max mayfield, appreciate you joining us. more with irene all night as new updates come in let us know what you think. we're on facebook. follow me on twitter @ anderson cooper >>> next the very latest on the hunt for muammar gadhafi plus never been seen video from the battle to take gadhafi's compound. nic robertson has the latest. also on the manhunt going on now. we'll talk to john burns of the "new york times" with us in just a few minutes >>> also tonight an exclusive interview with one of the journalists who were held captive by gadhafi's hen muchmen. and we'll talk to the cnn producer who's being credited for persuading the captors to let everyone go. she's an arab speaker. she talked to them for days and days and finally they relented. she'll tell us how she did it. first isha sesay >>> as max mayfield says, it's a serious possibility not just a nightmare scenario anymore. tunnels flooded, airports underwater, damage, even death. the frightening reality of a hurricane hitting new york city. we'll talk to disaster auth

. >> ok, max mayfield, former director of the national hurricane center. let's speak to someone who will be affected by hurricane irene. -- lives in downtown manhattan on the edge of the evacuation zone. how are you preparing yourself? >> plenty of batteries and flashlights. there has been some panic. >> a are you planning to evacuate. >> i will not evacuate. i have everything i need here. >> is in this incredibly dangerous? >> well, there are all kinds of possibilities. if there are many people in my building and there are buildings that are taller and bigger in the area. >> do you feel like you are getting enough information from the government and the mayor as well? there are plenty of radios to tune in to. there are power cuts. we will have to rely on the radio. >> the new york subway will be closed down from midday. you have been living there for 8 years. is that something you have ever come across that? >> this will be the first time i've come across mass transit closure. this was the first time. you are expressing this idea and the neighbors are hel

mack mayfield, thanks so much for joining us. this is part of a nightmare scenario you had always worried about going up the northeast coast. can you explain that to us? >> we talked previously here that large population and not really hurricane experience. by the time they get north of carolinas, the hurricane is a very infrequent thing and i understand people not focussing on the hurricanes, but they really need to heed the advice of the officials. this is the real thing. >> it's a 2. we just saw the numbers that we kind of focus on, max. it's a 2, goes down to a 1. many times we're warning people about 3s and 4s and increasing. are you concerned at all that these numbers are going to get in the way of people making good decisions. >> in hurricane ike, it was only a category two, yet they had a storm surge. a category 2 hit okakoke island. you don't need hurricane-force winds to cause trees to fall down and power lines to fall down. and especially with all the rain you have up there in the northeast. this is a real concern. >>

i grew up taking everything from bob dylan, curtis mayfield, the beatles, smokey robinson.ike alma mater was the streets of san francisco. i would dare to go to school. where i really hung out was at the fillmore. that was my university, checking out be the king, and james brown, a cream. finding out how they were able to penetrate people's hearts. with their music. once you do that, something happens to their eyes. they become brighter. they start crying, they do not know why. they start dancing. it is like when a woman gives birth. =mmfirst, she cries and then she laughs. later on, she dances. and that, to me, is the beauty of what san francisco is about. >> one final question, and we are going to link it to your music today. such a rich legacy that you are giving us. you mentioned to me that you are working on a new album. could you share what is coming up? >> i love to dream when i am awake. kand so i had this dream of working with india arie and yo- yo ma to do the george harrison saw; and "-- song. this is the definitive way to do this. we are all in it together, we d

max mayfield the former director of the national hurricane center said this is the nightmare scenario worried about. a hurricane that literally goes all the way up the east coast, obviously huge population centers up the east coast. you know, do you have the same reaction? are you as concerned? >> i tend to have multiple nightmares for some reasons. so i have other places that concern me. the key on these is you have got plenty of lead time in the areas that are subject to surge. the local officials are doing a good job of planning for and executing evacuations. i can't do a thing about prevent can the dj from occurring. if you don't have a loss of life from this, then it isn't a nightmare. the damage will happen, we are there. martha: i was read being the 1938 hurricane and what took a similar path and took so many lives. the story in rhode island about a movie theater being swept a couple miles out into the water, movie-like scenarios. the biggest difference now is we have you folks and so much better technology to warn us, right? >> it's the whole system. i had a great aunt that wa

our old friend, former director, max mayfield, who said one of my worst nightmares is a hurricane going up the east coast. what is your fear as we watch over the next 24, 36 hours? >> i have similar concern. what we are lucky is that it is not major hurricane but it will go up the whole east coast. we will have people experience a hurricane that they probably haven't had in the last generation in some areas there. so there will be some damage as we said, structural damage. mostly north carolina. possibly structural damage north from there. we have spots all the way up the coast and from the west to center, there's a large potential for flooding from rainfall. we are talking about six to ten inches of rain. in the northeast where grounds are saturated, that's a particular problem. again, the winds were all around the center, within two to 300 miles of the center, the rainfall to the east and storm surge to the east. >> ed, unfortunately we always talk to you when something is bad is happening, but thanks so much. >> new york city, we think we are so tough here. but look the at front page

. >> the former hurricane center director, the legendary max mayfield, told the a.p., this quote read a million times today. unbelievable. max said, one of my greatest nightmares was having a major hurricane go up the whole northeast coast. so what are you going to do? how are you feeling about making sure that this which clearly is a massive storm and has the potential to wreak so much devastation is going to be minimized as much as is humily possible? humanly possible? >> i don't think you can minimize damages. even with a good team it won't prevent damages. we can reduce loss of life if people hield evacuation orders. it's not just fema. you've got a lot of officials at the local level. governors have called out national guard. you've got tremendous volunteer organizations that have been, you know, responding all summer, seems like, the tornadoes and floods now surging on the east coast to get ready for this as well as then tire federal family andered leadership of the president. we're working hard as a team to get ready for the storm. getting ready to respond. we shouldn't kid our

joining us is max mayfield, former director of the national hurricane center. max, you say one of your greatest nightmares is having a hurricane go up the northeast coast. why? >> well, just because the population. and, you know, i think people up through the carolinas, they've had enough experience with hurricanes, they know how to respond. but get too far north of there, and a lot of people just understandably don't have the experience with hurricanes. so that's a big, big concern. and as chad mentioned, this is a large hurricane. and you really don't want to focus on that little skinny line. it's a very large circulation in this case. even if the core weakens a little bit as it moves over eastern north carolina and over the colder water up north, that large circulation is not going to disappear. so they're going to be dealing with all the hazards, storm surge, large waves on top of that surge, and wind and rainfall. this particular hurricane is going to have a large rain field well out in advance of it. so that's not a good thing to have a lot of rain, and h

joining us is max mayfield, former director of the national hurricane center. max, you say one of your greatest nightmares is having a hurricane go up the northeast coast. why? >> well, just because the population. and, you know, i think people up through the carolinas, they've had enough experience with hurricanes, they know how to respond. but get too far north of there, and a lot of people just understandably don't have the experience with hurricanes. so that's a big, big concern. and as chad mentioned, this is a large hurricane. and you really don't want to focus on that little skinny line. it's a very large circulation in this case. even if the core weakens a little bit as it moves over eastern north carolina and over the colder water up north, that large circulation is not going to disappear. so they're going to be dealing with all the hazards, storm surge, large waves on top of that surge, and wind and rainfall. this particular hurricane is going to have a large rain field well out in advance of it. so that's not a good thing to have a lot of rain, and h

your predecessor, max mayfield, called this his nightmare scenario. a hurricane swirling up the east coast. are we seeing that now? >> the magnitude of the potential impacts from this is sometimes hard to get your hands on. you've got the storm surge that will be affecting all your coastal communities as you go north. you have all the wet ground. you have the trees with lots of leaves in them. and then, the tropical storm-force, hurricane-force winds will break and bring down those trees into power lines. power outages. heavy rains lead to the flash flooding. so, you have almost all the aspects of a hurricane affecting a very large area with a lot more people than many of the other areas in our basin that we have an impact from. >> that's the issue. so many big cities in the path right now. atlantic city, new york city, boston. what can we expect for those big cities? >> at a minimum especially from i'd say the washington, d.c. area up through boston, when you're right on the coasasthere we have tidal issues. so, we'll have to worry about storm surge

but in fact, as you saw max mayfield at the beginning of the clip when katrina bypassed new orleans ithat hit new orleans was under the level that the corps had said would be withstood about its system. as a matter of fact, that's the first thing that lead these investigators to make their investigation. they went and looked at the actual evidence on scene days afterwards before it had been cleaned up. the corps said the water was so high, the surge was so high, it overtopped the walls and the doctor who you saw in the clip said, water leaves a mark. the high water mark is nowhere near the top of the walls. >> the investigation, they looked back, did they also look forward and make projections about what would happen if a storm of that size or larger hits? is it forward looking and back -- >> those investigations were forensic, they were doing what nobody else did which was look back and affix responsibility. there is a third person in the film who is a whistle blow erin side the corps working on the multibillion dollar system which we constructed under the last two administrations and

>> you know, john, retired director max mayfield always would tell me his greatest fear was to go to tropical storm and wake up the next day and it would be a category 2 or 3. does the national hurricane center give you indication they err on the side of safety maybe, their forecasts a little higher in the event that happens? >> no. in fact, bill read told me their forecast is exactly what they are expecting. but you're absolutely right about max. that's what bill read told me, their greatest fear is not the storm that loses intensity, it's the hurricane andrews of the world, it's the hurricane charleys of the world, the ones that rapidly intensify when they get close to the coastline and by then, it's too late to evacuate large population centers and that's when they fear there could be great loss of life. rob? >> something else that john said -- >> thanks, john. >> is that the technology hasn't really kept up with forecasting through the years. in fact, the technology is pretty much the same for predicting hurricanes as it was ten years ago. why is that. >> you got to remember our

and whether you have spoken with max mayfield? he says one of his greatest nightmare is is having a major hurricane go up the east coast. >> i spoke with mayor bloomberg of new york yesterday about preparations being made in new york city. they are evaluating some low- lying areas already. i think a hospital is being evacuated. possibly nursing homes. we will work with them today. ambulances have been positioned to help people. able-bodied people, we are urging them to prepare to evacuate, if you are asked to, so that at the government level and at the red cross we can focus on those who need special assistance. we are watching the storm as it hits all the major metropolitan areas. d.c., wilmington, you have new york city, possibly boston. we have been in touch with all of those states. one of the concerns in new york city is the subway system. and maintain in the subway system. those decisions will be made by the mayor and his staff. i will be prepared to support them. do you want to address that? >> you can talk about the tools

of lower manhattan facing considerable flooding, given high tide, and if you have spoken with max mayfield having a major hurricane go up the east coast. >> i talked to the mayor yesterday about preparations being made in new york city. they are already evacuated some of the lower lying areas, nursing homes, hospitals. we will be working with them today. there were ambulances being positioned to help move people out of the way. this is another reason why we urge people who are able-bodied to prepare to evacuate. this is so we can at the governmental level and the red cross focus on those who need special assistance. we are watching the storm as it hits all the major metropolitan areas heading up the east coast, d.c., wilmington, new york city, possibly in boston, so we have been in touch with all of those states. one of the concerns in new york city is the subway system and maintaining the subway system. those decisions will be made by the mayor and his staff and they will be prepared to support them. craig, do you want to address that? >> bill, you can talk about that and show where the s