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Hurricane Gordon Expected to Attack Western Florida by Monday

Aired September 16, 2000 - 6:20 p.m. ET

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

BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there you see it, Hurricane Gordon spinning in the Gulf of Mexico, looking for a target on the western coast of Florida.

ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: And our Chad Myers has been tracking the storm.

Chad, what do you have?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, good evening everyone.

Still, the storm now at 75 miles per hour. Just updated from Tropical Storm Gordon to Hurricane Gordon in the past half hour. If you weren't paying attention or if you just tuned in, a ship moved through the storm, and did have winds of 75 miles per hour and they are expecting gusts to about 90 miles per hour.

This storm is still to the west of Florida, almost due west of Key West here.

Ed Rappaport from the National Hurricane Center in Florida joins us now with some more information on this storm.

Ed, exactly what are you expecting with the track of this storm so far? What do you know?

ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Well, at this stage we're looking at a hurricane that, as you said, is centered just to the west of the Key West area. About 250 miles offshore of the west coast of Florida. And we're expecting a track that will take, now, Hurricane Gordon towards the northeast, and probably affect the area between the southwest coast of Florida and the Florida panhandle.

Right now we do have watches and warnings in effect and that's because we're anticipating that the storm will move in that general direction, towards the northeast, up towards the coast.

The highest risk for this system is the storm surge, which could reach in excess of 10 feet when landfall occurs. Probably talking about late tomorrow or early Monday.

MYERS: Ed, we've also been looking at, of all the models here at CNN, and many of the models have the storm curving a little bit to the left, toward Apilachicola. Why is your forecast to the right of that?

RAPPAPORT: We're not very far to the right of that. At this stage, still, Apilachicola is a potential target; and, in fact, we have a hurricane watch in effect from Apilachicola on the Florida panhandle, around the coast, including the Tampa area, down to the southwest coast of Florida. So that entire area needs to be prepared for possible hurricane landfall.

MYERS: Ed, also, I don't if you're aware of this, but Broward County just had a tornado warning from one of the feeder bands, so all of Florida is going to be affected, no?

RAPPAPORT: That's right. The primary threat, as we said, is going to be storm surge on the west coast of Florida, but there will be heavy rains, possible flooding and, as you said, a threat of tornadoes as well.

MYERS: Ed, thank you very much, we will keep in touch all night long. Thank you for your help, I'm sure it will be a busy night down there in Miami.

RAPPAPORT: Thank you.

MYERS: We do look at that hurricane watch from Apilachicola all the way down to Bonita Beach. We'll have more coming up a little bit later. Back to you.

HALL: All right, Chad.

Florida officials are suggesting voluntary evacuations for two coastal counties.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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