Summary

ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT AND METEOROLOGIST MATT GUTMAN REPORTS FROM NAG'S HEAD, NORTH CAROLINA, IN THE WAKE OF HURRICANE MATTEWS TORRENTIAL RAIN, FLOODING AND HIGH SPEED WINDS. 1245 MATT GUTMAN HURRICANE MATERIAL FS6 81 (framerate 59.94006) Source Locators 12;44;27;00 beach VO 12;45;03;38 man standing/jumping/walking in flooded street 12;46;40;38 car pulls up, man gets in the car with Matt 12;46;54;55 MG: whats this thing? 12;46;55;36 B: its called big larry 12;46;57;51 MG: wow, you call it big larry? 12;46;57;58 B: yeah its a fishing light. you need that early in the morning before the sun comes up, so you can set up your lures and lines. ` 12;47;08;50 MG: its amazing. the carseats totally in the way, two kids. 12;47;17;34 B; my brother is an aviator, this guys pretty neat too, you can go in the water with it and everytihng. MG: really? B; yeah thats really cool. 12;47;54;02 MG: so you guys, you live in Arizona? you're from Arizona? 12;47;56;10 B; from arizona, i'm a travel nurse. i've been down here for about 7 months now. they keep extending me. 12;48;04;02 MG: so what does travel nurse do? you just go wherever you're needed? 12;48;06;23 B; um i kind of pick where i want to go and it just depends on what is available. the jobs change constantly. i'm a dialisis nurse i work at amaneo right now, so they just housed us down in Kildo and our landlord told us it shouldnt be too much of a problem with the flooding becuase hwen irene came through in 2003, which was a big big storm, that they only got about an inch in the house. so i thought with the forecast saying that it wasnt going to, we were only supposed to get 2-4 inches and it ended up turning into, it looks like more than a foot now. yeah, its definitely causing some issues. i'm just glad i was able to get my kids out in time. 12;49;01;51 MG: yeah thank god. yeah she told us that the dog woke you up. 12;49;04;17 yeah, the dog woke up, stepped off the bed into about 4 inches of water this morning, kind of freaked us out. I looked at my toddler's bed and the water level was just below her mattress. and shes only 3 years old, its not like she can swim or anything. i'm just glad she didnt you know, get in the water, but then i was...the electrical, the electric was still on. so i was just worried about electricution. so i gathered teh kids and her as fast as i could, opened the front door, and water just started gushing in. we did have sandbags around the front door and parts of the house just in case but, just didnt seem enough. definitley wasnt expecting the flooding, i was expecting some rain and some wind, but definitely not flooding like that. lesson learned. 12;49;52;09 12;50;09;06 MG: damn, i mean nobody here, people have been through a zilllion storms here and nobody expected that. 12;50;20;07 B; i mean they were pretty strict about it on the news -- look at that corvette right there 12;50;26;00 MG; ooooh 12;50;27;36 B; you see that corvette under water? oh my goodness. i mean down south they were telling people, be ready, be ready, be ready, but it didnt seem like the case here. 12;50;51;09 [zooms in closer to the road] MG: alright so this road is fine. 12;50;51;42 B; it was more the right side over here that was flooded out the most, coming in this mrorning. at 3:00 this morning i had to drive down the median here. 12;51;02;37 MG; so it is better on this road? 12;51;03;07 B; right now it looks better. its called Croton, cruton, crution? 12;51;09;57 MG; Croatan 12;51;17;09 MG; why did you guys decide to go to that hotel? 12;51;17;59 B; we stayed there when we first got here and they were in transition of putting us up in housing. 12;51;30;40 MG; you guys in Anxat (don't know the name of this town?) 12;51;31;35 B; Kildibble, so about 5 minutes from there. almost where...were about a football field from the dunes 12;52;00;42 [CAMERA MOVES TO FRONT SEAT] - he is talking on the phone 12;52;38;58 shots outside the car window; drives past car half submerged in water. 12;52;59;19 12;53;10;19 shots driving down the street 12;53;16;19 motel with flooded parking lot, driving down the street, flooded neighborhoods 12;53;44;47 B; water started coming up to my car and i had to drive it to the beach and park by one of the beach rentals. becuase they're...alright lets see... 12;54;02;45 camera focuses on flooding outside the window (really good shots of flooding by houses) 12;54;13;47 B; its not as deep now 12;54;16;23 MG; its not as deep now? 12;54;27;22 B; i'll keep my door open here so i can see how deep it gets (camera focus on water outside the window); if it starts coming into the cab then were going to have a problem. 12;54;50;53 MG: this is why driving here is so trecharous, the water can get right up into the cab of the car in all of these neighborhoods here (camera on flooding outside the car) 12;55;05;58 B; thi is my place right here, just to the right right here. oh wow, man this is bad. alright make sure theres no down powerlines anywhere...i dont want to get a shock. oh my goodness. alright guys... 12;55;50;06 looking around the outside of the house, flooded 12;56;19;22 MG; how high was it when you left last night? B; not this high, it was probably about 4 inches less. you can see the top of the box here...it looks like 12;56;28;55 MG: so you tried to put these sandbags dwon to stop the water B; we put them down ahead of time and now the water is just over...i cant belive how deep it is now. its almost a foot deep. MG; and were elevated right? B; and were elevated right here. 12;56;43;31 (walking into the house) 12;56;45;50 MG; i'm sorry blake. 12;56;51;45 B; oh my god.... MG; woah. 12;57;06;42 B; yeah you can see that we tried to get as much off the ground as we could, but by the time we got up things were already floating. theres diapers floating.... 12;57;20;38 B; they're all wet, tried to box them up as much as i could 12;57;29;01 focus on floor, MG and Blake walking through water. B; you can see its a good 3 inches above the basebaords here. MG; yeah B; the refridgerator is in the water(looks at kitchen) my wifes mixing stuff... 12;57;42;33 shot of toys and boxes in the water B; careful dont slip its real slick in here. our bedding is on the floor, you can see my child's toddler bed here is under water. luckily we got out of here before that got too MG; so thats where one of your children sleep? 12;58;01;01 B; yeah we sleep here (looking at the bed in the water on teh floor) 12;58;07;42 B; we had a pack adn play over there which we picked up, i put all the mattresses, and all her toys up here. 12;58;16;09 shot of items piled up onto a bed 12;58;18;33 B; i've got some firearms that i had under the bed that got completely saturated. some of my ammunition boxes and our clothes and you can see the sheets are sucking up all the water and all my clothes are on the bed its going to just saturate that unless i get that out of here. 12;58;45;25 walking into the room 12;58;52;51 B; all my shoes, son of a gun...this tipped over thats just terrific...my nursing scrubs, those are probably ruined. my kids clothes, i had to pull the drawers out there. at least i got my bug out back here. its not safe. this stuff will be okay, i think. i cant really think about that too much. 12;59;47;39 MG: what abotu these bins are these the kids bins? 12;59;53;51 blake ringing out a shirt 12;59;58;38 MG; how can i best help you? B; i dont know, i guess i best get my firearms out of here. MG; what is this thing its heavy as hell? 13;00;43;13 blake pulling guns off the bed 13;01;30;41 B; all of our social security cards and stuff were under water i dont know how water tight these safes are...walking through (sees clothes on teh floor) there goes my kids halloween costume, shit. 13;02;04;26 walks outside the house 13;03;10;56 going back inside the house 13;03;20;01 going through items on the table B; that was in the water, so i dont know how good that is anymore MG: here i'll start with this one. do you want this one out or stay 13;03;34;44 shot of clothes underwater 13;03;53;21 carrying TVs out of the house 13;04;07;21 shot outside the house, MG walks back inside 13;04;40;30 B; well we saved the family photos 13;04;50;55 MG carrying boxes into the car 13;04;56;52 carrying a computer out to the car 13;05;18;27 focus on items in the trunk of the car 13;05;35;57 looking into the fridge B; is it all going to go bad, that sucks. 13;05;42;41 focus on stuffed giraffe 13;05;45;11 shot looking down the flooded living room/kitchen 13;05;59;13 B; there's took much humidity in here 13;06;09;38 MG and B walking through flooded living room (good nats of them walking through water) 13;06;11;07 B; the couch is starting to soak up all that. 13;06;13;33 shot of kids toys on couch 13;06;18;11 kids toys under water 13;06;27;16 boxes and items stacked all over bed 13;06;36;08 alternate angle of lviing room nad kitchen, MG walks through 13;06;52;27 high chair parts and toys floating in the water in the house 13;07;04;34 shot of the kitchen 13;07;06;38 Blake going through clothes, putting them into boxes 13;07;40;51 Nate: how much time did you have before you had to get out? 13;07;41;58 B; probably about 30 minutes, but then you know your adrenaline is pumping so much, you got your little girls treading hrough the water, who knows how much time went by. 13;08;02;57 MG; what was the first thing you got out? 13;08;05;40 B; definitely the children, it was hard leaving them out in teh vehicle but i had to becuase i had to come in here, but i definitely got them out first. their blankets were half soaked. and then we got the dogs out...these are too wet i cant even take these. i dont have any socks...my socks were all in the bottom drawer. 13;08;52;57 shots of clothes floating on the floor 13;08;57;20 B; just bare feet, my boots are floating underwater somewhere... 13;09;03;25 walking through the house, looking at water on the floor (you can see the water up a few inches on the fridge) 13;09;17;52 shot through the kitchen window to outside 13;09;26;23 13;09;55;34 shot of items on a table, pan around living room 13;10;13;30 B; we had just done laundry and thew it all in the bin MG; luckily you have these bins B; yeha they come in handy when you're travelers...some of them are floating in the other room 13;10;38;28 MG; what are you going to do now...where do you go, what do you do? B; i havent even gotten that far, i dont know what were going to do. probably live in the hotel for a while try and get some time off work and try and salvage as much of this as i can. its a wreck man. 13;11;00;26 B; i just wish my little girls didnt have to go through this. 13;11;00;56 MG: and you dont have flood insurance B; they didnt even give us flood insurance becuase of where we were at, so thats one thing we always had, renters insurance and, like i said, when we came here, they were like no we cant give you renters insurance here. 13;11;20;24 B; ooh heres lamby! cant forget lamby (includes close up on the lamb) 13;11;37;12 B; i feel like I cant collect my thoughts, like my mind is racing. 13;11;45;28 MG; let me get the door for you, hold on...(MG pushes against the door) 13;12;12;09 B; (picks up blanket) oh, my grandmother made this for my daughter... 13;12;41;36 man walking through the flooded street 13;12;50;33 blake taking photos of the house 13;13;41;53 MG: did you guys expect it to be this bad? B; no not nearly this bad MG; and the evacuation order was only voluntary 13;13;53;21 B; i dont even remember seeing it, i stuck with teh news very adamently, and it didnt say anything about major flooding this high up...according to the matthew tracker which i sat on diligently it looked like he was veering off, and it did veer off but it edned up going to land in such an odd patter and it semed like it kept coming up the coast. and it kind of hit us, before it started going out to sea, so we didnt expect this, and our landlord herself and told us that before irene came through here it didnt really do any flooding and that was a major hurricane in 2003, she said the only flooding they had here was very light flooding, when one of these backup canals overflowed. but other than that, so we thought we would be fine, and so, here are are. 13;14;54;59 B; i was hoping it wouldnt get htis high but it did, oh no, oh wow... 13;15;26;57 B; okay thats all i can do right now 13;15;38;33 B (not on camera) it just kind of breaks my heart seeing something like her little chair top floating right there 13;16;11;37 B; and hten all my christmas stuff is in that shed adn you can see thats underwater. theres a couple of suitcases of clothes in there also, im not even going to worry about that. 13;16;23;51 MG; if your dogs hadnt woken you up what do you think would have happened? 13;16;26;20 B; i think my kid probably would have started crying, my little 3 year old probably would have started crying and alerted us. becuase we had no idea. 13;16;36;29 MG; becuase your 3 year olds bed would ahve been underwater, right? 13;16;37;11 B; exactly, she would have started getting wet, in fact her blankets that were hanging off the side were wet so im surprised she didnt wake up before the dogs. i think the dogs got down and didnt expect the water either. our dogs defintiely dont liek the water so she let us know. 13;17;04;41 MG; whats next for you guys? 13;17;09;07 B; i dont know, i honestly, dont know, i have no idea. dont have renters insurance... 13;17;19;18 MG; and you're not from here so you dont have anybody to go to 13;17;20;34 B; all of my family is in arizona so were definltey going to have to do some moving soon, once we can clear this out, salvage what we can 13;17;35;50 MG; is there anyone to blame? is it the ems' fault that nobody saw this coming -- its shocking they can plot out every step of a hurricane but then miss somethign so catestrophic 13;17;48;38 B; ultimately its my fault, i think, i think you need to be overprepared becuase you just never know when things are going to turn for the worse, you know? i thought i knew better, turns out i didnt, ya know. so i'll deifintely be prepared next time. but its definitely tragic. 13;18;00;13 13;18;11;47 MG; im really sorry man 13;18;13;39 B; thank you 13;18;23;46 Wide shot of flooding and homes 13;18;47;11 Medium shot of house flooded and a trash bin 13;19;30;19 Medium shot of home with Lowe's boards 13;19;37;20 Medium shot of Blake getting things out of his truck 13;19;51;45 Medium shot of Blake getting into his truck and shutting the door 13;20;03;36 Wide shot of Blakes home 13;20;19;28 Wide shot of flooding in the streets 13;21;04;11 Medium shot of wind turbine 13;21;23;11 Medium shot of a car stuck in a flood 13;21;30;01 Wide shot of police helping car stuck in a flood 13;21;42;16 Wide shot of a car stuck in a flood 13;22;58;56 Wide shot of a couple walking through water 13;23;33;57 Medium shot of Gretchen Glass emptying out her rain boots 13;23;56;20 GLASS: You know what? We went to a wedding yesterday and I matched the dress to the boots. GUTMAN: Did you expect the boots to be so full of water? GLASS: Not at all 13;24;08;30 GUTMAN: Are you from around here? GLASS: No, we're from Black Mountain, North Carolina 13;24;20;10 GUTMAN: I guess nobody here expected that? GLASS: I was kind of amazed it was not dropped down to a tropical storm till the morning. So, we took a trolley from Nanteo to Nags Head in the thick of the storm at 11:00 at night. GUTMAN: A trolley? GLASS: It was insane, we floated. The scariest part was going up over the bridge because we had to gain momentum it was doing that on the way up. Fifteen people and we all had to stay at the bride and grooms beach house, we couldn't go anywhere else. It was pretty insane! We knocked out some bucket list stuff, category one hurricane in a trolley over a bridge. Yeah, we really - get it done on the bucketlist last night. It was a really fun wedding, it was a really tense ride but it was an experience. GUTMAN: I bet. 13;25;25;08 Wide and close up of truck driving/reversing through flood 13;38;04;10 KELLY: I am actually gonna go sit in our truck, we have one of the plugins. And i'm gonna try to charge my husbands phone and see - I'm not sure if it got wet or what not. We were able to grab a few things, we're travel nurses out here from Arizona where we don't have weather. GUTMAN: Did you expect it to be anything like this? KELLY: No, originally in the week we had planned to go stay up in Williamsburg and we were gonna put everything up higher. My husband was in the navy out here so he kind of knows what to expect, but everybody kept saying it was gonna blow south into the east and go back to the Bahamas and I can't believe it happened. GUTMAN: Clearly it hasn't KELLY: No, it hasn't and we woke up because around midnight our Pomerianian woke up started crying, pawing at me and there was water everywhere. Our house is on the ground floor and it's completely flooded - when we left here and got here around 2 AM and it had eight inches of water. GUTMAN: You have kids too that must have been terrible 13;38;55;30 KELLY: It was horrible! We have a three year old, who actually thought it was great she said it was a swimming pool in her living room and we have a one and a half year old. GUTMAN: But the water that's coming up is not necessarily the kind of water you want to play with? KELLY: No, you can tell it was coming from sewage. There was like things floating and its awful. Hopefully today, we're gonna go back in about two or three hours and see kind of where we are. Since we are travel nurses and we move every, you know, three to six months and so a lot of our stuff is in plastic totes, like photo albums and things like that. 13;39;26;58 GUTMAN: You take all of that with you? KELLY: We do, I keep - well my mom passed away five years ago from cancer, so I keep things with her with us. I sew, so I have a sewing machine. We're a disney crazy family - so we have literally- I grabbed the Halloween costumes because we're going to Disneyland in two weeks. So I mean, it is what it is. GUTMAN: I'm sorry KELLY: Thank you, it's so scary. I'm ready to move home. 13;39;53;48 GUTMAN: It seems like a lot of people - you see people who have moved their car KELLY: No, they said it was going to blow south east back to the Bahamas on all of the hurricane trackers and I kept telling my husband, you know, are you sure we shouldn't stay - are you sure we shouldn't go - obviously, we listened to the news stations and we didn't make the right call this time. But I mean things can be replaced, family and pets are harder to do so. 13;40;24;32 GUTMAN: And when you started moving out of the house in the middle of the night, how scary was that? KELLY: I was balling. I was completely crying. I was just hysterical. And then I told my husband I have to go back in, he goes "why are you going in?" I'm like I need things. I mean it seems so silly now, but like I grabbed my blow dryer and like my sewing machine and just little things like that and I tried to get a couple of stuffed animals for our girls and hopefully - we were able to put things up higher on counters and tables and what not. So i'm hoping it's not too bad 13;40;53;41 GUTMAN: and you probably figured that whatever was coming up it was gonna get higher right - the water was only rising. KELLY: I'm assuming when we go back that it's probably gonna be at least a foot. The other problem is they were renovating the upstairs, and so i'm really concern that there's no dry walling upstairs. The floor is being refinished so it's very weak and when we went back we could see dry wall holes and like patching falling through. So my other worry now is if things didn't fall into the water and flood, im scared maybe the roof is collapsed. It's just one of those things you just have to kind of see what we can do and what we can salvage and kind of move on from it. Luckily it's only been - the stuff has been in water for about twelve hours, maybe, by the time we'll get back. So hopefully a lot of it will be able to be salvaged 13;41;40;08 GUTMAN: Thanks Kelly KELLY: Thank you 13;42;34;37 Kelly walking through the strong winds 13;43;17;31 Kelly getting into her car