Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
Hurricane Ike Continues to Batter Texas
Aired September 13, 2008 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Folks in Texas are getting a wake-up call this morning from an uninvited visitor by the name of Ike -- Hurricane Ike, (INAUDIBLE) hurricane, and a category two hurricane. And it continues to churn up Texas right now and Houston is in its crosshairs right now.
We have half our CNN SATURDAY crew, actually 2/3 of that crew -- Betty and Reynolds, they are out and about this morning, as well as a number of other affiliates and our correspondents, helping us cover the story.
Good morning to you all, though, here from the CNN World Headquarters and the hurricane center. I'm T.J. Holmes. And, like you just saw there, our Betty Nguyen is out there.
Good morning to you, Betty.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, T.J. Hurricane Ike, like you said, an unwanted visitor. And it appears like he's going to be sticking around for a little while. We are already seeing hurricane force winds right here in Downtown Houston.
We're going to have much more information on this coming up.
HOLMES: We'll see you here in just a second, Betty. You hang tight there.
And just to give you the latest here, folks, about what's happening with the storm, we've seen flooding already. We've seen winds up to 100 miles an hour or above. Ike is just ravaging through the Texas shoreline and especially Houston -- this country's fourth largest city.
The storm arrived in Galveston now about four hours ago. It was a category two storm at the time. The water level along the coast is getting 12 feet above normal, and got storm surges going to be nearly twice that. Thousands of homes are flooded. Streets are just flooded out. Millions of people right now without power and may not get it back for several weeks.
And also, thousands of people around Galveston, around Houston, wanted to stick it out. They wanted to stay. They're riding it out in their homes right now. We hope they are OK because a lot of situations, 911 calls are coming in and rescue crews just cannot get to them. But they are there and trying to help those in need as best they can. We do want to turn and get the very latest on this storm, on its track, what it's doing. Our Jacqui Jeras is here in the hurricane center.
What's this thing up to?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Brand new information just in from the National Hurricane Center. It's starting to pull away from the Houston area, but -- but, you're still going to see hurricane force winds for hours to come. So now is not the time to get outside and assess the damage and see how bad it is. You need to stay indoors and hunker down.
Here you can see on the radar picture, the eye is in the northeast of the area now, almost kind of parallel here between Spring and the Ames area, is moving north-northwesterly at this hour. And there's still some very intense winds. We're kind of estimating at this point because most weather observation sites have broken down. Basically the winds have broken them. So, we're getting some reports though around 70, 80 miles per hour.
Here you can see Downtown Houston up towards Barrett, getting some very strong winds in with the eyewall. And check this out. From about I-10 area, down towards Missouri City, extending down towards Fresno, and into Pearland, all of this bright red, we got some torrential downpours and also going to be seeing some very strong winds associated with that as well.
And here's the satellite picture showing you the position estimate and also just helps give you a perspective of how large this storm remains. I mean, we're still talking those hurricane force winds extending now to over 100 miles from the center of the storm. So, that is very far reaching. And there you can see Dallas starting to get in on some of those bands and you'll start to see your winds begin to gust.
Tornadoes remain a threat. We've had a couple of warnings near the Texas/Louisiana state line. No ground truth, but these tornadoes are moving at 75 miles per hour. So, if you do get a warning and hear those sirens go off, you need to take it seriously and you need to seek shelter. Rain, also, is another thing we're going to be dealing with here, T.J. We could see upwards of 10 inches of rain kind of in and along the line of the path of Ike.
HOLMES: Boy, this thing brings all kinds of problems associated with it.
JERAS: Absolutely.
HOLMES: Jacqui Jeras keeping an eye on that eye.
We will turn back to Houston where so much is happening right now. Like we said, 2/3 of the CNN SATURDAY MORNING crew is out and about. Reynolds, and of course, Betty. Betty is in Houston.
And, Betty, I don't know if you could hear Jacqui. She said the eyewall is starting to move away from Houston. But still, that doesn't mean much, still getting hurricane force conditions there.
NGUYEN: Well, you can definitely feel that the eyewall is moving away because there are moments like this right now where the wind is not blowing as hard as it has been. And all of a sudden, it will start to pick up. It's blowing in many different directions out here. Mainly, it's been coming from my right. But now, it's shifting to the left.
We've got lights blown all over the place. We've got all kinds of debris in the streets right now. And a lot of people in Houston, in fact, some 4 million people in the Houston area are without power at this hour. Luckily where we are, there is still power on. I can still see some of the street lights flickering down the street. So, that is good news.
But to our south, folks down in, say, a town called Kemah, they are near Galveston Bay. So, one of their major concerns was the storm surge, how high was it going to get and would they be able to ride out.
Well, yesterday I spoke with a woman who, as of 6:p.m., was still trying to determine if she wanted to leave. And her major concern, T.J., were the pets. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELENA SAMUELSON, KEMAH, TEXAS RESIDENT: That's all I've got.
NGUYEN: If you could take them with you, you would have already left?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: So, I don't know at this point, can't get a hold of her whether she left or not. I was really worried about her. I did give her the number for the Red Cross, hoping that she could seek shelter somewhere because while we were there, the water was rising very rapidly in and around her home. And in fact, she didn't even have enough boards to put on all the windows. Some of the windows were only covered with pieces of carpet.
So, it's folks like that you worry about when you feel winds like this whipping through south Texas. And I want to take you now to our Reynolds Wolf who is just as out in it as the rest of us this morning.
And, Reynolds, what's the situation like where you are?
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's funny, Betty, where we're located, we'll have like a brief respite of the wind and rain and then we'll have one of the feeder bands pass through and then all hell breaks loose and then things calm (ph) in. It's kind of a pattern that we've seen. And we know obviously, it's that eye that Jacqui's been telling us about. As it passes a little bit farther north of Houston, conditions will get better here. So, possibly by midday, we may actually see just a hint of blue skies. But, as it stands, the wind is roaring at this time. We've been dealing with these rough conditions here. And giving you a little bit of an idea (ph) up here, one of the big issues that we have in Brazoria County is, again, we told you earlier that it's home to over a quarter of a million people. Seventy percent evacuated, roughly 30 percent is still here.
Anyone at this point who has an emergency in Brazoria County is going to be on their own for a while. All first responders are going to be stuck where they are for at least the next couple of hours. So, it's going to be a dire situation for many people.
With the storm, with this incredible scope, it stretches now over a good part of the state of Texas. It continues to march northward.
One of the things we've been talking about, Betty, is, of course, is the wind damage. Now, where you're located in Houston, one of the big topics that we've had is the potential damage you're going to have on many of those buildings, many of those high-rise buildings being damage by the strong winds.
I want to remind you that in Atlanta, we had that tornado that came through last spring and we still have damage in many of the high rise buildings in Atlanta, from one tornado. It kind of boggles to mind to think how long it's going to take to fix some of these windows in high rise Houston, especially the tallest buildings obviously.
Where we stand, again, really, not much in terms of wind damage. The wind continues. Really, we can't see a whole lot with the darkness that we've got back here. But as soon as things get better in terms of daylight, as soon as the storm goes off, we're going to try to do our own quick assessment to get an idea of what's happening not only here in this town of Clute, but trying to edge a little bit closer to the coast to see how they're faring.
If we can manage to get across the Intracoastal Waterway, we should have a great report for you. The problem is, yesterday, leading over to the bridge that crosses over the Intracoastal Waterway, you've got one road with water that was piling up on either side. There's every reason to believe that right now, that water has completely covered by possibly several feet, several feet of water. So may not be able to get out there. We're going to do the best we can to breakaway and get you that information over the next couple of hours.
Right now, a lot of Texas is surrounded in mystery, how this has been affected by this monster storm. And it's going to be one of those things and it may take a couple of days to figure out the true damage of this monster.
Let's send it right back to you, Betty or T.J.
NGUYEN: All right. Reynolds, stay safe out there.
WOLF: You bet. NGUYEN: Let me tell you this, unlike where Reynolds is, right here we're not dealing with as much as flood damage as we are wind damage. That's one of the major concerns especially in Downtown Houston.
Right to my right, just a couple of blocks down the street is the JPMorgan Chase building. It's the tallest building in Texas, some 75 stories, and already, we have sent crews down there to assess the damage and windows are blown out. They weren't able to stay there too long because it was awfully dangerous with these kinds of winds blowing through Downtown Houston.
So, T.J., as you can see, we get a little break every now and then. But these winds are still blowing very strong -- again, at times, up to 130 miles per hour.
HOLMES: Yes. You say they continue to blow and they will continue to blow, Betty, for the next several hours. Thank you so much. Reynolds, as well. We'll be checking in with both of you here shortly.
We want to check in with somebody else here now. Of course, we know a lot of people whose homes are there, they decide to hunker down. They make that choice. But there are so many others who really, don't have really a way to get out, and some people don't have family around. Some of those are college students who have to ride this storm out.
And right now, we have an entire basketball team that is hunkered down at their coach's house trying to ride this thing out.
We're joined on the phone now by Scott Gernander, who coaches the basketball team at San Jacinto College. It's in Pasadena, Texas. And that's just outside of Houston. We can zero it in there for you. Again, Pasadena is under the gun right now.
And, Coach Gernander, forgive me for not saying that name right. Correct me if I'm wrong, but go ahead and you tell me how many of you all are hunkered down at that house and how bad are things where you are.
VOICE OF SCOTT GERNANDER, COACH, SAN JACINTO COLLEGE: Well, you know, I'm hearing so much information from you just listening now because we've been without power now for, I guess, about four or five hours.
HOLMES: Oh, wow.
GERNANDER: So I'm -- you're kind of -- I'm listening on your broadcast and catching up on a lot of things. And it's -- but we've got 10 of our basketball players are here and these are all out of state kids. We had a few able to kind of go home in Houston. And then I'm with my kids, my wife, we've got about 14 of us, a basketball dorm kind of a one-building thing (INAUDIBLE) here.
HOLMES: Well, sir, tell us just outside the window, are things -- are those winds still kicking up, you're getting a lot of rain there?
GERNANDER: Oh, as we were talking now, it's just blowing so hard. You know, I guess around, you know, 10:00, 11:00 o'clock, it was blowing around here. When we heard reports, it was like 50, 60- mile-an-hour winds. I'm sure we've had them 80 -- at least 80 miles an hour around here because I was listening on your report. It hadn't been so much the rain here as the wind. You know, we kind of -- it's been pitch-black around here and it's hard to see outside.
But I know in the backyard we have a big tree that just about split to two. Luckily when it fell, it kind of missed the building and it's a little like (ph) -- you know, it's funny, we had one little lull in there, it just stopped, everything. It was just -- I walked outside. I was standing in the street.
HOLMES: Yes.
GERNANDER: There was no rain. And I thought, well, I guess it's over. And one of your reporters happened to call me that tell me to be on the air and they said, "Oh, no, the back side is hitting Galveston right now and within a half hour, it just picked up again." I thought maybe it had left.
HOLMES: Exactly. Well, sir, you said -- I'm going to go ahead and let you go here. But you said you haven't been getting much information. Well, I will give you an update since I got you on the phone. And you're out of power. That update is.
But that eyewall, it's starting to move away from Houston. We've got really, literally millions of customers out of power. It might be several weeks before they get it back. A lot of water rushing in, a lot of flooding, still a lot of those high winds. But, again, we're going to see, you need to stay there and stay hunkered down because -- don't get curious about going outside because those winds and that rain is going to be kicking up still for the next several hours.
GERNANDER: No, the building is kind of shaking as we're talking right now. It hasn't left us yet.
HOLMES: Well, coach, good luck to you and your players. Hopefully, you guys will be just fine. Well, good luck to you all and thank you so much for taking some time out here with us.
We are going to -- our Jacqui Jeras here is keeping an eye on something. You want to tell me?
JERAS: Yes. Well, I just wanted to mention that, you know, watching the radar and the conditions in the Pasadena area...
HOLMES: Yes.
JERAS: And you get some pretty strong winds right now, but there's also, you know, very big heavy bands just south of there with heavier thunderstorms and intense rain. So, you know, there's another line that's going to be coming right at this area. And also, I got an update on the power monitoring some of our affiliates out of the Houston area. And they're reporting that Cinergy (ph), which is CenterPoint Energy, is asking help now from linemen as far away as California to help them out. They say that at least 2 million people are without power. And they're just calling these outages absolutely devastating.
HOLMES: Yes.
JERAS: One other reporter I continue to monitor, some emergency management reports coming in. Glass broken out of high rise buildings in Downtown Houston, we've been reporting that but they're confirming that now as well. And they're saying that metal is coming off of buildings with at least 10 to 15 floors damaged. That's in Downtown Houston.
HOLMES: And that's something I hope we get to talk about it more this morning, but you talked about how you need to go up a category in a storm, the higher up you are.
JERAS: Right.
HOLMES: Something I never realized or heard before.
JERAS: About 30 stories up, go ahead and instead of category two winds, you're looking at category three because the winds are stronger, the higher you go up.
HOLMES: As it getting higher up. Jacqui, thank you so much.
These are some scary stuff here, but we will continue to follow this scary stuff. Again, millions without power. Storm continues to churn. Our correspondents are out there covering this for you. We are all over here as well in the CNN hurricane center. Don't go anywhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Up underneath an area that's giving me some shelter but I'm just going to walk out there real quick just to show you what it looks like when you walk into this thing and see if I've got enough wire.
Now, this is a big difference from what Gary says he's feeling now being in the eye of the storm. We're still in the middle of this thing. And there you see -- there you see what's like when you get inside this thing. I mean, the rains are coming hard and there goes my cap. Golly, I'm getting out of this. There goes another transformer as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen in Downtown Houston where Hurricane Ike is definitely blowing through. We have reporters all along the Texas coast showing you every angle from this storm. In fact, we also are working with our affiliates here in Houston to bring you reports from areas that we can't get to.
A lot of Houston is without power. I want you to take a look at a report that was just filed from our affiliate KHOU.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN REECE, KHOU REPORTER: Here in the heart of downtown Angleton and this is a lot of the debris that we're seeing in the street. The front, the facade of this building is slowly being torn off. Some of it is still dangling here, the flashing and other things that are coming off the building. That is what has littered the street here. But that's the only damage in this section.
We can tell you that parts of Angleton as you can see do still have power. But we came from Lake Jackson this morning, there is absolutely no power there unless it's on generator. And down here, Angleton is not out of the woods, either. The only lights we have in Angleton down here are our own, those are our two vehicles parked in the middle of 35.
This is the middle of Highway 35 on the way out to Highway 288 here in Angleton. Remarkably, much of downtown still does have power. But we are finding additional damage like this throughout Highway 35.
This is what is left of the front awning in front of the Brazoria County Parks Department. We are standing upwind of it because pieces are still flying off from time to time. The sheet metal just become ripped off, actually on its way out past where we parked our other car. So there is still some danger. So, we'll stand on this side.
But again, remarkably, much of Angleton still does have power, as you can see, and there are scattered spots of damage like this throughout the city. More of the fragile pieces of buildings, ones that people did not board up, things that could not be nailed down before these winds came through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: And back here in Downtown Houston, the winds are still whipping up. The rain is still coming down. And we expect it to be happening for several more hours. To talk about the situation when it comes to people getting out of harm's way, that was a big concern before Ike made landfall.
I want to talk now with our national security contributor Fran Townsend who joins us from Washington, D.C.
Fran, before Gustav even made landfall, we were talking about evacuation plans in place and the lessons learned from Katrina. How do you assess the evacuations here in south Texas?
FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NAT'L SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: You know, Betty, I will tell you, Governor Rick Perry, obviously, has a lot of experience going back to Hurricane Rita. They learned -- it seems to me they learned those lessons, they got people out. We are all now right to be concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people who decided not to evacuate in spite of the dire warnings given by Governor Perry. The next big crisis that we will face in this as the storm blows through further than it is already, is search and rescue efforts. I expect we're going to find those who stayed behind, there will be serious casualties and injuries involved.
NGUYEN: Yes, obviously, a lot of concern really centering in on Galveston where Hurricane Ike made landfall, an area that expected huge storm surges there.
I want to ask you before we get to those rescue efforts to talk about the evacuation there, because in the beginning, the mayor there had only ordered parts of Galveston evacuated and then later decided to do all of the island. Do you think there was too much of a delay or do you think there was enough time for people to get out?
TOWNSEND: You know, there's an argument to be made that doing it in stages has less traffic jams and less likely to have car accidents and casualties. And so, it's a little -- I think it would be premature for us to try and second-guess that decision. Ultimately, he came to the right place. And it seems to us now that it was in enough time to allow people, including those who made last-minute decisions to change their mind and get out, to get the help they needed.
And so, it looks like it went OK.
NGUYEN: Yes. Let's hope so. And we were hearing reports yesterday that maybe between 40 percent to 60 percent of the people still decided to stay behind, and that was a big concern. Obviously, we won't know until we get down to Galveston and see the damage after Ike blows through. But when we talk about this search and rescue operations, what is the main goal and the main concern, especially when you're talking about a huge area, Houston is one of the -- is the fifth largest city in the nation?
TOWNSEND: FEMA coordinates the deployment of urban search and rescue capabilities from around the nation. So, they can pull in multiple teams. For example, in Gustav, they had twice the number of search and rescue teams available post-storm than they had in Katrina. They've done a similar thing here. And so, you should have lots of capability.
But you've been reporting about power outages. You know, you've got millions of people without power. And downed power lines are always a sort of obstacle and impediment to search and rescue efforts because of the danger for our first responders. So, that will be one of the challenges they're going to have to deal with.
NGUYEN: It's definitely a big challenge because we are hearing upwards of 4 million people are without power. And if we look back to Hurricane Alicia back in 1983, some 750,000 people without power during that storm and it took about two weeks to restore power to everybody. So, this could be a long recovery effort.
Fran Townsend, joining us live from D.C. today. We do appreciate your insight.
Again, back here live in Downtown Houston, the storm is still blowing through. We're seeing debris in the streets. We are feeling these strong winds.
But, for you watching at home, a lot of you wondering, is there anything I can do? Well, you can. At CNN, we have an opportunity for you to impact your world. So go online and check that out. We got much more coming your way from Hurricane Ike.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Welcome back again on CNN SATURDAY MORNING, where we are covering Hurricane Ike.
And our Reynolds wolf is out there and who has been meeting and greeting Ike this morning.
It's pounding you once again. What you got going on there, Reynolds?
WOLF: Well, the latest we have, T.J., is that little bit of a let--up. Believe it or not, winds are not quite as strong, although the rain has picked up. Here's two big things we're waiting for here. One thing we're waiting for is for Ike to continue its march to the north. The second thing we're waiting for is daylight, that sun to come up in the east.
As it stands, rain has been really the constant. You know, we had that pattern where we've seen a little bit of a break here and there. But I'll tell you, the rain for the most part over the last 30 minutes or so has been fairly steady.
Something else that's been picking up, we can see a few more cars on the road. We don't know if those are from first responders. We were told the first responders (INAUDIBLE) to go out and start answering some calls in the next couple of hours or so. Conditions now are still too bad for people to get out and help those that are in distress. So, it's really a terrifying time for many, thinking about how they're going to really face the teeth of this storm or what's left of it alone, and then hopefully, they'll get some assistance in the coming hours.
T.J., power went off here, I would say, around 8:00 or so last night. Then the winds really began to pick up, I would say, during the midnight hour.
We had a lot of debris, a lot of the roof tiles are coming off the buildings. At the same time, we had these plastic sheets that are actually protecting some of the lights. Well, you know those things are going to withstand, a butterfly flying by, much less storms like these. So I mean, we have those things in pieces, there are plastic flying through the air all over. Although, we haven't had much debris now, so we're in a relatively safe spot.
Speaking of traffic again, here comes someone, someone coming this way, SUV, not a bad choice. The other car is coming in this direction. It's probably the busiest we've seen in quite a while. There are certainly some favorable news for people who are hoping for some help and hoping to get some traffic on these roads.
As far as I can tell you, the roads here have not been that bad. But on the other side of this roadway, go way down on 288, you're going to head a town called Freeport. On the other side of Freeport, you got to get you (ph), that takes you right out to the coast. And as you get out to the coast, that's where you have a lot of the issues, a lot of that storm surge.
Moving over the Intracoastal Waterway just yesterday, and I mean, this is roughly 10, 12 hours before the storm made landfall and the entire beach was covered with several feet of water. Everything is rushing onshore. Houses, again, up on the stilts. The water was beginning to pile up there. And I can only imagine the condition of those places.
We're going to try to break away, hopefully, in the next couple of hours to get a good idea of what's happening there and get some great video for you, bring it back and share with the rest of America. Let's send it back to you, T.J.
HOLMES: Well, we appreciate you doing that for us, Reynolds. We'll be checking in with you plenty here.
We want to check in now with our Josh Levs.
As we put on this story for us this morning, a lot of questions about gas prices have been going up a lot of places. We're talking about serious gas hikes here of several tens of cents in several minutes actually. What you're finding?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's incredible. I mean, some places are going up more than 50 cents. And what we're trying to do is get a sense of how broadly this is happening. Some of our iReporters in different parts of the country are sending us information of what's going on near them.
Let's start with this here. We just received this iReport this morning. And, you know what? This is from east Texas. This is from a -- we're told dozen of gas stations are out of fuel rather in eastern Tennessee. And this one is taken in Knoxville by Mike Biddle who says he tried to get gas and was unable to at several stations over there.
And let's go to another one as well. We have from Christine Bailey that shows the lines in Ocala, Florida. You know, in the middle of the night, people were lining up to get this gas already. So, these are few things we're looking at.
What's the deal with the sudden spike in gas prices? Some places are up a quarter. Some people tell us they were in line and they watched as people from the gas station came out and raised the price in front of them, 50 or 60 cents per gallon.
Here is part of the answer. We have a Google Earth map. We're going to show you now some of the oil refineries. A lot of them are in Texas, a lot of the key ones. And obviously, they've had to shut down because of Hurricane Ike coming along. This is the animation right here.
So, everywhere that you see that label, those are important oil installations in the United States. A great many of them have shut down. As we see Ike continue to pour-through, we're seeing that a lot of these places cannot operate if they get wet, even the ones that are on land, which means that it could be a while before they're back up, which means we could continue to see prices rise.
But there's a lot more questions we have. Like are we seeing price gouging and how much of what's going on is just because people panicked, were afraid they weren't able to get gas and so they ran and took everything that's there which in effect raises demand all over the country?
One more thing I want to show before I bring it back to T.J., I have this screen behind me from the Energy Department. I know you can't see the words but this lists the top refineries in America, the biggest ones. Four of them are in Texas, including the number one biggest one which is shut down. So, that's a big part of it.
Throughout this morning, we're doing two things. One, encouraging you to send us your iReports. Anytime you see gas prices on the rise, go to iReport.com. And two, we're going to bring you the answers all day long, T.J. We want to let you know everything we learn about why gas prices in so many places are suddenly on the rise.
HOLMES: Yes, suddenly. A lot people live a long way away from this hurricane and where it's hitting but they're still be affected.
LEVS: That's right.
HOLMES: Josh, we appreciate it. We'll be talking to you plenty this morning.
LEVS: OK.
HOLMES: I'm over here in hurricane center. This is where Jacqui Jeras who will be telling you about what's going on here. I'm certainly (ph) about to give you a weather report, but this is just as good of a backdrop as any that we have right now.
We do want to go to one of our affiliate reporters, of course, our affiliates down there in Texas helping us tell this story -- this reporter from KHOU in Texas City. Take a look.
GEORGE KANUCK, KHOU REPORTER: Because the conditions were so bad. We turn now on the west side of Houston and not too far away from the KHOU studios. And right about on gray (ph) and waters where we are right now. And you can see behind me just the winds here on the west side of the Houston just whipping around. The west side of Houston, we never saw the eye. We're not going to see the eye on this side of Houston. We're actually been in the eyewall for 45 minutes.
And looking at some radar, and we're (ph) probably be in that inner eyewall for another hour, at least. And the winds have just been whipping around here like crazy. Power just was actually on in a number of buildings around here just about 15 minutes ago. That power has now turned off. I think the lights that we see across the street (INAUDIBLE) operating because they stayed on as all the other lights around here have gone off.
Again, we're just west of downtown. The electricity here was on just 15 minutes ago and is now turned off.
As far as how much damage we've seen here, as we were driving here, down Allen Parkway, we did see a number of limbs on the road, a number of tree limbs down. We saw a couple of lights down, stop lights down. So, a number of road signs that were down as well.
Here in this area, we don't see too much -- again, we're in the parking lot and we only have some palm trees here. Palm trees can, obviously, withstand winds like this much better than a lot of other types of trees.
So, once this dies down, which probably will be for another hour or two, we'll try to take a quick drive around the western part of Downtown Houston to see what type of damage there is. But as of right now, with no electricity around here and kind of having to be hunkered down in this area, we can't really go out and see much more of the damage. But I can tell you here, the wind is whipping just as bad as it has all night long.
I'll turn it back inside to you.
WOLF: I'm coming to you from Clute, Texas, where the rain continues to come down to beat the band. It has been this way just on and off the last couple of hours.
But I'll tell you, that right now, it has been some of the strongest rain we've seen so far. Nothing unusual. This scene has been played out over much of southeast Texas this time and this threat (ph) is going to continue as this storm marches closer out towards the Dallas/Fort Worth area, many parts of Texas, College Station, Waco, Austin -- all going to be dealing with the heavy rainfall and there will be that potential flooding.
Also, some of the flooding we may be dealing with is going to be right along the coast because, as you remember, the storm brought in some places up to a 15-foot storm surge. And as soon as we get some daylight we'll get a better assessment of exactly what Ike brought to parts of Texas.
We'll have more coming up. You're watching CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The bricks are coming down, the wood is coming down, the cedar is coming down, signs are coming down, telephone poles are coming down, trees are coming down, and it's not a safe place to be outside right now. But Galveston, it's really getting it seriously. I just feel...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Wow. It sounds like everything is coming down in Galveston. We were worried for a minute that our own Gary Tuchman there might be coming down but he's still holding tight there as far as so many of our other correspondents are doing the same as well. We're now about 4 1/2 hours into landfall of Hurricane Ike. It was a strong category two storm when it came ashore in Galveston, Texas.
Again, we've got all the pictures, all the sound, all the new information, a lot of new stuff coming in to us. And you might not live anywhere close to that area but this storm is still going to affect you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, drive past a gas station and get back to me.
Welcome back to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes in CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Two-thirds of my team is out and about in the storm, including my Reynolds Wolf, who is out in Clute, Texas.
Reynolds, good morning to you.
WOLF: Good morning to you, T.J. We've been seeing the rain come down quite heavily here. The winds are still gusty at times.
We're going to switch gears a little bit though, from Clute, Texas back over to Houston, Texas, where CNN's Jim Spellman is reporting live at the Reliance Center which is being used as a shelter.
Hey, Jim. You got me?
VOICE OF JIM SPELLMAN, CNN PRODUCER: Hi, Reynolds. The Reliance Center here in Houston is being used as a staging ground for all the search and rescue operations. They're going to go out as soon as the winds get down to 40 miles per hour here in Houston.
FEMA search and rescue teams are here with the Coast Guard units that will be in small boats that will be hitting neighborhood streets right away. And we've been sleeping here overnight on cots and just in the last hour or so, four or five, now six big leaks have cracked open in the roof of this building. This building is just a giant squat (ph), you know, like tough building.
I'm surprised that it's been damaging -- it's been strong enough to damage such a robust building and a building that all these teams chose to use as their place to ride out the storm.
WOLF: Jim, what is the reaction to people inside the center?
SPELLMAN: They're starting to get (ph) to a kind of rude awakening here that all their stuff is getting rained on. So, they're starting, you can hear cars, trucks right here, they are parked next to me that are starting up and trying to move out of the way of this rainstorm and they're starting to try to -- of this leak in the roof and they're trying to block this from getting into all of their equipment.
Fortunately, it's not over the part where they're sleeping. But what a way to wake up to know you're probably going to have to go do search and rescues. It's just great.
WOLF: Now, Jim, I imagine where you're located at, do you have power at this time or is it simply provided by generator? Or how are they maintaining getting energy inside the center?
SPELLMAN: They have generators here, which is the reason why they chose it (ph). Earlier, we were at a hotel just right adjacent and they had power there many, many hours ago. And we saw transformers blowing as the winds picked up. So, I'm pretty sure that there is no (INAUDIBLE) power is out in the immediate area around the Reliance Center.
WOLF: All right, Jim. Jim, thanks so much for your report. Please be safe there and wish our best to those that are seeking shelter inside the center.
Folks, to give you an idea of what they're doing here in Clute, Texas -- Clute, Texas is an interesting spot in Brazoria County. It's home to about a quarter of a million people but it's home to not only a quarter of a million people but also some of the largest chemical plants in the United States.
We're going to switch and go to another camera that we have up on the balcony and through the sheets of rain and the wind you can see right across the way that is the BASF chemical plant, one of two and very close proximity. You've got BASF but you also have Dow Chemical. I can tell you that over at BASF they have roughly 137 people that are going to be keeping a sharp eye on this chemical plant as the storm comes through.
I understand that we now have Betty Nguyen back with us. Betty is in Houston.
Hey, Betty. Let's send it back over to you. How are things going?
NGUYEN: All right, Reynolds, thank you.
Here in Downtown Houston, the winds are still blowing, although not as strong as they have been earlier. It seems like the storm has started to push through. And we're getting a better look at the debris. There is lots of tree limbs. There are lights, traffic lights, in fact, large ones. There's one just sitting over to my right over here. We'll try to give you a shot of it a little bit later.
But there is a lot of debris in Downtown Houston. And one of the main concerns obviously is shattered glass, windows blowing out. There are a lot of skyscrapers here. And as these winds whip up like this and they blow windows out, that flying glass becomes a serious danger for anyone near them. So, a lot of the concern were people who decided to stay, especially if they were in high rise buildings, they wanted to make sure that they got out of harm's way.
Houston officials yesterday were reporting that they expected some 25 percent of all the glass in Downtown Houston would be blown out after this storm. Again, we haven't been able to assess all of that just yet. But I can tell you, to my right where the JPMorgan Chase building is, it is the tallest building in Texas, we have already seen a lot of damage there.
And I'm sure, T.J., we're going to see a lot more once it starts to get light outside and we can really get a good assessment of what Hurricane Ike has done to Downtown Houston.
HOLMES: Yes, that first daylight is really going to start to tell us more of this whole story. Betty, appreciate you.
Again, 2/3 of our CNN SATURDAY MORNING team are there on the ground, covering Hurricane Ike. You saw our Reynolds Wolf there in Clute, and Betty Nguyen anchoring the show still from Houston which is getting pounded.
Betty, thank you. We'll see you again here shortly.
I'm going to turn now to Jacqui Jeras, I'll turn here right -- here to behind me in the hurricane center.
And I heard you say something here. Forgive me if this wasn't for air. But you said Houston, as really things are going to go downhill for a while here because of the second band of rain is coming through. That ain't sound good.
JERAS: No, it doesn't look good actually. So, yes, hang on there, Betty, because there's a very intense band that's just to your south now and you're going to watch those winds really begin to kick up.
You know, the center of the storm way up here. We're talking probably 30 something odd miles north-northeast of the Houston area. But let's zoom in here and take note of the strong feeder bands just to the south of here. So, you know, this is already inside the beltway area pushing in towards downtown very shortly. And you can expect to see wind gusts easily, you know, 80-plus miles per hour as those blow on through. So, still a very dangerous situation in Houston.
You know, people are just starting to wake up. You want to get out and see what's going on and see how bad the situation is. Now is one of the worst times for you to do that. You need to stay indoors. You need to stay hunkered down. We just got a wind report from a storm spotter at Houston Hobby International Airport. You know, winds have been so strong there this morning that we don't get observations anymore. Basically, that's been damaged because the winds have been that strong. But they're estimating gusts around 92 miles per hour. So, that is very intense, very extreme. Houston Hobby, down in this area. So you can see that's all beginning to push in right now.
The storm has weakened just a little bit. We're looking at some winds around 100 miles per hour now, maximum sustained. Other wind reports that we've seen Anahuac, around 102-mile-per-hour wind gusts, and there you can see 83 in Houston and Freeport.
We're continuing to get reports of damage coming in and also reports of the storm surge. T.J., we have confirmed reports of surge down in Galveston and Galveston Bay area of at least nine to 12 feet. But I think that once that light comes up and we get a better handle of what's going on down there, I think we're going to see those numbers much, much higher. There is a lot of water down there along the coast.
HOLMES: So much water there and almost nervous this morning, Jacqui, to find out when the light comes up finally.
JERAS: Right.
HOLMES: It's kind of nervous to even know what they're going to see...
JERAS: And it's going to shock a lot of people.
HOLMES: ... to see what we see.
All right. Jacqui Jeras for us, covering things and keeping an eye on things in the hurricane center for us.
We will stay here. Again, Betty Nguyen still my co-anchor anchoring the show from Houston today that's getting pounded. Also, Reynolds Wolf is out and about. So are -- so many other of our correspondents.
So, stay here. We're going to get word from FEMA about what's going on. We're going to get more damage assessments that are coming in to us. Stay right here. We are your hurricane headquarters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen live in Downtown Houston. It appears that this hour that Hurricane Ike is pretty much moving out of this particular area. It's just raining a little bit. The winds have obviously died down considerably. But there's a lot of damage assessment to be done today.
I want to take you now to Bob Powers. He is with FEMA and he joins us now live from Washington. Bob, I know that FEMA advisers have been in a meeting. In fact, they're in a meeting right now at the White House. What kind of information have you been able to learn from that?
BOB POWERS, FEMA DEPUTY ASST. ADMINISTRATOR: Well, I've been doing interviews so I have not learned exactly what's going on with that. But I expect that they're talking about the weather, the implication of the back side of the storm, and I would expect the president when he addresses the nation to talk about remaining in place wherever you are, hunkered down. And for those of you who are hunkered down to remain so and not interfere with the first responders who are positioned to begin their either search and rescue or situational awareness response immediately upon reduction of the winds, to allow them to either fly or drive into the area safely.
NGUYEN: And obviously, one of the first things that FEMA is going to be able to do is something that you mention is the search and rescue. Walk us through this plan today as this storm passes through and FEMA is able to get in and assess the damage.
POWERS: Well, first of all, FEMA is supporting the state of Texas. The state of Texas has created a task force, Task Force Ike, and the federal responders are part of that task force. We have over 1,000 responders for search and rescue on the ground, plus an entire armada of aircraft that are provided either by the state or the federal government to begin search and rescue and damage assessments immediately after the storm passage.
NGUYEN: And obviously, FEMA is prepared to provide some long- term support, should that be needed?
POWERS: That's correct. We have on standby in Texas, for example, commodities of almost 5 million meals and 5 million liters of water that we can augment the state supply. We are prepared to assist the state with shelters and we're working out, as we speak, we have a team working very, very diligently on long-term housing solutions for those citizens whose houses were either destroyed or severely damaged.
NGUYEN: All right. Bob Powers joining us live from Washington today to talk about FEMA's efforts.
Again, a meeting is underway and we'll get to more guidance as to what comes out of that. And we'll bring that to you live right here on CNN.
But right now, in Downtown Houston, it looks like the winds are starting to die down as Hurricane Ike makes its way out of the downtown area, but, obviously, there are other cities in the storm's path. We are watching it every step of the way. And you want to stay right here with CNN as we continue to follow Hurricane Ike.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Good morning, everybody. Live from Downtown Houston, I'm Betty Nguyen. As Hurricane Ike continues to barrel across south Texas, it made landfall around 2:00 a.m. local time, as it came ashore in Galveston. And now, it's making its way through Houston and across southern Texas.
I want to take you now live to Beaumont where our correspondent, Rusty Dornin joins us.
And, Rusty, I understand that the winds are really starting to pick up where you are.
VOICE OF RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They've died down a little bit, but they are still howling probably 70-plus. Part of our hotel, the Elegante in Beaumont, the ninth floor, we just went up to take a look at it, but the entire wall on one side has collapsed from the wind. Six or seven windows have blown out and some of the roof tiles are coming off on that floor. The hotel is also leaking in several areas.
We have about 60 State Texas troopers in the hotel. Some of them have tried to get out on the roads. The others there, there's also some U.S. Army soldiers here who will be involved in any search and rescue. The big concern in Beaumont and Port Arthur as it has been in other areas along the gulf coast and the southern coastline is the storm surge and flooding. There are concerns about seawalls, a 16- foot seawall we were on yesterday.
At some point they were saying there was going to be a 31-foot surge from the SLOSH models, the National Hurricane Center said, along Jefferson County, that's where Port Arthur is, they are very concerned about that surge coming in going up the Neches River up into Beaumont, which is slightly inland.
Also, you have mega-refineries here, several mega-refineries in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area. Of course, they have been closed. They were taken down to safety levels. I just talked to someone from Shell Oil Company yesterday who did say that they had filled several tankers before they closed down as the storm was approaching last night so that when the storm does pass and power is returned in some areas, that they'll be able to get gasoline very quickly to stations to get people up and running.
But, of course, now, in this area, the power is out, many of the emergency numbers that I have that I've been trying to call are -- there's just no answer. I can't get anybody to answer the phone. And whether the cell towers are out or not is unclear -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Yes, a lot of the cell towers are down and electricity is out to millions of people in the Houston area as well.
Rusty, you stay safe down there.
I want to let you know this, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will be touring Houston later today. We're going to be following that.
But in the meantime, we're watching every angle of Hurricane Ike. Stay right here with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
