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CNN Saturday Morning News

Hanna Hits the Carolinas; Ike Looking to Enter the Gulf

Aired September 06, 2008 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNY HAND, SURFING INSTRUCTOR: As the hurricane passes on by, we get our offshore winds and it creates our barrel waves here on our East coast. And that's our prime wave for surfers, what we look for to catch. As we have right now, you can see our waves are starting to form into an offshore barrel and that's what we really want and we're going to be going for that. As our tide comes in we'll be able to get these waves breaking a little better with our offshore winds and you start to see a lot more surfers come out to the beach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER WESTHAVEN, CNN ANCHOR: We are keeping an eye on all the angles. Our Dan Lothian is in North Carolina's outer banks and Reynolds Wolf is in Wrightsville Beach and we've got our Karen Maginnis, of course, here. She is watching Hanna move north from our severe weather center.

We're going to start with the outer banks where Dan Lothian is there. He's been battling the elements. He's got his wind calibrator out there. Dan, it does sound like you were saying for a while things were good and then they got worse again.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. For a while, the wind really was whipping up and I didn't have my wind gauge which I won't pull it out right now, but we were seeing winds fluctuating around 30, 30 plus miles per hour, but right now, things really have calmed down and the rain really has stopped. We're even seeing the sun trying to make it, break through the clouds up here. This is essentially what emergency management officials were expecting here. They didn't expect that they were going to have any major damage here, and they also realized this was a very - based on the weather reports - that this was going to be a fast-moving storm. So it would come through here, would dump a lot of water, perhaps there might be some minor wind damage, but then it would move right through. So far the latest word that we got from emergency management officials is that they have no reports whatsoever of any power outages and so far, no reports of any major flooding, although they do expect that there could be some minor flooding in the low-lying areas.

I'll tell you though, some people here were not taking any chances. We didn't see any sort of wide-scale preparations for this tropical storm, but we did run into some folks over the last couple of days who were putting up those shutters on their windows. We saw one guy taking his boat out of the water. Another lady who says that she often gets flooding in her apartment any time there's any major rainfall at all. She was putting sandbags down at her front door. They didn't really expect anything major to happen, but they certainly wanted to be ready just in case as one person pointed out to me, that, you know, any time that you have any of these strong winds blowing against your sliding doors or even your windows, any little crack at all could end up - you could end up with water inside your home. So they were trying to protect against that.

Now, in terms of tourists leaving the area, I know that yesterday we did see some tourists packing up at the hotels and getting out of here because they didn't want to take any chances, but still, a lot of folks are left behind and here as - as the sun sort of coming through the clouds right now, we did see some tourists come out here. They've been checking out the surf. They're riding this thing out. Again, they didn't think that it would be a very big deal and so they were hoping that it would pass through and that they could continue on with their vacation. So, right now things are looking pretty good out here on the outer banks. Not over yet, but looking good. Jennifer.

WESTHOVEN: Dan, thank you so much. Keeping your eye out on all that. We've got a whole lot of reporters out there looking around.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN, ANCHOR: And one of them happens to be our Reynolds Wolf. He's looking around a lot. Reynolds, you still a pretty lonely guy on the beach there?

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know what, we got more people out here on the beach. We got a few surfers who were actually starting to show up. We do expect quite a few surfers out here later on today as the sun continues its rise and the conditions get a little better here. But the waves are still kicking up like crazy. Hey, you know, not only are the waves kicking up, but we've had some wind action here.

Just to give you a nice story behind the scenes here, as we were setting up for a shot, this foam thing you see on the top of the microphone, it came off and got carried in the wind and went down the beach. And Ron (inaudible), our photo journalist, ran after it. Think of like a middle linebacker chasing a running back, that kind of thing. He ran down the beach, made a diving tackle and made the grab and got it. Otherwise it would be one with the Atlantic Ocean.

As it stands the ocean behind me, you can see the waves coming in, you see the jetty out there. Some of the waves actually have been spilling over the top of it. Just an amazing thing to see. And we expect that the conditions will be just fine for the surfers. But keep in mind, one thing very important to mention, we are going to have some issues with the rip currents. Rip currents where, you know, if you're out here and you're swimming around and you're not experienced, it's a good chance you may get pulled out of that water. So you really need to be careful. Even experienced swimmers have trouble with that and if you happen to get caught in one of those, remember the line is swim parallel to the shore and then conditions should be just fine.

The big threat we were talking about with this system, if I heard correctly, I think Dan Lothian brought this up, is the idea of some flooding. The problem we have with flooding with these tropical systems, T.J. and Jennifer, is when they come onshore they can dump quite a bit of rainfall. If they interact with higher elevations like what you have farther back to the west in the upper levels of the way, in fact, the Appalachians, the mountains, we refer to as your graphic lip. It's like getting a dish rag and squeezing it and all the moisture comes out. Well, that could really make quite a bit of rainfall for you. So that's going to be an issue. However the storm is going to be a quick mover. So we don't really anticipate that this is going to be a huge, huge flooding issue like what we saw back in 1999 with Hurricane Dennis and of course, Floyd.

Again, as Karen has been telling you all morning long in the weather center, the next big threat we're watching is Ike. Ike could be a major, major powerhouse, already is a major hurricane and certainly one that bears watching. Right now we're watching the waves. Let's send it back to you guys.

WESTHOVEN: Hey, good morning, Reynolds. I wanted to ask you a question. This is Jennifer. I'm sorry not to get to meet you here this morning in the studio.

WOLF: It happens, Jennifer, but you know what, as long as we're both here, we're here. It's OK. I'll give you a hug if I could, what's up?

WESTAVEN: Well, you know, I happen to know a couple surfers out there in the New York City area and I think that they're looking at this and thinking this is a good time. So I just want to ask you a little bit - you were just talking about how powerful and how dangerous the rip currents could be. Is that mostly for the area you're in? Is that all along the east coast? How concerned should we be about that?

WOLF: Well, think about it, just in regular conditions you're always going to have the possibility of having some rip currents but when you have a wind event like this, and that's basically what this storm system is really become is more of a wind event especially here along the coast. You got more water that's being pushed right towards the coastline. When you have that, that's really going to enhance the possibility of those rip currents. The currents that we're seeing here, at least the waves here, perfect for short boarders, not really for long borders. Long borders tend to like the long, slow sets as the waves comes in. Really choppy here and there. I think they're going to be lucky to get out there. Trust me, there are going to be hundreds that will be out here trying to make the most of these big waves this afternoon. Back to you, Jen.

WESTHOVEN: All right. Reynolds, thank you so much. He knows all about the short and long boards, huh?

HOLMES: He does. Reynolds is the man. He's covered plenty of these things and he's been on the coast and yes, he knows about it. Meteorologist Karen Maginnis knows all about Hanna and Ike this morning because she's been staring at them for several days at this point. Hello to you again.

KAREN MAGINNIS, METEOROLOGIST: Hey, T.J. HOLMES: What are we worried about now?

MAGINNIS: Oh, all right. Hanna, but I wanted to tell you Jennifer that Reynolds wouldn't want to be any place else besides right there in the thick of things.

HOLMES: Absolutely.

WESTHOVEN: That's true.

MAGINNIS: He loves it. He absolutely loves it. This is a very vulnerable territory, but it is moving - Hanna is moving very quickly. When I say vulnerable, because it's low lying, it's a fragile ecosystem, especially out here towards the outer banks. They have one road and essentially sand dunes and not too much water causes a lot of problems there. We're watching this system as it just very quickly is making its way towards the north and northeast. Now encroaching across Virginia Beach, also Langley Air Force base, and Washington, D.C.. I was looking for some airport delays and they don't have delays yet, but I think that is going to change fairly quickly. They've got reduced visibility at Washington, D.C., at National, they also have some very heavy rainfall, so I'm anticipating maybe at least half hour, 45-minute delays.

If this looks kind of funny to you, that's because it's our water vapor. Where you see the green that's where we got the moisture. Where it's brown, that's where we got dry air. This is Hanna and this is Ike. Ike already showing up on our satellite loop and Ike is a category 3 hurricane. There are hurricane watches out for the Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas. It's a warning that has been issued there.

All right. A little bit more on Hanna. We're gradually shaving off that tornado watch that goes until 1:00 this afternoon and it is primarily this line that we're concerned that could produce the tornadic activity. Some of the wind gusts, well, Wrightsville Beach, that's where Reynolds is, I think he said earlier they had a reported wind gusts over 60 miles an hour. But generally speaking now, the winds are between about 35 and around 55, but still supporting Hanna are winds around 50 miles an hour with some higher gusts.

Ike, Ike is the troublemaker that we are really going to be watching. Right now it's a category 3 hurricane. 115 miles an hour with some higher gusts. It is expected just to brush by this northern portion of the Caribbean Island Hispaniola and we could see severe flooding. They're saying that in Haiti, about 95 percent of Haiti is deforested which produces flooding very quickly, flash flooding and mudslides.

This is expected to make its way through the Bahamas, through the Florida Strait, maybe across the northern coast of Cuba, maybe across central Cuba, and that could reduce its intensity, but for the most part, what we're looking at - I wish I pointed it out in the last few images in that water vapor, the eye is looking especially impressive. But now it's jogged toward the south, southwest, going to move near Cuba, through the Florida Strait, and into the Gulf of Mexico, retaining its category 3 intensity. Once it gets into the Gulf of Mexico, it's got to go some place. It has to hit some land mass. Right now our computer models are just going there briefly. It looks like we've got some breaking news. I'll throw it back over to you at the desk.

HOLMES: Yes. We're just going to head over and listen to Governor Charlie Crist of Florida. We've been waiting on him for a bit, expected to give this briefing, to brief his citizens about what's happening with hurricane Ike, that monster, Karen was just telling us about that's moving towards Florida, also moving towards the Gulf Coast. Like you said, it has to go somewhere. Looks like it is, has a target on Florida. Mandatory evacuations in place for some visitors now. Expecting more for residents tomorrow. So we will go ahead now and listen in to Governor Crist. Everybody appears to be in place. Hear what he has to say to his citizens who are getting ready for yet another storm. This is nothing new to the people of Florida. They have done this time and time again, unfortunately.

GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, FLORIDA: Good morning. Thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it. Today we continue to watch much - with much concern the track of hurricane Ike. This is a dangerous storm that continues to move closer in a westward direction toward Florida. This morning, the hurricane was located about 200 miles to the east of Grand Turk Island. Maximum sustained winds are nearly 115 miles per hour. Ike is moving west/southwest at about 16 miles per hour.

Ike has grown rapidly into a dangerous, powerful storm as you know. And the official forecast has much of the Florida peninsula and panhandle within the five-day cone of error for landfall. There is always uncertainty with these forecast tracks as you're aware, but forecasters tell us that Ike could threaten Florida by Tuesday. I urge all Floridians to use the next few days to be prepared. Our ability to prepare now will ensure everyone's safety later.

And a quick response prior to and following potential landfall. Floridians should continue to monitor local television and radio for the latest updates. We continue to recover as you are aware, from tropical storm Faye, but we must and will handle any storm that we face. We must be prepared, we must be smart, and we must be vigilant.

I want to thank Mayor Alvarez, Mayor Diaz, Mayor (Denero), Mayor McPherson, Mayor Wexler, Chairwoman Addie Greene of Palm Beach County taking of their time and Congressman Ross (lighten) and the two congressmen, Mario and Lincoln Diaz Balart. I also want to thank our state team. I'm enormously proud of Craig Fugate and his leadership during the past weeks we have been facing these tropical storms that has been exemplary.

I also want to thank General Burnett. General Burnett with the Florida National Guard has been an incredible leader and always has stood up, leaning forward, ready to serve and ready to respond, and we appreciate that. Maintaining order is the most important thing we do in government. And without your help, we would not be able to do it, sir.

Secretary Copalusis is here, our Department of Transportation secretary. I want to thank her as well as our colonel of our state troopers in the event that an evacuation may be necessary, we are also prepared for that. We are prepared for one way flows if that becomes essential. We hope it doesn't. We get a little bit better track this morning as you probably are aware, and that's good news, but we have to remain vigilant. And we have to remain focused.

I know a lot of people are going to watch football this weekend. That's great. They should enjoy the games. As Ben Nelson has told me, we're going to have great weather through Florida today and tomorrow. But, you know, as Craig and I talked about on the plane coming down, when you're at a commercial break, whatever game you may be watching, go back to the weather channel, your local news, and make sure you're keeping up with where the storm is going. It is important. It is important for your safety to do so.

Yesterday I signed in executive order that declared a state of emergency for Ike. This allows us to preposition supplies, later today Craig and I will be going up to Orlando as soon as we leave here, we have a prepositioning factory, if you will, over 200,000 square feet of water, meals ready to eat, in the event that we have to bring those supplies in. I understand that some of those trucks may be getting loaded up this morning. I have spoken to our federal partners. I spoke to Secretary Chertoff yesterday. He assured me that any additional help that any of us might need - thank you to our federal partners for that - will be ready and they're at our beck and call if need be.

It is important I think for all of us to realize that FEMA is doing a great job. Tom Daveys is with us from FEMA today. Thank you for being here again. I talked to Director Paulson yesterday. He happens to be a Floridian. And is doing a great job. I think the response that we saw in Louisiana was extraordinary. I also talked to Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday and I want to compliment him again on the great work that he's doing for the people of Louisiana.

Our friends in Washington are ready to help and we're grateful to them. I want to thank President Bush for already accepting our declarations of emergency in the prior storms that we've dealt with thus far, particularly Faye. It's important I think that we all stay focused and I want to get an update from Ben on the weather. Ben Nelson, if you could bring us up to date again and let the people know what the latest is, please, sir.

BEN NELSON: Thank you, governor. And we just got a briefing from Director Bill Reed. Thank you, Bill. We want to thank the National Hurricane Center for all of their hard work. Going back to Dolly now, Edward, Faye, Gustav, Hanna and now Ike, they've all hit the United States. So the National Hurricane Center has been really busy. We also thank our National Weather Service partners at the local level, including the office right next to the hurricane center, the Miami local weather forecast office.

Again, the governor went over a lot of the statistics, it's still a major hurricane. Miami Dade and the Keys will still fall within that average three-day forecast error cone. It's very important for us to focus on that cone and not the center line of the track. Director Reed is very confident that this storm will be very near the north coast of Cuba in about 24 to 36 hours and then thereafter, that's where those computer models start to diverge a little bit. It's not going to take much of a deviation to the north of the official forecast track to keep this in very warm waters. This is a very dangerous hurricane and we know that tropical storm conditions could arrive in south Florida and the Keys as soon as Monday evening.

So make those preparations as the governor said. Also, very important, we still have ocean swells from Hanna that are propagating down the east coast, that's creating a high risk of rip currents, particularly east, central and northeast Florida today and will start to get the rip current increase for south Florida as the weekend progresses. So stay safe. Stay out of the water. And make those preparations while we have the good weather that we have this weekend throughout the state. Governor.

CRIST: Craig Fugate is our director of the Emergency Management Office. Craig, if you could give us some of your words of wisdom.

WESTHOVEN: All right. We've been listening to some Florida state officials as they talk to their residents asking them to stay safe this weekend, stay out of the water, as tropical storm Hanna, right, on the east coast now, but the big concern, of course, is Hurricane Ike as it starts to come in.

Now, Hanna is kicking up the surf along the southeast coast. We're going to find out where to beware of rip currents from somebody who has had a firsthand view of some of this nation's biggest storms.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About nine hours before we saw any of the high winds, they had flags and patrols on the beach saying do not get in the water. The wind and waves and those dangerous currents may still be there as late as this afternoon.

HOLMES: Yes, those dangerous currents, we have been talking about this morning, associated with tropical storm Hanna right now. Again, help from one of our affiliates there to tell the story. The strong surf kicked up by the tropical storm is creating those dangerous rip currents along the coast. Warnings posted North Florida, south Georgia in the wake of the storm. Our CNN contributor and retired lieutenant, even though you've been working a lot for us these days, General Honore here to talk about these rip currents. People, I guess, I like to start with this with you. People just don't get it sometimes, they don't listen to these warnings, just stay out of the water.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET.), CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And actually, it's exciting for those who want to get out and surf in it, but you know, we lose 100 people a year in the United States to rip currents alone. The other impact of it is about 80 percent of our life guard rescues along our beaches, related to rip currents. And they have a very devastating effect if you get into one and you panic.

HOLMES: OK. No one - you can't necessarily, or can you, is there a way, if you're looking out there and identify that maybe you're in trouble, you just need to listen to the warning? There's no way to really look at that water and say a rip current is here or a rip current there? Or you just need to listen to the warnings?

HONORE: Well, high winds will generally create the water sloshing against the shoreline and from that, you can see, there are some indications and warnings, discoloration of the water. The water that's going back out to sea is an indicator of a rip current in that area. So, there are signs and warnings and of course, in most states and on the beaches, that are manned, you will get warnings of rip currents. It's important that swimmers and those who like to surf on the boards out there pay attention to local warnings and follow the basic rules. Don't go out alone.

HOLMES: Don't go out alone. And people will hear this all the time, swim parallel to the shore.

HONORE: That is correct. If you find yourself into - even the most experienced, even the Olympic swimmers, can be taken out by a rip current. Many times the perception is that it pulls you under, it doesn't. It pulls you out to sea and it pulls you out so far, that swimmers can't get back in. So it's best to practice - don't swim alone and swim in supervised areas where you can get help.

HOLMES: OK. We're told we have something to help us on the map as well. Now, what do we have here, some of the rip tides we're talking about along the coast.

HONORE: Yes. As a result of Hanna and we'll see this for the coming days, the effects of Hanna right now, we have warnings in north Georgia, South Carolina beaches, for possible rip currents. And as this storm moves and the pounding of the wind against the shore is what creates this, the energy comes in. It has to go some place. As it pulls back out, it creates that cone of water going back out into the ocean that can pull people. We will see this throughout the eastern seaboard with three to five-foot seas. It's a probability of those rip currents popping up along the seaboard, particularly as we see also the approach of Ike.

So people should be cautious, they should not go out alone and only in supervised areas and remember what to do if you get caught in one, don't panic. Float your way out and try to swim parallel to the shoreline.

HOLMES: All right. That's a good illustration, always a good warning for people to have there. Retired General Honore, we're going to be back with you talking about Ike here in a little while.

HONORE: Ike is the man.

HOLMES: All right. And we didn't even know you can handle the maps. You're a meteorologist as well. All right, Jen. Hand it over to you now.

WESTHOVEN: Hey, thank you, T.J. And of course, all morning we've been covering Hanna, we've been talking about Ike that's coming, but we want to bring you some of the other headlines as well. No deal, tens of thousands walk off the job at Boeing and that could mean another costly delay for Boeing's highly anticipated jetliner of the future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WESTHOVEN: Good morning. And welcome back to CNN. We've been on weather watch this morning but we've also got some headlines about the economy to bring to you. First, an overnight strike against Boeing. More than 27,000 Boeing machinists went on strike just after midnight after they were unable to come to a deal. Union management. It means that assembly of the new airplane on hold right now.

That is probably going to slow down the delivery of Boeing's new 787, this is the dreamliner jet. It's supposed to be fuel efficient, not just in cars that people are looking to save gas these days. Both sides at a standstill. There's been an offer of a raise but the union has been upset about health care benefits and outsourcing. So they still got a lot of issues out there and no new talks are scheduled at this point. They've come to a standstill before but a mediator had come in and said take 48 hours, do a little more, but right now, it looks like on strike.

If you are looking for a job, I got bad news because the picture for the economy just got a little darker. The unemployment rate reached nearly a five-year high. The labor department says the jobless rate has risen to 6.1 percent. That is higher than expected. Employers cut 84,000 jobs in August. So it brings total job losses for the year to 605,000.

HOLMES: And once again, please know we are your hurricane headquarters here at CNN. We're keeping an eye on a couple of storms, one tropical storm now Hanna, which is hitting the east coast of the U.S.. There's a look at it. It hit the Carolinas today. Still causing kind of a rain and a wind event. The other one, a major storm, hurricane Ike, a category 3. That's heading towards the Florida Keys and who knows where after that. We're keeping an eye on both storms.

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