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CNN Sunday Morning

Barry Creeping up Towards Alabama

Aired August 05, 2001 - 09:05   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.
REA BLAKEY, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Barry, slowly making it's way toward the Florida Panhandle and throughout the Gulf area there preparations have been underway. Some people not really taking it seriously until now. However, now that we have a full blown potential for a hurricane, CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Daphne, Alabama with the latest.

You think people there, Ed, will take a little bit more caution at this point?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Probably. I think a lot of people went to sleep last night thinking that tropical storm Barry was just that, a tropical storm. And now things are starting to quickly change. We are on the shores of Mobile Bay, just across the water is downtown Mobile, Alabama, and as I said, people last night were thinking that this storm was going to just kind of dump a lot of water, and not, you know, winds that weren't too strong. But I think that has changed.

Actually, it's a very deceiving morning here. This is an absolutely spectacular Sunday morning. Bright blue skies, hardly any clouds, and as you can see, a couple of guys fishing there in Mobile Bay, and of course, word of this probably changing to a hurricane hasn't reached them.

Many people, we've heard, have been going to stores around here, just kind of getting prepared and picking up the necessities, batteries, flashlights and whatever they might need to get ready for this storm.

The emergency management office here in Mobile, Alabama kicked into operation at 7:00 this morning Central time and I just spoke with the director in the office and the Mobile National Weather Service office here in Mobile tells them that the storm will probably hit around Navarre Beach, which is just on the other side of Pensacola, which is about 30 minutes, 35 minutes, away from where we are standing.

So, they are happy to be on the what will probably be the western edge of the storm when it makes landfall and, of course, on the western edge, the storm tends to be a little less severe. So, the folks here in Alabama are happy to hear about that.

This is a part of the Gulf Coast that has been very experienced with hurricanes and tropical storms over the last couple of years. They've had to deal with this quite a bit and there's also a popular tourist industry along the Alabama Gulf Coast and from what we've heard so far there haven't been a lot of people packing up and heading out.

And as we mentioned, very deceiving, a beautiful morning here, but you also might want to remember that tropical storm Allison, which hit the Houston area the strongest, was also very deceiving. That storm caused $4.3 billion worth of damage, and that storm kind of crept up on the city and it stayed around for ten days. So, you can see that although these storms might not be packing very severe winds, the amount of rain that it can dump on an area can be very devastating as well.

I'm Ed Lavandera in Daphne, Alabama. Back to you.

BLAKEY: Thanks, Ed.

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