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Severe Weather to Affect Parts of Gulf Coast; College Football Season Kicks Off; Woman Addicted to Heroin Recounts Struggle to Recover; Man with Multiple Sclerosis Documents Progress of Disease

Aired August 30, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: If you hail from the planet of the apes or a galaxy far, far away, you are either in Atlanta this weekend or you wish you were here. For 28 years now the huge Dragon-Con convention has drawn people from all across the country and the world. And this year organizers expect a record crowd of 62,000. I think they are there. It may be very late into work today. Traffic is gridlocked as a result of all the parading things from other places. They're gamers, they're comic book readers, and they are pop cultural fans. And they are all in costume, and boy, do they have a lot of fun. A big tradition.

All right, hello again and happy Labor Day weekend. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. It is a big weekend for beaches, football, and food. And nearly 35 million of you are actually traveling to celebrate the holiday with family or friends. And the weather, of course, it's a pretty critical factor for many of those festivities. And in many places, it's actually cooperating. That is nice. At Seaside Heights, New Jersey, live pictures right now, people are taking in the boardwalk, taking in the beach. And across the country in California, Santa Monica Beach, oh, it's always so gorgeous there. I don't think they ever have an actual bad day in Santa Monica, so it's particularly blissful there for this holiday weekend. So let's check in with our Jennifer -- hey, where are you, Jennifer?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right here.

WHITFIELD: OK. Good to see you!

GRAY: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: It is very nice in so many places, but --

GRAY: It is.

WHITFIELD: -- there's also a patch of nasty weather in the form of flooding and rain?

GRAY: Yes, it's a mixed bag. Really it's depending on where you are. The good news is it looks like we'll have a brief window. No matter where you are, you'll be able to enjoy some part of your weekend. The Gulf coast will be a little iffy, though. That rain will stick around and be pretty relentless over the next couple of days.

I do want to tough on the possibility, slight risk of severe weather for portions of the Dakotas, even Montana. Large hail, damaging winds, isolated tornadoes for late this afternoon into this evening. That threat shifts to the east as we go through tomorrow, including Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, Des Moines, Lincoln, same threat there. It will even shift even farther to the east by Monday. So Labor Day, Chicago, you'll be in on it as well. So don't let your guard down through the weekend. Stay tuned.

Lake Charles, you have gotten a lot of rain through the wee hours of the morning, seven inches of rain reported right outside of Lake Charles, and that rain goes all the way up into Alexandria, Louisiana, even northeast Louisiana, portions of New Orleans, getting a lot of rain this morning, and that rain is going to continue as we go through the next several hours.

It is just shifting to the east. Luckily, Lake Charles is getting a break. Now it's moving into Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and points east. And so this will continue to track to the east as we go through the rest of the weekend. So flash flood warning still in effect for Lake Charles. We do have flood warnings and watches in effect for a large portion of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas.

Here are your rainfall amounts as we go through Monday -- three to five inches. This will be tapering over to the east, as we go forward in time and as this wraps up in Louisiana and picks up in Minnesota, on into Alabama, and even Georgia getting some of this as we go through the end of the weekend. Here's your beach forecast, if that's where you're headed for this holiday weekend. Looks like the best places to be will be along the mid-Atlantic, the northeast. However, we will have a couple of showers on Monday to deal with.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy. Jennifer, you're a Louisiana girl. How are your family members dealing with all that rain?

GRAY: They're getting soaked and they're tired of it. It's been coming down for days and days.

WHITFIELD: Darn. Well, I'm sure you can give them a nice little forecast to look forward to on the horizon. Thanks so much.

OK, so the temperature where you live might still be in the 90s, but there's a definite fall feel in the air. And it has nothing to do with weather, really. College football kicks off a full schedule this weekend, including the pre-season number one pick. CNN's Brian McFayden is in Atlanta, a huge fan event called Tailgate Town. Brian?

BRIAN MCFAYDEN, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Fredricka. I'm hanging out here with some of the greatest fans in the history of fandom. Alabama Crimson Tide is number ranked in all of college up against West Virginia Mountaineers. We've got a couple more top 25 matchups on the radar. National champions Florida State take on Oklahoma State tonight in Dallas. Heisman trophy winning quarterback Jameis Winston along with most of their offensive line. That's going to be a good one to watch.

We're keeping an eye on the 12th ranked Georgia Bulldogs who take on the 16th Clemson Tigers. Georgia's Heisman trophy candidate could be a difference maker in that. And the big ten meets the SEC as the Badgers of Wisconsin battle it out with the LC Tigers. This game will certainly be a test for two of the quarterbacks. Fredricka, I don't even know if I have a voice after today because these guys are keeping it loud.

(CHEERS)

MCFAYDEN: Wait, wait, wait, wait. One, two, three, roll Tide!

CROWD: Roll tide!

MCFAYDEN: One, two, three, go Mountaineers.

CROWD: Go, mountaineers!

MCFAYDEN: Back to you, Fred. I lost it.

WHITFIELD: We'll get you some hot water, a nice little hot tea out there. I know it's like 90 degrees out there, but your throat needs it. Brian, thanks so much.

All right, coming up, a story of survival. You'll meet the unlikeliest of drug addicts and find out she overcame her addiction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, all week, CNN is looking at what we're calling the deadly fix, addiction and what it drives people to do, like a Denver woman who seemed like she had it all -- a good job, eight children, 18 grandchild. But for years she couldn't go a day without using heroin. And it got so bad she sometimes met her dealers with her grandkids in the car. She tells CNN's Ana Cabrera her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This park is where you'd pick up?

CYNTHIA SCUDO, RECOVERING ADDICT: This is it, one of them.

CABRERA: How often?

SCUDO: Probably twice a week.

CABRERA: Cynthia Scudo was an all-American mom of eight with a deep, dark secret.

Did you care who was around?

SCUDO: Nope.

CABRERA: Never worried?

SCUDO: I was thinking about one thing, and that was heroin.

CABRERA: Hooked on heroin for nearly a decade. SCUDO: In the beginning, it was a feel-good. At the end, it was

black.

CABRERA: It started innocently enough. She had pain in her hip, scar tissue, perhaps, from multiple C-sections. A doctor prescribed Oxycontin. But in just two weeks, Scudo was addicted.

SCUDO: By the time I got to my second doctor, she said, you're taking enough for three adult men.

CABRERA: Are doctors too quick to prescribe a painkiller?

DR. PATRICK FEHLING, ADDICTION SPECIALIST, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Some of them, definitely.

CABRERA: Addiction specialist, Dr. Patrick Fehling says what happened to Scudo isn't uncommon, and neither is the jump from prescription meds to heroin.

FEHLING: They act on the exact same parts of the brain. They cause reinforcement, they cause euphoria.

CABRERA: But heroin is much cheaper. One Oxycontin can cost $80 on the street. And $100 worth of heroin could last Scudo up to three days. Scudo crisscrossed Colorado to meet with drug dealers at parks, strip malls, sometimes with her grandchild in the car.

SCUDO: So this is a good place to pick up, because we've got sides of houses here, fences.

CABRERA: This mom and grand-mom in her mid-40s at the time didn't shoot heroin like some addicts do. She smoked it.

SCUDO: And I would drive with my knee, pull the foil in one hand, the straw in my mouth, the lighter in the other, and I would be driving down I-70 going 65 miles an hour, smoking heroin.

CABRERA: Driven by the drugs for nine years, Scudo thought she was destined to die a drug addict until a wake-up call one day when she looked in the mirror.

SCUDO: I was a skeleton. I had this lovely green glow going, so I knew my liver was shutting down. The skin was hanging, literally hanging off my body. And something about that moment when I saw myself triggered something in my head. Oh, a long way from home.

CABRERA: What's going through your mind?

SCUDO: Chaos, hope, for the first time in a long time.

CABRERA: That's what was happening when you first got here?

SCUDO: Yes. I knew I couldn't do it by myself and I didn't know how to do it.

CABRERA: Scudo was in rehab for 33 days. This was her intake picture.

SCUDO: I threw up every 15 minutes. I would have to live in the shower with the water temperature of 120 degrees to burn the skin to not feel the pain in my back.

CABRERA: The physical withdrawal was just the first hurdle. Scudo has worked through a 12-step recovery. It's been over three years. No relapses. And Scudo, now 55 and a grandmother of 18, has a new appreciation for life.

SCUDO: The only way I'm going to stay clean and sober is to remember where I came from.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wow, incredible story of survival. That was CNN's Ana Cabrera reporting for us. And you can find much more on the deadly web of addiction. Just go to CNN.com/deadlyfix.

All right, a city faces a tragedy like no other, New Orleans. Nine years ago this week hurricane Katrina moved in and wiped out entire communities. Well, wait until you see how things look today.

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WHITFIELD: Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in U.S. history, hit the Gulf coast nine years ago. More than 1,800 people died in the disaster and its aftermath. The storm devastated the city of New Orleans. Levees and flood walls failed, leaving 80 percent of the city underwater. The Superdome became a place of refuge, then quickly turned into a scene of nightmarish desperation.

And then documenting all of this, so many photographers, including my next guest, Ted Jackson. He's a photographer with NOLA.com and "The Times-Picayune" newspaper. So, Ted, as a "Times-Picayune" photographer, this natural disaster and all that followed was very personal for you. You lived in this city. But when you were taking these pictures, at the time, you had some reference points, but what was going through your mind as you captured these images?

TED JACKSON, PHOTOGRAPHER, NOLA.COM AND "THE TIMES-PICAYUNE" (via telephone): At first, just seeing the devastation was overwhelming, trying to get into the lower Ninth Ward for the first time, walking across the St. Claude Bridge, just looked out and saw a sea of devastation, water up to the eaves. And I had expected to see something a little bit more like the historical hurricane Betsy, where water was getting into houses. But to see it that deep was just overwhelming.

WHITFIELD: And I want you to talk us through some of these pictures. Take me back to one of the first images that we just showed. It was the lower Ninth Ward. And, you know, it really is clear what provoked the shot. You are seeing about seven people, including children, seemingly in chest-high water. There's the picture, right there. But then when you went back, you found out that that wasn't chest-high water. That water would have been over their heads. They were standing on rails. Take me back to that moment. What caught your eye, besides these seven people and children who looked like they were, you know, in a lot of water.

JACKSON: Well, a lot like before, that was when I first walked across the St. Claude Bridge. That was the first scene that I saw. They were right to my right, as I was on the ramp of the bridge. And the storm was still blowing at that point, and they were actually calling to me for help. And of all the people to show up that they needed so much was, was a photographer with cameras.

So we yelled and screamed above the wind and the rain and tried to figure out what to do. And it was just a desperate situation. And there was nothing I could do to help them. But looking at the picture later, it was amazing to realize that they were not standing on the porch but actually on the rail. So it was -- you know, they were terrified, absolutely terrified.

WHITFIELD: And then the Morial convention center, there's a picture of a man holding an infant and an older person kind of slumped over in a chair, which is at the bottom of the screen, which you actually can't see that older person. Then the next picture, going back there, makes it looks like the convention center a place of paradise where only good things happen. So talk to me about that day, that people cannot, cannot really forget those images of so many people outside the convention center, you know, lacking food, water, any kind of dignity.

JACKSON: It was -- a group of photographers and I were working together, we kind of banded together for safety. And we had heard that there was a riot going on at the Superdome. And we had headed in that direction, but we were diverted. We were told that there was now a riot at the convention center. So we headed in that direction instead.

But when we walked onto the Convention Center Boulevard, which is a grand boulevard, it's just kind of one of the prides of the city, and to see this just mass of people who were just desperate for any kind of help. Instead of a riot, we were -- we suddenly realized that they were just gathered there and trying to find a way to survive. And we were all -- each photographer was approached by a different person, just running up and grabbing us by the arms and saying, you've got to see this, you've got to see this.

And a woman, Angela Perkins, was the first one to grab me, and she showed me this man in his desperation. We spent some time there going through the convention center and seeing how horrible the conditions were. And there was no one to help. There were no authorities there at all to give aid to the close to 30,000 people who had gathered there.

WHITFIELD: And Ted, even to this day, it is still so hard to believe that this happened, but it did. Another image you showed us, on St. Claude Avenue, you were in a rescue boat as you spotted the other seven people. You came across a woman in a life vest swimming down the street. Let's take a look at that image. And then you see these couple of knobs in the background. At the time, did you realize how deep this water was?

JACKSON: I had no idea. It -- I guess, you know, my mind was telling me that it was deep, but, you know, realistically, it was hard to believe that it could possibly be this deep in this area of the city. But, we asked her if she -- if we could help her get into the boat and to help her, and she kind of looked around, and that's when I shot the picture. She said "I'm swimming to New Orleans." And she probably had eight or ten blocks left to go. So I always kind of imaged her kind of reaching down and tiptoeing on the street to push herself along, but going back and seeing this spot and measuring that fence in the background that you described, it's 10 feet from the sidewalk to the top of that fence.

WHITFIELD: And it's topped with barbed wire, so thankfully she never got caught up in that barbed wire, but conceivably, that would be easy for that to happen, someone swimming, not knowing what was underneath them.

JACKSON: Absolutely.

WHITFIELD: These are extraordinary images, Ted Jackson. Thanks so much for bringing this to us. And how often do you reflect on what happened nine years ago in your city?

JACKSON: It's very often. I mean, everything that happens in the city now has a reference point back to Katrina. And most people kind of count time now as if it was something happened, you know, with your child or friends, if it was before Katrina or after Katrina. But the city has made some remarkable recovery over the past nine years. And I remember a crisis recovery expert telling me at the time just a few weeks after Katrina that it would take 11 years for a full recovery. And I've always counted time by that reference point. And I've always thought that the city was pretty much right on track. There's a lot of areas of the city that are just really struggling still, but as a whole they're doing pretty well.

WHITFIELD: Well, Ted Jackson, thanks so much. It is an extraordinary city, New Orleans, still one of my favorite cities. My mom and my daughter actually happen to be named Nola, paying homage to our Louisiana roots. All right, Ted, thanks so much.

All right, to see all these amazing before and after pictures, perhaps you also want to read about Ted Jackson's experiences taking these photos, just head to NOLA.com.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: As a child, Jason DaSilva loved making home movies. He was 18 when he made his first film, and 25 when he was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

JASON DASILVA, FILMMAKER WITH MS: All of a sudden, I was walking slow up and down the subway steps, kind of walking like I was drunk during the day. GUPTA: MS is a disease where the body's immune system attacks the

central nerve system, damaging or destroying nerve fibers. The independent filmmaker travelled the world, making nine films, and then DaSilva turned the camera on himself, documenting the ravages of his disease and the struggle people with disabilities have living in New York City.

DASILVA: We're not superhuman. You know, people with disabilities shouldn't be asked to do the impossible.

DASILVA: In the seven years it took to make the movie, "When I Walk," which aired on PBS, DaSilva went from walking, to using a Walker, to wheelchair, and now a motorized scooter. His vision has started to deteriorate. His hands curl, making it impossible to hold a camera. He met his wife, Alice Cook, at an MS support group meeting. Together they finished the film. And another legacy -- son, Jace.

Passionate about making the city easier to negotiate for people with disabilities, he and his wife created a map of all the places in the city that are wheelchair accessible.

DASILVA: Some of the things that I'm doing is actually making a difference, but that's what's keeps me going. And that's how I can stay positive.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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