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Carolina Coast Braces for Hurricane Florence; Millions of Bottles of Undistributed Drinking Water Left in Puerto Rican Airport; Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 13, 2018 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: -- life-threatening conditions. The warning officials are giving residents crystal clear leave before the window to escape closes. More than 10 million people live in areas under warnings or watches for hurricane or tropical storm force winds.

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: States of emergency have been declared in five states. The Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and Maryland. Airlines have canceled at least 800 flights along the East Coast in anticipation of the storm. The National Hurricane Center says waves out at sea and the strongest part of the storm -- get this -- are as high as 83 feet. 83 feet. Seven nuclear power plants, you can see them there right there on the map, are in the path of the storm.

Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri is tracking Florence for us in the CNN Weather Center.

Pedram, this has slowed down, but that doesn't mean it's any less dangerous.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. In fact it could be very much more dangerous because of that complacency that people might have just because they might think it is a category two. I can ride this out. This is a lot less of a concern than it initially was, and possibly not the case.

The energy has been in motion for multiple days. This is not about 24, maybe 30 hours pre-landfall here so all of that water that's already been pushed up ahead of the system, as you mentioned a few moments ago there, up to 83 feet, all of this is a big fat concern. Once that translates closer to land of course it's going not going to be 83 feet. But the storm surge itself, the water has been elevated in advance so it is the biggest concern.

And the clouds filled with the storm from west to east is about 950 miles so take San Francisco to Denver, Colorado, that's what an expansive storm system we're talking about. And one thing worth noting here as well, is when it comes to tropical cyclones or hurricane fatalities in the United States, guess what, 50 percent of them are related to storm surge, about 30 percent of it is related to rainfall, only 8 percent related to the wind.

So essentially the wind aspect does not take lives. It is the storm surge, it's the rainfall. The storm surge amounts have not changed one bit. Still as much as 13 plus feet. The rainfall have not changed one bit, up to 30 to maybe 35 inches if possible. And we think landfall is going to be sometime around late morning hours, the early afternoon hours of Friday. Just outside of Wilmington there, in the northern periphery of Wilmington, will get quite a bit of water, though, and begin to pile up into (INAUDIBLE) as much as again nine to 13 feet in the highest areas.

Working to the north, 2 to 4 feet around Kill Devil Hills. Farther to the south, 4 to 6 feet potentially around Myrtle Beach. And all of this really spells disaster across these areas. Because of course we're talking about coastal communities and hundreds of thousands of homes at risk here on the immediate coast. But we talk about, say, normal sea level and you bring in just a foot or so of a storm surge and two feet essentially pushes up and reduces the beach amount.

That's a big that concern. You bring it up to 4 feet, you begin to introduce water into the first level of the property. Take that up to as much as 12 feet, not only you encompass much of the first level, you take water into the second story of your home. And again not just on the coast, potentially several miles inland, several miles inland as you typically see with storm surge across this region.

So this becomes a major story, especially considering it doesn't change the amount of water that's expected to come inland. And of course you take a look at how the storm system that is essentially moving along pretty nicely at this point, 17 miles per hour. It will slow down to about 5 to 6 miles per hour after it makes landfall tomorrow morning. In fact, notice these icons almost directly on top of one another in a 12-hour period.

I calculated about 50 miles of movement in 12 hours, which should be about four miles per hour and move in. That will produce tremendous rainfall. In fact when you take a look at what that means, that's 5 miles per hour storms on average drop 30 inches. We expect this to happen with this storm. About 20 miles per hour, may drop 5 inches. So big time player in the rainfall here. And notice how expansive that area of 20 plus inches from Wilmington down to just north of Charleston.

This region will be inundated with flash flooding and as far inland as Columbia and Charlotte. As much as 10 inches could still fall with the storm system so again the number one and number two threats remain the exactly the same.

ROMANS: Sure.

JAVAHERI: Regardless even if it went down to a category one. That energy has been in motion for the last three days that we've been talking -- Christine.

ROMANS: Yes. Yes. People should not be focused on that downgrade at all because it is still a very dangerous storm.

Quickly, when will they start feeling tropical storm-force winds?

JAVAHERI: That's a great question. You know, in the next 12 or so hours.

ROMANS: OK.

JAVAHERI: They'll begin to see that. They are extending some 300 miles from the center of this storm.

ROMANS: Sure.

JAVAHERI: And the storm is about 300 miles away. So you're going to begin to feel this into the afternoon hours of today.

ROMANS: Afternoon today. All right. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.

More than a million people in the Carolinas have been told to leave. One regional major power company, Duke Energy, planning for the worst. The company expects as many as three million homes in the Carolinas will lose power during the storm. That's 75 percent of its customers.

In Carolina Beach, the only bridge connecting the island to the mainland is now closed. Officials fear as many as a thousand of the 6300 residents are planning to ride this storm out in town which is about five feet above sea level.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is live in Carolina Beach, and that means it's a real risk for storm surge where you are.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely, Christine. And if that 13-foot forecast storm surge actually materializes, I will be under water this time tomorrow. That's what we're looking at here in Carolina beach.

[04:05:03] It's such a low elevation area. Population here just over 6,000 as you mentioned. Very narrow and very short little island that's connected by a bridge here and very susceptible to flooding. But we know storm surge is not the only concern. We're talking about the potential for record-setting rainfall amounts across this area. So there's going to be kind of a double whammy here with -- in terms of storm surge and also a heavy precipitation and of course the wind threat that continues.

We're starting to feel the winds pick up in this area. We know that people here are no stranger to hurricanes. They've ridden out the likes of Matthew and Hugo so they know how to prepare. They know what type of threats are involved with these storms. But that doesn't mean everybody heeded the warnings. There are still people located here. I saw them just before sunset last night doing their final preparations for the impacts from Hurricane Florence -- Christine, Alex.

ROMANS: You are just five feet above sea level. Reid Hawkins with the National Weather Service just told us that means literally the map will be redrawn in some of the places where you are located.

VAN DAM: Right.

ROMANS: You will see some new inlets and the likes with power of this storm.

All right. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks, Derek.

President Trump echoed the dire warnings about Florence. It was after he touted incredible success responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The death toll there is now nearly 3,000. The president says he is already hearing good things about preparations for this storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tremendous people working on the hurricane. First responders, law enforcement and FEMA. And they are all ready and we're getting tremendous accolades from politicians and the people. We are ready. But this is going to be one of the biggest ones to ever hit our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: As part of the federal government response to Florence, the Centers for Disease Control opened its emergency operations center in Atlanta overnight.

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, joining us by phone right now is Reid Hawkins. He is a science and operations officer with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina.

We just heard from our correspondent Derek Van Dam down in Carolina Beach that there are a lot of people, around 1,000 people they believe who are thinking about staying. Many, of course, we heard saying that they have ridden out hurricanes in the past. This is different. How dangerous is this?

REID HAWKINS, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: This is extremely dangerous because we got storm surge possibly up to 13 feet and it's a very slow-moving storm, a very wide storm, and also with the length and duration, it will be battering, battering, battering, for hours upon hours.

ROMANS: We also know strong winds are likely here. They are expecting the tropical storm storm-force wind to start maybe this afternoon. That could me downed power lines, downed trees. Talk to us a little bit about that risk.

HAWKINS: Yes. That's always a risk we've had with the many hurricanes we've had here. And we will start seeing this start to fail in pockets of the city go out and then finally it will go out for the whole area. It's not uncommon. And -- but this is going to be such a long duration. It's going to be interesting to see if any of the -- how much actually the infrastructure can withstand it.

ROMANS: I know they're preparing for maybe a couple of weeks without power in some parts.

MARQUARDT: Right. And we know the real danger, Reid, is not necessarily the winds that we're going to start seeing today and into tomorrow morning, but it's the water. And the 13 plus feet of storm surge, right, that will then rage and sit and really cause the real damage in the wake of this, won't it?

HAWKINS: Yes, exactly. The surge like we talked about, real concern about that, but they also the fresh water flooding which we've had a history of here in the past, with Floyd back in '90s, and then Matthew a few years ago. The record rainfall rate for this area is like 25, 26 inches. And if we do get this 30 plus inches of rain, we'll surpass that easily. And we will have impacts that this area has never seen before.

ROMANS: I can remember Floyd, there was a problem there for so many of these hog confinement operations.

MARQUARDT: Right.

ROMANS: And the waste from these waste ponds.

MARQUARDT: Ponds.

ROMANS: You know, hog waste ponds, I mean, it sounds disgusting. But honestly if you've got storm surge and all this rain in an already saturated ground in North Carolina, there's an industrial risk here, too, no?

HAWKINS: That's exactly right. As you said, in Florida, we have the issues with some of the agricultural waste that was getting in there and that's one of our big threats as we talk about. These materials or even any toxic pollution that get into the water and pollute it, and -- you know, it hurts the environment and even the sea life for many, many months afterwards.

ROMANS: And just a reminder that, you know, there's the wind, there's the storm surge, there's the immediate effects of the storm, but then so much happens after that as well.

MARQUARDT: As people try to rebuild their lives.

Reid, can you speak to the preparations that have been mad made? Is everything in place right now and it's just we're waiting for this to happen?

[04:10:04] HAWKINS: Yes. I think the city is very well prepared. I've lived here over 25 years. I have been through many storms. The first one was Bonny and then Fran back in the mid '90s. And I think a lot of people -- I know we talk about the thousands in -- excuse me, Carolina Beach that may have not left. But most people in New Hanover County where I live, they took heed, and it was very little traffic coming to work this afternoon at 3:00.

ROMANS: Like that.

HAWKINS: Most people seemed to have left.

ROMANS: Talk to us a little bit about these -- about the array of buoys you guys out there. You can see -- tell me a little bit about what you're seeing about the height of the waves out there in the ocean right now. HAWKINS: We're already seeing some nine, 10-foot frying pan and we're

expecting to see -- because the coastal shelf here is rather shallow, we are expecting to see anywhere 25 to maybe 30, 30-foot seas closer to the coast because of that shallow. And shallow doesn't get as high as 83 that you heard right at the center.

ROMANS: True.

HAWKINS: I guess that was reported yesterday.

ROMANS: Reid Hawkins from the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina. Nice to hear from you this morning. Stay safe and keep us posted.

HAWKINS: OK. Thank you.

ROMANS: All right. Hurricane Florence has the potential to be one of the most expensive hurricanes to ever strike the United States. Nearly 759,000 homes in the Carolinas and Virginia are in the dangerous path of this storm. That's early analysis from Core Logic. Worst case scenario more than $170 billion to rebuild. That is $62 billion more than Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The National Hurricane Center says that storm cost at least $108 billion in property damage and it's the costliest hurricane to strike the U.S. These cost projections were made before the category two designation. So it remains to be seen what kind of impact we have here. But again, the storm surge and the winds are a real, real concern here. Insurance companies are bracing for this hit if a major does happen. Investors may turn attention to home improvement stores, building supply companies and local construction firms who will aid in the recovery. Insurance prices could skyrocket for consumers.

MARQUARDT: All right. Switching gears here. Breaking overnight. Six people are dead, including the suspect in a shooting rampage that started at a Bakersfield, California, trucking business. Authorities are now saying that it started with a confrontation between a husband and a wife and another man.

The husband shot and killed the man, then turned the gun on his wife, after killing three others nearby. Officials say the gunman carjacked a vehicle. The woman and child inside that vehicle were able to escape. When police finally confronted the shooter, he turned the gun on himself. His motive and his relationship to those victims is still unclear.

ROMANS: A tragedy there.

All right. The former head of the National Security Agency says that Helsinki summit was a missed opportunity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE RODGERS, FORMER NSA CHIEF: He opted to go a different direction. That's certainly his right as the president, but I wish we had taken advantage of that opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: What Mike Rodgers said the president told him about Russian hacking.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:17:08] ROMANS: President Trump has signed an executive order intended to punish foreigners for interfering in U.S. elections. The president has been widely criticized for downplaying and even denying Russia's attack on the 2016 election. His new executive order allows the director of National Intelligence to identify foreign governments, companies or individuals responsible for election meddling, and it authorizes the Treasury Department to apply new sanctions.

MARQUARDT: But Democrats and Republicans are saying that the order doesn't go far enough. And former NSA chief, Admiral Mike Rogers, thinks the president had his chance to make a statement at the Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin and he let it slip away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODGERS: I thought there was an opportunity here that we could have taken advantage of that moment. He opted to go a different direction. That's certainly his right as the president but I wish we had taken advantage of that opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Admiral Rodgers told that crowd at the Hayden Center in Virginia that he gave the president detailed briefings on Russian hacking efforts. But Mr. Trump responded by saying, quote, "Mike, you know I'm in a different place."

ROMANS: Voters in New York head to the polls today. The marquee primary pitting incumbent Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo against progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon, former "Sex and the City" star. The race turning ugly in its final hours as the governor is under fire for a mailer state Democrats sent to 7,000 addresses in Jewish community suggesting Nixon is anti-Israel and has been, quote, "silent on the rise of anti-Semitism."

MARQUARDT: Millions of bottles of fresh water intended for the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Why did they spend the summer spoiling in that sun? A report from San Juan, that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:23:13] MARQUARDT: Welcome back. President Trump claims his administration's response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico last year, Hurricane Maria, was what he called an unsung success. But nearly a year after that storm, it turns out that this much-needed help, as you can see right there, is literally rotting on a runway. Millions of desperately needed bottles of water sitting right there untouched. CNN's Bill Weir has more from San Juan.

BILL WEIR, CNN HOST: Just for a moment imagine you spent months getting water from a pipe into a creek or collecting rain water to keep your family alive, and now imagine you discover all that time there has literally been millions of bottles of bottled water, fresh water sitting on an airport runway unused.

That is the story that is outraging so many Puerto Ricans this week after a local law enforcement official posted pictures of what looked like thousands of pallets parked on an abandoned runway in an airport in Saba, about 45 minutes south of San Juan here. We went looking and it wasn't hard to find and you can see why.

It is literally a runway full of bottled water and it seems to be also an exercise in blame. FEMA put out a statement that says look, it's just our job to get the resources to the island. This is a supply issue, this is a distribution issue, pushing responsibility off on the local Puerto Rican government. Meanwhile the Puerto Rican government put out a statement that says FEMA delivered 20,000 palettes of water, that's anywhere between 30 million and 40 million bottles of water that they didn't need. In other words it came too late.

By our reporting it wasn't until they started distributing that water in May that people complained of foul odor and taste which then set off a series of water tests, and all the while that precious resource is just sitting there in the Puerto Rican sun.

[04:25:06] I'm Bill Weir in San Juan. Back to you.

ROMANS: It's just so frustrating and one hopes that there's an actual examination of the disconnect between federal and local authorities if in fact that's what happened there to make sure it doesn't happen again, and not just blaming -- you know, blaming local authorities.

MARQUARDT: There is so much that's difficult about getting people's lives back on track. You know, distributing water should be among the easiest things. And here we are quibbling about whose responsibility that is.

ROMANS: Frustrating.

MARQUARDT: Our thanks to Bill Weir down there in San Juan.

ROMANS: Yes.

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the Carolinas. The powerful moving storm is so slow that you could walk faster. We're live in the impact zone next.

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