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CNN Saturday Morning News

Report From Tropical Storm Fay

Aired September 07, 2002 - 09:16   ET

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

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: South Texas getting a dose of Tropical Storm Fay this hour, a small dose.
CNN's Ed Lavandera live in Galveston, Texas.

Ed, everybody's watching the skies for more rain, right?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the skies here on the -- along the Gulf coast in Galveston, Texas, have kind of opened up. The sun is shining, you can see this, we're looking back toward the west here, and that's basically where the strongest part of hurricane -- Tropical Storm Fay has been, as that storm continues to move its way inland, slowly dropping lots of rain in certain parts, but it's certainly not dropping a whole lot of rain here in the Galveston area.

The storm moved ashore just after midnight, heavy winds reaching about -- I think at its highest points, about 40 miles an hour. The winds now have dramatically decreased. We understand that the winds in the eye of the storm remain about -- probably about 60 miles an hour.

But we've had several chances to speak with emergency officials in surrounding counties here in southeastern Texas, and so far nobody reporting any kind of major damage or significant flooding at this point.

However, this is something that they will continue to closely monitor throughout the day, because if you remember, last year, Tropical Storm Allison came here and just pretty much just sat over this part of Texas and dumped several inches of rain in a very rapid time, in a day, causing billions of dollars of damage because of flooding, and killing 22 people.

So that storm is in a lot of -- in the back -- in the back of a lot of people's minds as they continue to wait for this storm to kind of completely move out of this area. But weather forecasts here in the area, we've been hearing that rain will be in the forecast throughout the rest of the weekend as people continue to closely watch that.

But at this point, nothing significant to report in terms of flooding damage or any kind of flooding throughout the area. Some areas are reporting some minor flooding, but as I said, nothing significant at this point.

The winds here in Galveston have dramatically decreased. A lot of people starting to make their way back out here onto the sea wall along the beautiful coastline here, and this is a popular gathering spot and probably will continue to do so. We saw last night that many of the restaurants were filled with people, and that probably will continue today as people continue to make their way out.

But further inland, people will be paying close attention just to see how much rain will fall in the hours ahead. Kind of difficult to predict, so basically just a wait-and-see game here at this point.

Catherine?

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you, that's Ed Lavandera standing by in Galveston, where the sun is shining.

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