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Small Drone Crash Lands on White House Lawn; Historic Blizzard Heading Towards East Coast; Roads Are Dangerous Place to Be During Blizzard; 6,000 Flights Canceled in U.S. Due to Blizzard; New Information on Drone Landing on White House Lawn.

Aired January 26, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Back to our special coverage now of what is really a monster blizzard getting ready to hit the northeast.

But first, the Secret Service is interviewing someone who could be connected to a drone that was spotted flying above the White House grounds overnight. The drone crashed on to the south lawn today around 3:00 a.m. It's being described as a two-foot wide commercially available quad copter. That means four.

So one Secret Service source tells CNN that the owner of this drone called in after seeing news reports, but a law enforcement source could not confirm that the person now being interviewed came in voluntarily. We have "Time" magazine's Zeke Miller joining us now.

And so, Zeke, this was a quad copter. So kind of like four helicopters. And CNN law enforcement -- a source telling us that this drone actually appeared to be for recreational use. But you've written about drone use in D.C. You actually wrote a story last year, kind of (INAUDIBLE) in this point, and I remembered you said in this story, it's not just illegal, it's very illegal. So what kind of threat could this pose at a place like the White House?

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, "TIME": Well, it's not just a security threat, it's a public safety threat flying any drone in a populated city. We've seen it not just in Washington, we've seen it in New York, people flying these drones. They weigh, you know, anywhere between five and 10 pounds. Some are larger, some are smaller. If that falls out of the sky, runs out of battery, hits somebody on the head, that's dangerous to begin with as a public safety concern.

National security facilities, around the White House, U.S. capitol, around national parks, national monuments, the Pentagon, it's both a concern in terms of somebody with malicious intent, as well as potential, you know, venue that somebody trying to engage in some sort of surveillance could use to take pictures of things that are formally blocked off, that are normally not visible from the public areas around these complexes.

KEILAR: Exactly right. So even though they are illegal, though, I wonder what can authorities really do to stop them, or is there anything they can do to stop them, considering we have one landing at the White House.

MILLER: Yeah, this is -- you know, an issue we were having nationwide when it comes to drones, privacy concerns around them. Right now, all there are FAA guidelines. Fly them below 400 feet and not near airports. Around Washington, it means don't fly it within 10 or 12 miles of Reagan National Airport, just outside of Washington, D.C. And they're relying on the customers, people who buy these several hundred-dollar drones not to use them, these quad copters, to follow published rules.

Other than that, trying to track back who these individuals are can be, very, very difficult at times. In this case, it looks like the person involved did try to -- did read about it, did find out some more information about the fate of their helicopter -- of their quad copter and did come forward. But somebody who's trying to carry out -- has a malicious intent, it's a lot harder to investigate these things.

KEILAR: What's the latest on this case? Do we know if the person came forward voluntarily to talk to authorities?

MILLER: One law enforcement source told me an hour or so ago that, indeed, happened, that this is potentially a government employee using this on a sort of recreational time, testing out one of these drones around 3:00 in the morning. We're very early in this investigative process. And certainly this is raising red flags for the Secret Service which is coming off just the latest negative story line for them. At the same time, this has happened before on the National Mall. There are three or four incidents in the last five or six months around Washington where people have been flying drones and what's called P-56, the heavily restricted airspace over the White House and the U.S. capitol.

KEILAR: Yeah, really drones testing the boundaries. We knew that some things like this would happen, and we're starting to be surprised by some of it.

All right, Zeke Miller, thanks so much. Really appreciate your expertise on that.

I want to get back now to our special coverage. We are bracing for impact here. You see the snow, it's falling. Well, this is nothing compared to what we are expecting. New York's mayor says this blizzard could be one of the worst storms to hit in the city's history. We're measuring this thing in feet.

Next, I will speak live with the head of the National Weather Service about what they're seeing in forecast models.

Plus, we're also sitting shotgun for a real-time look at the road conditions in the northeast. We'll take you there. Stay with us.

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KEILAR: Across the northeast, critical items like bread are flying off the grocery shelves. Officials say they're hoping that the roads will be just as barren tomorrow. In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, elsewhere, drivers are being warned, some ordered to not travel as a blizzard that could be historic churns its way northward. We're talking about three feet of snow that could fall accompanied by hurricane-force winds.

Joining me to talk about this, Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service.

You spent 14 years leading the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. In your career, how would you rate this storm that is expected to hit the northeast?

Dr. LOUIS UCCELLINI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: Well, actually, you could say, in my lifetime, I've been interested in snowstorms. I grew up on Long Island. And Paul wrote a snowstorm monograph and we actually have studied many of these storms, and created an index for them. And we think this storm is going to rank up in the -- as a historic storm in the three, four range in our index. And with the snow cover, the snow amount, it's going to rank right up there with some of the bigger storms that have hit that area.

KEILAR: What are the weather conditions that are causing what really could be this historic storm? If you're thinking that it could be a number 3 or a number 4?

UCCELLINI: Well, everything is coming together. The upper air pattern is now well in place to really generate the rapid cycle genesis which we've been predicting to form off the Carolina coast. That's happening. It will go into a trap of development phase later this afternoon and this evening and will bring very heavy snows to New York City. Getting the cold air in is a key factor. Yesterday, you were in the 40s. Overnight, that cold air came in and now it's locked in place. So it will keep the precipitation as snow. And, of course, the very tight gradients with this storm will produce extreme wind conditions, and blizzard conditions along the Jersey coast right up through New York City, up toward Boston. So all these ingredients are going to make for a high-impact event, a very major storm for that whole area.

KEILAR: Give us the timeline here. We're already seeing some accumulation here in New York City, but I know there are obviously some people who are probably still running around trying to stock up, get some supplies. Tell us when the worst of the storm is going to hit, and really where the worst will hit.

UCCELLINI: Yeah. So right now, what's happening is that an initial band has actually formed, an east/west band over Long Island, northern New Jersey, New York City, and it's progressing very slowly northward, essentially locked if place. That's what's giving you the moderate snow. What we'll see basically after 8:00, 9:00 tonight is the first major precip event, from the developing low off the coast, come into the New York City/Long Island area. I would say maybe not between 9:00 and midnight. And then between midnight and 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 tomorrow morning, you're going to be in the brunt of the very heavy snows all the way from northern New Jersey, and that will swing around and get into southeast New England and Boston at the same time. So that's the key area is -- the key time period is after 9:00 p.m. tonight through 9:00, 10:00 tomorrow morning.

KEILAR: And this flooding concern you're talking about, really, what is it, Long Island and Cape Cod, is that right?

UCCELLINI: Yeah. So we expect higher tides and potential flooding situations all the way from Delaware Bay up to southeast New England coast. The worst coastal conditions will likely develop in eastern Long Island up towards the cape in that area. And this is going to be a significant issue for them later on tonight. As the storm develops with the very strong winds, it will be driving that sea water right toward the coast, and we're watching that very carefully.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching it very carefully with you.

Dr. Louis Uccellini, thank you so much for being on with us.

UCCELLINI: Thank you.

KEILAR: One of the most dangerous places to be in a storm like this is going to be on the roads.

CNN's Brian Todd is out there for us. He is checking the conditions in New Jersey. Let's ride along with him.

Brian, what are you seeing?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, right now, we're on the Atlantic City Expressway heading east toward Atlantic City. We're going to be getting on the Garden State Parkway heading north where the storm is really going to hit in those seaside areas of New Jersey. It's going to hit very hard.

We're starting to see some of the conditions getting worse along these highways. The visibility really decreasing now. Our photojournalist, Kahlil Abdullah (ph), is going to switch from my camera to the fro front-facing camera outside our windshield here. You can see, you can get an idea of some of these conditions.

Governor Chris Christie just told reporters that he is -- they're allowing some state government employees to leave work early. And what the governor has said if you're going to get out of work, get out now and just start to head home now because this is really the hour when it's starting to get much, much worse here along the New Jersey coast. The governor said they've got about 3,700 trucks ready to go some salt spreading and contract plowing along these roads.

But again, and if Kahlil (ph) is switching out the front side of our vehicle here, the visibility here is getting much, much worse and has gotten worse just in the last couple of minutes, Brianna. So as we head north and east of where we are now in southern New Jersey, conditions are really starting to deteriorate. And this is about the time when it's starting to get worse in this region of New Jersey.

KEILAR: So, what is your plan, Brian? Where are you heading after this? TODD: Well, we think we're going to go to Point Pleasant around

Seaside Heights. That was an area that really got hit hard by Hurricane Sandy a couple of years ago. So we're going to see how that area is coping. That's supposed to get a lot of snow. And, of course, you know, as you've been talking about with our weather folks, the winds are going to be a huge issue. And those are going to cause whiteout conditions in some of these areas. And in some areas, we're told there are going to be near hurricane-force winds. Maybe somewhere between 60 and 75 mile per hour winds, which are going to cause whiteout conditions. Again, we're seeing just the beginnings of this right now, just the remnants of this starting to hit this region as we head farther north. We're going to be heading toward Point Pleasant and Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

KEILAR: Yeah, it already feels like this is getting bad, but this is nothing when you hear the experts talking about.

Brian Todd, thanks so much. You and Kahlil (ph) stay safe there.

Nearly 6,000 flights canceled in the northeast. Coming up, what you need to know if you're planning to travel in the next 48 hours. I'll be talking to the CEO of flightaware.com about the travel challenges ahead.

You're watching CNN's special coverage.

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KEILAR: A potentially historic winter storm bearing down on the northeast. More than 6,000 flights have been canceled today and tomorrow into and out of and within the United States. This, all according to flightaware.com. How many of those cancelations are due to this upcoming storm?

With me now to talk about this is the CEO of Flightaware, Daniel Baker.

So, Daniel, would you say that 90 percent, 95 percent of these cancelations are because of the storm? Or are we just talking all of them?

DANIEL BAKER, CEO, FLIGHTAWARE.COM: Virtually, all of them. Over 95 percent are because of this storm. So far today, the airlines have canceled thousands of flights, most this afternoon and evening. Basically, they're saying, look, the storm is going to be really bad tomorrow, we're going to need to cancel all of our flights in and out of the New York area, Philadelphia, Boston. And they need to get the crews and planes out of the affected area. They don't want to fly in a bunch of flights into the New York area tonight and then find out the planes can't depart either later tonight or in the morning, get stuck there, and they end up having to cancel flights all across their system as a result. So they need to cancel a lot of flights even ahead of the storm as a result.

KEILAR: Yeah. I had a flight tomorrow morning that was canceled twice now. It was moved to tomorrow evening, now it's been moved to Wednesday morning. So when you're looking at LaGuardia, JFK, Boston- Logan, Philadelphia, what other airports are being affected here?

BAKER: Yeah, those are the big airports that are seeing the bulk of the cancelations. A lot of airports across the country that have a ton of flights to the New York area are impacted as well. If you look at all the airports that are affected, you might see, for example, Miami have 75 flights canceled today. Those are to and from the affected area. Definitely, the airlines are expecting that the New York area's hit the hardest.

Another thing to consider is not only do they have to deal with the impact of those airports, but they do a lot of regional flights to nearby areas and smaller airports and smaller cities that may not just have the capacity to clear the runways and get the airline employees there. So they have to be prepared for that as well. It's just a really big challenge. There's no question this is a much larger storm than a lot of the nor'easters that we see.

A typical situation might be the airlines say, OK, when is this storm coming? We'll cancel a few hours ahead of time. Maybe through the night and restart operations in the morning. The case here is they're canceling a lot of the evening schedule, the entire next day in a lot of these airports. I think it's unlikely we'll see a normal schedule even on Wednesday. It's going to be a while before things come back together.

KEILAR: Yeah. So many flights, and they'll have to pack them into Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tell us -- there's this thing you have on your website, it's called a Misery Map. Explain what we're looking at here.

BAKER: The Misery Map is a really great way to visualize what's going on in the airspace. It's an animated map that shows the weather as it moves across the United States, and then it changes the color of the airport or the city to show what percentage of flights are experiencing delays and cancelations. You can hover over one of the cities and it will show the routes to and from the airport and color code the route based on how much it's impacted. Right now, if you hovered over Seattle, it's going to be green, going to look pretty good. Then you see the storm bearing down on the northeast.

If you hover over any of those airports, you're going to see big, thick, red lines showing that, look, the majority of flights in and out of there are delayed and canceled. And that's the reality. If you're not already boarding a flight in or out of the New York area, there's a very likely chance you're going to see a delay or cancelation. And if you are flying tomorrow, to and from those airports, no question, it's going to be a really big problem. And we don't expect things to be back on track until Thursday at the earliest.

KEILAR: Give us a sense, Daniel, of -- obviously, we're here, we're already starting to feel some of the snow. Boston's going to get hit. But there are other areas that don't even see the snow that will be impacted by these cancelations.

BAKER: Yeah. That's absolutely right. I think one thing that people really need to think about is someone might be in Texas or Florida and say, you know, it's beautiful weather here, you know, when I fly to Europe tomorrow, I don't have to worry about that. Well, you know, you might think, geez, am I flying through Newark, JFK? Keep an eye on where you're connecting.

The good news is the airlines are trying to get the planes out of the area so they don't have to cancel completely unrelated flights. What everyone -- it drives people crazy, both passengers and airlines alike, is when there's a snowstorm in New York then there's a cancelation for Los Angeles to San Francisco or something. So they are working really hard to avoid that, and that's why you're seeing the delays and cancelations ahead of the storm today. So hopefully, it will be mostly affecting people flying to, from, or through the northeast.

KEILAR: Yeah, certainly, you're flying from Phoenix to Dallas, and if that flight goes into D.C., or into New York, maybe that's going to affect you. You don't want that. Good they're taking the precautions there.

Daniel Baker, thank you so much.

And if you want to track the weather where you are, just check it out at CNN.com/weather any time.

Next, we're getting a first look at that small drone that crash landed on the White House lawn. We have a live report about that, next.

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KEILAR: This is just in to CNN. We now have a picture of that drone that was spotted flying over the White House grounds overnight. The Secret Service confirming it has interviewed a person who claims to have been in control of the drone that was spotted flying above the White House grounds. This drone, it's described as two feet wide. It's commercially available. It's what's called a quad copter, so four propellers. This crashed onto the South Lawn around 3:00 a.m.

The South Lawn, Joe Johns, who is at the White House.

This is the South Lawn where normally Marine One would be taking off and landing from. This is an area that a lot of people have seen certainly on video. And we're finding out more information now about what this thing looks like.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right. A very unusual situation here at the White House today, Brianna. As you said, around 9:30 this morning eastern time, the Secret Service reports, according to Brian Leary, who is their spokesman, that an individual called them to self-report he had been in control of that quad copter or drone, as it's called. He apparently had been using it for recreational purposes. Apparently, lost control of the device and it ended up crashing on the White House lawn.

This, of course, occurring around 3:00 in the morning, so a somewhat unusual situation. However, it's our understanding that the Secret Service has interviewed him. They believe his story. And the question, of course, is what to do next? They're going to continue an investigation.

It's also important to say, Brianna, as you know, this is not just restricted airspace here at the White House. It is prohibited airspace. So planes aren't supposed to come here, and neither are drones, be they recreational or otherwise, without probably quite a bit of consent.

So something to talk about, and the debate continues in the United States about the use of drones for recreational and work purposes. The FAA is still trying to put together rules on that, and this will only fuel the debate, if you will -- Brianna?

KEILAR: It will speed it along, no doubt.

Joe Johns, thanks so much there for us there at the White House.