is serious. it has gotten markedly worse since we spoke this afternoon, how you doing? chris, it is getting ugly here. we know the real full force of the hurricane is expected to be here around 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. whatter with looking at right now though is surf, really kicking up along with the rain and a breeze more than i would call it wind. as that surf kicked up over my shoulder be you can see the pier there and i wonder whether it ll be standing some time late afternoon tomorrow because of the sheer force of the wind ourt there, chris. do have you a sense of how heavy winds are right now? yeah, it s a breeze. not much. we ve had some gusts at times here, you no he, where it may be kicked up to about 20 miles an hour or so but those were gusts. you know, this area mostly has followed the evacuation orders and people are gone. when the winds hit 5 045 miles an hour, the bridge to the main planned is going to be shut off or it ll be shut off at 8:00 tonight anyway. ei
welcome back to hardball. the national hurricane center covers many storms throughout the year but irene has the potential to effect 65 million americans. ed rap port is with the national hurricane center. ed, we have sat through our share of hurricanes. with the sheer size, number ever states, number of people affecteded, is there a historical presence for this. this is one of the bigger storms, especially for the northeast, given we haven t had a hurricane of any significance there in the last 20 years. so yes, a relatively large storm, maybe not as strong as other places but category 1, category 2 for north carolina, all the way up up the east coast
perhaps half a dozen, that plunge right down through the storm and hit the water thp they deploy temperature near urmt on a string through several hundred meters of water depth. the really critical question is how much thermal energy is underneath this storm right now. there is no way to get that except to measure in the ocean itself and how much energy is still contained in this storm, what is the structure, how is it behaving. all of that evidence is critical both to the forecast, national hurricane sent that noaa s hurricane center is developing every three hours and importantly to our continuing efforts to get better and better as it gives us accurate forecasts. we are doing pretty dog gone good for forecasting the path of where the storm will be. but forecasting the intensity and when the intensity will change is one of the big hard
think is what is needed most right now. so for instance, don t go out and get tape and start taping up your windows. that s completely useless. they told you here, didn t they, that i was going to do that. the number one cause of death in a hurricane is not from the wind or flying debris, it is drowning. you don t want to be in your base many because there is going to be some flooding associated with this. the storm surge and for folks who didn t pay much attention, as the storm moves in, as hurricane katrina moves in, it builds up the water. it is like a wall and it pushes it up. as it comes here, it ll hit up into the dunes here and depending on how big that wall is, it could be ten, 12 feet wp maybe more. it can slosh over the natural protection which is here by mother nature and that water rushes in. so folks who are a little bit further north and have basements should not think about riding out the hurricane in their
basements. also in the new jersey area and a tre tremendous amount of rain, perhaps the wettest part of the united states, when the rain comes in, it is going to rush because it is not going to be absorbed by the soil. so there could be that sense after flash flood. you don t want to find that water coming down the street into your basement. perhaps the best thing to do, if you ride this out in your house, is to find an interior room in your house like, well maybe the bathroom. but find a load bearing wall. that is the one carrying a lot of weight of your house. there should be no windows. you are in there, it is uncomfortable, you have to rideout the hurricane but if you are in a place that is safe, chris sfwlz yeah. good advice. carry sanders who survived so many hurricanes. thank you, and take good care out there. let s listen to the president of the american red cross this morning. talking about how long it might take for teams to respond if there is some incredible