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Deadly Hurricane Michael Wreaks Destruction in Florida; Interview with FEMA Administrator; Interview with Panama City Beach Mayor; Crew of Soyuz Spacecraft Rescued after Launch Mishap. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired October 11, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:00:20] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, October 11, and it is a very difficult day for people all along the Gulf Coast in Florida, waking up to this, which is the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

That devastating hurricane, the most powerful storm ever to hit the Gulf Coast passed through here at 155 miles per hour. With winds that fast, just two miles per hour short of a Category 5 storm. The western eyewall of the storm passed right over where I am in Panama City, Florida. And you can see what it did to this grocery office complex behind me, just shattering all the cinder blocks, twisting the piping and turning all the wood into splinters.

Driving here this morning, power lines down, trees down everywhere, power out to more than 500,000 customers in three states. As far as we know, there are two deaths related to this storm -- a man here in Florida and an 11-year-old girl in Georgia -- when trees fell on their houses.

After sunrise we'll get a much better sense of some of the damage that's done. I spoke to someone from the Cajun Navy, where the storm eye wall hit a little bit east of here. He says he's never seen anything like it before. It looks like a war zone.

As we get a better sense of the damage here, we want to go back to Alisyn Camerota in New York, because there is still more breaking news this morning -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: John, there is. Big breaking story, because a rocket booster failed during the launch of the Soyuz spacecraft. It was carrying an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station. It had to abort its launch. You can see them inside their capsule. They remained calm, unbelievably, throughout all of this, and we are happy to say they survived. But it was very dramatic.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is live in Moscow with all of the breaking details. What have you learned about what went wrong here, Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

Yes, we're still getting information from the Russians, also from NASA, a little bit, as well. But you're absolutely right. The astronauts both seem to be alive, and they both seem to be OK. That's the information that we've been getting both from the Russians and from NASA.

Of course, Nick Hague, the NASA astronaut, he's only been in the NASA space program since 2013. It was going to be his first flight to space.

But as far as what went wrong, we're just trying to piece things together, and I also watched that live broadcast of the rockets taking off in Russia. And it seems as though the Soyuz rockets took off and, I would say, a little less than three minutes into the flight, they were in the second stage of that rocket. So they jettisoned the first booster rockets and were in the second stage, initiating that, when apparently, there was a malfunction with the booster rocket.

And then you could hear the commander of the vessel, which is the Russian astronaut, Alexei Ovchinin, he was saying, "We are going to separate." And then he confirmed that there had been a separation, which means that they took the capsule the astronauts were in, and they jettisoned it from the booster rocket, and they went into what's called a ballistic descent, which is a descent at a much steeper angle than he normally would have if the rocket were -- the spacecraft were coming out of space.

And apparently, para shots -- the parachutes deployed, and the Soyuz capsule that these two astronauts were in landed on the ground. Immediately, there were crews on the ground to get these astronauts out, John.

BERMAN: All right. Fred Pleitgen for us in Moscow.

Fred, thanks so much. A remarkable story there. Looking forward to getting much more information on that.

Meanwhile, a remarkable story here: the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Michael. Again, I'm standing outside what was a grocery store and also some office space in Panama City, Florida. This is where the western eyewall of the storm passed over.

There were winds, sustained winds of 100 miles per hour, gusts north of 120 miles per hour that went on for some time. We were standing or trying to stand outside through the worse of it.

And I'm not trying to be trite here, but you know the story of the three little pigs. I'm talking about this office building here behind me. This was not a building made of straw. This was not a building made of wood. This was a building made of cinder block and brick. This was supposed to be a strong building, but it could not withstand the force of this storm.

And I get the sense from speaking to people on the ground east of here, it's even worse where they are. We'll get a much better sense at daylight.

In the meantime, we should note that this storm is still bringing damage to some places, still very much a threat. Let's go to Chad Myers in the Weather Center for the latest on that -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: John, making a run now at Columbia, South Carolina. That's how quickly this is moving. It's still a 50- mile-per-hour storm with some gusts higher than that.

[06:05:03] Now, I know that trees will still come down at this 50- mile-per-hour number, because they are saturated in rain that was left by Florence.

The storm continues on up toward the northeast. There's the rainfall now. Atlanta about to get out of the rain, but all of South Carolina and North Carolina about to get in it. Eventually it rolls off the coast somewhere around Hampton Roads, Virginia, later today.

Still more rainfall coming down. Here's where it was on Monday, and here's where it was on Wednesday. All the way up to 155 miles per hour.

Let me show you now just for a moment what the 10 a.m. forecast was on Monday morning from the National Hurricane Center, from the tip of Cuba right on up into Mexico Beach. And 120-mile-per-hour storm. We'll zoom into that, and I will show you how close this line was to the exact landfall.

From here on up to this dot right there, and there's Mexico Beach right in the middle of the cone. Now, they'll tell you, they can do a great job with the directions. Sometimes the plus or minus on the speed is the issue. We're not great at that yet. But that was 52 hours that they made that call for a major hurricane making landfall at Mexico Beach. John, that's what happened.

BERMAN: You told us it was going to happen, Chad. It did happen. People were warned. I think one of the issues is people did not want to believe it was going to be as bad as you said it was going to be. So Chad Myers, thank you for your work. We appreciate it.

Again, I'm in Panama Beach, Florida, Panama City. And you can see the damage that was done here. We're getting reports of much worse damage east of here.

I want to bring in Brock Long. He's the FEMA administrator.

Mr. Long, thank you very much for being with us. A short time ago we spoke to a representative from the Cajun Navy in Callaway, which is just a short distance from where I am. He says he's never has seen anything like this. What are the reports you're getting this morning?

BROCK LONG, FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: So we're anxiously awaiting for daylight to, you know, be able to go in and fully assess all the damage, but, you know, from what it sounds like and what we've seen initially, the reports coming in, I mean, this is what a Category 4, or borderline 5 storm looks like. It's the worst of storm surge or the worst of the winds.

And because it was so strong, it created a lot of damage far inland. It was a Cat 2 over southwest Georgia, and it's continuing to push forward through South and North Carolina today.

BERMAN: Let's talk about the numbers, if we can, and see if we're on the same page. I understand more than 500,000 customers without power in three states. So far, two reported deaths. Are you hearing anything different?

LONG: Well, you know, last night we were able to get some search-and- rescue crews into the area, but you know, a lot -- you know, we have a lot of work to do, to go through. There's a lot of debris we've got to get through. We're trying to get into the areas like Mexico Beach, get the teams in to be able to assess damage. It takes some time.

Those numbers could climb. Hopefully, they don't, but those numbers can climb as search-and-rescue teams get out to make sure that we methodically and, as quickly as possible, survey all the damage that was done.

BERMAN: What's the biggest challenge you and your teams are facing this morning?

LONG: Well, access, you know, access to all the areas is one thing. Search-and-rescue is where we are hyper-focused this morning. But as that, you know, simultaneously, what we're trying to do is assess roadways and bridges to make sure that we can get teams, commodities and equipment into the areas that were hardest hit.

The hospital system near Panama City, in and around Panama City, took a hit, too, so we have to stabilize the health and medical capabilities that are there. Over 30,000 workers from around the United States have been pre-staged to try to work as quickly as possible to get the power back on, but here again, it's all about access. We've got to get -- make sure that it's safe to travel down roadway corridors and get in there to start rebuilding the power grid, which could take a very long time at this point.

BERMAN: Yes. It's very, very difficult to get around at this point, even where we are in Panama City. It takes, you know, ten, 20, 30 minutes to move even the shortest distance.

Administrator, it's interesting, because we spoke to you yesterday before the storm was hitting, and you said your great concern was that people did not heed the warnings. Too many people stayed in their houses. Why do you think that was?

LONG: You know, I can't answer that question. It's -- it's an age- old problem in emergency management. You know, this agency tries to work, day in and day out on the preparedness, and pushing out and trying to build a true nature of preparedness, to get people to understand.

You know, part of the problem is, is that hurricanes are classified by wind intensity. But what you're going to see in Mexico Beach, Mexico Beach was wiped out, because the ocean rose significantly, and on top of that wave action destroys building. And, you know, unfortunately, people do not live to tell the tale about storm surge. And so that lesson just continues not to be learned. It wasn't learned after Katrina as a result of going through Mississippi, and we continue to, unfortunately, learn that lesson. And we have to work to build a true culture of preparedness in this country.

[07:10:10] BERMAN: I know you're getting some of the same reports we are, but you also have your own resources available.

Do you have a sense of the hardest-hit communities, the communities that you are most concerned about this morning?

LONG: Well, along the coast is Mexico Beach. Mexico Beach was -- they got the maximum radius winds, and where the maximum radius winds pushed forward, that's also where storm surge is the worst. Apalachicola was hit very hard. You know, the eastern portions of Panama City, Tyndall Air Force Base was hit very hard, as well, and then we're also really concerned about inland Georgia.

I mean, you've got a lot of mobile homes, manufactured homes in that southwest portion. A lot of vegetative debris that is down. And it takes some time to cover those areas to get in to see how bad it is, but we're always worried about, you know, trees falling on manufactured homes and mobile homes.

But we're hyper-engaged. You know, I've spoken with Governor Scott this morning. I'll be speaking with Governor Deal later today. I briefed the president last night at 9 a.m. on Air Force One. He's hyper-engaged, as well. And we're doing everything that we can to support our state and local partners.

BERMAN: I want to give you a chance to speak to people now that the storm has passed, at least passed Florida. Still tropical-storm-force winds in the Carolinas, and they could see some rain here.

But as people look at this damage, what do you want to tell them about perhaps listening in the future. What do you want to tell them about the warnings that are provided as these storms move ever closer?

LONG: First of all, what we need is neighbor helping neighbor in the aftermath. That's the most important thing on the ground, is we're trying to mobilize federal forces, you know, down through our state partners, ultimate to the -- ultimately to the local level.

We're trying to do everything that we can. But when it comes to the warnings, we don't play around with this. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty in these forecasts. There's a lot of uncertainty in intensity forecasting of hurricanes. And we have to proactively put people under invest [SIC] -- under evacuations and push forward. And then sometimes the storm dies before the coast hits, but like this one it rapidly intensifies. It was the worst-case scenario. This is what -- you know, storm surge is the reason we asked people to get off the barrier islands, not necessarily the winds.

And unfortunately, we realized the worst. It was one of the, you know, top five most intense storms that we've seen since collecting weather data since 1851.

BERMAN: Yes, no storm this powerful has ever hit the Florida coast, the Gulf Coast.

Brock Long, FEMA administrator, thank you so much for being with us. We'll let you get back to work.

LONG: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: So if you were watching as this storm was hitting yesterday, if you were watching CNN's coverage as the storm was hitting yesterday, I don't think any of us were in any greater danger than Derek van Dam, who is in Apalachicola, dealing with storm surge, dealing with the fierce winds, trying to maintain his shot, and trying to bring people as much information as he possibly could. Thankfully, he made it through, and we have Derek van Dam with us this morning.

Derek, what are you seeing now?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Glad to be here safe with my crew, as well. We're seeing the first light this morning in Apalachicola. And unfortunately, we're seeing those worst fears realized from the storm surge here. There has been significant impacts within this area.

We're in the Big Bend region of the Florida Panhandle. Look behind me over my right shoulder, and you can see what seven to eight feet of storm surge can do. It can literally lift and move a big rig.

There's debris and high-water levels indicated on the buildings and sides of some of the debris around here. There's, to my left, if my cameraman would kindly just point this way, that truck was a truck that we reported in front of yesterday as the storm surge was at its highest, as Hurricane Michael was at its peak. And that particular truck was about three blocks that way, so as the storm surge receded, it brought this vehicle with it. So wow, the awesome force, this terrifying force of Mother Nature and a powerful Category 4 hurricane.

We're in Franklin County, still no power, still no communications. It's going to be days if not weeks before this area can recuperate and build up its infrastructure to bring back its residents. We saw roofs from buildings that were scattered across the roadways here and trees and power lines snapped across the roads, making it impossible to navigate.

John, back to you.

BERMAN: The things you see driving around, street signs in the middle of buildings, tree limbs in bathrooms, things that, like, you really do understand how destructive storms like this are.

Derek van Dam, thanks so much for being with us, and thank you for all the work you're doing and to your team. We're so glad you're safe.

And Alisyn, I do want to tell you one of the things that authorities are hoping for here, at least were overnight, is that people would stay home. There was a mandatory curfew in place. It's still in place until 8 a.m. here, which isn't for another hour and 45 minutes.

[07:15:04] They don't want people out driving. One, because it's not safe, because there's stuff all over the roads; and two, because they want the emergency crews to be able to get to where they need to get to.

We have seen the power companies out trying to get to work. We have seen some limb removal services out, but they need the roads clear so they can get where they need to go.

CAMEROTA: John, when I see that mound of debris behind you, I mean, that is obviously just the scariest stuff. You know, when you were in the thick of it yesterday with all the wind blowing, that's the stuff that scares me the most, because I know that you take all sorts of precautions. Right?

But if that piece of wood --

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- flies at you while you're reporting or while anybody, any regular person, even without a microphone, is walking around, I mean, that is just instantly deadly. And, you know, you were actually holding up some of the debris yesterday in some of your coverage, that is -- that's what kills people. And it's -- you know, in addition to the water. And it's just really scary to see what it looks like, you know, 12 hours later.

BERMAN: One of the reasons we do stand out there is to show people how dangerous it is so they don't do it, so they can see the debris flying by.

This is, I think, a shelf. What's so remarkable is you can see some of these desks intact behind me, but for some reason this piece not intact and was blown off and pushed around.

And yes, yesterday I was with Dianne Gallagher, and we were standing -- we were kind of wedged in a corner of a building. And we just had a little bit of protection, just enough protection so that debris wouldn't hit us as it was flying by, that was very much flying behind us, and maybe cut off about 5 to 10-mile-per-hour of that incredibly fierce wind. If I stepped out into the wind ,I couldn't stand up. It was blowing too strong. The gusts of 120 miles per hour.

You know, I have Chris Cuomo-like legs, but they can't stand that kind of wind. So we had to have a little protection there in the rain. I can't describe the rain. When it's coming at you at more than 120 miles per hour, that in and of itself is very unbearable, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I appreciate the Chris Cuomo reference. I used to tell him -- I used to applaud his ballast in the storm, and he thought I was making fun of his weight.

But John, thank you very much for peeling back the curtain and showing us how you were able to take precautions amid all that. So coming up on NEW DAY, we have Florida governor, Rick Scott; we have senator, Bill Nelson; we have former Florida governor Jeb Bush, all of them to tell us about how Florida is doing today and what's next -- John.

BERMAN: Also, we're going to get a chance to speak to some of the local officials. How have so many of the people who chose to stay. How are they doing this morning? The very latest from the aftermath of Hurricane Michael next.

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[07:21:40] BERMAN: Welcome back. John Berman in Panama City, Florida. The western eyewall of Hurricane Michael passed right over us here yesterday, and you can see it did to this grocery store and office building, exploding these cinder blocks and twisting the wood into splinters here all around me.

Next to Panama City is Panama City Beach, those coastal areas, that beachfront are that was so very vulnerable. Twelve-thousand year- round residents of Panama City Beach. We were told about 6,000 chose to ride out the storm.

Joining us now is Mike Thomas, the mayor of Panama City Beach.

Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for being with us. We are glad you made it through the storm. Give us a sense of how your city is doing.

MAYOR MIKE THOMAS, PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLORIDA (via phone): We're doing unexpectedly well. Our beach renourishment that we did a couple years ago really helped us a lot with the beach. I'm down here on it this morning, and it is beautiful. We weathered that real well.

Being on the west end, I was -- I've been through several hurricanes, and it always amazes me how 50 miles, 75 miles difference makes. People to our east really have a lot of damage, and we're very blessed over here. We've got some damage but not anywhere near what we were expecting.

BERMAN: What are the areas that were the hardest hit inside Panama City Beach?

THOMAS: Well, on the beach itself, some of the places took a pretty good little beating. In the neighborhoods where the trees were, it damaged some homes, and a lot of the power was out. We probably got 75 percent of the power out out here. Back in the neighborhoods on the main road, it's significantly less than that.

Inside the city I just drove through there, and the power was on mostly everywhere down on the front road on the west side. And in the adjoining area, the unincorporated area, the power is out in most of it.

But I don't see big damage that they can't put back together right quick. People are going to get out and dry off and clean up, pick up the splinters and be ready to go here in about a day or two. BERMAN: Yes, be ready to get to work as soon as it's safe to do so.

I know that there was a mandatory curfew in place. What's your message to people as they do, you know, look out their windows this morning and want to get out?

THOMAS: Well, there's still some power lines down. I've still seen some of the crews yesterday, none of the work crews got out and did much except trying to stop water leaks and sewer leaks. We've got a lot of trees to move around the neighborhoods. We've got some power lines and other utilities to get taken care of, and get some wood removed where people don't tear up their vehicles and cause accidents.

So give us a day and then we'll have everything where you can get back and move around pretty good.

BERMAN: So Mayor, you did say it was the western wall that passed over Panama City and Panama City Beach. I was there in your community yesterday when it was happening. And there were a couple pretty crazy hours there with those winds of 100 miles per hour sustained, gusts of 120 miles per hour.

[07:25:05] What was it like for you during those moments?

THOMAS: I was in a pretty safe place. We had just built a couple new buildings in the city, and we built them to hurricane code. And the code that things are built by now make an awful lot of difference. It's -- you feel safe in it, because you don't hear the thing; you don't feel the movement.

I've got several old buildings here on the beach that I was in yesterday, too, and there's a huge difference. It's dangerous to stay anytime when it's that kind of wind. We were lucky we didn't have the number of tornadoes that we normally do. I think they said we didn't have any, but I saw one place where there was a little grouping of damage that looked kind of like it to me. A church and a couple of stores across the street seemed to suffer pretty much the same damage. But it's -- our beach renourishment and the new codes have made a lot of difference.

BERMAN: You make a great point, that the hurricane codes, the codes that changed after Hurricane Andrew, have made a huge difference across Florida. Some of these newer buildings did fare much better.

Any people in need this morning in your community? Are you getting any calls for rescue?

THOMAS: Well, we're having some phone trouble out here with the cellular service. I've been lucky with my carrier, but the city's carrier has done a pretty poor job. We've had an awful lot of problems. And I know people are frustrated trying to get up with some of the city and county services. Our city, police, fire department and sheriff's department, everybody is having phone service problems. And that's got to be frustrating.

The governor does a great job here of getting our community ready. I noticed standby trucks, work trucks and things all in different pockets up and down the beach, and I've seen several convoys of things already moving to the east where they're in such dire need.

We're -- we're going to be fine. But infrastructure wise, the phone system was the only thing that I saw that failed. Everything else worked.

BERMAN: Right, right. It is tough to get calls out, and I know people around the country are looking for any information they can get from their loved ones here in Panama City and Panama City Beach.

Mayor Mike Thomas of Panama City Beach, thank you so much for hosting us through this, and thank you so much for being with us this morning. We're glad you're safe.

THOMAS: Come back tomorrow. We'll be open and ready for business.

BERMAN: I think Panama City Beach is always open for business. People know what a place great it is to visit. Thanks so much, Mayor.

New York guys, where do you want me to go now?

CAMEROTA: To me. I'll take it, John. Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, Alisyn, I'm so glad you're with me. I'm so glad you're with me. It's always reassuring to know that you're watching alongside.

CAMEROTA: Whenever you toss that hot potato to me, I'm ready because we actually do have a lot more news to get to, including this.

What happened to the journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Republican and Democratic senators are together, pushing President Trump to find out. Why does he seem reluctant to do so? That's next.

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