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Jean Stapleton Dead At 90; Flooding Compounds Tornado Damage In Oklahoma City Area; Virus Spreading Fast In Middle East

Aired June 01, 2013 - 18:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

A TV legend has died, the woman who played one of the most iconic people in television passed away today. Details on the death of Jean Stapleton in a moment.

But first, the people of Oklahoma are getting painfully used to digging out from deadly tornadoes.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, horizontal!

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LEMON: And Oklahoma City is once again the epicenter of the storms. That was the scene late yesterday in El Reno, 25 miles of west of Oklahoma City.

Storm chasers captured this video near the community of Union City as a tornado destroyed a barn, debris flying in all directions. At least, nine people around Oklahoma died in the latest outbreak. And more than 100 were injured. In all, 17 tornadoes were reported across the Midwest. And storm surveys are under way right now. The storms knocked out power across four states, and caused major flooding, too. We have some live pictures now from El Reno in Oklahoma. Let's take a look at what's happening there.

You can see the damage. That is from our affiliate KOCO. And it is the aviation technology center there, a plane right in the entrance or what possibly was a window. And you see emergency vehicles there inside those garage doors. The place, really a lot of it, just knocked to the ground, blown to smithereens from the winds, the damaging winds of these twisters that hit Oklahoma and Missouri as well. Unbelievable.

Now, the threat after all of the wind or this damage, flooding. Flooding is probably the worst thing after the winds that can happen and kills more people than anything else. Union City, Oklahoma, by the way, one of the hardest-hit in yesterday's storms.

Ed Lavandera is there.

Ed, we are just looking at the live destruction from El Reno. What are you seeing? Where you are?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are in a small pocket of a neighborhood. You know, this was a tornado that took kind of a meandering path. It was going south, and then curved back up headed back to Oklahoma City like this. And these were people who are in the unlucky path of this storm.

This is a gentleman here who lives in this house, who came out here a little while ago, just to survey the damage for the first time, almost 24 hours later. This man had actually lived in the town of Piedmont, northeast of where we are. Two years ago, his home was partially destroyed. He moved here to kind of get away, and this is what he is dealing with now, Don.

So, you know, this is tornado season for the ages. Everyone we talked to here in Oklahoma who says we have lived here decades. And they simply just don't remember a tornado season this wicked and devastating in many, many years.

So, many people are cleaning up the pieces. And at this point really what you see over and over again, family and friends, you look here, Don, family and friends have pulled up with pickup trucks and trailers. The only thing you can do here is start separating what is trash from what you can salvage. You drive away with whatever you can at this point. And that's what people here are doing today.

You know, we have seen power line trucks going up and down. We are starting to replace the power lines. But at this point, you know, this is a small pocket of a neighborhood about 20 miles west of downtown Oklahoma City, and you know, when you look around all of the wide open space, you look around, you realize just how unlucky these people were that they ended up in the path of the storm -- Don.

LEMON: Ed, thank you very much. And if your photographer can hear us, we can push in on those people while I talk about some folks behind you, Ed, because that is what happens now.

It is a calamity. It is the resilience after the calamity. This is the cleanup. And if you survived it, it is probably the worst. If you ever moved in your life, you know just how difficult back and be emotional it can be and draining. Imagine all of a sudden everything you own is blown as smithereens and you are there trying to pick up the pieces, not knowing what are you going to find. That's what's happening in Oklahoma and all across the Midwest.

Again, out thanks to Ed Lavandera and our entire team out there.

And of course, we are thinking about the folks who are affected by this. The Midwest, not out of the woods yet. It is not over yet. People, leaving in tornado battered neighborhood from Oklahoma to Missouri keeping a close eye on rising flood waters.

Storms brought eight to 11 inches of rain to Oklahoma City. The rain soaked ground created a huge sinkhole, what's the word, a gigantic sinkhole causing a stretch of road to collapse.

In Missouri, portions of more than two hundred roads are closed due to the flooding.

Arkansas now, the search continues with three people missing after a high water rescue attempt yesterday. Officers are trying to save two women from a flooded home when the women and one officer disappeared. A fourth person, Scott County sheriff, Cody Carpenter, was swept away in swift moving water and drowned. We will update that situation from southern Texas to Ohio. Severe weather threat continues today.

CNN's Chad Myers now, Oklahoma City.

Boy, Chad, we saw the roads that were just washed out. We saw -- we heard about the people swept away. I mean, can these roads withstand a foot of rain now?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. You know, the rain that came in last night just never stopped. The rain came across El Reno to Oklahoma City, and it just kept raining. We were at the hotel. We finally arrived at the hotel about 4:15 last night, looked up at the sky, was like really, is it ever going to stop? The lightning continued to about 6:00 this morning, and the rain continued and flooding and flood waters, Oklahoma City proper, and the southwest Oklahoma City.

We are here in Oklahoma County, almost the Midwest City. And as the -- just washed out this entire side of the roadway. This is kind of a sandy soil. And when I lived here, I remember tried to dig in my yard and it was a clay soil, a big red clay. But if you look, this is a sandy area not far from the Canadian river and I suspect the Canadian river deposited all this here. So, the water came down here, washed away. It made a giant grand canyon through here. It wouldn't be a big issue, just fill it up with sand or soil. But the issue is that there are pipelines going across there.

The black that you see kind of, in the closest one; that was a big 18 inch natural gas pressurized line what is behind a water pipe. Those are both are off now. And so, people are without power and without some water, without at least natural gas for a while, downhill here. And this is going to be the story the rest of the day.

Water is going to be running off. Now, you have to understand, even though the water may not be at your door right now, there is still may be water uphill. There is still maybe water upstream that has to come to you. And you don't want to drive through that, especially at night.

LEMON: Chad, we will hear more from you. I forget, when we started this two weeks ago Sunday, this Sunday will be two weeks ago when this all started, you and I were on the air. I forget you live there. This must be heart breaking for you. I will talk to you about that a little bit later tonight. All right, Chad? Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

The heartland, excuse me, is taking a direct hit again. CNN's Tom Sater in severe weather center down in Atlanta.

Tom, you know, this has been a tough couple weeks for Oklahoma. Is it typical to see this many storms back to back to back?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well Don, what's so interesting, and I have a couple of statistics for you that will blow your mind. The severe weather pendulum is swinging the other direction. Based on a 20 year average now, the greatest number of tornadoes and always is in the month of May. But 20 year average is 276.

On the morning of the 15th of May this month, when you think we would have 130, the grand number of tornadoes for the month in all of the U.S. was only three. We are now 16 days later, looking at 232.

Take a look at some of the pictures. I mean, on Monday, we had 14, on Tuesday, 29, Wednesday, 29, Thursday, we had 25. We had another 25 yesterday. We know of 17, preliminary reports, 25.

We go from three tornadoes on the morning of the 15th, that day was Grand Berry, Texas, six fatality, Shawnee, Oklahoma, then of course, the devastation in Moore were up to 232. It started the year, incredibly. Remember it was Hattiesburg, Mississippi in February. But if you go back to the beginning of the year, the U.S. has seen the fewest number of tornadoes since 1954. But Mother Nature has been making up for it the last couple weeks -- Don.

LEMON: All right, Tom. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

I have some breaking news to tell you about.

One of the endearing TV characters of the 1970s, the woman that played that character has died.

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LEMON: I waited because that's the moment that we all waited for, when she did that and you knew where you were then and everyone laughed. That was Jean Stapleton. Millions waited to hear that on Friday night. She played the wife of Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker.

Of course, she has died. She was 90-years-old. The family says she died of natural causes in New York City. But, her character, of course, will live on in those re-runs. Of the many stage and film credits, her role in "all in the family," that's the one that will be most remembered. And yet, back in the 1990s, she told our Larry King something surprising.

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LARRY KING, CNN HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: When you walk by the screen and all in the family is on, do you watch?

JEAN STAPLETON, ACTRESS: No. I have seen them all and watched them carefully after we did them. But no, I linger for a minute or two, and I think my, that's very good.

KING: Damn right it was.

STAPLETON: But I don't watch it because I don't want it to creep into anything else I'm doing.

KING: And you had her down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: They say they don't write them like that anymore, they don't. They don't make television like that anymore. You want to see some good TV, look at a rerun of all in the family. It was brilliant. Thank you very much for talking about Jean Stapleton on twitter and tweeting me about it. Let's talk more at donlemon.CNN. We will talk about Jean Stapleton, the iconic actress, dead at the age of 90-years- old.

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LEMON: Three letters most people dread, the IRS. Well, already in the hot seat for targeting conservative groups, facing a new round of scrutiny, this time over a dance video using your tax money. You have to see it for yourself to believe. It is a tongue and cheek video made by IRS employees and shows them learning how to do the cupid shuffle in preparation for, I suppose, dance competition.

Athena Jones has been researching all of this, about how it happened. So, what was this video for?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Don.

Well, this was for a 2010 conference of IRS employees, held in Anaheim, California. And even though it's kind of funny to watch, it certainly angered a lot of people. The IRS is responding, and as they said that this was inappropriate, and that new policies and procedures have been put in place to make sure that excessive spending like this doesn't happen again.

And the IRS has been under a lot of fire as you know recently for its targeting of conservative groups who are applying for tax exempt status. And so, this is one more thing to add to their woes. And we will find out next week in a report by the inspector general of the IRS. We will find more about wasteful spending of taxpayer money at conferences, things like this video and others, Don.

LEMON: It is wasteful spending. Of course, we don't like our money to be spent that way. If you look at the video, I'm just wondering what the context is behind it. Was it team building? What was it? Because if someone looks at our team building exercises here and takes them out of context, you know, you might look pretty silly. I'm just wondering what it was, obviously, it wasteful spending of money. But, do we know the context behind this video, behind the star trek, when we talked about that parody, and also the one "Gilligan's Island" as well? What are they saying?

JONES: Well, it is interesting. This dance video was used to close out the conference, we are told. And it really -- if you watch the whole thing, it looks as though, it is just a fun attempt to show people learning this dance. Now, the star trek parody and spoof of "Gilligan's Island" are bit longer videos and they look, they treat certain issues. So for instance, the star trek video, they are talking about tax evasion. So, they have all of these different scenarios about dealing with tax evasion. And so, there's some sort of training element to some of the videos, but I can tell you that dance video, the cupid shuffle was only cost $1600. So, this other two cost $60,000. That's a lot of money, raising a lot of questions, Don.

LEMON: Absolutely. Thank you, Athena. Appreciate your reporting.

We will have much, much more on what happened in Oklahoma and across the Midwest. Obviously, the devastation, and we're also going to talk about the death of jean Stapleton coming up on CNN.

In the meantime, I am Don Lemon in New York. Thanks for joining us. And we will be back with more news at the top of the hour.

But first, I want to tell you about a deadly virus spreading overseas, the United States could be next. How serious is the threat? "The SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer is next.

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