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Hurricane Florence ready to Hit Mid-Atlantic as a Category 4 hurricane; September 11th Memorial Services; Should Pluto be Reinstated as a Planet; Global Medical Relief Fund helping Children from Around the World with Prosthetics; Giant Rideable Mantis
Aired September 12, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Thank you for downloading, streaming or just plain watching CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz explaining world news from the CNN
Center. First today, get away from the coast. That`s what a Americans in the U.S. Southeast are being told as a monster storm brews in the Atlantic
Ocean. It`s name is Hurricane Florence. It`s already triggered mandatory evacuation orders for more than 1 million people in the states of North
Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. And Florence is uniquely dangerous. For one thing it`s powerful. Its wind speeds hovered around 140 miles per
hour Tuesday.
That makes Florence a Category 4 hurricane. That makes Florence strong enough to blow the roofs off houses, knock down walls, snap most trees,
take out power. The area it hits could be uninhabitable for months. For another it`s storm surge could be catastrophic. This is the abnormal rise
in sea levels as a hurricane blows water ashore. A CNN meteorologist says Hurricane Florence could bring a 20 foot storm surge. That would make the
tide 20 feet higher than it normally is as Florence blows in.
The National Hurricane Center says anything more than a 12 foot storm surge is life threatening. Third, scientists tracking this storm predict it will
slow down after it makes landfall. That`s a major problem as far as flooding is concerned. Last years Hurricane Harvey was a slow moving
storm. It poured rain on Houston, Texas for more than a week and that caused scenes like this. Predicting exactly what storms like Florence will
do is still like predicting the weather. There`s uncertainty about it. This hurricane`s wind speeds fluctuated Tuesday. Forecasters didn`t agree
on whether it would still be a Category 4 storm at landfall, if it would get stronger or weaker before it blows ashore. But here`s how things
looked yesterday afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We now have Hurricane Watches along the coastal region of South Carolina all the way up to the border of Virginia and same goes
for Storm Surge Watches that have been issued across the region but everything else remains the same. Still a Category 4, still 140 mile per
hour sustained winds and the storm still pushes off to north and west northwest that are 15 miles per hour. But here we go with this and we know
water temperatures from here forward will just continue to get warmer. You need water temps of 82 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain a tropical system.
We`ll go to about 85 eventually to about 88 before it makes landfall. That`s why there is that outside shot of this potentially even
strengthening further up to a Category 5 as it approaches land. But, you take a look. That rapid intensification in place, 36 hour period from a
Cat 1 to Category 4, remarkable system. And of course, we`ve looked very carefully at where it`s going to end up and consistency has been all the
name of the game with this as far as pinpointing South Carolina on into North Carolina even including portions of Virginia. At this point, the
latest models bring this in sometime into the overnight hours now of Thursday and potentially early Friday morning coming in as a Category 4,
somewhere around the costal regions of North Carolina from Wilmington up towards Cape Hatteras.
The spaghetti model guidance kind of shows the concentration of which right around areas around Wilmington as the best likelihood for landfall and
Hatteras certainly in line as well. And when you take a look at the comparison of the most reliable models we typically go to the American and
European, American in red. European coming in in blue. Very similar as far as where they`re lined up here going into the overnight hours of
Thursday. But notice, once they make landfall both models kind of want to have it hover around for maybe a day or potentially more. That`s what
really becomes a danger in scenario here with potential rainfall amounts as much as 20 or more inches on some of these costal communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: On the 17th Anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., memorial services were held across the country
yesterday. Starting at 8:30 a.m. at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City a ceremony including a moment of silence was held in remembrance of the
victims. Their names were read aloud and church bells rang throughout the city. At 8:45 a.m., at the Pentagon, U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence and
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis attended a ceremonial wreath laying and a reading of the victims names there.
And at 9:45 a.m. in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump paid tribute to the victims of United Airlines
Flight 93. The President called the field where terrorists crashed the plane a monument to American defiance and he called the new Tower of Voices
Memorial a message that America would never submit to tyranny.
10 Second Trivia. Which of these is not a requirement for a celestial body to be considered a planet? Must orbit the sun, must clear its path of
orbit, must have a moon or must be round. A planet does not need a moon to meet the International Astronomical Unions definition of a planet.
But as option B indicated, it does have to clear the neighborhood in its path of orbit. Meaning knock other space rocks out of the way if necessary
and that`s why the International Astronomical Union announced in 2006 that Pluto was no longer a planet. The Union said it was just too small to
clear its path. But that decision caused a lot of controversy and not just among those who were taught there were nine planets in our solar system.
New research published in the scientific journal Icarus argues that Pluto should be reinstated to planetary status. A University of Central Florida
scientist says that, nobody actually uses the path clearing requirement in their research.
He says his team looked at two centuries worth of materials and found only one study from the early 1800`s that used the path clearing requirement.
He adds that the way a celestial body is formed and whether it`s big enough to have a spherical shape are more important factors for its
classification. The IAU says it hasn`t received any formal requests to reevaluate Pluto but that it`s good to debate these topics.
Up next, a report on the CNN Hero. In the mid-1990`s Alyssa Montantee (ph) found out about a boy in Southeast Europe who lost three of his limbs to a
land mine. Within 24 hours, Montantee (ph) had contacted an airline, a hospital and a prosthetic company to help him. Since then, her non-profit
group, The Global Medical Relief Fund has helped more than 300 children from 46 countries.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(ALYSSA MONTANTEE): I help children one at a time you could say. When I first started this 20 years ago, I didn`t have a clue. I was really
struggling with panic attacks and I really didn`t know what was happening with me but there was something inside me that drove me to do this. We
bring children that have no resources from all these different countries. They receive medical care. The children that we help have been injured
through war and natural disasters, birth defects and injuries.
We write the Visa and then we fly them here to JFK in New York. We follow up until they`re 21 years old. So they come back every year. So, Arush
(ph), her mother had sent me an email and said that her daughter was born without legs and an arm and could we help? I immediately knew we could.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going to do both feet and both arms.
(MONTANTEE): We partner with the Shriner`s Children Hospital who provide all the prosthetics, surgery, rehabilitation. We`re empowering them
because we`re giving them back what they lost. A chance to stand on their own and write and go to school and to contribute to society. The Dare to
Dream House is their home away from home. It`s six houses away from my house but it has to be because the charity is not 9 to 5, it`s 24/7.
What`s so magical about the house is that you have all these families. They come from different corners of the world and they all heal together,
laugh together. They don`t speak the same language but love is universal. See where those buildings are there. That`s Brooklyn. By helping other
people, you`re healing yourself. I know I`m making such a difference. And that has made me feel a purpose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: At some point, we`ve all wondered what it would be like to be a gigantic insect or not. But hey, here`s your chance to find out. It`s
called "The Mantis". It was made by a British engineer who`s also worked on special effects for movies. It weighs almost 4,000 pounds. It stands
over 9 feet tall and 16 feet wide and it`s the Guinness World Record holder for largest rideable hexapod robot. There can`t be a lot of competition.
Maybe he "thoraxed" around first "pestering" his friends to find out what is "abdoment" by the category. And then set his compound eyes on something
that would net a lot of "antention". Or maybe he just "winged" it by watching a "hexapod" cast. Either way, we thank you watching our pod cast
of CNN 10 and hope you`ll "buzz" back our way tomorrow. I`m Carl Azuz.
END
