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Long Island Deals with Snow, Flooding; Montauk Lighthouse Caretaker Says Storm "Terrifying"; Conditions on I-95 near Providence, Rhode Island; Marshfield, Mass. Sea Wall Collapses; Mass. Lashed by 2 Feet of Snow, Winds, Flooding; New London, Connecticut Gets Over 20 Inches of Snow; Trader Sell-off on Wall Street; Scituate, Massachusetts Fears More Coastal Flooding with Downed Power Lines

Aired January 27, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The other issue has been the winds, with wind gusts here in Montauk recorded at about 50 miles per hour. In other parts, at West Hampton, we understand there were 60-mile-per- hour gusts.

Now, imagine being in the lighthouse of Montauk when those 50-mile- per-hour wind gusts are roaring in the middle of the night, around 2:00 in the morning. It's pitch black and all you can hear is the fury outside.

We talked with the caretaker here at the Montauk lighthouse who described it as just terrifying. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGE WINSKI, MONTAUK LIGHTHOUSE CARETAKER: I was here during Sandy, which was quite terrifying itself. But being in the cold is much worse. You're really isolated with the snow. It's much more terrifying. I had a dog at that time, I had a big New Finland dog, who kept me company, so I miss the dog. But to be here alone was a little scary.

CABRERA: And being by yourself, what was going through your mind?

WINSKI: I was praying I didn't get sick or the roof didn't blow off. What was I going to do? Because you know no one is coming to get you. You're at the end of the line here. No one is coming to save you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So fortunately, no damage there at the lighthouse. She did describe grabbing up some items, going to the lowest point in the House just in case because, at one point, she said it felt like and sounded like the roof might blow off. Great news that no devastation has been reported.

But very sadly, we do know of at least two deaths in Suffolk County, including an older gentleman who had dementia who was found by his wife frozen outside. And there was also a 17-year-old boy who died who was outside trying to enjoy the snow, doing some tubing, and had a bit of an accident and suffered a chest injury and, unfortunately, could not be saved.

So it's still a very serious situation, Brooke, but so far it looks like Montauk and the folks here on Long Island, by and large, have dodged a bit of a bullet -- Brooke?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's still awful to hear those numbers. Just hearing some of the governors of these states, reminding people at the end of these news conferences, you know, check on your neighbors. If at all possible, check on your neighbors just to make sure through all of this that they're OK.

Ana Cabrera, thank you very much.

Stay with me. Let me go quickly to some live pictures. We have some live pictures out of New York's LaGuardia Airport because, good news if you're trying to come in or get out. We're told we have pictures of one of the first planes that's just landed as this ground stop has been lifted. So again, that is awesome for the New York area. As far as Boston and some other airports are concerned, it's still a pretty tough situation. So Logan still a no-go for the indefinite future.

Stay with me. Live coverage here. OK, it's a blizzard. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. We're live in Boston. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

As the snow continues to fall -- and this could be a record-setting snowstorm for the Boston area -- one of the other parts of the story is, of course, the coastal areas in Massachusetts, specifically the south shore, that's where we've heard about a sea wall that's collapsed. We have a CNN crew en route.

Brian Todd is headed to Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Brian, I know you're on I-95, I hear. I don't have a monitor, so you're going to have to walk me through exactly. Let's begin with the interstate conditions where is you are right around the Providence, Rhode Island, area. How's it looking?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it's very difficult. We'll switch out our dash cam and show from my camera to the front of the vehicle, the front-facing camera, the conditions here along I-95. This is the biggest interstate on the east coast by far. It's been largely empty. We see a few vehicles in front of us, but those are the first we've seen in a long time. It's been nothing out here except us, some snowplows, some spreaders, some police, a couple of truckers, and that's it.

Now, given the conditions and the constant snowfall in this area, we think they've done a pretty good job of plowing this highway and keeping it passable. But we're concerned because we just got a reading that the surface temperature on the road is 18 degrees. In a couple of hours, maybe two and a half hours, it's going to get dark. These roads are going to start to freeze. Of course, the snowfall won't be over yet, Brooke. As we push ahead to Marshfield, Massachusetts, it's difficult going here on I-95 in Rhode Island.

BALDWIN: Yeah, that's the issue. As it gets darker and colder, the ice will absolutely be treacherous. It's amazing just being around it in Boston. You don't see any cars anywhere around here other than those emergency vehicles. Remember, there's a statewide ban still in effect here.

Brian, let me follow up with that sea wall. What do you know about the collapse? What are the potential consequences, dangers in the wake of that?

TODD: It's a very dangerous situation, Brooke. The sea wall breached early this morning. High tide was about 5:00 a.m. According to officials from Marshfield, Massachusetts, who we spoke to and they said a couple hours after high tide the sea wall breached. We're getting reports the breach was maybe between 50 and about 100 feet in length.

We're not quite sure, you know, where it is in that region. It was a significant breach. It caused a lot of flooding, significant damage to homes. At least nine homes were damaged. Several people have had to be rescued from their homes with the help of the fire department there and the National Guard. We don't have a head count for how many people have had to be evacuated, but they are again concerned.

We talk about conditions on these roads later on today. They're really concerned in Marshfield about high tide coming back. This breach happened right after high tide. But high tide is coming back at about 5:00 p.m. eastern time tonight and they're very concerned with more potential flood water rushing in, damaging more homes, further damaging the homes that have already been breached.

One official told me that the problem is that if there's power on in some of these homes and the flood waters rush in, there could be short circuiting and fires could start. He said that happened to some homes some years ago when this happened. So that is a concern. Even though this flooding has come in at high tide and gone out, there's more on the way probably, so it's a very dangerous situation there in Marshfield. We are told there are no injuries.

BALDWIN: That's good. We'll continue watching and hoping that remains the same.

Brian Todd, please, to you and your crew, stay safe as you are driving on your way to Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Brian mentioned the 5:00 high tide mark. So many people in coastal Mass are watching for that time, in just a couple hours from now. Especially in Scituate, Massachusetts, we have a very dangerous combination of downed power lines, flooding, and worries about wind. We'll take you live to our crew in Scituate.

And we'll take you live to Connecticut. Seven states in a state of emergency.

We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN live. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in the fine but very snowy city of Boston, Massachusetts.

I wanted to bring in someone who's become a friend of mine, Kevin Cullen, an opinion writer for "The Boston Globe" here in the city.

Kevin, unfortunately, I can't see you, but I hear you're head to toe in snow gear in your garage with a shovel. You have seen this movie play out before. You have been through many a nor'easter. Tell me how to ride it out.

KEVIN CULLEN, OPINION WRITER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, we're still in the middle of it, Brooke. We have to stop meeting like this. But your buddy is holding the Skype right now. But I came out here this morning and did the snow blow. My snow blow is right here. That took me about half an hour. Since then, we've got another six, eight, 10 inches of snow. It's really still going out there. I think we got a few more hours of this.

BALDWIN: I was listening to the governor. He gave a news conference around noon today. He was saying we're right at 20 inches right now. He was saying you could have five, maybe 10 inches on top of that. That's just for the city of Boston. Obviously, you were in the city. Were you here for '03? And not to totally age you, but were you around in '78?

CULLEN: I was in college in '78. Don't make me feel too old. But the funny thing about it, it's similar to this, Brooke. I was at UMass Amherst. It was not a big deal. It was swamped. It worries more about tides than anything else. The same thing here. The Western part of Massachusetts, it was not that big of a deal. We're still in the middle of this. I mean, you know, it looks like we have a few more hours of this. I'm on the south shore of Boston. I'd say we're at least around probably more than 20 right now.

BALDWIN: Put this in perspective for me, for someone who's from here. I've been out here -- as you can see, crowds behind me, dogs, people tossing footballs. There's no getting around. I've talked to so many people late last night. They're enjoying it. Those who can just hang out are hanging out. They're saying, Brooke, this is Boston, this is winter. When you look at the snow totals, to me, this could be record setting, Kevin Cullen.

CULLEN: Yeah, when it ends, the total could be. But this, to me -- I mean, I've had 10 of these in my life that I can think of. It doesn't seem that extraordinary to me. It seems like a bad winter storm. It was a blizzard with the wind conditions. You know, you said it. We live in New England. I wrote a column today that was very light hearted, making fun of the whole -- we go crazy about this, but at the end of the day, it's just a bad day. You got to take it seriously and stay off the roads. I think that's the key difference between now and what happened years ago when we didn't have so much warning, when there wasn't so much media and social media, and everybody could prepare. Then cars got stuck. That changes everything. It happened down in Georgia a couple years ago when everybody got stuck. That's the difference. Everybody is off the road. It's like a day off, you know. That's the way I look at it. Except I have to shovel.

BALDWIN: Right. Well, good for you. And I hope you use that shovel and are able to stay safe.

Thank you so much.

I've got the fire commissioner here in the car who says hello. We'll talk to him about some of the challenges the city faces and the firefighters.

Kevin Cullen, "The Boston Globe," thank you, my friend, so much.

So that's the situation here in Boston.

Let me take you to New London, Connecticut. We've got Rosa Flores standing by. One of those states still in a state of emergency.

Rosa, what is it looking like where you are?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, I just got off the phone with DOT here in Connecticut. They said, you know what, we got pummeled. Yes, there was a lot of snow in Connecticut. Some areas getting more than 24 inches of snow.

They said, but we had two good things in our favor. One is that people heeded the warning. They stayed inside. This state only getting about 15 crashes total for the entire state.

And then the other thing was that they were able to have their plows out on the roads. I just want you to take a look. This is what the street looks like when it's plowed. You can almost see the pavement peek through. Then you have all of these mountains of snow. I want to measure what some of this snow is looking like at this moment. Take a look. There we go, about 32 inches.

So here's what DOT tells me they're doing right now in this state to take control of the situation like you see here.

I'm going to get out of the way so these guys can work.

But what they're using are something that's called a loader-mounted snow blower. I have to tell you about this, Brooke. These machines are beasts. Hear this. It plows about 1500 tons of snow an hour. When you have a storm of this magnitude, that's exactly what you need, something that can process this snow very quickly.

Now, you were talking about the travel ban. Yes, the travel ban was lifted by the governor, the state travel ban. But in some municipalities, like this one, these travel bans are still in effect here in New London.

Now, from talking to the mayor, he tells me, you know, Rosa, people heeded the warning here, yes. We were able to have our plows out and about in these streets, and that really helped us out. There was one more thing that helped them out. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARYL FINIZIO, (D), MAYOR OF NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT: The power goes out, particularly in a city like ours, where we have elderly housing, housing where we have disabled persons, you start to get compounded problems if there's a power outage. The fact we've maintained power has been very fortunate. We were also concerned about blizzard winds we were going to get last night, which we did get, but the gusts stayed below 60 miles an hour. That allowed us to keep our trucks continually on the road. That was the big worry. If we had to shut the trucks down, the accumulation would have come too quickly. Our main roads would have gotten clogged. Instead of a 24-48 hour cleanout, you'd be looking at a week or more. We're on the good side of it. It's still a big mess, but it's a manageable mess, and we're thankful for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And, Brooke, that's the key. It's still a big mess, but the state of Connecticut has been able to manage up to this point -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: That is awesome news.

Rosa, thank you so much. I appreciate the measuring stick. I think my measuring tape is somewhere in all this snow.

Again, you can just see here in Boston it is up to my knees. But the snowfall, this is only really part of the story.

We have to take a quick break. But when we come back, we will take you to Scituate, Massachusetts. This is down, if you're heading toward Cape Cod. The fears of more coastal flooding. High tide in just a couple hours. Downed power lines. Bad, bad combination for people there in this part of the state of Massachusetts.

Quick break. Special live coverage here from Boston on the other side of this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Maybe Wall Street should have taken a snow day. The financial markets are open, but traders are selling.

Our Samuel Burke is watching this for us.

What is behind this sell-off?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It was looking kind of dicey earlier today. The Dow was down more than 350 points. That was the biggest dip since June 2013. As you see here, things are looking better. Only down 221.

To answer your question, it was cheap oil. You love that at the pump. I loved that when I was in Phoenix paying less than $1.90 per gallon.

KEILAR: That's crazy.

BURKE: But what happens is when oil is so cheap, the oil companies don't have enough money to buy. Today, Caterpillar -- you know them -- they said their earnings were worse than expected because oil companies weren't coming out and buying products. Oil now down around $45. Back in June, it was $107. So it feels good for us at the pump, but you want to find this equilibrium where it's good at the pump and good, dare I say, for the oil companies.

KEILAR: That's what you're telling us, basically, is this is the flip side of everything that seems good.

The other flip side is we've got a strong dollar right now so maybe some people are looking at that European vacation they haven't gone on for years and years and that they're dying to go on. I've been thinking about that.

BURKE: Now is the time. Run, don't walk.

KEILAR: But not all good news.

BURKE: It's good news for now. A strong dollar is great if you're going to Europe or Canada. What happens is people then aren't going to buy our products, American products, overseas nearly as much. Companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald's suffer when the dollar is really strong. Our products cost a lot. Then Europeans don't buy as much. It's like a kid in a candy shop. You want a little sugar but not too much. We're looking for this perfect equilibrium. That can be very hard to find.

KEILAR: You can't have your cake and eat it, too. That's what we're learning here.

BURKE: Especially if you're paying for it in dollars.

KEILAR: Yeah.

Samuel Burke, thanks so much.

And let's head north and to the bad weather that they're facing in Boston. Brooke Baldwin is looking at that story.