Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Hurricane Florence Pounds Carolina Coast as It Nears Landfall. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired September 14, 2018 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- without power in North Carolina already. That number will go up. 6500 people without power in South Carolina. That number will go up. The concern is the surge as we have seen. Six to nine feet. Topping 11 feet in some places. The rain. 22 inches of rain has already fallen in Atlantic Beach. 22 inches of rain and this really is just the beginning. We can't emphasize that enough.

This rain will fall for another two days before it's done. The river I'm on right now. The northeast Cape Fear River. There is concern it could top its flood levels. It floods at 10 feet. It could reach 22 feet by the time the storm is done.

Wilmington, North Carolina, where I am, it reached its average annual rainfall in August. A month and a half ago. Over the next three days, it could get eight months -- eight months worth of rain. That's on top of the 90-mile-an-hour winds we're beginning to feel here. The outer eyewall beginning to pass just over us right now.

This is a sign of what's to come for so much more of the North Carolina coast down into South Carolina. That's where we find CNN's Chris Cuomo in North Myrtle Beach -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. John, you are our future. We are just getting our first taste of Florence here. And that's the concern with hurricanes, you think about six hours, 12 hours maybe. This one we're hearing from the scientists could be as long as a day and a half, 30 hours or more. So these 45-mile-an-hour in upward gusts for hours and hours against structures, against root systems, water pooling in areas.

And then now the tide is on its way out. But midday when it comes back, it will be coming back with a force of the outer bands. Little bit farther outside where you are right now. And what will that do to tidal surge? Those are some of the concerns here. A mandatory evacuation area. A curfew is in effect. But a lot of people didn't leave. And I'm wondering if we're going to hear an echo of the stories up in New Bern and Morehead City where people are now desperate for rescue. Can the first responders get out? We'll see where this story goes but we have at least a day of it from where we are right now -- JB.

BERMAN: Yes, Chris. I'm afraid we are going to hear more stories of those rescues and we're going to check in if we can in just a little bit. I want to give you one update on the power outages. Just in the time

that Chris was talking. We got a new report in North Carolina. 280,000 people. 280,000 customers without power in North Carolina already and again that number will go up because these winds are going to continue to push over the coastline. The rain will continue to fall. That means more power lines will go down. And we have been getting reports of electrified standing water on the ground.

Which is why you have to be so careful. And again as Chris was saying it's not just here, it's going to go all the way down to South Carolina. This is the future for you down there.

Let's bring in Chad Myers, CNN meteorologist in the Weather Center, to get a sense of the forecast, to get a sense from this latest National Hurricane Center update -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The forecast for you, John, is you're about to get rocked. 95 miles per hour for you probably in the next 10 minutes. You are about five miles from the outer eyewall right now. Atlantic Beach has been reporting 22 inches of rain overnight. And we said can that really be possible? No one else is close. All of a sudden now four miles or so west of there, Emerald Isle just clocked in with 19.2. So yes, that's a verified number.

Two feet of rainfall already in the last 12 hours. It is around Morehead City. Yes, that red box, that's a tornado watch box. Some of these storms could rotate. But it's those surge that's coming up into New Bern, into Washington, into the Neuse River, in Pamlico Sound. That's the flooding we're seeing right now. Maximum surge that I found is 11 feet. That's right where the forecast was. Emerald Isle, your surge right now is 6.8 feet.

If your house is less than 6.8 feet above sea level, it's wet right now if you're on Emerald Isle. So now I want to take you to a little bit of a coarse graphic but I think it really tells the story. This is the live radar. This is the NEXRAD level two radar and there is our John Berman. It's hard to see these towns. There's John Berman right there. That's Wilmington.

Here is Topsail Beach right through here. And then all the way up to Emerald Isle and Morehead City. But this outer band eyewall, this is going to start popping power lines, John. You're going to see an eerie blue flash every once in a while as transformers pop. You may have power off. It may come back on. If the switcher gets you more power. But I tell you what, that 285 or 280 for power lines down, or people without power, that's going to go up rapidly as this eyewall now comes directly onshore.

Chris, you're still down here with the offshore flow. You're getting rainfall. But as this eye works its way down the coast, something like that, you are eventually going to get to this side of the eyewall. It may take 24 hours, it may take that long to get there.

[05:05:02] But when you do, that's when you're going to see the surge, that's when your beach is going to flood. And that's when North Myrtle all the way up toward Conway is going to see that surge going up their rivers rather than the Neuse River back here.

BERMAN: Chad, we've heard from the Neuse River and we've heard from New Bern which is on the Neuse. We've heard about the storm surge there and some dramatic water rescues that have already begun to take place.

MYERS: Absolutely.

BERMAN: As the storm moves down to Wilmington and further south, and you get more, more of these rivers which line the coast here, will it be a similar situation?

MYERS: Yes. Absolutely. And New Bern is going to get worse before it gets better because we're down on the tide cycle. And about three hours from now, we're going to go back up on the tide cycle. So we have gone from a one-foot level at New Bern to an 11-foot level at New Bern. Now down to 10 because that's low tide. And then all of a sudden we're going to get high tide again and it's going to go higher. It may go higher than 11 this time so that's what you have for New Bern. That's what you have for Florence.

That's what we're going to get for Washington. All of these towns in these rivers, in these inlets, that's exactly what we expected. That water is blowing up into those inlets. The river gets skinnier and skinnier, and skinner, and then the water goes up higher and higher and higher, because it has less width, it has more depth. That's exactly what's going to happen.

CUOMO: Hey, Chad, so here in North Myrtle Beach, my concern is that the window has just shut. People were sleeping on this storm because the category number was going down. And a lot of these houses here are on those chicken legs, those stilts. The house that we were staying in 20 miles an hour ago in terms of gusts was shaking around enough to move things in the bedroom. Nobody was getting any sleep. Is it too much now to leave?

MYERS: If it is too much for you to drive your vehicle in the wind, yes. But the wind really, for you, will only come when a band comes in. If you want to try to get to Conway, I think that's a good exit route. But Conway is going to get river flooding as well. It's one of those things where this is -- the main thing that a weather person will tell you. You have to get away from the water, but you have to hide from the wind. If all you worry about is wind, hunker down in your house and shelter in place.

If you are three feet from sea level and you know this is coming and you know you are going to get surge of eight feet and there's going to be five feet of water in your house, then it's not too late to leave because you have to get out of there. Hopefully all of those level one evacuations already took place. The people that live in those plus-minus three feet from sea level they've all been told, get out. You have to get out. This is not a safe place for you.

Because as the storm goes your way, that's when those rivers go up. Even though they're down right now because the winds offshore, it will eventually become onshore and the river is going to go up rapidly -- John.

CUOMO: We just had our first gust, J.B.

BERMAN: All right, Chad --

CUOMO: Like a real gust. We just had the first one that just shook the porch that we're on. It's going to be very impressive to me if the structures of these houses behind us can stand up to the wind that they are getting because this is now several hours on and we're already seeing the bend in the Palmettos. Remember, a tree doesn't snap in half. It weakens from the root system. And that's what we're seeing starting to happen here. And we are nowhere near where you are in terms of intensity of the storm.

BERMAN: No. We're feeling it here for real now, Chris. The wind gust I would say 75 miles an hour. Chad was just telling us from the next 10 minutes it could get up to 95. I got something to hold on to. I got a railing here just in case I need it. We are beginning to shake here quite a bit as the rain does fall.

Chris, stand by if you will. Chad, thanks very much.

I want to bring in Clyde Cain. He's with the Cajun Navy, the group of volunteer responders on the ground, really in the water, in New Bern. Up the coast from where I am on the Neuse River, where we have had extreme storm surge. Ten feed of flooding or so. And where there have been water rescues already.

Clyde, if you can hear me, please tell us what's happening. We haven't been able to get very many reports from the ground there. Tell us what the situation is.

CLYDE CAIN, ADMIRAL, LOUISIANA CAJUN NAVY: We just arrived about 35, 40 minutes ago after being inundated with calls and finding out that they had called off what they could do as rescues down here with their vehicles. We have our duck boats inbound from over in Lumberton where we were staying. Actually a little bit further down there in Fayetteville. And they're inbound right now. We're just scouting and getting ready to just plan a lodge and getting out here with the EOC and the fire department.

We just stopped by Number 7 Township Fire Department and that's where our boats are inbound. And me and Adam, one of our other boat captains, are out riding. And just getting the lay of everything like we do. Scoping out so when they land here we can immediately deploy.

[05:10:04] BERMAN: So you're just beginning to get out. Inundated with calls. Do you have a sense of just how many calls, how many people are trapped?

CAIN: We've had, I would say, probably over 500 calls on our Zello channel and our 888 number. So we were two hours away and the winds are really still too high for us to pull in our air boat. But we're staging them in, we're bringing in our low shallow water boats first and right behind that would be the air boats to do quicker missions and get out there, get more people. But right now, we're just going to get the efforts started as soon as the boats arrive. In the meantime, we're just setting up points.

BERMAN: If you can make that point once again because I think it's so important as the winds beginning to pick up where I am in Wilmington, the wind gust here easily around 75 miles an hour at this point. You're getting the calls, but it's still too dangerous to get the boats in the water. The Zodiacs have moved them out. So right now you're staging?

CAIN: Exactly. What we're doing is we're getting points where we're going to need to launch and be the most effective, coordinate out there with the local officers and first responders. The wind gusts right now are blowing (INAUDIBLE) all over the place. 70, 75-mile- per-hour wind gusts are coming in. We made it here just barely and then they started coming in, because we rode right into the storm on the northeast side of it. So now we're experiencing that and like I said we're trying to stage up and just get some points here and get our boats down here so that we can get them ready.

We already got two duck boats on their way with the Hummer. And we're going to get in here and start some rescues as soon as he gets here and meets up with stage up. We've got the United States Cajun Navy also. They're staged up in our camp site over there. They've already sent boats out so we should have a full deployment here by dawn.

BERMAN: Clyde, do you have a sense -- I know you just arrived on the ground there, but what the flooding situation is. How much water is there?

CAIN: Well, we've been going through standing water on the streets. Not as bad as what I experienced in Houston. Of course, we are about to venture in more. So I'll be able to get more accurate for you here in about maybe 30, 45 minutes.

BERMAN: Talk to me about the process of responding to these calls. How is it done? What are the risks for your volunteers as they respond to people in need?

CAIN: Right now the risk that we're understanding are of course downed power lines. That makes the water electric all around you. And also not just knowing the lay of the land and then the nighttime when it's so tough. That's why we come in and we stage up and we get with the local firefighters and first responders, and find out where the most affected areas are, where they are calling out from. And of course we got to check back with our 888 number. We have to kind of pause that for a moment because we were getting so inundated and we didn't want to keep getting any calls and then give everybody false expectations.

But we are lighting it back up and let everybody know that we are here. They'll just be patient, seek high ground, and just hold tight. We're going to have boats in the water here within the next few hours.

BERMAN: You'll get out just as soon as you can, no question about that. The issue is right now you simply can't because the wind speeds are too great. We've seen the blue flashes in Wilmington where I am of some

transformers blowing. Are there fears of electrified water in some places with the power lines down?

CAIN: Yes, sir, absolutely. That's why they've shutdown their water rescue here. So far just because of the downed power line and the winds gusting, you know, sweeping (INAUDIBLE) around and everything so it's very, very, very unsafe conditions. Including the flying debris in the air. Of course we all have safety gear, we have helmets, we have night lights and all that stuff. But again we're worried about the electricity and, of course, where we can deploy safely and get out there and be the most effective immediately with the elderly and those that are out there that just can't stand probably get another hour of this.

BERMAN: All right. Clyde, we'll let you get back to work.

This is Clyde with the Cajun Navy, responding to some 500 calls already from the New Bern area. We've heard of rescues, 100 plus rescues. So many outstanding calls. An enormous storm surge. Flooding of 10 feet or more. And it could get worse over the next several hours.

This right now appears to be our area of greatest concern. And it is just the beginning.

I want to go down to Chris Cuomo who's in South Carolina who I believe has a family in danger on the phone -- Chris.

CUOMO: Right. We're in North Myrtle Beach. We are a day away from seeing the worst of this. These are just 45-mile-an-hour gusts that we have here but they're softening the situation, John.

[05:15:02] We're starting to see the singles fly off. We're starting to see trees bend. What will happen a day from now? We'll see. But the worst of it is north of you. New Bern has flooding. They have over six feet of surge. Some places 10 depending on the elevation of the actual buildings there. We have a family that's sheltering in place. The situation is getting worse.

Peggy Perry is on the phone right now.

Peggy, can you hear me? Peggy? Can't hear, Peggy. All right. John, we're going to get Peggy back on. They're in a rough situation. The house is flooding. She is in there with some teenagers, grandchildren. You know, they're running short on cell power. This is a very common scenario that we're worried about.

BERMAN: Right.

CUOMO: People stayed. They took a risk and the risk is turning the wrong way. How long will it take to get rescued? They've already called 911. We'll try to get Peggy on the phone so that she can tell her story about what's going on. But we're going to hear a lot about this. We have 5500 here plus without power already. And this hasn't even begun. Duration will cause the damage. BERMAN: Yes, 2800 without power in North Carolina at this point,

Chris. You were saying that there's some 100 plus people who've called the official 800 number. We were just speaking with the Cajun Navy which is those volunteers who are arriving on the scene. They say they have been inundated with calls. Some 500 calls. They're staging their boats in the New Bern area. They can't get out just yet. The Zodiacs can't get out just yet because you can see all around me the winds are just too strong for them to be operating.

So some of these families that are trapped in their homes, like this family you're trying to get on the line right now, they're going to have to stay there for a while. They're doing the right thing at this point. Look, they were told to evacuate. There were mandatory evacuation orders. This is why. But if you are trapped in your house right now, you have to get to the higher rooms. Bring your family to the higher rooms to stay safe as that water rises. Chris was saying six feet of flooding, 10 feet in places. That's where it is right now and it could continue and get worse at different times of the day as the tides work their way in and out.

Again, this is CNN's special live coverage of Hurricane Florence. The eye, the outer eyewall just minutes away from where I am. We could see gusts of 95 miles per hour here in Wilmington very shortly. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

[05:21:47] CUOMO: We are in continuing coverage here. What is Hurricane Florence capable of? We've had 19, 22 inches of water in parts of North Carolina. You combine that with even a category one hurricane or less and you get catastrophe. In New Bern, we've had 200 people already calling out for rescue. The ability of first responders right now very compromised. People are having to shelter in place. We have Miss Perry right now on the phone. She is in her home. It's already flooding.

Peggy, can you hear me?

PEGGY PERRY, RESIDENT TRAPPED IN THEIR FLOODED HOME: Yes, I can.

CUOMO: All right. We've heard about your situation. Tell the rest of the audience so they know what you're dealing with here.

PERRY: OK. In a matter of seconds, my house was flooded up to the waist and now it's to the chest. And we are stuck in the attic. There's four of us. We have been up here for like three or four hours. And there's no windows up in the attic. So I put a the light in the window so they would know that someone's here.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: You called 911?

PERRY: And -- right about now. So we are waiting for help. CUOMO: Have you heard back from 911 about what kind of timing there

is or capability for anyone to come and get you?

PERRY: No, we haven't.

CUOMO: All right. We have your address and we'll cycle back, and see what the first responders know about your situation. You said there are no windows up in the attic where you are?

PERRY: Right.

CUOMO: How many of you are there?

PERRY: There's four of us here.

CUOMO: All right. You know that you have a little bit of a balancing act that you're going to have to deal with here, Peggy. You've got to be somewhere where you can get out if you have to, if water continues to rise. You can't limit yourself to just being stuck in the attic because obviously there's no way out of there, right?

PERRY: No, I see a little window and I may have to break it up.

CUOMO: Right. How high is the water right now in your home?

PERRY: It's chest (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: Say again, Peggy?

PERRY: It's up to your chest.

CUOMO: It's up to your chest on the main floor.

PERRY: Yes.

CUOMO: All right. And you think you have the ability to make a hole in a window where you are just in case, God forbid, you have to get out?

PERRY: We have to.

CUOMO: All right. And what do you have with you up there with everybody else? Do you have any water? Do you have anything with you? How much cell phone battery do you have?

PERRY: I don't have cell phone battery. I have my granddaughter's phone. We got one cell. We've been taking calls and that's what happened. All our phones are going dead.

CUOMO: All right. Let's do this. We're going to take your address right, we're going to try and loop back with the first responders and make sure they're aware of your situation. Do not waste anymore cell phone battery.

[05:25:04] We will get in touch with you if we get any kind of time estimate for you but you've got to keep your battery safe. And if it goes too far without you getting anything, you're worried about the situation, if you can't get 911, get back to us and we'll help any way we can. Stay safe.

PERRY: Thanks.

CUOMO: We look forward to hearing from you in a better situation. But save your battery.

PERRY: Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

CUOMO: All right, JB, look, man. Nobody likes to hear about those kinds of situations but we're going to hear about a lot of them. A little bit of information for people to remember about this that we've learned from the experts. Yes, you want to go to a higher floor as common sense dictates when your house starts to flood. But only after you've made a determination that you cannot leave.

As the water starts to come in to wherever you are, you have to make the best decision you can for you and your safety. It should be to get out of that structure if at all possible. If you can't and you start to elevate, you have to put yourself in situations where you can escape if at all possible. Even if it means putting a hole in a structure.

I can't tell you how many times we have seen situations where people, their fate has gone the wrong way because apparently there was a hesitation to do damage to their own home. To break windows, to put a hole in the wall even though they might have done so. Safety first. Do what you have to do to get out of a bad situation.

BERMAN: Yes. If you have to cut a hole in that roof, you cut a hole in that roof, and you climb up on top.

Chris, you handled that so well. I hope that family gets the help that they need. I hope they can reach first responders. We've spoken to some of the people on the ground there. They are staging, they are doing what they can and everything they can to help. But right now, as you noted, their abilities are compromised. Why? Well, you can see all around me.

Hurricane Florence is bearing down. The eye, the outer eyewall of the storm is now over Wilmington, North Carolina, where I am which means we are getting sustained winds I'd say of 70 miles an hour.

Chad Myers told us a short time ago that over the next couple of minutes we'll be seeing 90, 95-miles per hour winds. That is the worst of the storm in terms of wind speed. But the real danger in this storm is the duration. This will go on for hours and hours and hours. And the rain will fall for days. 22 inches of rain already in Atlantic Beach. That is exacerbating the problem with the storm surge that Chris was just talking about in New Bern which is six feet in some places, up to the chest of the people who are trapped inside that home at this moment.

I want to go to Carolina Beach which is a little bit downstream from where I am, a little bit closer perhaps to the eye of the storm. Our Derek Van Dam is there.

Derek, the winds blowing as hard as they have yet here. What are you feeling?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, you know, the difference from an hour ago and right now is that the wind has picked up in intensity. It's picked up little tiny pieces of sand. I feel like I'm getting sand blasted in the face. There are so many things threatening this area right now. Thank goodness the majority of the 6,000 residents that call Carolina Beach have evacuated. There are still a handful of people here, according to estimates, 600 people.

But they're going to have to ride the storm out. As you said, it's in for the long haul. This is a two-day event. We might not see these tropical storm force winds drop before Saturday afternoon. Hurricane force winds will likely last right through Friday afternoon within this area.

Think about the momentum that this storm has built in. We have seen it travel across the Atlantic Ocean, pushing up the Atlantic, and that means that storm surge here could be a threat as well going forward.

Nothing like New Bern has seen at the moment. Of course they've got difficulties with water coming -- fresh water coming from the heavy rainfall inland. But also the storm surge coinciding with high tide.

Flickering lights around me right now. We've seen lots of generators and fuses being blown in the distance. We're fortunate enough to still have electricity within this area. But we expect the conditions to get worse as the inner eyewall starts to move across our region and then hopefully we get a 15-minute break.

But, John, this is the problem here because a lot of times when the eyewall crosses a particular area, people come outside. They investigate. They go to see their property, is it OK? Well, that is the wrong thing to do because the winds will come back in the other direction just as fiercely as they were when they left you.

John, that's it from Carolina Beach. Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Derek Van Dam in Carolina Beach a few miles from where I am in Wilmington, North Carolina. We are now underneath the outer eyewall of this storm as Chad Myers told us what happened. That means the rain is just pour pouring down on us and the winds have picked up.

We are expecting winds of 90 to 95 miles an hour over the next few minutes here in Wilmington. We've got pictures coming in from all over the city right now. You can see, you can see the ferocity of this storm behind me. This is the northeast cape --