Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Northeast Preparing for Storm; Flights Canceled or Delay Because of the Nor'easter; Interview with Hartford Mayor about Storm Preparation; Security Breach at the White House

Aired January 26, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A blizzard called historic and life threatening ready to explode over the northeast. This is I-80 at I-20. You'll see in just a second this is just the beginning -- I-80 at 280. I appreciate it. This is in New Jersey. This is just the beginning, as you can see. It's pretty nasty out there driving already. It's a good idea if you just stay home.

North of Cape Cod, they're worried too. Homeowners are boarding up. Ferocious, howling winds could reach hurricane strength. As much as three feet of snow could fall here and staggering amounts may blanket much of the region. Airlines have canceled some 4,000 flights for today and tomorrow and New York's mayor is sounding the alarm for anyone tempted to dismiss the threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, (D) NEW YORK: This literally could be one of the top two or three largest storms in the history of this city and we need to plan accordingly. So my message to all New Yorkers is prepare for something worse than we have seen before. Prepare to be safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: We are covering all angles of this dangerous storm that's unfolding. CNN crews are fanned out across the northeast. So as the snow starts to come down heavier in many areas, remember this: we are still hours away from the storm unleashing its most fearsome might.

So let's get more on the timing and the path of the storm. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is live near Central Park. Hi, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi Carol, what you're seeing in D.C., Philadelphia, is about as bad as it's going to get. But Philadelphia, you're going to get six inches of snow. Up here, we don't get bad until about 10:00. And people that are sliding around say what are you talking about? I know it's snowing but it's not what it's going to be.

This is almost a hurricane over cold water. It's 47. That's warm enough to create a bombing effect. Think about what a hurricane looks like and how it has arms. Those spirals. This storm in fact, will have spiral bands, spiraling snow with ocean-effect snow blasting Maine and Boston and all the way down here to New York City and the new models here for New York City still at 24 inches of snow potential. And wind is going to be blowing at 50. Think about what that's going to do in just 24 hours. It will make this city almost to a standstill.

And the wind doesn't stop for 48 hours. Here's what we have, though, going - now. The snow has tapered off slightly here in New York City for another 30 minutes. It comes back. The airplanes are already having trouble keeping up and we're going to start seeing a lot of these delays pile up as the day goes on and the icing delays and all that. But it's the snow accumulation and the wind that is really going to affect people here and if you lose power, you can also lose a lot of heat in your house. I have seen people get smashed in these doors here at Time Warner Center. They think they can get in but the wind is blowing so hard that they get smashed on the way out.

So, that's why the revolving doors are there. They are not treating passengers through them like the revolving doors - likes these other doors are. It is tough out here. Wind blowing in and out at 35 miles per hour, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. And Chad Myers, this could be heavy, wet snow too. So, it's likely that many people will lose power, right?

MYERS: It is. The closer you get to the coast, the heavier it will be. Here it will probably be what we call ten to one snow. If you get 20 inches of snow and you melt it all down you get two inches of actual water. Closer to the coast, it may be closer to seven to one. So, that 20 inches of snow will be three inches of water and much heavier to shovel as well.

COSTELLO: All right. Chad Myers, try to stay warm out there. You look so miserable.

MYERS: I'm great.

COSTELLO: Are you?

MYERS: Yeah, this is a warm coat, thanks to my boss who bought this coat.

COSTELLO: Good. That's a good thing. Thank you so much. Chad Myers reporting live from New York.

Air travelers, no surprise here, flight delays are now into the thousands. The crippling conditions beginning to make their mark. According to Flight Aware, at last check nearly 3,000 flights are running on delays right now. More than 2,500 have been canceled. More than 2,600 flights have already been canceled for tomorrow. Rene Marsh standing by live at LaGuardia. Good morning, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, this is the main attraction here. You see this all morning where travelers essentially, they are walking up to these two boards because they want to know the situation with their flight. Here at LaGuardia, we know more than 600 cancellations, for example, in and out of the airport. So, as the morning goes on, we're seeing the cancellations and delays build up. We expect the same sort of trend with airports up and down the northeast corridor. So if you take a look, you know, there are some flights that are still going out of LaGuardia at this hour. But it is still early.

So, you are looking at the TSA checkpoint at this point. Those are the lucky people. Those are the people whose flights will actually get to their destination at least the first leg of their flight. So there is a slight bit of good news. But then things start to fade as the day goes on because, you know, I speak to a lot of folks here, lots of airport workers and airline workers who are saying, things don't look that bad just yet. But they are bracing for the worst, which is really going to ramp up around the afternoon hours here. We do know that the snow is coming down here at LaGuardia.

So, they are paying close attention to the tarmac, to the runways. They want to make sure there is no icing. We know that air traffic controllers in the tower here, they are calling this a very hectic situation in that, they want to make sure that aircraft that are coming in or leaving is happening safely. So, that's the picture that we have here. But Carol, the moral of the story is thousands of people will not be able to get on their flights in response to that many airlines will not be able to get on their flight in response to that many airlines, they are allowing people to switch their reservations without any charges. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, that's a good thing, at least. Rene Marsh reporting live from LaGuardia.

The Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy is holding a press conference right now to inform his citizens on how to prepare. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. DANIEL MALLOY (D) CONNECTICUT: We will be providing the state with additional updates as conditions adjust. Please continue monitoring the media throughout the day for updates. Recapping, this is potentially a dangerous storm with significant accumulation of snow, heavy wind and coastal flooding. It is imperative that you have a plan in place to get home safely this evening before the heavy snow begins and remain there through the duration of the storm. The storm will no doubt - no doubt will pose significant challenges. That's why we are working around the clock to mitigate problems as they arise, but we also ask that over the next 24 to 48 hours that our residents remain patient and get ready for the storm.

We have been down this road before in Connecticut. Every time we have met the difficult challenges together. We're a resilient state and we'll get through this storm together. Be safe and have a plan to look out for yourself and your neighbors. And with that, I'll take questions on point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) MALLOY: But yes, we - I've had conversations and the DOT has had conversations with our neighboring states to the north, Rhode Island to the east and Massachusetts. We are coordinating with them. We're waiting on an announcement in New York that may be - that probably will come earlier than 9:00 p.m. We have not received their timing yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

MALLOY: We - we want to -when we lift it, we'll announce a lifting, just as we are taking the step of preannouncing the closure in anticipation of that blizzard conditions could arise as early as that time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). It seems that they are preparing for some percentage of outages here. Is there some sort of scenario that goes with the 35-mile sustained winds? Just how many people ...

MALLOY: Yes, sure, both utilities are treating this as a level one occurrence. So for CLNP that would mean something up to 110,000 households could be out of power. With respect to U.I., that would probably represent around ten percent. Maybe slightly higher. I mean, 10,000. Maybe slightly higher. But, you know, those things can change very dramatically. We don't know what the weight of the snow is. We don't know whether we'll experience 35, 45 or 65. We're preparing for 60 along the coast and I think people should make those assumptions.

So this - and I think it's important to note if you're without power, you're going to be without power for a period of time. All likely - in all likelihood, several days.

So, you know, I'll just give you ...

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to step away from this press conference. That doesn't sound very comfortable, does it? I want to bring in Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra right now.

Mayor, good morning.

PEDRO SEGARRA, MAYOR OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: Good morning, Carol, how are you?

COSTELLO: I'm probably a lot better than you. Because I just heard Governor Malloy said that if people experience a power outage in Connecticut, expect to be without power for a few days.

SEGARRA: Yes. Yes. We're further inland. The estimates for wind in our city are in the 40 range so even though that's severe, it's still a lot lighter than the coast. We have a lot of our power is underground, but we still have some power in some areas that are, you know, cables. We have been working for the last 24 hours, so we are going to let the schools out at noontime. Our employees will also be leaving around noontime. We're working with the private sector, work - and the insurance center, so we are working with - at the Hartford, Phoenix and all the insurance companies to make sure that we stagger employees to leave home, so that we can do that in an orderly fashion. Our crews are ready to go.

We have about 60 vehicles that have plows on them. And we've all activated our emergency operation center effective 3:00. So we've had storms before. We've learned from them. And we're taking all of the precautions.

COSTELLO: The governor also mentioned a travel ban. Can you fill us in?

SEGARRA: Yeah. Well, that's important that he did that. We have some major events that were to occur in this city. We'd have the wrestling, so we are going to be asking our convention center to give us some response. Definitely, need to take into account that if there's a travel ban, you know, how these folks are going to get back home after the event. So, we really should strongly consider not having that event.

Having said that, we'll continue to coordinate with all of our partners. A lot of this is preparation. So, we're asking our residents, city residents to ensure that they get prescriptions, what they will need to basically make it through the storm. We don't want people out on the roads during the snow emergency. We have declared a snow emergency effective noontime today. And we will continue to work with our state and other town and partners to ensure that we get through the snow.

COSTELLO: Mayor, what's the cutoff time for people? When would you like to see Hartford looking like a ghost town?

SEGARRA: Well, I would say that by 6:00 p.m. The travel should be very, very light in the city. We're working with the insurance companies as I said and all of the major institutions to ensure that we have orderly, an orderly departure of employees that's going to start around noontime today.

That is very important. We don't want to have snow falling and we don't want to have gridlock occurring in our city. That had happened years ago. We want to avoid that. So, I've been on the phone with the top executive of these corporations to ensure that we all cooperate and make sure that we have a staggered release of workers from all of the corporations so that hopefully by about 6:00 it should be very, very light out there by that point. You're going to see more intensification of snow and we don't want people on the roads.

COSTELLO: All right. Mayor Pedro Segarra, thanks so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

SEGARRA: Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: Thank you. Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," residents in the northeast are preparing for every eventuality ahead of this storm. Power companies are too building on the painful lessons of the past.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh, take a look at that. It's going to look a lot worse later on tonight. In fact, the state of Connecticut has issued a travel ban for all travel in that state. That begins 9:00 p.m. Eastern tonight. Also, the governor says if you lose power in Connecticut, if you live along the shore along the coast, expect your power to be out for a few days because the snow coming down will be wet and heavy. Just a warning. Washington, D.C.

Just one of the many cities along the eastern seaboard bracing for that massive potentially historic winter storm. President Obama is overseas but he was briefed on the impending nor'easter bearing down on the region. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the administration is making sure state and local authorities have everything they need. FEMA also getting ready with assets prepositioned ahead of the storm.

Now, critical to the region's ability to get through this storm, the preparation of state and local utilities, especially the power companies. Extreme winter weather can push power companies to the breaking point and even past it.

In 2011, a pair of storms left hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts customers without electricity. Some for more than a week. The state hit several power companies with nearly $25 million for being inadequately prepared for the storms. Last fall the State Supreme Court reduced the amount of some of those fines. In the meantime, officials are telling residents in the storm's path to be ready advising them to stock up on enough supplies to last a few days. Shoppers aren't taking any chances either hitting grocery stores in droves and stocking up on essentials just in case. At one store in Manhattan, they're ordering four times the regular amount of produce and buying hundreds of cases of water. The chief operating officer of that store Ian Joskowitz joins me now by phone. Hi, Ian.

IAN JOSKOWITZ: Hi, how are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good. So tell me what it was like in the west-side market yesterday.

JOSKOWITZ: Insanity.

(LAUGHTER)

JOSKOWITZ: We had lines to the back of the store. It's pretty much most extreme reaction to a prediction of the storm I've seen.

COSTELLO: Really? Ever?

JOSKOWITZ: Ever. Well, in the nine years I've been here.

COSTELLO: So what were people mostly buying?

JOSKOWITZ: Meat, bread, milk, eggs, generally the basics. Batteries. Water.

COSTELLO: So, what were the checkout lines like?

JOSKOWITZ: Like I said, our store - I'm not exactly sure how many feet deep it is, but we had every register open and we were pretty much maxed out. The lines were really literally to the back of the store. And we move our lines very quickly. It was still mayhem.

COSTELLO: I just can't even imagine. So, how are you restocking?

JOSKOWITZ: Well, Sunday morning we did a conference call with all of our managers and we just got them on the phones placing orders ahead of time. We had a little bit of warning so we had special orders coming in last night and today. So we'll be good.

COSTELLO: Well, we all know how many people live in the city of New York. A massive amount of people. And most of them were out shopping. So, I can't even imagine how much produce you would have to order.

JOSKOWITZ: A few tractor-trailers worth just at this location at 110th Street.

COSTELLO: So, does this kind of thing help your business, hurt it in the long run, I mean?

JOSKOWITZ: In the long run, usually it evens out. Because what the extra business will do today we'll lose tomorrow.

COSTELLO: Understand. Thank you so much for being with me. Ian Joskowitz, I appreciate it.

JOSKOWITZ: Thank you. Take care.

COSTELLO: You too. Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," a security breach at the White House. A drone found on the lawn. Secret Service trying to find out how it got there. We'll take you to Washington next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking other top stories for you at 22 minutes past the hour. The sons of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have been released from prison after serving 18 months. Last week, a court order that the two men be freed pending a trial. Mubaraks along with their father are accused of embezzling $17.9 million to renovate presidential palaces.

ISIS is issuing a new ultimatum to spare the life of a surviving Japanese hostage. In return for Kenji Goto's freedom, ISIS is demanding the release of a would-be suicide bomber from a jail in Jordan. Last week a chilling video emerged indicating ISIS killed his other Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.

And the Secret Service has examined and cleared a drone that was found on the White House grounds. In a statement the agency says the officer heard and observed the drone earlier this morning, which eventually crashed on the southeast side of the complex. An investigation is currently under way, but let's talk about this. Because it's yet another security breach at the White House. CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes is on the phone. Hi, Tom. TOM FUENTES, CNN ANALYST: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Tom, the airspace over the White House is restricted. Flying drones is illegal in the District of Columbia. Surely agents have a plan to stop a drone from getting onto the grounds.

FUENTES: You know, Carol, I don't know if anybody has a plan for this type of operation. You know, that specifically to prevent it. It is illegal. So, obviously if somebody does it, there will be an investigation to try to figure out who did it. But, you know, we've had these various plots and as the drones become more plentiful and more models economically available to the public, I mean, you can buy one of these for anywhere from about $50 to $4,000 to $5,000.

You may recall the FBI plot that was thwarted in September of 2011 when an individual had purchased a model jet fighter drone, basically, that was going to carry 50 pound of explosives. He was going to fly that into the Capitol Dome. He had a quiet six AK-47, and then he was going to open fire on everybody that came pouring out of the Capitol building once that drone had struck the Capitol dome. Now, the plan fell apart fortunately because when he recruited fellow shooters, the FBI was able to penetrate him and get that uncovered and thwarted.

But this is something -- there's been several other drone plots that have been contemplated or thwarted and not got a lot of attention. But this one, you know, because it flew onto the lawn, obviously it's getting attention. I don't know how they can stop it. I don't know what kind of anti-aircraft radar mechanism they're going to be able to put at the White House, at the Capitol and other federal buildings to prevent somebody other than it's against the law and we hope we catch them and prosecute them after the fact.

COSTELLO: Exactly. Just, you know, to be more descriptive of what kind of drone it was - it's described as the two-foot wide quad copter. And the Secret Service agent spotted it flying over the lawn of the White House shortly after 3 a.m. Eastern Time. Just the timing of it is disturbing.

FUENTES: Well, true. And - but, you know, the timing could be in daylight and it could be just about any time and I think it's still - it's still disturbing that somebody can launch one of these pretty easily and they are just readily available. I mean you can go on the Internet, you can buy one of these and have it at your house in two days and be ready to go. So, this is something that's readily acquirable by anybody. And, you know, there have been ISIS plots where there has been intelligence, where they discussed, you know, ironically you fire drones at us, we're going to fire drones back at you on your home soil.

And at this point, I really don't know the discussions that the Secret Service will have. The Capitol police, the Capitol dome, the federal protective service that guards the other federal buildings cross- country. So, you have several different agencies responsible for protecting federal facilities. You know, what solution they can come up with, you know, beyond the fact that it's illegal. I don't know what preventative measure they can come up with to actually stop it once somebody launches one of these things.

COSTELLO: Well, as you know, Tom, the Secret Service is in the midst of this leadership change, so it's easy to criticize them. Because there have been other security breaches at the White House, so we shouldn't be too hard on them in this instance?

FUENTES: I agree. I wouldn't be too hard on them in this instance. Because I don't think anybody, you know, just across the spectrum of federal buildings or even private security for commercial buildings has come up with an adequate solution. I mean, you know, do you want a small army of Secret Service agents on the lawn firing at one of these things trying to shoot it down and have the bullets landing all over Washington, D.C., the ones that miss? Are they going to use some kind of surface to air missiles on the ground?

And again, if it misses the drone, it's going to land somewhere in town on somebody's building. So, I mean the countermeasures can be very dangerous in this situation and they're going to have to really think about how they're going to go about stopping this.

COSTELLO: All right. Tom Fuentes, thanks for your insight as always. I appreciate it. Still to come in the "NEWSROOM." You think the snow is the only threat to the northeast? Think again. Coastal residents say floods and power outages are their tough concerns, and they are preparing for the worst.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)