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Destruction on the Jersey Shore; Obama Arrives in N.J. This Hour; Pumps Arrive in Hoboken; Governor Cuomo Speaks in New York; Some Trains to Start Running Tomorrow; NYC Airport Update; Barrier Islands Devastated; Role of Politics Following Storm

Aired October 31, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Suzanne Malveaux at the worldwide headquarters of CNN, welcoming our viewers from the United States and around the world on CNN International. You're all here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Disaster on top of disaster. How much can one city take? Unbelievable flooding, millions of people with no power, and now this fire. Eighty homes burned up in this neighborhood in Queens, New York. We are live there in just a few minutes.

There's people down in the Jersey shore. Here's what they are dealing with as well. The storm called Sandy ravaging the entire coastline. The Governor's office says at least six people are now dead in the aftermath. In Long Branch and Pleasant Beach and Seaside Heights, nobody's got electricity. The storm knocked over trees, ripped down electric lines. And, today, more than two million people just in New Jersey are without power.

Rail service, path trains that run up and down the coastline, forget about that. Buses too, all suspended. Transit officials say it's going to be days, probably weeks before any type of commuter train service starts again between New Jersey and New York City.

Now, look at a team of reporters. We've got them everywhere. CNN is all over the storm damaged area. We are covering this disaster like no other network can and live coverage of Superstorm Sandy.

A New Jersey man who has been surfing off the Jersey shore for more than 20 years says the destruction along the coast, it brings tears to his eyes. Brian Morowski (ph), he sent us this video. He shot it the day after Sandy struck. Just take a look at the expanse of all of this. It shows the beach boardwalk in his hometown Del Mar destroyed along with many of the shops that run up and down that area.

It is really just a small, small snapshot of a much wider path of destruction that is along the coast that we are watching and seeing. Destruction that Governor Chris Christie has now called overwhelming.

Brian Morowski, he's joining us on phone from Sea Girt, New Jersey.

And, Brian, I understand that you actually road your bike to the boardwalk after the storm just to see what kind of damage was there. Can you describe for me what you saw?

BRIAN MOROWSKI (ph) (via telephone): Yes. It was -- it was like a war zone. It was unbelievable. I mean just buildings crushed. The boardwalk completely gone. And just very sad, you know. Just -- people's belongings everywhere. So, yes, not fun, man. Not fun to see.

MALVEAUX: Brian, as somebody who's a part of this community, I can't imagine really what the emotions are that you're experiencing. Can you talk a little bit about your conversations that you have with your family and your friends, some of the emotions that go through when you look at the day after and then the day after and realize, this isn't really going to change any time soon?

MOROWSKI: Yes, you know, you sit there and you think to yourself, you know, I'm glad I'm around my family and my family's safe and -- but there other people that aren't, you know, and you just -- you know, sometimes you take for granted for what you have. And not having electric, not having water, not having all these things, and these people -- you know, this is just a small thing for me, and there's people that lost their homes, their businesses, they lost pets, family members. It's just very sad and it's just, you know, to be surrounded by all this that's so close to home, it just hits you hard, you know? It's just not a good feeling. It's hard to stomach, especially when it's right around the corner from you.

MALVEAUX: Brian, is there anything that you or your family are doing when you reach out to your friends, things that you're trying to do to try to cope at this point, because, you know, some people, they look at this and it's just absolutely -- it's hard to get your mind around. And there are people who are in other parts of the country who are thinking, well, you know, we've seen this and we keep seeing these pictures. How do you describe to them, how do you explain to them what it is that your community is experiencing right now?

MOROWSKI: You know, it's just everybody's sitting around. And when you don't have -- like I said, when you don't have electric and you're just contemplating on what to do next, you're just trying to help each other and just help each other get through, you know, what you're seeing, what you're hearing from other people. And as you're driving around town and you're seeing trees on homes, you know, and somebody comes back from going to the store to try to get a cup of coffee or to basically get anything for that matter, and they come back and they're upset because they saw something else and, you know, it's so hard because, like I said, you know, you're just completely surrounded by it.

But, you know, I have a great family. I have a good group of friends that we're around. And, you know, everybody's close in the area. We all know each other. I've surfed around the area for a really long time, so, you know, it's just basically just helping out as much as we can with anything we can. You know, even like little things like, you know, I needed some sugar for some coffee or I need some toilet paper or just, you know, just little things.

But, you know, like I said, you do what you can and you hope for the best. It's tough but, you know, and there's nothing else you can do. It's out of your hands. You know, it's all in mother nature's hands and we're just going to fix up what's destroyed now and hopefully we'll go from there.

MALVEAUX: All right. Well, Brian, thank you so much for telling us about how your family is doing. And, obviously, I know you guys are really trying to get together and help each other out, and really even just the small things. We're taking a look. We watch these pictures here and we look at just the mass scope here. I mean, it's just so big to wrap your head around the devastation, but you really bring a very personal picture to it. You know, something as simple as getting sugar for a cup of coffee or a roll of toilet paper, to help out a friend or a neighbor who is in need. So, Brian, we're going to be keeping in touch with you to get a sense of how the community is pulling together during this very difficult time.

Thanks, Brian. Really appreciate it.

The entire eastern seaboard is now in recovery mode from the Carolinas to the Canadian border. And right now we're going to focus on the Jersey shore. That is the 130-mile stretch of beaches, the barrier islands south of New York City. That is where we find our own CNN's Michael Holmes. He is moving around the Toms River in Seaside Heights area. He's on the phone. He joins us by phone now.

And, Michael, some of the things that we have seen very recently, some of the new pictures, are just these huge boats that were just thrown up on land and streets that were covered with water. Can you describe for us where you are now and how the community is coping.

Michael, can you hear me? We just lost Michael. We're going to get back to him as soon as we can. Some of the things that we've been watching, too, is this huge roller coaster -- it's really unbelievable when you take a look at the pictures -- that is just in the ocean. And it just shows you the amount of devastation and just how powerful this superstorm was.

We are also learning, of course, how dependent we are on technology. You know, there are many folks who are without power in New York City. And they're looking for a place to charge their cell phones, to try to communicate with people. I mean it really is -- it's very frustrating when you can't get a hold of people to find out what's going on. Well, even our satellite trucks, like ours, they're being used by some as charging stations now. People, they try to recharge their phone batteries. But even if you try to recharge them, using them is another matter altogether. A quarter of the cell towers, they're now not even working, making it difficult to even place a call or now to use the Internet.

President Obama is expected to arrive in New Jersey -- that's this hour -- to get an up close look at the damage from Superstorm Sandy. He will be touring the devastated areas of the Jersey shore, of course, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Although he is a campaign surrogate for Mitt Romney, big-time supporter of Mitt Romney, Christie gives President Obama high marks for his response in the storm.

I want to bring in our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, to talk a little bit about this.

And, you know, it's not every day you hear Governor Christie praising the President, but he says the President has done an excellent job.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

MALVEAUX: The disaster in his state, of course, bigger than this presidential election. Here's what he said earlier this morning on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any possibility that Governor Romney may go to New Jersey to tour some of the damage with you?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

CHRISTIE: I've got a job to do here in New Jersey. That's much bigger than the Presidential politics. And I could care less about any of that stuff. I have a job to do. I've got 2.4 million people out of power. I've got devastation on the shore. I've got floods in the northern part of my state. If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don't know me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Hmm. All right, Gloria. So he says he doesn't give a damn about politics. I know a lot of voters are watching very closely in terms of how the President handles this six days out from the election.

BORGER: Right.

MALVEAUX: It's a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, we're going to see him touring the area, but he doesn't want to be seen giving photo ops, that type of thing. He needs to speak out and reassure the American people, but not speak too much. How much of this really is a very delicate act right now on both the part of the President and Mitt Romney?

BORGER: You know, it's very delicate, yes, but, you know, the President has to do his job. And what he's doing is doing his job, which is, he's going to devastated area, which one would expect the commander in chief to do. He is deploying resources, as one would expect. He is trying to do it as quickly as possible. And if he -- if he didn't show up there, people would be saying, well, where is the President?

So I think, a, he's got a job to do and he's doing it. It is a little bit more difficult, of course, for Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney doesn't have a job to do. He's not the President. He's a candidate. That's his job. So he has to walk a fine line and saying, look, we're all thinking of you people along the eastern seaboard, and then take a turn and take a turn to politics and campaigning, as the President will do when he gets back on the campaign trail tomorrow. But, in the meantime, he has got to be president of the United States.

MALVEAUX: Gloria, talk about tomorrow, because you mention the President, he's going to be campaigning again. He's going to have stops in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Boulder, Colorado, as well as Vegas. All very key to winning the election. You've got Mitt Romney in Florida today, in Tampa just the last hour. Tell us about the tone that both of these men have to strike. The President tomorrow and the kind of tone that we're hearing from Mitt Romney today.

BORGER: You know, I think when big things happen in the country, the tone -- the sense that the presidential campaign seems to get a little smaller, Suzanne, because this has been a very negative, very nasty, very small campaign, if you ask me, while the issues could not be larger. The state of the economy being one of them. And then when you have a natural disaster on top of the serious issues that we ought to be discussing about the future of the country, I think what you're probably going to see is a tone change.

Now, I would also say to you that at the end of a campaign is usually a time when you do see a shift in tone because people start making their closing arguments. And you don't ever want to end a presidential campaign on a negative, nasty note. You are going to be running negative ads, sure, but the candidate himself will try to move to a higher ground always at the end of a campaign.

MALVEAUX: Let's talk a little bit about how this storm might actually impact voter turnout. We're seeing a new poll today that shows the presidential race is actually tightening in Pennsylvania. The new Franklin-Marshall polls showing President Obama with a 49 to 45 percent edge. It is actually down from a nine point lead last month. There are some areas in Pennsylvania that are critical on the East Coast, blue collar workers, that the President needs. What do we make of how this might impact voter turnout, voter enthusiasm, and even people's ability to go to the polls?

BORGER: Well, I think, as you point out, everything right now comes down to voter turnout. And in a state where, like Pennsylvania, where you see the polls closing, what we see is each of the campaigns trying to say, you know, the Romney campaign saying, oh, we're making up a lot of ground, we're going to run some ads in Pennsylvania, and the Obama campaign is saying, oh, come on, you're not going to win Pennsylvania. There's a lot of head fake going on there because what you want to get your voters out is a sense of momentum. Your vote could make the difference, and we've got the momentum, so you need to get out there for us.

So what each campaign really needs to do is get up that enthusiasm level to get those voters to the polls in every state. Not only the states that have been effected by the storm, but everywhere. And that's why the President and Mitt Romney go out and hold huge rallies towards the end of a campaign because they want to give their voters this sense of excitement, this sense of momentum, this sense that your vote counts, and so we need you to get out there in this very close race. Which, by the way, it is, Suzanne, as you well know. All the polls show this is a one or two point race nationally and there are about seven states in which this game is really being played. And those states are also within a couple of points. So very, very tight.

MALVEAUX: Right. Very, very tight. Very close. And whether or not people are actually going to be able to vote, get out to the polls and -- or deal with their lives. A lot of these people's homes and their lives destroyed because of this storm.

BORGER: Absolutely.

MALVEAUX: How are they going to manage both of those, how that's going to impact voter turnout.

Gloria, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

BORGER: Sure.

MALVEAUX: We want you to weigh in on how the storm has actually effected your opinion of the candidates, if at all. CNN has partnered with FaceBook to create a new app called "I'm Voting." So, first of all, it asks you to commit to vote this election. We certainly hope you will do that. But, second, it also shows you how your friends and your neighbors feel about just a whole host of issues. So just go to my FaceBook page, facebook.com/suzannecnn, click on the "I'm Voting" app today. You're going to see this question. Has Superstorm Sandy changed your preference in presidential candidates? So you've got a couple of options. You can click "yes, I was impressed by Obama's leadership in response to the storm." You can choose "yes, I was compressed by Romney's sensitivity to storm victims." You can say "no, I've made up my mind about the candidates." We're going to share your responses in the next hour.

And we're also going to bring you more on Superstorm Sandy, the mess it has left behind. I want you to listen to how this 90-year-old New Jersey resident describes it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In 91 years, I've never seen anything like this, ever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you describe what happened when the water came?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were sleeping, my daughter and I. All of a sudden, the water came in like a river.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Want to go directly to the New York Governor Cuomo who is actually briefing federal, state and local officials following a helicopter tour that he took from the damage that he took earlier today. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

GOVERNOR ANTHONY CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: ... coordinates all the assets.

A particular thanks to our partners in the federal government. President Obama -- starting with President Obama, who has been on top of this situation. He's been very informed. I've spoken to him several times myself. He wants to know what New York needs. He's been all over it.

FEMA has been fantastic and responsive. As someone who was formerly in the federal government and worked in these types of situations, I have total respect for the job that FEMA is doing and I want to thank them very much, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers.

As you all know, one of the major problems still is the water in the tunnels. The water has receded, so when you drive around, it looks like most of the water is gone, but the water filled the subway tunnels in many places, filled the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and, when the water fills the tunnels, that means Con Edison has issues because much of Con Ed's equipment is in the tunnels, so getting the water out of the tunnels is probably the main -- one of the main orders of business right now and the Army Corps of Engineers is very helpful in doing that.

Let me give you two updates. First, a transportation update. As you know, the New York City buses are at full service today. Thank you, Mr. Joe Lhota and your extraordinary team.

There will be limited commuter rail service on Metro North and on the Long Island Railroad which will begin 2:00 p.m. today. OK? Limited commuter rail service on Metro North and the LIRR will begin 2:00 p.m. today.

And limited New York City subway service supplemented by a bus bridge, which Joe Lhota can will give you more details on from Brooklyn to Manhattan, will begin tomorrow.

One more time, limited New York City subway service supplemented by a bus bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan will begin tomorrow.

There'll be no service in Manhattan below 34th Street because there's no power for that service below 34th Street.

Three of the seven East River tunnels have been pumped and are now free of water, so that's good news.

There will be more service literally on a day-by-day basis as the MTA is working through this. And, once again, I have had the good fortune of working closely with the MTA team, and Jim Lhota and his team really have done magnificent service and we thank them all very much.

New Yorkers have been great all through this. We're going to need some patience and some tolerance. Traffic is very difficult for two reasons. We still have some passings that are closed. The Midtown Tunnel is still closed, et cetera.

So, there's a high volume of traffic in the city itself. Many of the traffic lights are still out, so there's a certain amount of confusion at the intersections.

In terms of power restoration, we are working very hard. That is going to be a situation that is also going to be developing on a day- to-day basis. Con Ed has been giving updates.

The Westchester companies on Long Island where we have probably the greatest challenge from a power point of view. We have the New York State Power Authority, that is deploying upstate utility workers to the downstate area to help out may not, the island and Westchester.

And, as of now, we have 1,800 utility workers who will be coming into the downstate area, as we speak, primarily from upstate New York coming to help their neighbors in downstate New York, so we applaud NYPA and we thank those utility workers very much.

But that is going to be still a day-by-day situation until we know how much power will be restored when.

So, patience and tolerance on the traffic conditions and on the power restoration conditions. I can assure you everyone is doing everything they can. They're all working very, very hard, but these are significant challenges that we're facing and problems, in many cases, that we have never experienced before or not in a generation.

So, patience and tolerance would be appreciated.

With that, let me turn it over to New York's senior senator, Senator Chuck Schumer.

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Thank you, Governor, and thank you and your entire team for the great job that you have done, as well as our county executives.

I've been speaking to all of them. Rob Astorino, who's here, County Executives Mangano and Bellone from Nassau and Suffolk County and, of course, Mayor Bloomberg has done a terrific job, as well.

(END LIVE FEED)

MALVEAUX: Governor Cuomo giving an update on what New Yorkers are to expect, a real quick highlight here, giving praise to President Obama and also saying that FEMA has been fantastic, saying there are still major problems.

The major problem is the water that is still in the tunnels, and also the fact that this water filled subway tunnels, as well, so that there's a lot of water that has to be pumped -- physically pumped out of the subway system there in New York and that is going to take some time.

He did give two updates, however, that are good news, could be encouraging for some New Yorkers, that the New York City buses are now at full service and so people can take full advantage of that.

Limited commuter rail service beginning at 2:00 p.m. today. Also said there's going to be some limited subway service tomorrow, starting at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, but that, of course, is also going to be supplemented with the bus route, as well.

So, a lot of people are going to have to kind of figure this out, but he is trying to give a pretty good sense, a pretty good guide, but he is also giving a warning here that it is still really tough going getting around New York City, specifically if you are in a vehicle, that traffic is very, very difficult to get around.

And he said below 34th Street, there is no subway service still because he says there's still no power and that is going to take a lot of work from Con Edison and others to try to restore that power to get the subway system back on the lower part of Manhattan, bringing in all the resource that is he has, particularly from the upper part of the state.

He says 1,800 utility workers coming to downstate New York to essentially try to not only assess the damage, but try to get people back up and able to move around. Transportation, a huge deal in New York. A lot of people do not have cars. They depend on the subway system. They depend on the commuter rails to get around. It is a way that most people actually travel in New York and communicate with each other and get to their places of work, as well as to get back home.

We're going to have more of an update on what folks are going through from this Superstorm Sandy after this quick break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW YORK: Thank God helping rescue people out of their homes because there's no place to go. There's a very thick stench of gasoline in the water, as well, so you have a real challenge to the -- for our city here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: More than 19,000 flights were canceled because of the storm. Now, things slowly getting back to normal, at least in the air.

I want to bring in Richard Quest for some details. And, so, Richard, first of all, you used to live in New York, a dozen years, below they said 34th and below is where there's no subway, no power, right?

RICHARD QUEST, HOST, CNN INTERNATIONAL'S "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": No subway, no power. And if I was there now, I used to live on the 23rd floor, and I'd be walking up and downstairs, nonstop.

It is a grim situation. It is slowly getting back to something.

MALVEAUX: So tell us about JFK, LaGuardia. Can you get to New York and can New Yorkers get out?

QUEST: No. Yes, I'm going show you. Gosh, she's so impatient sometimes.

First of all, I just want to deal with the airport that is closed and that is LaGuardia. That's the cam-shot of LaGuardia.

There is a report that LaGuardia is -- one of the pontoons, it's just an alleged report -- one of the pontoons for runway 22 out into the water was struck by a barge during the hurricane and that there may be damage to the approach lights.

Haven't had that confirmed, but we do know the runway is flooded. We do know there was damage to the navigational aid or at least they need to be inspected and that's the reason why, in LaGuardia's case, the airport is closed.

In the case of Newark, it's a question of power where there seems to be problems. Kennedy is open, but here's the point. Do not be deceived when you don't see the airport of Kennedy and Newark on this list and you don't actually see -- you actually see that those airports are now open.

The reality is it's slow and it is -- this is what it looks like at the moment. This is the situation of aircraft coming into Kennedy. So, JetBlue, for example, brought a lot of flights in. Delta brought a lot of flights in. They had to. There were no planes on the ground.

So, a lot of flights, but now look at the departures from Kennedy and you'll see a very different situation. Look at that. You've got a FedEx leaving and you've got another FedEx flight leaving.

Virtually no departures at the moment coming from Kennedy, so the planes are in, and now they've got to turn them around and get things moving again.

I'm going to take the same and show you from Newark because Newark is the other airport we're following very closely. This is the arrivals list from Newark. At the moment, we just have a handful of planes from Dublin, Amsterdam, Geneva, Hamburg, Brussels, Cleveland.

But if you start to look at all the domestic flights, you see nothing but a series of cancellations.

And, once again, Newark is not moving. There's nothing moving out of there.

So, Suzanne, the long and short of the situation at the moment is that, wherever you look, the flights are slowly coming in, but it's painfully slow and it will be many days before things can be anything like normal at those airports, let alone LaGuardia.

MALVEAUX: All right, just got to be patient there.

Thank you, Richard. Appreciate it.

Right now, I want to go back to the Jersey Shore. It's a 130-mile stretch of beaches and barrier islands. This is south of New York City.

That's where we find our Michael Holmes. He is moving around the Thoms River and Seaside Heights area. He is on the phone and, Michael, if you can hear me, we have actually been seeing some pretty dramatic pictures of huge boats that are just thrown on to land and streets covered with water.

Give us a sense of where you are right now and what you are seeing.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, Suzanne, we are the first of the media to get onto these barrier islands. I'm on Ocean City, Ocean Beach right now, and I can tell you. I'm standing right here. I have the ocean to my left and to the right is just, as far as you can see, damaged beach houses.

Some of them, the walls have just collapsed and the roofs are sitting on the ground. Others, the foundations have been just dug out dramatically by that surge of water that came rushing over the beach here.

The dunes broke down. The ocean basically went inland up to 14 feet in some places. There are sinkholes. We've noticed about four or five of those. There's still one full-sized pick-up truck. You could only see its roof as it was sitting in a sinkhole.

We've seen houses in the middle of the street, entire houses. Roofs all over the place. Some parts of these islands are remarkably not bad, but other parts just devastated and, yeah, for several blocks in from the beach, covered with sand. You can just get a sense of the force of this storm as it came ashore.

We spoke to several people who were slowly leaving, but most people have left. There are still some people. They're trying to get off the island, some elderly people, and they said that, in all their lives, they've never seen anything like it. Had they time over, they would not have stayed here, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Michael, talk about this rollercoaster that we are seeing. We are seeing pictures of this amusement park that is literally under water. It is quite dramatic to see these images. What do you know about it?

HOLMES (via telephone): I am not there at the moment, so I can't tell. We're just sort of slowly working our way up the island. We've been through Ortley Beach and Lavallette and, now, at Ocean Beach here.

And, you know, I have heard that there is a fun park not far from here that's been completely destroyed. Boardwalks have been destroyed. Piers have been destroyed.

It's difficult to imagine how they're going to even begin to repair this, but they have started the clean-up. There are dozens, actually, of front-loaders and dump trucks that are picking up the debris off the roads already. But, my goodness, as I'm looking down on the beach now, you can see house after house after house shredded by the storm. It's going to take a long time.

MALVEAUX: Michael, is there anybody else who is there? You say you are the first of the media to get on barrier islands. Are there emergency personnel? Are there crews out there. Are there any residents who are, like, picking through the debris?

HOLMES (via telephone): There are all of those things. Yeah. About three -- probably three hours ago now, we saw a mile long convoy go across the bridge, the Mathis Bridge, onto these islands, emergency vehicles.

There was a tractor truck full of equipment, busloads of workers, heavy machinery, fire engines, gas trucks and the like poured over here, and then, as I said, that was about three hours ago, and then the police here have allowed the first of a small group of media to come over and have a look for ourselves.

It's still not safe for people to be wandering down. I'm standing here. I smell natural gas. There are numerous ...

(AUDIO BREAK)

... and the gas authorities are here to shut off one-by-one, but very strong smell of natural gas. There have been fires along here, as well.

We have seen residents who stuck it out here wandering the streets, some of them on the back of the truck being taken out of here and most of them just shell-shocked, basically, by what they went through.

Some of them were here for the 1962 storm which was massive and said, you know, that didn't compare to this.

MALVEAUX: All right. Michael, thank you so much. Excellent reporting. We're going to get back to you often to get a sense of how the community is coping there.

We're looking at extraordinary pictures. That is hard to even imagine the kind of clean-up effort that is going to -- that this is requiring to go under way in these weeks and months to come.

Of course, this has also kept him of the campaign trail. We're talking about the President, but the superstorm has actually given him also a leg up on the election.

That is our question. We're going to take a look at the political impact of Sandy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: The way President Obama handles the government's response to Superstorm Sandy is being watched, of course, by voters, could have an impact on the election, just six days away. Joining us from Boston, Juliette Kayyem, she's columnist for "The Boston Globe." She also served on the Homeland Security Department in the Obama administration.

Juliette, first of all, you have a column that is on right now, CNN.com. It essentially praises the President for his response to the storm. You say his statement on Monday is, in some ways, the most significant of his presidency.

Let's listen to a quick clip of his comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the public needs to prepare for the fact that this is going to take a long time for us to clean up. The good news is we will clean up, and we will get through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, there are two things he points out -- taking care of yourself and getting through this.

Really talking about the role of government, the heart of the role of government here, and the stark contrast between candidates, explain why you think this is so significant at this time.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN POLICY COLUMNIST, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, I think -- I mean, there's an important aspect to President Obama's speech that gets lost in sort of the partisan aspects of this, which is really about self-reliance and about the role of the government in promoting self-reliance amongst the citizenry.

And so what you heard not just from Obama -- and this is why it's not necessarily partisan. You you've heard it from Chris Christie, Andrew Cuomo, all the Governors with, people, take care of yourselves, take care of your neighbors, and, essentially don't be stupid, right? You know, on Monday, that was the message. Don't be stupid. This is real.

And then what you heard from Obama when he addressed the nation, I think, was also this sense that government is going to help, but don't expect everything from government immediately. We are a resilient nation and we will get back to where we were if not better, but it's not going to happen overnight.

And, so, it was one of the most realistic conversations about government and the role of government that we've heard in the last year of campaigning.

MALVEAUX: Do you think, Juliette, that this is something where both -- this could work for Republicans, as well as Democrats, that if you heard this message from Mitt Romney and he said the same thing and said, look, you know what? We're in a tough time here, but the government does have a role, but you still have to take some personal responsibility, that if he said that, people would listen and perk up, as well, and listen to what he had to say, too?

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. I mean, this is not necessarily a Democratic message, right? It is certainly appealing to the self- sufficiency and the self-reliance that animates a lot of the Republican party, and it's why I sort of wonder Romney hasn't come back with that about all these complaints about what he said about FEMA.

Because really everyone knows they to take care of themselves and the government needs to demand that of people, but also, there is an appropriate role for government.

But now, we're sort of in this -- you know, sort of an inability to sort of answer that question, what did he mean when he said he would disband FEMA? We're sort of stuck in this ideological debate, when really this sentiment animates across sort of both parties and that's why you are hearing it from Christie. You're hearing it -- and from President Obama.

MALVEAUX: Juliette, what do you think of the -- you brought up this whole idea about FEMA and past statements that Mitt Romney has made about FEMA. There are reporters who, of course, are covering his campaign who have asked him, according to some reporters, at least 14 times whether or not he would disband FEMA if he was the President.

He -- we're not hearing a response. They're not getting a response ...

KAYYEM: Right. Right.

MALVEAUX: ... out there on the campaign. What do you think that says?

KAYYEM: Well, I -- maybe he doesn't have an answer. I have to tell you, of course, he is not going to disband FEMA. No president is going to disband a federal emergency management agency.

Whether it's hurricanes or terrorists or oil spills, whatever it is, you're going to have to have some federal capacity for emergency management.

So, why that isn't the message, I don't get what's going on here. And what really is the question is how much responsibility do you want to put on individuals or states and localities versus the federal government?

The truth is FEMA is doing an amazing job because it's a coordinating agency. People think it has millions of people working for it, out there being first-responders. It doesn't. It's a couple thousand people strong.

Its benefit to the federal government is that it unifies the federal agencies, all that are working together right now, and coordinates with state and local. So, that's why you are hearing praise about FEMA many terms of its state and local coordination. So, this idea that FEMA is some large bureaucracy is just -- it means you just don't understand what emergency management means on the federal level and I think, you know, someone's got to -- from this campaign has to explain sort of what do you think FEMA actually does.

I don't think it's more than a couple thousand people strong.

MALVEAUX: All right, Juliette Kayyem, thanks for your analysis. Very interesting.

And, of course, you can see it on CNN.com, her op-ed. Thanks again.

Fire, water, I'm going to take you to New Jersey, that up next, for more on the devastation left by Sandy and the recovery effort that is now under way.

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MALVEAUX: In Hoboken, New Jersey, which is west of Manhattan, just across the Hudson River, the National Guard has started pumping out an estimated $500 million gallons of water that poured in from the Hudson. Twenty thousand of the city's 50,000 residents are reportedly now stranded by this flood. Just this morning, the city put out this cry for help on its official twitter feed. It says, "we need donations of bottled water, nonperishable food - deliver to Hoboken City Hall." And then the address came later. Brian Todd, he's joining us from Hoboken.

And, Brian, first of all, how long do we think that it is going to take to pump this city dry?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's going to take a while. As you can see behind me, there are city residents here. These are not city workers. These are residents just kind of wading through the water here, trying to find storm drains and other things that they can clear the water out coming up to this gentleman's -- past this gentleman's knees. Obviously, this is still a very dangerous situation. We're told that there's all sorts of dangerous material in the water. People have to be very careful when they're kind of wading around here.

There have been evacuations from this street and other streets. We're on the corner of Newark and Garden Street, but right now it doesn't seem like this is going to be draining any time soon. This is caused by a surge in the Hudson River that came up when some of the storm drains just backed up. When the storm came through, the surge from the river came up through the drains, it had nowhere to go but here. That's one problem facing Hoboken, New Jersey.

We were also in Manaki (ph), New Jersey, earlier today. The water from flooding there has receded, but there's still a huge danger. We came upon a house fire, a very intense house fire there, started, we think, according to the fire chief, by some kind of a short that occurred in some wires when they turned on the power, just as the water was receding. You know, power crews are scrambling to get power up every where they can in northern New Jersey, as soon as they can. But sometimes if there's still receding waters, that poses a danger. And that town, Manaki, is still running into a lot of that. There's also gas leaks up there. So just a lot of peril still on the streets, even while the flooding is still here, while the water is receding. And, you know, this place is just scrambling to trying to get back kind of up to speed, but it's a slow go right now.

MALVEAUX: All right, Brian Todd. We're going to have more on that. We're going to get back to you momentarily.

We're going to have more on the destruction up next.

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MALVEAUX: The images coming out of neighborhoods destroyed by Superstorm Sandy are extraordinary. Some of the most dramatic ones were taken by i-Reporters. Homes, cars under water on Staten Island. Trees collapsed on to streets and buildings now in the Bronx. And this shot was taken in the small town of Cockeysville, Maryland. The storm took down a 50 foot section of a historic building that years ago was a whiskey plant.

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MALVEAUX: We're hearing stories of devastation, but also of survival. This is baby Alice. Just two days old. She was born four weeks premature, in the middle of Superstorm Sandy. The power went off, the lights went out, and less than 48 hours later she and her parents were evacuated from the hospital by the light of glow sticks. We're going to have more on the historic storm.

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