Hurricane Dorian Targets For Bahamas Before Heading Toward U.S. East Coast; Northern Florida, Southeast Georgia Prepare For Hurricane Dorian, Knowing It Can Change Direction; NASA Moves Launcher Inside Ahead Of Hurricane
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: It's 3:00 Eastern, noon out West. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for being here. Hurricane emergency. A massive storm churning toward the East Coast right now and taking direct aim at the northern-most islands of the Caribbean. Right now, Hurricane Dorian, a category 4 storm, with winds near 150-mile-per-hour. That's not far from cat 5 status.</s>CABRERA: People in south and central Florida wisely making their supermarket runs, even though the storm had shifted to the east, making a direct hit there less likely. Still they are keeping up their guard and watching the hurricane's every move knowing it could change direction again. And this is just due east from Orlando. You can see the beaches deserted. Let's get to CNN's Chad Myers in the Severe Weather Center. Chad, before the storm reaches the United States, it's going to hit the Bahamas. Show us where and what people there are about to go through.</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's going to hit the Bahamas over and over and over. And I'm glad you pointed that out. Because I made a special map to point out what we are specking from the storm now. What the European model and the American model are pretty much agreeing upon. The storm right now is 150-mile-per-hour. We did have a wind gust to 166 from the hurricane hunter aircraft about an hour ago. The plane has now left to come back home and another plane son the way. But we won't get any more pressers or updates by the 5:00 hour for sure. Here is what's going on. The storm is breathing well. The eye is clear. Around the eye is going up and down, going about 15 miles across from one side to the other. We are expecting the turn around the Bahamas and turning right. It appears that this is going to be a smooth turn. But it's not. This is Saturday at 3:00. This is right now. There's Nassau. There's Freeport. There's the storm at 10:00 p.m. Sunday morning. There's the storm at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night. Did you see it move? Here is the storm 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning/ Oh, my gosh, this thing has been in the Bahamas now for 24 hours at 140-mile-per-hour. But wait. There's more. Here you go. Sunday, 11:00, 10:00 p.m., another 12 hours, in the same spot. And then finally begins to move by Tuesday. So this is not turning. It's stopping and then making almost a 90-degree left-hand turn. If you believe that. But it wouldn't have to go much farther west to have that type of stuff still over Florida. That's why you're already prepared in Florida. Don't let the guard down. You have to keep watching. Let's hope it never gets to the Bahamas and does that stop somewhere 60 miles east of the Bahamas. It's still possible but that's not the forecast right now. We will have more models by the time is gets closer and closer. All we already know is that the hurricane warnings are posted for the Bahamas, and rightfully so. And 36 hours of a storm at 140-mile-per-hour or greater in any spot will do unimaginable damage and harm to that area. Storm surge, wind damage, an awful lot of rainfall coming down, too. Like that's not even a huge problem at this point in time when your winds are 140. Waves off the East Coast will be 40 feet. That's not on shore. There will be breakers before that. But eventually, this thing gets all the up to the Carolina with very large breakers. But neither model -- right now, all models are in. The European and the American model, none of them actually have the eye center over any part of the U.S. Not saying that's eye wall. That's the center of the eye. That's some good news. Just get this thing farther out to sea and we'll all be good.</s>CABRERA: Fingers crossed if that happened. But still, even without direct landfall, I imagine all those people who are there along the East Coast will still feel the winds and the rains and the storm surge, no?</s>MYERS: No question about it, 20 inches of rain easy. Because it sits over water and uses the water to make its energy and to make it rain and rain and rain on shore. Then you have wind, even if it's just 60- miles-per-hour. Can you imagine 30 hours of wind on shore in West Palm or Port St. Lucy or Port Ritchey? That would push water right into those back bays and into the inner coastal. Water could go up eight feet even without landfall.</s>CABRERA: OK. So important for everybody to continue their preparations for the storm. Chad Myers, thank you. People living on the coast in northern Florida and southeast Georgia being told today to prepare for the powerful storm's arrival. It will either hit with full force or with a glancing blow. CNN's Dianne Gallagher is in Jacksonville, Florida. Dianne, how are people there getting ready?</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, Ana, we have to point out exactly what Chad said. Whether it's a full force or glancing blow, Jacksonville has to prepare for flooding. A large part due to this right here, the St. John's River. It's location kind of in between the ocean and the river here. They may have to deal with flooding in Jacksonville. I have covered hurricanes in Jacksonville. Even if it's not a direct hit to Florida, they deal with this kind of flooding in the downtown area, simply because of the way it's situated along the water. And they've prepared accordingly, Ana. There's supposed to be a football game. Florida State versus Boise was supposed to play right across the street from where I am. This should be filled, this marina, with boats, people tailgating. It should be active. Instead, they moved the game all the way across the state to Tallahassee because they weren't sure of the track. And that's a lot of what we've been doing. We have come up the coastline of Florida, my team and I. It's that uncertainty, not knowing when it was going to hit, just how intense the storm surge will be, how intense the winds are going to be, getting whether it makes landfall or not, and how it affects the low-lying coastal areas. The good news is the East Coast of Florida is used to hurricanes. The people here are prepared and they know how to prepare and they know what to do. But it's something that makes them nervous. Schools in the area surrounding Jacksonville have already cancelled classes for students on Tuesday. Remember, this is Labor Day weekend, a holiday weekend. They weren't in school on Monday to begin with. But they want to take every precaution that they can to make sure if they do have flooding in this area they don't have people who are caught in it. They don't have kids at school. People who return from maybe being on vacation for the holiday trying to get back here and get stuck in whatever comes this which from Dorian. Now, look, you're not seeing much around here right now. To be honest, there are not a lot of active preparations going on in Jacksonville. The gas station lines aren't here, the grocery store lines, things like that. But remember, we are still a couple days out. They're watching the forecast in these communities trying to see exactly what to expect. But, again, we're likely going to see some kind of flooding here because that's what happens due to that storm surge and due to the river here, due to the proximity to the ocean.</s>CABRERA: It's so eerie to see not a soul in sight behind you. Dianne Gallagher, thank you for that update. Of all the people and organizations moving valuable items out of Hurricane Dorian's way, no one perhaps has as big a job as NASA. The space agency decided to move this mobile launcher at the fast clip of one-mile-per-hour. The launcher is as tall as the Statue of Liberty, weighs more than 10 million pounds, and will catapult the next space craft to the moon. But during the storm, it will be indoors for safekeeping. NASA's Derrol Nail is the spokesperson for the Kennedy Space Center. And he's joining us now. Derrol, given the forecast, good news for people in Florida. Does that change anything in terms of your preparations for the storm?</s>DERROL NAIL, SPOKESMAN, NASA/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER: No, Ana, it does not. We met with our forecaster here at the Kennedy Space Center early this morning. And it's been determined we are going to have potentially still hurricane-force winds here at the Kennedy Space Center as this storm comes by. So we want to make sure we're all buttoned up. We did the operation yesterday to move a very valuable piece of equipment, that mobile launcher that you mentioned, which is the future for the Artemis Program, to send the first woman and the next man to the moon and learn to live on the moon, so we can live on another world like Mars one day. We got the mobile launcher moved back to the VAB behind me. In fact, it's behind door number three, high-bay three. It's locked up tight. The ground systems crew here at the Kennedy Space Center finished their work yesterday. Now they are home preparing and taking care of care of their families and making sure their loved and their homes are ready for the storm.</s>CABRERA: That big piece of equipment, the mobile launcher, that's huge. Describe some of the challenges of moving something like that. And how vulnerable is that in a hurricane?</s>NAIL: Well, our engineers tell us the mobile launcher can take winds up to 110-mile-per-hour. But when Dorian started getting over that, we decided, you know what, it's best if we have is it inside. We don't want to test it. It's 400 feet tall. So when you talk about the challenges to doing this, it takes about a 50-person operation by our ground systems team. They all had to come in early in the morning, around 5:00 a.m. yesterday, and it took about eight hours to move that crawler -- or to move the mobile launcher with the crawler transporter from the launch pad on a three-mile journey all the way here to the vehicle assembly building. And along the way, we have to make sure that everything is stable and steady as she goes. It only goes one-mile-per-hour. For good reason, you wouldn't want it to sway back and forth in movement like that.</s>CABRERA: No doubt. Fascinating. You sent us a picture of Dorian taken from the space station. It's an amazing picture. Tell us about it.</s>NAIL: Yes, that's awesome. That's from our cameras at the international space station. And you know, we go around the earth every 90 minutes. And so when we got over the top of Dorian's location, we fired up our cameras, trained it on that angle there. And there you see it. It is an impressive and awesome sight from space. As you can see there, just the size of it alone. Even though it's a smaller storm, historically speaking, from that camera angle, from 250 miles above the earth's surface, it really shows you just how powerful it is. Especially looking in the part of the picture where you see that defined eye. It's a great view from space to help understand the power of the storm, Ana.</s>CABRERA: That is an incredible picture. Thank you, Derrol Nail, for sharing that with us. Best of luck as you prepare for Dorian to arrive.</s>NAIL: Thank you, Ana.</s>CABRERA: We are keeping a close eye on the dangerous storm. Within the hour, President Trump will be briefed on the response to Dorian. Plus, six weeks, 328 false claims. CNN breaks down President Trump's many falsehoods. And a woman gives birth alone in a jail cell, as nearby medical professionals do nothing to help. I'll show you more of the shocking video. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for being here.