Tropical Storm Bertha Peaks In Intensity As It Barrels Towards The Gulf Coast

[00:00:00]Uh, but Robert, we talked about this yesterday. Northern half of this thing, it's more squally as compared to a sustained uh set of tropical storm conditions.

[00:00:12]>> It's uh it's very interesting uh to watch this. You know, you think 1 second you're going to get a bunch of rain coming in and then it dissipates and yet wind kicks up. And you look behind me, uh the Gulf uh is, you know, churning up pretty darn good uh as tropical storm Bertha is just to the south of us, probably about 100 miles or so, maybe even less at this point and moving at a well, very slow pace, turtle pace, 3 to 4 miles per hour. Uh and I'm going to walk off camera and let Dino just kind of uh train his lens all the way into uh the Gulf of America and some of these squalls that are coming in. Uh they have progressively gotten larger since this morning. Uh we have had some rain come in. In fact, we were going to go down there cuz we thought that we were going to uh that there was going to be uh no rain and then all of a sudden the radar looks like we were going to get rain, so we stayed up here uh to kind of give you this bird's-eye view. But uh nonetheless, the impacts uh as this continues to trek to the west uh into some of those vulnerable areas, right off the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, the barrier islands that are supposed to act as speed bumps. And I continue to talk about this because the importance of those barrier islands uh cannot be overstated. Uh and I want you to listen to some of the scientists uh that we spoke to and they'll kind of give you the lowdown.

[00:01:32]>> As the sands continue to migrate north and south along the chain, uh as storms continue to to batter the islands, they become separated.

[00:01:42]>> At this time, the island is disintegrating rapidly and we don't think it's got two decades left depending on how many hurricanes we have.

[00:01:49]>> Well, the concern is that islands like this are disappearing. Um and the importance of these islands for the resilience of the coast, for communities and wildlife. Um we know that they're disappearing at a rate that um means that in a several decades they're not going to be here.

[00:02:05]So if we can reverse that and and extreme it add enough sediment to create longevity that might get us to even 100 years.

[00:02:13]Um that's critically important to the resilience of the coastal communities and the wildlife that use these islands.

[00:02:20]>> And back here live Ian. Yes, indeed a long-term battle and an immediate short-term battle right now as Bertha is tracking from the east to the west. Uh it will likely at least outer bands if not the center will go over some of those places like Dauphin Island and the Chandeleur Islands which were those interviews were conducted. And you know when it moves into the fragile coastline of the state of Louisiana then that's where there's issues. It's all below sea level. Uh it is surrounded by water and 2 ft of water, 4 ft of water. Yeah, it can cause evacuations in some of those areas like Venice and even Grand Isle which is 75 mi, 90 mi to the south-southwest of New Orleans. So we're going to have to watch this as it goes 60 mph winds have been reported already.

[00:03:10]We'll see if that changes. Uh in the meantime Bertha is somewhere right behind me to the south in the Gulf as the waters are churning up and we're going to be on the move. We're packing up out of Fort Walton Beach and moving on the coastline to Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island and we'll see what we can gather and be live again tomorrow morning with the impacts as it moves.

[00:03:33]Ian.

[00:03:34]>> Robert, the the pursuit continues but yeah, well said. These fragile coastlines, top-down view, it's like they're living and breathing, constantly changing and this will be a test as Bertha sends more water towards some of those islands. I'm looking forward to more of your reporting farther off to the west. That's Fox Weather senior correspondent Robert Ray. Thank you.