.

Now, you have that last opportunity in and around Jacksonville. The governor has said, the I-10 corridor is open. If you are in a zone that was told to evacuate, please, do it now, and be safe.

[08:39:36] We're going to take a break. We'll bring you the latest on Hurricane Matthew in just a moment. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. This is Chris Cuomo in Jacksonville. We've been here this morning. We have learned that Jacksonville and the surrounding area will be the area of the eastern coast of Florida to see the maximum impact of Hurricane Matthew. But that is not for many hours from now. And already, we're getting these outer feeder bands of weather through here sustained gusts at or near tropical storm level that's about 40 miles an hour. It's a relevant number or level because that is when emergency services stop operating.

So this is just the beginning here. But at Daytona Beach, if you can look up on your screen right now and see what's going on. That is the ghost of Hurricane Matthew present that's going on. It's just been pounding, winds and excess of a 100 miles an hour have been recorded in several parts of that eastern coast. We have Jennifer Gray, she's in Palm Bay, she's one of our meteorologists. She's been getting hit with gusts there well over 80 miles an hour. A little bit of a low. What's the current situation?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You're right Chris. Just before day break we had those very, very strong gusts. Now, you can definitely tell that the storm is starting to move away. Those gusts are less frequent. They are not as strong, we're getting probably 35, 40 mile per hour gusts now, as opposed to 80 miles per hour gusts earlier today.

About five minutes ago we heard sirens. So that's a sign that maybe emergency vehicles are starting to be able to get out little by little now that the storm is starting to move away. Unfortunately though, that means that most likely somebody was in need. So hopefully people along the coast were able to get out. I know that along the coast as the storm was approaching storm surge was going to be a huge concern. We haven't been able to get out to the coast yet to check things out and see what the status is there.

[08:45:03] As this moves away, the storm surge threat is going to stay to the north of the storm, it's going to stay right around Daytona Beach. Right now as we speak, it's all of that water is pushing onshore, and then as we get closer to where you are Chris, the storm surge is going to be a threat as well.

As you see, we are still getting some gusts. We are getting these powerful winds as well. But definitely nothing like we saw just before morning. Now that the sun is up, you can kind of get a scope of how things are looking around. We took a very typical walk around the grounds here at the hotel. There's minimal damage here but I expect that once we get closer to the coast Chris, things will unfortunately change because winds were definitely stronger closer to that eye, closer to shore. That eye stayed just offshore to us luckily, but unfortunately it's paralleling the coast and any little wobble to the west is going to mean very, very strong winds right onshore, Chris.

CUOMO: And we just saw a movement to the west. And obviously that's going to shift all of the considerations. We just heard from the governor's office two big points of information. One, 430,000-plus customers without power. The expectation of when it can be restored, uncertain. Certainly for hours from now, most of those people will not have power which is why evacuation was so important. The second point of information, the governor is going to give a media statement. He's going to come out and do a press conference at 9:00 a.m. CNN of course will carry that live and hear from Governor Rick Scott here in Florida.

Jennifer Gray is telling us what's going on right now, and she has said from the beginning the concern with this storm is it being a wet storm, storm surge. Now that means in a place like this in Jacksonville, the St. John River, one of the few cuts in the eastern coast of Florida. That means that the concentration of water, the volume of water, we saw a 17 foot wave recorded 20 miles offshore, an indication of how much water is being pushed this way. It can come through these few cuts like this one here. We're 15 miles inshore, feeds into the St. John River. And that will create the surge of as much as 10 feet, Alisyn. And when that happens, then the whole game changes. Because now you can't move. Now power is out. Now gas lines are stressed. And the resulting problems can't be addressed for many hours by emergency services. That's why you have to get when the getting is good and that is right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That is exactly what everybody has been warning. The storm surge is what they think could be most deadly, even more so than the dramatic winds that we've been seeing Chris. We'll be back with you in a second.

On the right side of your screen, you're looking at Daytona Beach. Daytona is in Volusia County. That is the place that is being hit the hardest right now and it has been for the past couple of hours. We want to bring in the director of the Volusia County Emergency Management James Judge. Mr. Judge we have been keeping an eye on your location for hours on our program. What's the situation there?

JAMES JUDGE, DIRECTOR, VOLUSIA COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Well, good morning. And, of course Senator Bill Nelson did an outstanding job just kind of outlining, you know, some of the protective actions that have taken place here in Florida. Also, we've been in close contact with Governor Scott. Governor Scott did visit with us just a couple of days ago. But of course, as you know, this is something we planned for. This is something we've trained for, exercised for, for years. You know, to be able to deal with a situation like this.

So, I would say things are going very well. Of course we have the usual problems, power outages as you mentioned. We've got trees down. You know, we do have sustained winds of over 45 miles an hour now. Just making it possible for public safety resources to be able to respond to the community. We do have 21 shelters open at this point. Five of those are special functional needs. We do have over 3,600 people within those shelters. And we continue to monitor those activities and make sure those folks are safe. We do have a curfew in place that went into operation at midnight last night and it will last until Saturday at 7:00 a.m. So we're encouraging people, unless you've got a heck of a good reason to be on the roads, you need to stay off the roads.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. About that curfew, I do see Director Judge that you're taking a little bit of grief on Twitter from people who are saying a curfew until 7:00 a.m. Saturday, really? Can you guys lift that curfew? You know, I think the people think that once it's passed, why are they going to be under a curfew for 22 more hours. Tell them what the fear is.

JUDGE: Well, that's a great question. When the curfew was put in place we were looking at sustained winds of 110 miles an hour with gusts to 130. We were looking at storm surge of over 11 feet. So obviously, you know, when you take those protective actions, you put that in place, you continue to monitor the conditions. Of course conditions have somewhat improved. It's still a very dangerous storm. You know, you're going to have trees down, power lines down, lots of dangerous conditions on the road, until the weather clears. Public works is able to get out there to clear the roads, the power companies are able to restore power, and of course our public safety assets are able to respond to medical emergencies.

[08:50:12] So, as far as the curfew goes, you know, obviously we're going to continue to monitor that, and should the need be there to pull that back a little bit, certainly the county manager will factor that into, you know, his consideration for the county.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, you were just mentioning that you have thousands of people in shelters, because your planning actually paid off and people listened and they went to shelters. Do you anticipate when the clouds and the rain clears that you will have to execute some evacuations there for people who were stuck in their homes?

JUDGE: At this point, you know, if there's anyone that has damage we will do some post opening activities. But right now given the conditions, it just would not be safe to be on the highway for anyone. So we will wait until the conditions improve. And then of course if we, if we have any requests we can certainly fulfill those. We do have quite a bit of shelter space still available. But then, once the conditions improve, we expect that to be later tonight. Initially we were looking at one or two-hour time frame on Saturday morning for the tropical storm force winds to leave Volusia County. We continue to monitor that based on the forward speed. So it might be earlier than expected and that could be good news for us.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Well again, it looks like your planning did save lives there today. James Judge from the Volusia County Emergency Management. Thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY. So ...

JUDGE: Thank you for all you're doing to, you know, enhance the preparedness activities, inform the citizens. We're very grateful.

CAMEROTA: You're welcome. We are trying to get the word out for everyone who still has power this morning and there are obviously millions of people in Florida who do we are trying to get the word out. So Chris, back to you in Jacksonville.

CUOMO: All right Alisyn, let's bring in Chad Myers. Chad, do us a favor. Take a look at what we know right now and project forward. What are we looking at in terms of direction, duration, and impact?

MYERS: Let's move ahead 30 minutes Chris. And we'll move ahead to hurricane conditions on Daytona. And I know we've already seen some gusts to wind -- to hurricane strength. But we're not talking about gusts. We're talking about sustained winds now, as the Category 3 off the shore, just off Cape Canaveral.

Now, we're going to move you ahead about three hours, move it on up to Jacksonville. And then eventually up to Hilton Head. Those hurricane force winds are still onshore. And then they move a little bit farther to the right. We go past Charleston. We may even make a run at the Myrtle Beach area. But it is the storm surge that we're the most concerned about. Seven to 11 feet of storm surge on top of where the water already is now. Winds are already gusting to 109 miles per hour on the Cape Canaveral coast right there, very close to where the eyewall is on land.

The eyewall, the outer eyewall is absolutely on land now moving into New Smyrna Beach. That's where the sustained winds of a 100 miles per hour will be likely. Hurricane hunters were just in the storm and they found a wind gust to 115 at the surface. That was in this little squall band here. Guess where that squall band is going? That is going right into Daytona that will eventually move to the north and get into your area as well. It is the push of the water, and it's the rain that's going to come down. I have rain fall to your west and to your northwest Chris of over 10 inches of rain expected.

That means we have all water coming down the rivers, and we have wind pushing the rain back up the rivers. So we may be over that 11 foot storm surge because of the flooding, the fresh water flooding mixing in with the salt water flooding. So moving you ahead now. This is noon, your wind is onshore Jacksonville still from the same direction down where Jennifer Gray is, moving offshore, moving away. Pushing that storm surge away from shore. But then the storm surge gets right up into Georgia, it gets up into the Carolinas and it will be a brutal afternoon. This is a long-term event. We are in the first quarter of this storm. Chris? CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much Chad. I'm just looking on the screen here of why this is getting more intense as I'm hearing you, and it's because there is a squall that's coming right over the top right now. I can see how the haze is coming in. You know that is that offshore effect that we're getting here at 15 miles inland. The -- river here storm surge is going to be the story of Hurricane Matthew. We're already at the top of this promenade. We're not even at high tide, let alone dealing with the storm surge.

Let's go to Jason Foster. He is in the thick of it right now in Central Florida near Cape Canaveral. We know you've been gathering elements. Jason, you're broadcasting as you drive, a storm chaser to the end. What are you seeing?

[08:54:57] JASON FOSTER, STORM CHASER: Yeah. Well, I did actually stop, go ahead and -- so I could get view because I wasn't really getting a view. But as you can see behind me, the winds are picking up same squall line. Things are really kicking up for a moment there. I was not quite full whiteout but it was definitely getting close to that whiteout conditions. Certainly what most people would not be driving in at all. So I mean, I was going maybe 20 miles per hour and I think this road is like at 50 miles per hour speed limit. So, it gives you a little idea of the precautions you have to take sometimes. Even though I'm out, I'm not going very fast.

CUOMO: All right Jason, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Please stay safe and let us know what we need to tell everybody about how to stay safe, as well.

Alisyn, here in Jacksonville, the situation has changed. You know, w actually came here to set up thinking this would be the most stable place to be for the duration of Hurricane Matthew. We're now being told that this area is actually going to feel the most concentrated impact of the storm but that's not for some hours to come. The situation is changing. Right now, as we speak, we're starting to feel these next wave of these, you know, these energy driving band that surround the hurricane. The winds picked up here, it's about tropical storm level now but it's going to get much, much worse and the story of the storm will be storm surge. Rivers, like this really flooding and changing the landscape for days to come.

CAMEROTA: Yeah and Chris -- I mean, it's a nerve-racking feeling there for people in Jacksonville knowing that they're, you know, sitting ducks, and that the storm that they've seen play out so dramatically there south of them is moving up, and what you're experiencing Chris, there in the rain, is only going to intensify over the next 10 hours. We also understand that Governor Rick Scott of Florida will be giving a briefing about the status of the hurricane. So that will be coming up very shortly on CNN.

In the meanwhile, Chris stay safe, great reporting. And hunker down as best you can there.

CUOMO: Well, we'll be here for the duration. We're going to cover Governor Rick Scott's press conference right after this break. I'll stay on and do the coverage. NEWSROOM will pick it up for CNN. The -- but they're already enough to shake -- with CNN.

CAMEROTA: OK, just a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:59:57] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Chris Cuomo live in Jacksonville, Florida where -- well I guess Chris just starting to feel the effects of Hurricane Matthew. All right so he can't hear me right now because of course the wind is causing all kinds of technical problems for us in Jacksonville. The monster storm has ...