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CNN Sunday Morning
South Florida Braces for Hurricane Wilma
Aired October 23, 2005 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what's happening right now in the news. Hurricane Wilma remains a Category 2 storm at this hour, but it is expected to strengthen as it nears the Florida coast.
Hurricane warnings span from just south of Tampa Bay on the West coast, down to the Florida Keys. And on the east coast, the warnings span from the Keys northward to Titusville and the space coast.
South Florida is bracing for Hurricane Wilma. Those residents not yet evacuated are securing homes and buildings preceding the storm's arrival. Parts of Southwest Florida, where Wilma is forecasted for landfall, are under mandatory evacuation orders. These areas have already seen heavy rains.
In Nigeria now, a passenger jet lost on radar shortly after take- off has been found crashed roughly about four hours outside of Lagos, where the plane took off. 117 people, including some high level Nigerian officials, were thought to be on the Bellview Airlines flight 210. Now there is word now that we're receiving that some people indeed did survive this crash. We're going to have a live report from Nigeria this half hour.
Well, good morning from the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING, October 23rd. Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Tony Harris. We're watching Wilma.
NGUYEN: That's right yet again.
HARRIS: 7:00 a.m. here in the East, 6:00 a.m. in Cancun. Thank you very much for being with us this morning.
Hurricane Wilma is heading toward Florida now after pounding Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula for two straight days. At least two deaths have been blamed on the storm in Mexico. The storm blew off roofs and flooded streets, trees, uprooted and cars tossed like toys.
In the resort city of Cancun, more than 35,000 people, mostly tourists, were holed up at hotels and shelters. Winds damaged one shelter, forcing a second evacuation of hundreds of people. Communications are spotty across the region, making it difficult to know the full extent of the damage.
Hurricane Wilma is starting to move away from the Yucatan Peninsula. CNN's Susan Candiotti has been weathering the storm in Cancun.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hurricane Wilma may have been downgraded from a Category 4 to a strong Category 2 storm, however, its powerful effects are still being felt. You might be able to make out the waves over my shoulder. They are still pummeling the white sandy beaches of Cancun.
(voice-over): And by daylight, you can finally get a look at some of the damage from this storm that has been going on for two days.
The hotels have been damaged. So have many of the businesses. Wind and rain taking - having a bad effect on both of those buildings, as well as the hotels. The roofs being peeled off many of these structures, rain getting inside.
As you try to make your way to downtown Cancun, which is about a half hour away, this is where many of the tourists, about 20,000 of them, have taken up shelter in both schools, as well as hotels.
There's no official word on how they are doing, although we understand they're doing fairly well with provision. There might not be power there, however, it's been impossible to get there from where we are to check on their condition.
(on camera): We did talk to one of the people who works at one of the buildings here, a shopping center that suffered a lot of damage. And he promises that people here will (INAUDIBLE). There is hope, they said, that Cancun will return in the not too distant future.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Cancun, Mexico.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Severe weather expert Chad Myers is with us now.
NGUYEN: We have Chad this morning, yes.
HARRIS: You know what? I'm trying to sneak a peek behind you there, Chad, just to figure out where that baby is right now. Is it on the move finally?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is. It's on the move, on up toward the northeast four, maybe five miles per hour. The storm spinning around now at 100 miles per hour. So we're right up in that Category 1, 2 range. And still now getting into some warmer water. And it still could increase.
We're going to talk to Ed Rappaport out at the Hurricane Center to see if he thinks it's actually going to get to that Category 3. That was the forecast last night. I don't see it on the forecast this morning. So we'll have to ask him whether we just missed between data points, or is it really not going to strengthen that much. And look at this. You see this back out here. That is Alpha, Tropical Storm Alpha out there. Not to worry about it. It's going to - actually going to get picked up by all of this and all of the big upper level troughiness (ph) that's going to come right through here, grab this, drag it up over Florida.
Here's what it really looks like now on radar. There's Cancun. And they're still getting rain. And they're still getting winds that are probably 60 or 70 miles per hour offshore.
But this is what I'm worried about, a ragged inner eye. And we'll have to see whether this is just debris from an old eye that's going to actually reintensify. Or is this just going to fall apart and then the outer eye be the main eye wall. And then it will shrink down and get a little bit stronger.
It'll make two completely different storms, depending on what that little inner eye wall circulation decides to do.
Remember, we had a very tight eye wall when this storm was a Category 4, and at one point, a Category 5. Well, south of Cozumel and Cancun, if we get a tighter eye again as the storm moves very close to Florida for tomorrow morning, it looks like landfall.
Here's 2:00 a.m. Monday morning or late, late, late tonight. There it is, 100 miles per hour. But look, by 2:00 tomorrow afternoon, it's already in the Atlantic. And my concern is that everybody's focused over here in Florida. Naples and Fort Myers. And you should be. But you should also be focused on the next landfall, so to speak, or city fall if you will. A lot of farming communities right through here in Florida. Lake Okeechobee. And there is a hurricane warning for Lake Okeechobee, too.
But there is a hurricane warning all the way up and down the east coast, as the storm slams into the backside, almost the wrong way for where you'd expect a hurricane to come from. Everybody's got storm shutters along the Atlantic. Very few people have them on the other side of their homes. And you could have winds there to 100 miles per hour from the West.
Back to you guys.
NGUYEN: That's a really good point there, Chad. Yes, we definitely want to be watching that. Thank you. We'll be checking again.
HARRIS: Thanks, Chad.
NGUYEN: Well, Wilma's slow progress has given Floridians extra time to prepare, but some residents are treating Wilma's potential landfall with complacency.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve checks on the mood in Naples, Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAY LAZO, RESIDENT: Make sure that you're tied the best I can. I'm a sailor, I know how to do it.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ray Lazo is tying down or strapping up everything around his house, from plant pots, to barbecues, to furniture, to air conditioners. After all this effort, he is more than ready for Wilma to get here.
LAZO: I need Wilma to come and visit me now. I'll be mad if he doesn't.
MESERVE: Oblivious to all the preparations for her arrival, Wilma is taking her own, sweet time. Her uncertain course has even made evacuation decisions difficult.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can go to north Florida and it may come right at you. So - or you could go south and it may come there. So we don't know where to go.
MESERVE: With all the delay, some Florida residents have decided Wilma just isn't worth worrying about. Some intend to go right along with their business and fun, despite warnings to clear out of her way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Forget boarding up. I'm not even - I don't even have boards on my windows yet. It's just another storm.
MESERVE: This nonchalant attitude is being chocked up to what some are calling hurricane fatigue.
DON HUNTER, SHERIFF, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA: I think they're apathy does set in. A sense of security comes back to the people. And it's very difficult to stimulate them the next time or even for this particular event.
MESERVE: For Emergency Managers like FEMA's acting director it is a big worry.
DAVID PAULSON, FEMA ACTING DIRECTOR: Please don't get complacent. This can be still a very dangerous storm. Please make sure you evacuate as soon as the local emergency manager tells you to do so.
MESERVE: Wilma will be the seventh hurricane to hit Florida in the last 14 months. The long wait for Wilma near the end of a very long hurricane season is tough, even for the professionals.
MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: No matter how we feel, we have to face reality that we have a strong hurricane headed towards Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula. So we're going to have to go through the drill one more time here.
MESERVE: The long wait for Wilma does have an upside. Because there was no mad dash for supplies, some of the pitfalls like empty gas pumps, crowded evacuation routes, and understocked shelves have been avoided.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Naples, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: What is going on there?
NGUYEN: Yes. Well, here's what's going on.
HARRIS: OK.
NGUYEN: Tropical storm force winds from Hurricane Wilma could hit the Florida Keys before sunset. And despite that threat, as you saw there, Tony...
HARRIS: Yes.
NGUYEN: ...party hardy Key West locals are thumbing their noses at the storm and mandatory evacuation orders. Look at that with the little outfits on. Oh, was that a man or a woman?
While police looked the other way, we should say, a Duvall Street pub crawl turned into an impromptu parade of drag queens, pirates, dressed up dogs and other revelers. Shall we say, yes.
Wilma is now a Category 2, as you heard earlier. But the National Hurricane Center predicts it will gain strength over the water, as it heads toward South Florida.
Well, Hurricane Wilma shattered windows and ripped roofs off Mexican resort hotels. We will find out how much storm damage the Hyatt Hotel sustained in Cancun. That's about 25 minutes from now. Are you still laughing?
HARRIS: Yes. Sorry, sorry, got to move on. We are less than an hour away from the latest official advisory on Wilma. That comes in at the top of the hour.
But let's check in right now with Ed Rappaport at the National Hurricane Center with the very latest. And our severe weather expert, Chad Myers, is going to join us as well.
Ed, good to talk to you this morning. Talk to us about Wilma. What did it do overnight?
ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Wilma made the long awaited turn to the northeast overnight and is beginning to accelerate. It came off the coast, the Yucatan Peninsula, and now is heading towards the northeast at maybe three to five miles per hour.
But it's going to accelerate during the day today and be on the coast, the southwest coast of Florida, it looks like, by about this time tomorrow.
NGUYEN: OK. Chad had a couple of really good questions. I love it when you two smart folks get together and talk about this. Chad, go ahead.
MYERS: Hey, Tony and Ed. I was wondering, Ed, last night, at the 11:00 advisory, there was a data point in there with 100 knot wind, which means it would be back up to a major hurricane again, up to Category 3. I don't see that 100 knot wind on any of the data points now. Obviously, they're separated by 12 hours. Are you not thinking it's going to regain Cat 3 status? Or did we just miss it in between one of those 12 hour cycles?
RAPPAPORT: It'll be close. And it may be because it's between the 12 hour cycles. There are several factors, of course, influencing the future intensity, some which would keep it down. Unfortunately, there are others that would bring up the winds. It's over the warm water. We're starting to see the inner eye wall reforming.
And the acceleration's going to have a major impact on this storm because it means the right side of the storm will be, you know, it's usually stronger than the left side, it'll be much more strong to the left side than normally this time.
And so, we're forecasting Category 2, perhaps Category 3. And we always tell people to prepare for one category higher than what we're forecasting.
So regardless, people should be preparing for a Category 3 at this time.
MYERS: I'm seeing that little target behind you, a little small circle just north of the Yucatan. And you can see it better on my radar here. That appears to be an inner eye wall redeveloping. Do you think this is just debris? Or do you think, of the old eye wall, or do you think that that's actually going to be the dangerous inner eye wall, that actually is going to redevelop?
RAPPAPORT: I think both are correct. It's probably the remnant of the old eye wall. And it may well develop further. The central pressure is low enough to actually support a Category 3 hurricane now. But the circulation became so disrupted over land, and of course the winds came way down.
So we're concerned with that low pressure and these other factors that there will be some further intensification. And we should say that even if that doesn't happen with this hurricane, this is going to be a much more significant event widespread for southwest Florida, even than Charley was.
Charley was very focused, very intense. Even if we don't get that inner eye wall to reform, we're going to have a large storm surge over an extended area. Eight to 13 feet of storm surge. That's double what occurred in Charley. Even if that inner eye wall does not reform.
MYERS: OK, I'm also concerned about the East Coast cities, all the way from Titusville southward, because they're going to get the backside of the storm. Winds in a direction they don't expect.
RAPPAPORT: That's right. As the center comes across the coast tomorrow, probably by daybreak tomorrow, it'll be exiting very rapidly on the other side. And as it goes across the land area during the morning hours, we're going to have strong south and southwest winds to the south of the center. So it'll be Category 2 to maybe Category 3 winds coming across the land from the southwest, first hitting the southwest coast and then moving across the peninsula.
HARRIS: That's great. Chad, thank you. That's great stuff.
Ed, good to see you. I think your back in another hour, maybe two hours from now. 9:40.
RAPPAPORT: Very good.
HARRIS: OK, Ed, thank you. See, that's the beauty of it. You just...
NGUYEN: That's the kind of discussion you want.
HARRIS: You tee them up. They know this stuff...
NGUYEN: Oh, yes.
HARRIS: And just...
NGUYEN: No doubt.
HARRIS: Let me get out of the way. Still ahead, when African- Americans and whites attack each other, it's a hate crime. But police hold off on this label when other races are involved in brutal crimes. Why is that? CNN investigates later this hour.
NGUYEN: Also, tragedy strikes twice in one country now as residents are in mourning. We have a report from Nigeria. That's next on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Here's a quick look at our top stories right now. Hurricane Wilma is inching away from the Yucatan Peninsula after pummeling Mexico's resort area. Wilma is downgraded to a Category 2 storm with sustained winds at 100 miles an hour. It's expected to pick up speed again over open water as it heads towards south Florida.
A Nigerian jetliner with 117 people aboard crashed shortly after take-off from Lagos. Search teams have located the wreckage about 120 miles north of the airport. Officials think at least 50 passengers did survive.
A U.S. Army mobile field hospital arrived today in Pakistan. The 44 bed MASH unit will be transported to the Kashmir region, which is the hardest hit area by the earthquake two weeks ago.
And we are about 45 minutes from the next Hurricane Wilma advisory. At the bottom of the hour, CNN's severe weather expert Chad Myers is going to join us with an update.
HARRIS: In Nigeria, they're hoping to find survivors in a commercial plane crash, a plane that was lost on radar only three minutes after take-off yesterday from Lagos. Search teams located the wreckage hours later about 120 miles north of Lagos.
CNN's Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bellview Airline officials have confirmed to CNN that there were a total of 111 passengers and 6 crew members aboard the ill fated flight number 210 that left Lagos late Saturday on its way to Abuja. Three minutes into take-off, the pilot radioed in a distress call. After that, the aircraft disappeared from the radar.
Well, all kinds of reports all morning Sunday about where the plane was, whether it had dipped into the Atlantic or crash landed on firm ground.
Officials here confirm that the plane had indeed crashed about four hours drive outside of Lagos in the countryside. Officials also tell CNN that there are search and rescue helicopters on their way towards military and private. They're hoping that there will be some survivors from the ill fated flight. Officials here also tell CNN that rescue missions are on the way all day Sunday, both military and private helicopters going to the crash scene to see if they could find any survivors.
In the meantime, worried and distressed passengers blocked the local airport here in Lagos, trying to find any information on family members. It's going to take a while before we know what happened to Bellview flight 210. Officials here are hoping that they could have those answers sooner rather than later.
Jeff Koinange, CNN, Lagos.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And also sadly, we have to pass along this news. Stella Obasanjo, wife of Nigeria's president, died Sunday in hospital in Spain officials tell us. Obasanjo had traveled to Spain to undergo surgery and died from complications resulting from that surgery.
NGUYEN: Well, back here at home, Florida is preparing for Wilma's arrival. That is tomorrow. Next on CNN SUNDAY MORNING, we will talk to a man responsible for the safety of hundreds of people in Florida and in Cancun.
HARRIS: Plus, six Hispanics brutally killed in the middle of the night. Why is law enforcement not calling this a hate crime? CNN investigates next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: In the past three months, there have been nearly 20 home invasion robberies in south Georgia. All of the victims are Hispanic immigrants. Last month, six of those immigrants were robbed and brutally killed in Tifton, Georgia. Investigative reporter Drew Griffin says Georgia authorities are not yet calling the attacks hate crimes possibly because the people under arrest are not usual hate crime suspects.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They came in the middle of the night to this mostly Hispanic trailer park in Tifton, Georgia. And they were armed, carrying baseball bats, a gun, a hammer, and rage.
Efrain Navarro was inside a trailer when the killers arrived.
It was 1:00 in the morning when he heard the first scream, he says. It came from just outside his bedroom. It was his friend Palino. "Then they came to our room. I was standing behind the door. They left me alone," he says, "because Armando turned on the light."
In the room they shared, Armando became the single target. He was killed with one blow. Shaking behind that door, Efrain Navarro didn't know he had just escaped one of the most violent nights this south Georgia community had ever endured.
VERNON KEENAN, GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Brutality that was displayed in this case was some of the worst that we've seen in history of the GBI.
GRIFFIN: Six victims in one night in one terrifying string of attacks at three separate trailer parks. One victim shot, the other five beaten to death with a baseball hat and a hammer.
And police believe on the same night, some of the same suspects shot and beat another man in another mostly Hispanic trailer park, while also sodomizing his wife.
Every victim was an immigrant Mexican worker. Every suspect under arrest is black.
The state of Georgia has no hate crimes statute. And every single law enforcement authority refuses to say this had anything to do with hate.
KEENAN: They are easy targets because they do not speak English. They're undocumented workers. They keep cash on their persons in their homes. And they are reluctant to report crimes to law enforcement.
GRIFFIN: There have been a growing number of attacks by blacks on rural immigrant Hispanics in south Georgia. The question is why? There's little competition for jobs. Unemployment here is lower than in the rest of the state, but the new Hispanic arrivals are seen as outsiders who don't speak the language. And according to locals, are not integrated.
SHIRLEY STRAWTER, PASTOR AND PHYS. ED TEACHER: It's a lack of communication or finding time to get together, to sit at the table and to bring up some issues and talk about some things that we can do to bridge the gap because there is a gap. GRIFFIN: Father Alphonso Gutierrez has been working in Tifton for the past three years. He has seen the gap and the violence it is creating.
ALPHONSO GUTIERREZ, REV., OUR DIVINE SAVIOR CHURCH (through translator): (INAUDIBLE) Hispanic family was one that had been attacked by a couple of African Americans. They had a gun and they held it to the three-year old son's head and said, "Give us your money or your son dies."
I don't want to think it's about racism. I don't want to think about it.
GRIFFIN: Few people want to think race is behind these attacks. And that, the newspaper reporter Pilar Verdes, is a dangerous mistake.
PILAR VERDES, SR. REPORTER, MUNDO HISPANICO: Because the authorities are not viewed as somebody who has empathy for their plight. I think that's extremely dangerous.
GRIFFIN: To Verdes, there can be no other conclusion than hate is behind the attacks in south Georgia. The only reason she says this is not a hate crime is because the suspects are black.
VERDES: If this were like mainstream Anglos, I'm thinking it would be like more covered. Don't you think?
GRIFFIN: At the southern poverty law center in Montgomery, Alabama, Mark Potok keeps track of hate crimes and hate groups across the country. He admits black on brown crimes may be getting little public attention.
MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: I think there has been a reluctance on the part of many people to talk about black on white or black on Hispanic hate crime. I think that is true.
You know, that's not the story that we typically see in the newspaper. In fact, of 28 articles in 15 publications, mentioning the arrests in the south Georgia murders, only The Atlanta Journal Constitution identified the suspects as being black. All of the rest, including "TIME" magazine, "USA Today" and "The New York Times" failed to include the suspect's race while all identified the victims as Hispanic.
Mark Potok says the news media and the authorities are ignoring the obvious. And that will make a solution harder to find.
POTOK: If you look the truth square in the face, it allows you to deal with it. And I just think it's a terrible mistake to pretend that these things are not happening.
GRIFFIN: In Tifton, Georgia, authorities say they are continuing to investigate, but so far see no hate motive in this heinous crime.
Efrain Navarro says he is scared because he says I'm sure those guys had friends. He survived that awful attack in the middle of the night, but wonders now who will be next?
Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And we'll have another investigative unit spotlight for you next Sunday morning.
NGUYEN: Well, Vietnam attempts to forge toward the future by phasing out a popular symbol of the past. Just ahead, I'll tell you why some people want these rolling reminders to come to a permanent stop.
But first, finding shelter in the midst of a storm. How did the hotels prepare for dangerous weather? We'll find out when CNN SUNDAY MORNING continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Look at these live pictures out of Miami. Well you can see in the first one that the palm tree was blowing in the wind. The winds are kind of picking up in the area. Hurricane Wilma is a strong category two storm, its outer bands already dumping rain on Florida. We want to welcome you back. We'll be talking a lot today about Wilma. I'm Betty Nguyen.
HARRIS: I'm Tony Harris. Can we see that picture again? Folks are heeding the advice, right? They're boarding up. They're getting out. All right. More on Wilma in just a couple of minutes. Let's get some other headlines now in the news.
Anxious relatives in Lagos, Nigeria await word about last night's plane crash. A Nigerian jet liner with 117 people aboard crashed shortly after take off from Lagos. There are reports of survivors. The pilot issued a distress call about three minutes into the flight. Search teams have located the wreckage about 120 miles north of Lagos.
In Iraq, a car bomb explosion next to a Baghdad movie theater killed three people today, including two Iraqi police officers. Also five U.S. soldiers were wounded today in three separate roadside bomb attacks in central Baghdad.
Nearly two weeks now after south Asia's deadly earthquake. The casualty numbers are still rising in Pakistan. Pakistan's prime minister now says 53,000 people are dead and another 75,000 were injured in that country alone. Authorities fear the death toll could go even higher. Winter is setting in and there are shortages of medicine, blankets and temporary housing for survivors.
NGUYEN: All right. The big question this morning is where is hurricane Wilma and how soon is this storm going to make it to Florida?
HARRIS: Severe weather expert Chad Myers watching all the models...
NGUYEN: As always.
HARRIS: Has the answers for us.
NGUYEN: He has every single answer, so go Chad.
MYERS: Aren't we happy that it's not Waldo? Where's Waldo?
HARRIS: Where's Waldo. Right!
NGUYEN: At least see where it is.
MYERS: Here's Wilma now coming off the Cancun coast. Finally here the Yucatan Peninsula, the storm has now ejected itself into some very warm water. If you remember, three days ago when this was a category five, it was in this area here. This is the same water that's up here. There's a current that kind of takes that water right up through the Yucatan channel, gets it into the Gulf of Mexico, spins it around and then takes it on up toward the northeast with the Gulf stream current, you've heard about that, I'm sure, if you ever have gone skiing or anything, water surfing, anything out there in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida you know how warm the water is.
It's the same thing in the Pacific. There is a completely different current out there. That's a cold one. Here is the storm now coming off the coast, coming off at least giving Yucatan, the people in Cancun a break. They can finally really go outside now and take a look around at 2:00 a.m. on Monday. That's what, 20 hours, maybe a little less than 19 hours from now. The storm is still offshore, but already being felt here and I'll tell you what, before sunrise it, is going to go downhill significantly all the way from Sarasota right on down into the Florida keys. And notice how close this is to Key West by 2:00 in the morning and by 2:00 in the afternoon it's actually gone. It's completely over Florida so this is a quick moving storm from this point to this point is only 12 hours.
Right now it's 100 miles per hour, a category two storm and it is still moving obviously off toward the north in the northeast and eventually coming right over very close to Florida here, maybe toward Naples and Sarasota and then making a backside maybe cat two hurricane from Jupiter inlet down southward and that's why there's a hurricane warning on the east coast of Florida as well.
Take you on a little tour of the weather office and we'll go over here, yes, really that map isn't really behind me. That's magic of television but this monitor here, we call this our plasma screen. I want you to get into here very, very tight. You can see the eye now of the storm, the eye very well-defined. In fact it never really lost the eye, even though it was over land for so long, a very large eye here. We were just talking with Ed Rappaport. What we're worried about is the developing inner eye wall there. The reason why this was a category five in the first place a couple of days ago, three days ago is because it had a very tight eye wall and the winds there were 175. Now we don't expect that type of re-intensification, but certainly with that warm water that we have all the way through here, all the way up to Florida, it's going to re-intensify some.
NGUYEN: And you just blew the cover off of our smoke and mirrors about the weather wall, didn't you?
HARRIS: On the CNN tour there.
NGUYEN: Technology at its finest, thank you, Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
NGUYEN: Hurricane Wilma is not expected to make a direct hit on Cuba, but the storm's outer bands have already brought heavy rain and spawned a tornado. CNN's Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman checked out the damage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Residents of Cuba's most westerly province had been warned the atmospheric conditions caused by hurricane Wilma could cause havoc on their side of the Yucatan strait. Roberto Fahalo (ph) was watching his favorite soap opera when it happened. It looked like a red ball of air and sounded like a train coming right at us, he says, describing a freakishly fierce tropical tornado provoked by the hurricane conditions. The three of us just managed to reach the bathroom when the tornado crushed the rest of the house he says, showing us where the walls once were.
Dozens of other homes in this part of Pinar del Rio Province suffered the same fate. Three people were injured. Tobacco farmer Jose Manuel Cruz says in his 66 years, he's seen nothing like it. And look at this, another tobacco house completely destroyed and over there, to the left is the San Juan River, which is now completely overflowing and all this, while hurricane Wilma was still hovering over Cancun.
The hurricane's outer bands have already drenched this part of Cuba, overflowing rivers, cutting off at least one access road in this area. As you can see the soil here is absolutely saturated from days and days of rain and that's what has everybody really worried here. Once the really strong rain begins, it will have nowhere to go and it's going to cause flooding. But the long wait for Wilma to start moving this way has given Cuba time, time to evacuate more than half a million people from vulnerable areas, time for farmers like Carlos Navallo (ph) to put sacks of wet sand on his roof to help keep it from being blown away, time for the second world war amphibious vessel to be placed strategically to come to people's rescue if need by. Now, say the locals, there's nothing left to do but wait, trying to pass the time with their favorite past time.
Lucia Newman, CNN, Pinar del Rio Cuba.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And no doubt by now you've seen pictures of people in Florida boarding up their homes in preparation for hurricane Wilma. Many will seek shelter in hotels but how do these hotels themselves prepare for a hurricane? Well, here to talk about that from Miami is Victor Lopez. He is a senior vice president in charge of field operations for Hyatt Hotels. Victor, good morning to you.
VICTOR LOPEZ, HYATT HOTELS: Good morning.
NGUYEN: First thing I want to ask you, let's start with the damage that's already been done in Cancun. How many hotels do you have there and what kind of damage was caused by Wilma?
LOPEZ: We have two properties in Cancun, both on the beach and while it's a little too early to assess all of the damages, so far we know that windows have been blown out, some of the outdoor little beach huts and what have you are gone, but we'll be able to get a better handle today, now that the people are able to go out safely and assess the damage of the storm.
NGUYEN: We learned yesterday from the governor of Quintanoru (ph) that two people died in that storm but those were locals so I'm taking it that no guests were killed or injured by this storm, which leads to my next question. You guys have a pretty good evacuation plan. How far in advance do you get people into shelters? Give us a little idea of what you went through.
LOPEZ: We have real detailed emergency plans in all of our properties in Florida and the Caribbean, in Mexico and typically at the beginning of the season, general manager would get the emergency plan out. There's lots of meetings with all of the employees. Everybody has a defined job from evacuating the property, if need be, to making sure that we contact guests, family at home, if we're keeping people in the hotels, as would be the case here in Coral Gables, Florida, as an example, and we decide that they need to come down to the ballroom or the back hallways of the hotel that are deemed to be very, very safe. Everybody is assigned floors where they go up and knock on doors and get people down. So it's a pretty extensive plan that we have, that we've prepared and practiced, because the safety of our guests and our employees is number one.
NGUYEN: Right and we learned yesterday from a preparedness expert that that is the best way to make sure you stay safe is to indeed have a plan. So you mentioned Florida and of course we're watching Wilma as it gets closer and closer to Florida. What's being done for all the hotels in that area and the guests there, as well as those who will be venturing off into other areas out of the storm's path and looking for hotels, too?
LOPEZ: We have hotels in south Florida that are fairly empty right now. Either people did not arrive or they canceled or in the case of one of our hotels in downtown Miami, where we have asked people to depart. We have other hotels like on the west coast of Florida, just between Naples and Florida, that while we don't have regular hotel guests there, they all either didn't come or checked out early, we are going to be full with Florida power and light people. We have several TV crews from some of the networks and the weather channel and so on that are there. We'll have some FEMA rooms there in preparation for assisting guests and so on.
NGUYEN: So you're staying in operation and quickly, let me ask you this. For those who will need to seek shelter in other places, are you offering any kind of discount, is Hyatt offering any discount to evacuees?
NGUYEN: We try our best to try to get people to other properties. Many people from south Florida are already on their way to some of our hotels in northern Florida, our Jacksonville property, as an example will fill up primarily from people that we are moving from down here. If people in the Miami area, as an example, local residents and so on need a place to stay, we have a hurricane rate at our hotel in Coral Gables where we put people up.
NGUYEN: People may be taking advantage of that. Victor Lopez, senior vice president of field operations for Hyatt Hotels, thanks for your time today.
LOPEZ: Thank you.
NGUYEN: In our 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour, we will be checking back with the National Hurricane Center in Miami for the latest on Wilma. We're also standing by for the next hurricane advisory. It's due at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time, about 17 minutes from now. CNN, of course is your hurricane head quarters.
Well, they are a symbol of the past, Tony.
HARRIS: I can't wait to see this.
NGUYEN: The symbol of the past in a country that is trying to make its way into the future. The (INAUDIBLE) that's what they're called and their drivers are facing some major road blocks. I'll tell you the story a little bit later this hour in another look at my journey back home to Vietnam.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: A quick look now at some of our top stories. Hurricane Wilma is just crawling away from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula after pummeling the resort area two straight days. Wilma is now a category two storm with top sustained winds at 100 miles an hour and in just a couple of minutes Betty, 13 minutes or so from now, we're expecting another advisory from the National Hurricane Center. When we get that in we'll talk to Chad, who will take care of all of that information.
We want to remind you, it is expected Wilma is to pick up speed again over the open water as it turns and heads towards south Florida. A hurricane warning is posted for south Florida from Tampa Bay to Key West.
At least some survivors are reported from last night's Nigerian plane crash. The jetliner with 117 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Lagos. This morning search teams have located the wreckage, about 120 miles north of Lagos.
And once again, we are standing by for the next hurricane advisory. It is due to come at the top of the hour and we'll bring that you that update, the latest on Wilma. CNN is your hurricane headquarters.
NGUYEN: While we wait for that hurricane update, Chad Myers has a lot of information as well.
HARRIS: Good time.
NGUYEN: Well, time to tune into him and see what he knows about Wilma. Good morning Chad.
MYERS: Good morning. What we're really waiting for is the speed, not the wind speed. We think it will probably still be 100 miles per hour, but the forward speed because they do that on their computers. They can kind of extrapolate and interpolate where the storm has been, how far it has moved in the past six or 12 or three hours. The storm getting into some very warm water now, forecast to be a category two, potential for a three not out of the area there because the water is so warm. It's the same warm water that in fact made it a category five down in the Caribbean a little bit ago. Probably three or four days ago, it was just a tropical storm, if you remember and in 24 hours, it became a 175 mile per hour monster.
Here is the warm water, there is the Yucatan, there's Cuba. There's the warm water it went over and intensified so quickly. Now it's on up here. Basically I have it parked just to the north of the Yucatan, north of Cancun. And look at this warm water that it's about to go over again and then move into Florida, so it could still re- intensify. We won't know that until the 11:00 advisory when they put out the full but the 8:00 a.m. is going to be the update on the current wind speed because there was a hurricane hunter airplane in it and also the forward speed, we'll see if those two things change.
HARRIS: We haven't even talked about Alpha have we?
MYERS: No.
HARRIS: Not at all. Well I guess we need to focus on it. Very good. All right, Chad.
MYERS: We will.
HARRIS: And next on CNN SUNDAY MORNING, who says you can't go home again? Betty did and you brought back some incredible stories.
NGUYEN: Really interesting stories. We're going to take a look back, a little slice of life with the cyclo that you see here, those cyclo drivers and they're being phased out and we're going to tell you why and what's that doing to the local market there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Well, like many small countries, Vietnam is doing what it can to catch up with the modern world and it's made a lot of progress, but for some people that means phasing out a beloved symbol of the past. I journeyed to Ho Chi Minh City to find out more about the future of the cyclo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN (voice-over): They've become a symbol of the past in a country clearly set on catching up with the rest of the world. Among the high-rise buildings and rows of high dollar retail shops are reminders of Vietnam's rich culture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like cyclo very much. I like it (INAUDIBLE) very much. (INAUDIBLE)
NGUYEN: Yung (ph) he has been pedaling for money for the past 17 years but now his cyclo as they call it here, is being raise phased out in favor of more modern forms of transportation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes I worry about policeman.
NGUYEN: That's because cyclos are already banned in many tourist areas. For the government it's an image thing, sending Yung and those like him on the road to history.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For one day I make about $25 for one day, for eight hours to work.
NGUYEN: But those big paydays by Vietnamese standards don't come often. He hasn't had a single customer in three days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, very worried.
NGUYEN: He still has to pay $1 a day just to rent his cyclo, business or no business. Another part of the problem is negotiating a fee. Once you agree on a price, it can increase by the time you get to your destination, especially for tourists, which might add to why they're kept off the main streets where tourists roam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The amounts of money involved are so pitifully small, that really it doesn't matter and tourists sometimes tipping and being overcharged is a constant theme among tourists. We're talking about $1 and $2 here and these guys have very little money.
NGUYEN: And with every taxi that takes their business, the bills continue to pile up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, for lunch, for family, for school, for rent house, everything we rent. We have no buy.
NGUYEN: What he'd really like to buy is a little time, so he can earn a decent living, feed his family, and keep this piece of the past alive a little while longer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: (INAUDIBLE) a struggle there will. And a lot of people Tony, equate it to the horse and buggy being phased out with modern transportation. It's part of the pains of progress I guess, but for a lot of people it means a lot to hold onto that tradition.
HARRIS: Great stuff, great pictures.
NGUYEN: It was neat going around the city with a DV camera. It was really neat. HARRIS: Did you a lot of the shooting of that?
NGUYEN: I did. I did. Don't ask me to hold one of the big ones. I can't do that, a small one I'm OK, I'm in business.
HARRIS: Great trip.
NGUYEN: It was a neat trip.
HARRIS: All right, we're going to get an update now. I believe the latest advisory is in. We were looking for it just about this time. Let's about to Chad Myers now. Hi Chad.
MYERS: Hello Tony and hello Betty, 100 miles per hour, that's the latest. That did not change, did not expect it to change. But what my thought was is that the biggest deal here is going to be, did this thing increase in forward speed because that was the intention of the hurricane center's forecast rapidly moving it to Florida and yes, from the 5:00 advisory, when it was moving at three to four miles per hour, this advisory it is now moving to the northeast at eight miles per hour.
That is a significant increase in forward speed. That also could mean that the storm arrives a little earlier than planned, because the forecast speed eventually by the time it hits Florida could be up to 25 or 30 miles per hour and that actually you have to add some of that forward speed into the wind speed as it goes around. It's not a complete plus, plus, plus, A plus B equals C but that forward speed is going to make a big difference in storm surge in Florida Bay, possibly as far north as Naples. Also the Florida speed - the forward speed does not allow it to lose a lot of momentum before the other side hits anywhere from Palm Bay southward down to Ft. Lauderdale. So we're going to keep you up-to-date as that goes on.
HARRIS: OK, Chad, thank you.
NGUYEN: There's more to come right now.
HARRIS: Just heard, hurricane Wilma now has Florida in its sights, after pounding the Yucatan Peninsula for two days. The storm has moved north into the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters say Wilma, now a category two storm, could intensify today. A hurricane warning has been issued for a big chunk of south Florida. Chad Myers back in just a couple of minutes with the latest information.
A double tragedy for Nigeria, first a plane crash. A passenger jet carrying 117 people went down shortly after takeoff from Lagos. Wreckage was found after daylight and there are reports of survivors. The privately-owned plane was carrying a number of senior government officials. In a separate development, Nigerian first lady Stella Obasanjo has died after undergoing surgery in Spain. We'll have a live report in just a couple of minutes.
Tons of boulders and crushed rocks make up the new Whittenton (ph) pond dam. It's up and running in Taunton, Massachusetts. The old dam was taken down yesterday after it buckled earlier this week. The new dam gets an early test with more rain expected today.
Chalk one up for the White Sox. They've taken the World Series opener 5-3 over the Houston Astros. Chicago used power, great pitching and a great bull pen effort to win. Game two is tonight also, the south side of the windy city.
From the CNN center in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING, October 23rd, 8:00 a.m. along Florida's western coast which is bracing for hurricane Wilma, 7:00 a.m. in Cancun where the cleanup is just beginning. Good morning everyone. I'm Tony Harris.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. We want to thank you for being with us today. There is a lot of destruction and that's what a top Mexican official said as Wilma heads slowly away from the Yucatan Peninsula. Two deaths in Mexico are blamed on the category two hurricane which is now slowly lumbering toward Florida. The southern half of the state is under a hurricane warning. Wilma's outer bands are already slapping the Florida coast where the storm is expected to make landfall Monday morning. And our CNN correspondents are fanned out all across the Gulf, our hurricane team coverage. You see them there, Susan Candiotti is in Cancun, Kareen Wynter is in Key West and Allan Chernoff is in Sanibel Island. And just ahead, along with some great pictures, we will be talking to them. But firs though, we want to begin in the weather center with Chad Myers. He's got the latest on the severe weather out there.
HARRIS: Good morning, Chad.
MYERS: Good morning, guys. Just do the little bit obviously there on Wilma. And Tony, you asked me the question earlier, what about Alpha? There is Alpha right there. It's going to make some flooding for the Dominican Republic and also for Haiti. Some heavy rain showers, even fro the western side of Puerto Rico, but it is forecast to travel north into the Bahamas, and then actually be pushed away as the two storms can't come together, but they are going to get sucked together up by a big cold front to the north, and this storm actually will prohibit anything from Alpha doing. There will be no way Alpha actually makes a lefthand turn and goes back up into the United States. It's actually going to get pushed out into the Atlantic Ocean.
There is Wilma, though. Watching the new hurricane hunter observations, saying that what we were looking at was this inner eyewall, now only 25 percent of it left. What does that mean? Well, if it was 100, or let's it was 75 and it was getting bigger, then we would know that this inner eyewall was actually really developing, and that's where the biggest winds could be, and that's where a Category 3 or even 4 storm winds could be.
If this dies off, and that's what it looks like it's doing, the hurricane is going to have to reintensify from the outside in. So it's going to have to use this large eyewall to redevelop itself. This inner eyewall still could come back, but it just doesn't look that good right now. Getting torn up maybe a little bit. And we're also seeing this become maybe the major eyewall. How does that all matter and how does that all fit in? Think about an ice skater, if he or she has one foot on the ground and arms out, the arms make you go very slowly, because there's a lot of momentum on the outside. But as soon as you bring those arms in, that skater spins very quickly. That inner eyewall can spin much more quickly than the outer eyewall can.
Hurricane warnings now all the way from Long Boat Key right on back through the Keys and up to Titusville, because we are expecting hurricane conditions in this area as the storm moves right across. There will even be hurricane conditions along the East Coast. Actually, from the other direction as you're used to. The hurricane conditions will be blowing in from this this side, not from this side. Everybody puts storm shutters up along the Atlantic; very few people put it up along the other side.
Here's what we have, and here's what's going on about the inner eyewall/outer eyewall issue. The inner eyewall is here and here. That's the storm that's trying to get itself redeveloping, although it doesn't look like it's going to do that. The storm is going to have to wait for the next wall to develop, get stronger, and then shrink back down. We call those eyewall replacement cycles. Looks like right now it was the interaction with the Yucatan that caused that inner eyewall to fall apart. Of course, well, we knew that was going to happen.
NGUYEN: Hey, Chad, you have been talking about the eyewall and how this storm -- also we've been seeing how big it is. Yesterday it was around 400 miles wide.
MYERS: Correct.
NGUYEN: Is it still that huge? I mean, it looks awfully big on the map, but by the time it hits Florida, do you think it is still going to be that big of a storm?
MYERS: It will be -- actually, it will be bigger than it is now.
NGUYEN: Wow.
MYERS: It will be smaller than it was when it hit Cancun, obviously. But the exact -- that's a great question, Betty, because everybody follows this line, and I was kind of doing the same thing, I was kind of guilty of that. But the hurricane winds are not just in that eyewall. They probably extend 80 miles or so out from there. So all the way through the Keys right on through Florida Bay, that's going to see hurricane conditions as well. That's why there's a hurricane warning there now.
The other side actually gets winds from the east or from the northeast as the storm spins around. Notice if I'm here, your winds are this way. If you're down here, the winds are on shore. That is going to blow a tremendous amount of water into Florida Bay, and the storm surge into Florida Bay all the way back up toward Jewfish Creek. And right on up even maybe as far north as Homestead as this water, you know, right there, what's that? That's the Everglades. Not much -- nobody lives there. And that's not going to slow the storm down at all. That's flat. The whole state is flat, for that matter, down here. So the storm is still going to have a lot of momentum as it hits those east coast cities.
HARRIS: All right, be prepared. Thank you, Chad, we appreciate it.
MYERS: You're welcome.
HARRIS: And we go now from the CNN Weather Center to the scene of Wilma's expected landfall: The west coast of the southern Florida peninsula. Senior correspondent Allan Chernoff is on Sanibel Island, Florida, and CNN's Kareen Wynter joins us from Key West.
First to Allan. Mr. Chernoff, it is on its way.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony. In fact, as you can see behind me, evidence that no question the storm is on its way. The surf here starting to get pretty intense. The folks here tell me these are waves that are definitely bigger than you typically would see on the northern tip of Sanibel Island. And actually, there are some people who are delighted about that, the surfers and also the jetskiers. Surfers aren't out just yet, but I'm told that there were about 20 here yesterday, and they certainly are psyched to finally have some pretty good waves for surfing.
The surf should get a little more intense as the day goes on as well. One jetskier who came out here first thing this morning, assessing the situation, told me he's excited because jumping off of these waves, he can get what he said, some big air. So at least some people are happy.
Obviously, the vast majority of people not pleased at all to see Wilma headed in this direction, and there is a mandatory evacuation in place here on Sanibel Island. So yesterday, we had people packing up, and the cars were driving across the causeway back to the mainland.
According to town officials, this island is now more than 95 percent evacuated, and few people still buttoning up, taking care of their last-minute preparations. But we should see most of them clearing out, so that by the time the storm actually does arrive, this island should be virtually deserted -- Tony.
HARRIS: OK. And Allan, the bird man, is he still staying? The bird man you introduced us to yesterday?
CHERNOFF: He is staying. There's nothing that's going to take him away.
HARRIS: OK, Allan, appreciate it. Thank you.
All right, let's move Allan back. Let's bring Kareen Wynter in now. She is in Key West, Florida for us. And Kareen, give us a sense. Are you feeling winds? What's it like where you are right now? KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Tony. Good morning. And it's a decent morning out here. We've been quite fortunate all morning long here in Key West. The conditions have been so mild. Not much in terms of rain, but the winds have picked up quite a bit. You can perhaps see it reflected in the trees here behind me.
There's also a different sense, Tony, on the streets of Key West. We'll show you the very, very empty scene right now, all along this path here. It's been very, very busy all weekend long with people coming out, celebrating, not wanting to basically face what could lie ahead with Wilma. But again, we're walking along here. We couldn't do this yesterday with all the traffic that filled this very busy downtown Duvall Street. And even at this hour, even though it is quite quiet out here, I get the sense that people are still in denial of what could lie ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WYNTER (voice-over): Key West residents rolling out the welcome mat for Wilma? Not exactly. Some locals participating in Mardi Gras like October festivities say the celebrations will go on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is our way of having a little fun, saying we're here. The spirit's alive.
WYNTER: The city issued a mandatory evacuation order Saturday at noon, warning the public of the limited emergency resources that will be available once Wilma strikes and the roads become unsafe.
BILLY WARDLOW, CHIEF, KEY WEST FIRE DEPARTMENT: If we can get out and get to you, we will. But we would prefer that you evacuate, you know, and be safe.
WYNTER: The city's fire chief may have a hard time convincing not just reluctant residents, but his own family. Former Key West mayor and long time resident Dennis Wardlow says he's staying put, too.
(on camera): Dennis, you've survived so many hurricanes over the last several decades. Do you think this one will be any different, Wilma?
DENNIS WARDLOW, FORMER KEY WEST MAYOR: Well, we hope it'll be the same as the rest of them, that they'll skirt us.
WYNTER (voice-over): A back-up generator, canned goods, a solar powered radio.
D. WARDLOW: We don't have any sunlight, then you crank up...
WYNTER: All the supplies Wardlow says his family needs to survive the storm. Instead of stocking up, other families shipped out by bus. Shuttles headed to a shelter in Miami.
MICHELLE TAYLOR, EVACUEE: I'm worried about storm surges, because I live directly in front of the ocean. So I'm thinking -- I'm not taking any chances.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WYNTER: Many businesses on Duvall Street have been boarded up for days now in anticipation of Wilma. We checked with the city early this morning, and they said since there's no curfew in effect, that the restaurants, the shops that lie in this very busy stretch, can remain open. But they're hoping that those business owners use their discretion. And once the conditions out here continue to decline, that they'll close their doors, because as long as they're open, we get the sense that people will still come down here.
You saw those shuttle buses leaving the area, Tony, in the piece. We also learned this morning that right now, that service has been discontinued, that the last bus left yesterday at midnight. But we learned also that the county will have one more bus leaving at 9:00 a.m. sharp, that's under an hour from now, so they're saying that anyone who wants to evacuate and wants to utilize that service, should do so. After that, they're out of luck -- Tony.
HARRIS: Kareen, great pictures of those folks downs there, those locals, the conchs, I think is what we learned yesterday. Is the area essentially dry now? We understand that can't buy any liquor, there are no hurricane parties, or at least they're being discouraged. Is it pretty empty now?
WYNTER: I don't want to be premature in saying that we've been surprised all weekend by the optimism and energy here. So I'll say that now, and in the next hour I'll have to correct myself. But for right now, people seem to be adhering to the mandatory evacuation orders. It's quite empty. But again, you never can tell with a city like this.
HARRIS: And I mean, it is really serious business. We shouldn't joke about it. Folks need to get out and follow these orders and listen to the local officials, and of course, listen to Kareen Wynter.
Kareen, thank you.
NGUYEN: Well, Hurricane Wilma is starting to move away from the Yucatan Peninsula after lashing Mexican resorts two days straight. CNN's Susan Candiotti has been weathering the storm in Cancun and she joins us now with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Hurricane Wilma may have been downgraded from a Category 4 to a strong Category 2 storm; however, its powerful effects are still being felt. You might be able to make out the waves over my shoulder. They are still pummeling the white sandy beaches of Cancun. And by daylight, you can finally get a look at some of the damage from this storm that has been going on for two days.
The hotels have been damaged. So have many of the businesses. Wind and rain taking -- having a bad effect on both of those buildings, as well as the hotels. The rooms being peeled off, many of these structures. Rain getting inside.
As you try to make your way to downtown Cancun, which is about a half hour away, this is where many of the tourists, about 20,000 of them, have taken up shelter in both schools as well as hotels.
There's no official word on how they are doing, although we understand they're doing fairly well with provisions. There might not be power there. However, it's been impossible to get there from where we are to check on their condition.
We did talk to one of the people who works at one of the buildings here, a shopping center that suffered a lot of damage, and he promises that people here will rebuild. There is hope, they said, that Cancun will return in the not too distant future.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Cancun, Mexico.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And we encourage you to stay with CNN for the latest on Hurricane Wilma. Next hour, we'll hear from the head of Florida's emergency management team, as well as the National Hurricane Center.
NGUYEN: And some storm-wary Floridians are boarding up and heading out. But what about the rest of them? Could hurricane fatigue put them at risk once again as Wilma makes landfall? We'll take a closer look.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Our top stories this hour: Wilma flexes her muscles again. Now heading for Florida, after pummeling Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The Category 2 hurricane is intensifying and moving north. A hurricane warning is in place for huge parts of South Florida. The storm left a trail of devastation in the Mexican resort of Cancun. Wind and water damage are severe, and debris is blocking roads. Some 35,000 people, mostly tourists, rode out the storm in Cancun.
Across the Atlantic, Queen Elizabeth II Marks the 220th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. The event was commemorated with a banquet aboard the ship, which once led the Royal Navy to victory against the French and Spanish.
NGUYEN: In Nigeria, they're hoping to find survivors in a commercial plane crash, a plane that was lost on radar only three minutes after takeoff yesterday from Lagos. Now, search terms located the wreckage hours later, about 120 miles north of Lagos. And CNN's Africa correspondent, Jeff Koinange, has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE: Bellview Airlines officials have confirmed to CNN that there were a total of 111 passengers and six crewmembers aboard the ill-fated flight number 210 that left Lagos late Saturday, on its way to Abuja. Three minutes into takeoff, the pilot radioed in a distress call. After that, the aircraft disappeared from radar. There were all kinds of reports all morning Sunday about where the plane was, whether it had dipped into the Atlantic or crash-landed on firm ground. Officials here confirm that the plane had, indeed, crashed about four hours' drive outside of Lagos, in the countryside. Officials also tell CNN that there are search and rescue helicopters on their way, both military and private. They're hoping that there will some survivors from the ill-fated flight. Officials here also tell CNN that rescue missions are under way all day Sunday. Both military and private helicopters going to the crash scene to see if they could find any survivors.
In the meantime, worried and distressed passengers flocked to the local airports here in Lagos, trying to find any information on family members. It's going to take a while before we know what happened to Bellview flight 210. Officials here are hoping that they could have those answers sooner rather than later.
Jeff Koinange, CNN, Lagos.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Also, more sad news to pass along from Nigeria this morning. Country officials tell CNN that the first lady died this morning at a hospital in Spain. Stella Obasanjo, the wife of Nigeria's president, had traveled to Spain to undergo surgery and died from complications resulting from that operation.
HARRIS: Still ahead in our "Faces of Faith," the face of survival in a North Carolina pulpit. We will introduce you to Bishop George Bloomer. He shares his inspiring life story, and how he's reaching out to others. That in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: You know, I don't get up here to the weather center very often. Actually, I couldn't even find my way up here. Exactly. But we're here because there's a lot to talk about. Wilma, watching her progression. This is a big storm.
MYERS: It is. It is a big storm. It came off Cancun, and now it is moving into some very warm water, the Gulf of Mexico waters. The waters that were in the Caribbean as this thing blew up in, you know, over the weekend, we had that thing go to Cat 5 a couple, three days ago, well, now it's back into some warm water again, Betty.
And here's the tip of the Cancun Peninsula. The storm is going to move north of Cuba, probably affect Havana quite significantly, also into the Florida Keys significantly, and then eject right through Naples and on to the other side.
Now, that's still not a direct path or a straight line, because it could go left or go right just a little bit, and that makes all the difference, whether you live in Naples and you get the left side of the eye or you get the right side of the eye. The right side of the eye is going to be much more dangerous.
NGUYEN: Now, the key, though, is over this warm water. That's where it can really pick up some strength.
MYERS: Yeah. It's like high octane fuel. It's like putting premium in your little lawn mower. It goes a lot faster.
NGUYEN: So it's a Category 2 now, and you're expecting it to be where?
MYERS: It could be to a Category 3. That was the forecast last night. Now, things have changed a little bit. They don't have that up to a Category or 3 or right to the threshold of a 3 right now, but I don't think that's out of the question. I think that's absolutely a possibility.
The reason why they don't have it as a Category 3 is because it starts to pick up so much speed, that doesn't do it by itself. That doesn't happen on its own. It picks up that forward speed because it's getting pushed. When you get a push like that, it means there's some kind of sheer in the storm. Because it doesn't like to be pushed. That's why it did so well down here, because it wasn't being pushed.
NGUYEN: Oh, it stayed down there for so long.
MYERS: It sat in the same place, and it liked that, because it thought, oh, nobody is pushing me along. As soon as you start to push it, the tops kind of get tipped over, and the hurricane starts to lose some intensity. So that would be one of the better things.
So we have a plus here trying to make it stronger, and then a minus trying to make it weaker. So it's kind of interesting.
NGUYEN: Well, I guess another plus, too, is the fact that once it does get to Florida, it's going to move rather quickly, correct?
MYERS: Yes, it's going to move rather quickly, it's going to probably get into the Florida Bay, flood the Florida Bay, the Everglades, probably significantly. Could be 10 feet of water there.
But the other problem -- the problem with that is that from Titusville southward all the way down to West Palm, you're going to get some very significant winds on the west side of those buildings.
Everybody prepares for damage on the east side, because you think the storm is coming in that way, but this storm is actually moving in the other direction.
NGUYEN: And you mentioned earlier that there's a problem with shelters on that side, because they're not preparing for it as much as the first side that's going to get hit.
MYERS: Well, I don't think the east side of Florida is preparing enough. I think if you're there, you need to think about this storm a little more significantly than what you maybe were, because of the forward speed, and you're adding forward speed -- now, if it gets to be 20 miles per hour, it's not going to lot a lose of intensity. In fact, it could be the same intensity in Naples as it would be maybe over towards south of Melbourne.
NGUYEN: So the same as it hits to when it leaves Florida.
MYERS: It's not going to lose much. Charley didn't lose much either. It was a hurricane over Daytona, remember that?
NGUYEN: Right, I remember. Boy, it's been such a busy season. Do you know why it's been so busy? It's a good question, isn't it?
MYERS: If I had that answer, I would get a bigger paycheck, I'm afraid.
NGUYEN: Well, you deserve that bigger paycheck anyway, Chad.
MYERS: Let's go take a look at what's going on here. I'm going to take you over to the satellite picture itself now. And the satellite does show a lot of this intensifying going on. The more oranges coming back into the storm.
If you notice the storm over here by Puerto Rico, here we go -- there it is -- that's -- that's Alpha. That looks even more impressive, but it doesn't have the spin that this storm here does. This storm here is going to continue to spin, and it has now moved away from the Yucatan. This is the interaction with land that we knew would happen. But look how close this is getting now to the Pinar del Rio area. That's where Lucia Newman did her story about, that's where all that damage was in that tobacco growing region. And I think it's a beeline, taking a beeline for that area there.
And if you get all of this rain right over the same areas that had so much rain from the first part of this storm a couple of days ago, there's going to be a lot of flooding there in western sections of Cuba, anywhere from the Pinar del Rio possibly even into Havana, and that's where a lot of folks have been evacuated to.
There is the center of a new eye trying to form. It's trying. We don't want it to try, we don't want it to be that strong, because if it does form an inner eyewall, that means the winds and the pressure are going to pick up significantly before it gets here into the Florida Bay area.
Hurricane warnings. Long Boat Key all the way back to the dry Tortugas, and then right through the Keys and up the east side.
You say, now, why do you put the hurricane warning over here? Because there are going to be hurricane conditions on the east side as well. A quick-moving storm. We just talked about that. This quick- moving storm is not going to lose much punch at all. It is going to run across the Florida Bay, Florida City area, and then right on up to the other side. Even Lake Okeechobee has a hurricane warning on it for tonight and into tomorrow.
This is going to be a quick mover. Look, 2:00 a.m., probably landfall somewhere before sunrise tomorrow there on the west side, and eject -- gone, gone after lunch hour. It's going to be in the Atlantic. That's how quickly it's going to be moving by then. Possibly, I would say, northeast at 20 to 25 miles per hour, right across the Naples, Marco Island area and up to the other side.
And if you are on this side of the eye, notice that you're still going to get some damage here from -- this is West Palm, right on back down to Fort Lauderdale, maybe even to Miami-Dade. Back to you, Tony.
HARRIS: Wow. Well, now you know. Chad, thank you so much. If you had any questions about this storm, the path and what it might do, now you know.
We will have much more on Hurricane Wilma as it races for the Florida Coast.
Next hour, we will talk to the head of Florida's emergency management agency. CNN SUNDAY returns at the top of the hour.
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