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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Extreme Weather in Oklahoma and Texas; River Sweeps Away Cabin, Families Missing; At Least 12 People Missing in Floods; Obama Promises Federal Help as Floods Rage. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 25, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In addition to her daughter, Officer Orozco leaves behind her husband and two stepchildren. And we remember her and honor her today.

Thank you so much for joining us "AT THIS HOUR."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield, and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

I want to begin this hour with breaking news. Days of flooding, tornadoes, historic rainfall wreaking havoc across Oklahoma and Texas. The stories of survival and death are nothing short of harrowing, as are the pictures.

A Texas homecoming queen was killed on her way home from prom when her car was swept away by raging floodwaters. A mother and two children are missing right now after a wall of water took their vacation home right off of its foundation near Wimberley, Texas. In Oklahoma, a firefighter died after being swept into a storm drain while attempting a high-water rescue.

The loss of human life and the extent of the storm damage is still just now coming into focus. So far, the extreme weather blamed for at least nine deaths in the United States, 13 more just south of the border with Mexico. And there's also a dozen people still missing at this hour in Texas.

An estimated 400 homes have now been swept away. And as you can see from the pictures on your screen, aerial shot, thousands of other homes have been flooded or in some way affected by all of this water. Texas's governor says people in his state have never seen anything like this. In Houston, the flooding has forced schools to close today as well as city and courts and most of the civic affairs are on hold.

I want to get you straight to CNN's Jennifer Gray right now, who's live in Wimberley, Texas, one of the towns hardest hit.

So just take me there and tell me what's happened and what's still to come. JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Ashleigh, the Blanco River is

what rose so quickly, and it rose very high. It was over my head Sunday morning. Now you can see the water has lowered quite a bit, but it is raging past. You can see all the trees that are just lying on their side. The bark just stripped right off of them. And so you can imagine the fear in people that were 30, 40 feet above the river that we're seeing the floodwaters get closer and closer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY (voice-over): This morning, record-breaking and deadly floodwaters continue to wreak havoc across central Texas and Oklahoma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The challenges are not over yet. There's going to be more rain to come.

GRAY: Nearly 40 counties throughout Texas now under an emergency disaster declaration. A dam rupturing just east of Austin, unable to withhold the historic amount of rain, flooding a highway.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not over. The rain is still here.

GRAY: Family members desperately wait on dry land.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I kept calling him over and over and I was like, are you OK, are you OK?

GRAY: As rescues continue by air and water, the National Guard called to rescue 13 people, including three children trapped in a rental cabin in southeast Oklahoma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water came up quicker than expected. The road washed out and we couldn't pass - pass by it.

GRAY: In Wimberley, Texas, around a dozen people are still missing, including two families with children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When she wasn't there, I knew something was very, very wrong.

GRAY: Julie Shields (ph) recalls the last phone call she received from her sister, Laura McComb.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Called mom and dad. I love you and pray.

GRAY: Along with her husband and two children inside, McComb's vacation home was swept away by the floodwaters. Her husband, found 12 miles away, says he tried desperately to save his family but the cabin split in two.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is with her babies and she will be with her babies always in heaven. And we know that as a family.

GRAY: The death toll in both southern states continues to rise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was at prom with her date and, you know, laughing, dancing next to her.

GRAY: Eighteen-year-old Alisa Ramirez (ph) was on her way back from prom, just south of San Antonio. Her call stalling out in high waters just a couple miles away from her home. She called 911 and her father but it was too late.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They weren't able to find her until this morning when crews were out there. She has her place in heaven and they'll meet her again soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: And this water is so powerful, Ashleigh. To carry away a tree is one thing, to carry away an entire home is another. This home completely washed off the foundation. And the street that we're on, all the homes look like this, completely destroyed. We were actually a little closer to it, had to step away. We heard it creaking. So they're - they're very unsettled and the risk of them falling in is still there, so we did move back.

[12:05:08] But it is devastating. You can imagine the fear in people as the waters rose. And you would never imagine that the water would get this high. This is normally a very calm river. And to - the river gauge was broken at 43 feet. So there's really no way to know how high the water got, but definitely up to the second story in this home.

BANFIELD: Unbelievable.

GRAY: Yes.

BANFIELD: It just broke at 43 feet. It's so remarkable. People in your line of work are just sort of gob smacked by the sheer power of this volume of water.

Jennifer, just quickly, because, you know, we're still talking about a lot of missing people and I heard the father of one of the missing families talk about just dozens upon dozens of searchers who are fanning out across a massive area, trying to find these missing people. Where you are in Wimberley, this was the start of one of the grave loss. Have you seen some of these searchers? Have you seen them in action?

GRAY: We actually saw some people walking by right along the riverbank. I'm not sure exactly what their role is, but they definitely looked like people that were searching and looking around, you know? We're upstream, and this is one of the areas farthest north that got hit pretty hard and then all of this water is flowing downstream. And we showed you earlier just how fast the water is going. This water is moving at incredible volumes. At one point, 2.5 times that of Niagara Falls. So just to put that into perspective for you.

So, yes, I mean search crews are out here. They're - they are still optimistic. But, you know, we hear from some of them, unfortunately, they are losing hope minute by minute because the way that this water is raging past and as fast as it's going downstream, you know, it's tragic. It's tragic. People lived here since the '70s, the '60s, they said they've never seen this river get this high.

BANFIELD: Jennifer, stand by for a moment if you would, please. I'm getting a few documents in on the anchor desk right now. I want to just pass these along to our viewers. But at the same time, I want to show them some of the images that are coming in to us live.

So what you're seeing here from our affiliate KPRC are some of the aerials in the Houston area. I'm also being told as we see some of these aerials that President Obama is going to be speaking live to us. He's been in a meeting with the NATO secretary general. He's already called Governor Abbott of Texas and has pledged a lot of help. Federal assistance, not only for the rescues that are still ongoing as we speak, all of the missing that still need to be found, but also the recovery operations and then the disaster assistance afterwards. As people continue to drive, it's remarkable to me when I see water on the roads like this and people still continuing to drive. This is how - this is how people are swept away and go missing. You know, you never know how much water is on those roads.

This is now KTRK's helicopter images for us. And while we look at this and await the president, I want to just let you know what Annise Parker, the Houston mayor, said just within the last hour. She said that it's likely more than a thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed. More than a thousand homes in America's fourth largest city have been damaged or destroyed and the Department of Transportation just prior to that said live on CNN that it's likely more than a thousand cars are also either damaged or submerged or abandoned because of this remarkable wall of water.

This is just an epic rainfall amount that came in so quickly that literally dozens of feet of water were just slammed into those rivers. At one point, our Chad Myers said that I think there was a 28-foot increase in one of the rivers. I'll double check that number. But it was just absolutely remarkable. And at last count, at least five deaths in Texas. This has been just a remarkable disaster that they've had to deal with so quickly.

The president speaking from the Oval Office about what's happened in Texas and in particular in Houston. I want to make sure that you get all of his words. Have a listen.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Friend, foreign prime minister of Norway, Erna Solberg back to the Oval Office. The last time he was here, he came as a prime minister. He's now the secretary general of NATO and we've had an excellent discussion.

Before I mention some of the topics that we discussed on NATO, let me just say a couple of things.

First of all, I had a chance this morning to talk to Governor Abbott of Texas to express condolences for the terrible flooding that's been taking place there. You know, our thoughts and prayers are with the families and the communities that have been affected by some of these devastating record-breaking floods.

[12:10:00] I assured Governor Abbott that he could count on the help of the federal government. We have FEMA personnel already on the ground. They are coordinating with Texas Emergency Management authorities and I will anticipate that there will be some significant requests made to Washington. My pledge to him is that we will expedite those requests to make sure that both search and rescue operations where necessary but also recovery operations occur as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

The second thing I want to just mention very quickly. Last week Congress obviously was busy. It left town without -

BANFIELD: All right, as you just heard the president speaking live about what's happening on your screen. This is a disaster that is unfolding as we speak.

Houston, the fourth largest city in America. As the mayor says, many parts of the city are high and dry, but a significant - this is her wording - a significant portion of this city has been affected by these floods. Most of the public buildings are closed, the courts, the city, the county. She said most of the independent school districts also closed today. And then she said this, more rain is expected today. We don't know how much and we don't know what impact that's going to have on this already deluged city.

But there is - there is just a massive undertaking underway to rescue those who need rescuing, to find those who are missing and then, of course, to deal with those who continue to drive. I mean these vehicles, as the DOT said, about 1,000 vehicles now submerged or abandoned and there may still be a lot of people in them. I can't see from this shot if there was anyone in that truck but they are out and about trying to find and rescue as we speak. And the president pledging federal money towards that end and then every domino effect afterwards.

Just to give you a perspective on how quickly those floodwaters moved in, I want you to check out the Trinity River. Here it is just yards wide in the top photo. And there you have it below. Unbelievable. The river after the rain flooding its banks and spreading over whatever was in its path.

The photos show how quickly the rain fell overnight in downtown Houston. There were - these photos were just taken 30 minutes apart. Look at the difference. Thirty minutes apart and you can literally see the water rising in the brave (ph) bayou and then spilling under the fence and over its banks. It's just so flash. This is the issue with these kinds of floods, they are so quick. You think you can make where you need to go and you cannot. This is the same scene just a few hours later there. And we've had these photos were taken about 3:00 in the morning.

And there you have those live pictures. People, obviously, abandoning their cars, not able to go anywhere. I see a child, at least one, I think, in that person's arms. Yes. One child and then someone stopping to take a photo. This really is something else.

Joining me now on the telephone is Joe McComb, whose son and daughter- in-law and two grandchildren were in a vacation cabin that was swept up by the floodwaters in Texas. His son managed to escape the cabin and is seriously injured and being treated right now in the hospital. His daughter-in-law and two grandchildren are still missing.

Mr. McComb, thank you very much for joining us. Can you give us the latest update that you've had from rescue authorities as to the search for your missing family?

JOE MCCOMB, GRANDCHILDREN MISSING (via telephone): Well, they were out again early this morning. Some of the rescue effort yesterday was hampered because we got some additional rain. Some of the river started filling back up, so they got out of there. But the weather this morning looks so far so good, but it's a - it's a major undertaking and the - and the volume of water that came down as a result of the flood, I mean it just covered hundreds of thousands of acres and there, you know, it seems to be an impact task but there are people that are dedicated to their mission. We remain eternally optimistic, but as time goes by it, you know, the reality of the - a positive result is probably diminishing. But it's - we always remain optimistic.

BANFIELD: Well, Joe, I understand your son Jonathan is being treated right now for a collapsed lung and a broken sternum in the hospital. But I wanted to ask you how much of this horrifying incident he was able to recount to you and to authorities of what happened inside that home with his wife, his two children and other families that they were vacationing with? Can you walk me through what he was able to tell you?

MCCOMB: Well, he's - he's got a pretty good recall. It's amazing that in his tumble going down the river that he didn't either get hit in - hit a rock with his head. That's what broke the sternum. He bounced against a rock and that's what cracked his sternum. But had it hit him in the head, it would have probably been a fatal blow.

[12:15:09] But he was able to - he does have full memory of what happened. He said that the rain started. Of course it was dark out there on the river, except for what light they had. I mean it's not very well lit out at these homes. And he said, you know, they realized the water was coming up and he said it all happened in about 20 minutes. And I think I heard earlier on your - listening here that, you know, you watch the Trinity River just before your eyes go from just a kind of a creek to a massive flooding area. Well, this is - this is what happened.

And he said they - the water started rising, the family kind of gathered and all of a sudden - and this, of course, this was at 9:00 or 10:00 at night and it's dark, the house suffered some kind of a big hit. They don't know - he doesn't know whether it was a tree that had been taken down earlier and came in and hit it. And those river homes are up on pilings. And he just surmises that - that it hit the piling and it broke the piling and that way the house then was just beginning to be carried away with the water.

And they were in the house. And at that point the house was just floating. But at some point, as they were going down the river, so they ran - the house hit a bridge and at that - it took the top part of the house off and, of course, the bottom had already been pretty much damaged when it came off of its - of its - the foundation or those piers (ph) and that's when the house just really started to disintegrate and the waters came in and it just started taking the people in all different directions. And that's when the - the last that he saw any of them.

And he just - he tumbled and was washed down the river. One report had him going down about nine miles, another had about 12 miles. And he just kept saying, I've got to get out of here. And there were times he didn't know whether he was going up or down in the water, he just kept fighting and finally was able to somehow manage to - or he got washed up on the bank and struggled up. He saw a light and went to the house and knocked on the door and said, I need help and then he just kind of collapsed on the porch and they called 911.

But the family that he was with, none of them, my daughter-in-law or the grandkids or the other families, they're still all unaccounted for and the searchers are out again today looking for them.

BANFIELD: Well, Joe, I - can you stay with me for a moment? I want to ask you a few more questions about those other families.

MCCOMB: Sure.

BANFIELD: And just what circumstance you all find yourselves in right now in terms of working with the authorities who are out there searching. So if you can stand by for about a minute or two, I'm going to come back to you. I want to ask you about that.

In the meantime, I just want to alert our viewers. You're seeing live pictures from our two affiliates of the aerial views of America's fourth largest city deluged with unbearable amounts of rain and flooding. Just look at those rivers that have just overtaken their banks. Cars still making it at some points in the city, but many abandoned. Up to a thousand cars and a thousand homes all affected by this. We're back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:22:15] BANFIELD: We've got breaking news we want to bring you here on CNN, two stories that are developing at the same time.

On the left-hand side of your screen are the live aerial shots from the helicopters courtesy of KTRK, our affiliate in Houston, showing the river banks that have completely overblown their banks and the flooding in that city. In some places 11 inches of rain hit in just a few short hours and the results are what you see.

There have been several deaths in that city and in other cities as well. The count just seems to be mounting at this point. In Texas, we have about five deaths at this point, but we are watching because these stories are moving. Overall, this storm has claimed 22 lives. Five in Texas, four in Oklahoma, 13 in Mexico. Eleven inches of rain in some spots overnight.

And just look at these neighborhoods. The mayor saying a thousand homes affected and a thousand cars, the Department of Transportation says, have been either deluged or abandoned.

So this is the story that is in Houston right now. I'm going to come back to it in a moment.

But I want to take you to Cleveland, which is on the right-hand side of your screen. It is a remarkable series of events, protests erupting in that city as well. Much of this because of the developments over the weekend of Officer Michael Brelo being acquitted in that remarkable series of events that led to the deaths of two unarmed African-Americans, 137 shots fired from 13 police officers and Michael Brelo's actions on the hood of the car, firing at close range, at least 15 shots downward through the windshield, that led to charges, it led to a bench trial, which is a trial with just the judge, not the jury, and he was acquitted because causation is tricky here. You have that many gunshots, 137 gunshots, and it was just too difficult with the evidence as presented to prove whether Officer Brelo's gunshots caused the fatalities.

But a lot of people quite upset about this. You can see a few hundred people gathering in the streets of Cleveland to protest all of this as the city of Cleveland and the Department of Justice are coming to a meeting of the minds effectively right now because the Department of Justice has been investigating the police in Cleveland to establish whether there's been a pattern of misconduct and civil rights violations. And they determined that, yes, there have been and they're putting forth a series of measures that these police officers in this department are going to have to follow and be basically under the watchful eye of the federal government for years to come.

So there's a lot developing on the streets of Cleveland. I want to go back right now to the other developing breaking story that we're following. I want to take you back to Texas. On the phone with me, Joe McComb, are you still there? We were speaking before the break. Can you still hear me?

MCCOMB: I can, yes, ma'am.

[12:25:02] BANFIELD: Mr. McComb, thank you for staying with me.

Just before the break, if there's viewers just joining us right now, Joe McComb is awaiting news from anyone, anywhere that might be able to bring it to them. His son Jonathan was with his wife Laura and their two kids, Leighton (ph) and Andrew and some other families in a home that effectively was washed off of its support columns in this incredible torrential flooding. And right now here's the family picture. We don't know where Laura and Leighton and Andrew are. Those two children and Jonathan's wife. Jonathan was separated from them as the house literally broke up, flowing down the river. The other families who were there as well, separated. We don't know where they are either. Jonathan was able to get to safety, but not before suffering a collapsed lung and a broken sternum.

So, Mr. McComb, your son Jonathan was able to recount that harrowing tale of how that home broke up. Can you tell me what we know about the other families and whom among them are missing and who - whether there are children, adults. Can you paint the picture of who else was in that home?

MCCOMB: Well, Ralph and Sue Kerry (ph), he's a retired dentist, and that - it was their home. And then their daughter Michelle. That's the other couple, Michelle and Randy Charba (ph). And Michelle was a -- is the Kerry's daughter. And then the -- Randy and Michelle's son Will and Jonathan, Laura and their two kids were in the house. So there was nine of them in the house. And Jonathan is the only one that's accounted for and the other eight are unaccounted for. And so it's a -

BANFIELD: All -

MCCOMB: I mean it's a devastation because I mean you're talking two generations of that family that are unaccounted for. You've got the mom and the dad, the daughter and the grandchild.

BANFIELD: So the - you said Ralph and Sue Kerry, I think it was -

MCCOMB: Right.

BANFIELD: And Randy and Michelle Charba and their son Will, they're still unaccounted for --

MCCOMB: Yes.

BANFIELD: As well as your daughter-in-law, Laura, and your grandchildren, Leighton -

MCCOMB: Laura, Leighton and Andrew are unaccounted for, yes.

BANFIELD: Laura, Leighton and Andrew. Leighton and Andrew, the children.

Well, listen, our hearts go out to you. Mr. McComb, I'm so sorry that we're meeting under these circumstances and I hope you can update us with good news. I know they're out there searching and there are many people doing this job to try to find them and the others who are missing. Thank you for being with us and thank you for telling us their story.

MCCOMB: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Joe McComb joining us from Texas. Just unbelievable. And we send our good wishes to his son Jonathan for a recovery as he tries to deal with what he's dealing with in the hospital, his injuries and, of course, this mystery, these missing - these missing family members and friends.

We're going to take you back to Cleveland after the break as that protest starts to gather steam. Hundreds in the streets. There's a lot developing right now. The police shooting verdict and, of course, the federal government and what it plans to do in that city with that police force.

We're back right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)