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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Hurricane Laura Slams Into Gulf Coast with 150 MPH Winds; Athletes Take a Stand With Historic Boycott; Pence Makes Case for Trump as "Law and Order" President. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 27, 2020 - 05:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, unsurvivable storm surges as Hurricane Laura slams the gulf. CNN has it covered right now you.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, August 27. It is 5:00 a.m. in New York and 4:00 a.m. in Texas and Louisiana.

And we begin there with the breaking news. The strongest storm to hit Louisiana in a century making landfall in the last two hours, three hours now. Hurricane Laura is expected to bring storm surges that officials are call unsurvivable to Louisiana and Texas. As far as 40 miles inland.

Louisiana has not seen a storm this strong in 150 years. Surges of 15 feet or higher could overwhelm coasts in both states.

JARRETT: And water levels are already rising quickly, more than 1.5 million people are under some type of evacuation order. Coronavirus and, of course, and the need to maintain social distancing complicating the hurricane response.

[05:00:02]

In Louisiana, the state is taking people to hotels instead of shelters. Laura is just the tenth hurricane in history to make landfall in the U.S. with winds 150 miles per hour or more.

ROMANS: Now, power is already out for 200,000 customers in Louisiana, and conditions are deteriorating rapidly in Lake Charles.

That is where we find CNN's Martin Savidge. He is there this morning. He's outside. He joins us live.

Tell us what you're seeing and what you're experiencing there, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Where we are standing is actually in shelter, which shows you if we were to step a few yards beyond the threshold of this cement parking building that's reinforced, we would run in absolute bedlam and chaos. It wouldn't be possible to stand up.

It's from here you can get to get an appreciation, even though we're on the back side of this storm of the hammering that is taking place. Behind us it's completely dark. It was lit up, but now the power is gone. This hotel is running completely on generated power. It's an island of lights surrounded by a sea of darkness.

We watch as you've seen explosions which would tend to indicate power lines coming down. But it's the winds now that are just taking things apart. You can see the trees that have now been snapped off. They haven't just sort of broken up at the top. They've been snapped off at the base, and it goes out as far as you can see, and of course those are just the trees. You can imagine the devastation being done to structures.

We know that downtown is suffering in Lake Charles. The water that had stayed away is now beginning to come in in certain areas, understandable because the storm's moving. The wind's shifting, and as a result of that, that's part of why you see a new round of destruction.

Those things that had been weakened by bending in one direction for several hours now thrust suddenly exactly the opposite direction, and it becomes too much for them to take. We don't know how bad it is. You won't know until daylight and some assessment can be done, but we can literally hear the world coming apart just a few feet away in the darkness.

ROMANS: All right. Martin Savidge, thank you. Stay safe, stay protected there in that structure -- Laura.

JARRETT: Well, Beaumont, Texas, is also directly in the path of the hurricane. CNN's Derek Van Dam is there, joins us live.

Derek, you know, the National Weather Service calling this storm surge unsurvivable. Is that a term that gets used? I had never heard that before.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's an adjective I've never heard in my professional meteorological career. I think it was an effective term the National Weather Service needed to use to get the attention of the residents here who decided to shelter in place.

We have been battered for the past couple of hours in Beaumont, Texas. But listening to what martin had to say, it sounds like he's gotten crushed by the center of the storm as it moved inland across Central Louisiana. Unfortunately, we were not spared from the loss of electricity here in Beaumont in extreme southeastern Texas. We are joining the hundreds of people who are now without power.

We are running on a generator. There's our satellite truck. You can see it positioned in the corner there. That is how we are broadcasting live to you now. So, we do have that as a power source.

But other people are not so lucky. In fact, we talked to some of the Beaumont police officers who have spoken about previous hurricanes that have impacted this region. They said that residents here need to be prepared, especially in the rural areas, to have no electricity and no services for several days if not weeks to come.

So when the first light comes here at about 7:45 this morning, I think we'll finally get the full scope of the destruction that has been left behind by major Hurricane Laura, an incredible sight here in Beaumont. We can only imagine what's taking place, the horrors that are taking place across central Louisiana.

Back to you, Laura.

JARRETT: All right. Derek, thank you so much for that report.

ROMANS: Yeah, flying debris, rising water, downed power lines, there's so much to do here. Where is Hurricane Laura headed now that it's over land?

Meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking this storm.

Walk us through it, only halfway through with a lot of pain and misery ahead.

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, never after three hours of landfall would I thought I would have to say we're down to a category 2 or a category 3 or something like that. This thing blew up over the very warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. It is now still 120 miles per hour. We had wind gusts in Lake Charles for over an hour of over 120 miles per hour for the entire time, and that was just the one reporting station.

We know that this whole wind event was about 20 or 30 miles wide. That's equal to an EF-2 tornado that sits over your house for an hour. You can tell what kind of damage is going to be there in Lake Charles. That is going to be the wind damage.

[05:05:01]

People have been asking me on Twitter, is this going to be like Matthew, where the houses are gone?

Well, yes, down by Cameron and Holly Beach, that was a water event. It's the shredding wind event that they saw in really Lake Charles. We will see if the water gets up that far. It is still forecast to move inland, so it's just taking a very long time because Lake Charles had winds out of the east, not from the south.

Most of the water surge is here and still moving up towards Lafayette. Up the rivers, the rivers are going the wrong direction. They are blowing salt water up the rivers. The winds are just doing that. Intercoastal city, the water's still going up. All of these lakes, streams, buy bayous here to the east. Water is still rising at this hour.

It's like taking the cup of coffee you have right now and blowing it to make it cooler, and as you blow on it, you see the waves hit the other side of the cup. That's what's happening. It's the waves blowing on the other side of the cup. Those waves are moving into these marsh lands, into these rivers, into the bayous. And that's where the flooding is happening right now.

We'll have to see what happens with Lake Charles. Too early to tell. We know that there was a bubble that did go over Cameron before the gauges started to -- I don't want to say break but close, maybe get over topped. Temperatures are still going to be warmed today across the Gulf of Mexico, but things are going to be at least calming down from this area.

When a storm goes by and the air begins to sink, it is the most deathly hot air you'd ever imagine, so people here that are going to be without power for weeks and weeks are going to see temperatures today after the rain stops in the 90s. It's going to feel like 105, and then the wind is not going to blow. That will be tomorrow.

So, this is kind of how the generation of this storm goes on by. It's warm and it's cold and then it's just brutally hot. Moving up towards Shreveport and into little rock. Winds here still going to be 65 miles per hour, and that's not going to take the roof off your house. That will knock trees down, and the numbers of the power outages are going to go up significantly as we get into a more populated area, Laura.

ROMANS: These storms, honestly, Chad, even this is such a dangerous moment, but for the next few days it will still be dangerous for power lines. You never know what's under the surface of the water.

So, just remember to people, to be safe here in the days and weeks ahead -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right. With this huge storm surge expected the Louisiana Cajun navy is gearing up for rescue efforts.

Clyde Cain is the group's founder. He joins us now.

Clyde, how does your team even begin to start that process when the storm is still obviously brewing and so dangerous now?

CLYDE CAIN, LOUISIANA STORM PATROL, CROWLEY, LA (via telephone): Well, this one felt like -- we prepared and we took it just -- we took it a lot slower. Normally we'd go straight in, and this storms tracked for so long and constantly grew that we managed to get all of our assets spread out and key points, you know, Lake Charles, Beaumont not have so many people of having to caravan so many places.

We have our members and our boats behind the Walmart in Crowley, and we've been able to sheer off the wind and rain back here, the wind gusts and all. It seems to have passed over us at this point. We're going to be waiting on dawn and the winds to calm down to where they'll allow us to go out and assess damage.

ROMANS: So the fact the National Hurricane Center, Clyde, was talking about the unsurvivable storm surge, what does that mean for you in terms of rescues and what kind of help you'll do once the wind dies down here and the sunrises? CAIN: Well, we're, you know, we're north where the storm surge is.

But it's going to push in here, and I'm sure they said it would be like landfall like Hurricane Rita. So it's pushing water in, so again, we don't know. This is one overnight hurricane and it's one of those ones we have to wait like Katrina and see what happens in the morning.

JARRETT: Clyde, talk to us about how coronavirus complicates all of this. You know, you've almost got these two different crises you're dealing with at the same time. How do you structure your resources differently because of COVID?

CAIN: Well, we've, you know, of course we had many meetings on this. Of course we brought some PPE out for us, and many alerts as we did our live videos, advised everyone to add that to their jump bag or, you know, their personal belongings that they're bringing with us should they be gone by ambulance.

[05:10:02]

We encourage them to of course not forget that we are dealing with a virus this year. But you know, of course, it goes along with all the other dangers. You know, we have the electrical power in the water. We have water that if someone has an open wound, I mean, it can cause serious infections, and then you've got all the other ailments that elements we deal with. Just one more element but we're prepared for.

JARRETT: That is good to hear.

Clyde Cain, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Stay safe out there, and good luck with all of your rescue efforts when you start that.

CAIN: Thank you so much.

JARRETT: All right. We will be following this storm, Hurricane Laura all morning. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Just a remarkable moment here, athletes across the country taking a stand deciding not to play as they fight for social justice.

[05:15:05]

Andy Scholes has more, and while this is a use of their platform like I can't think of a parallel.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Christine it was such a historic day. All the athletes across the country saying enough is enough. We aren't going to play until something is done.

But now what's next, you know, after Wednesday's NBA games were called off? And according to Shams Charania of the Atlantic and Stadium, the Lakers and the Clippers players voted to end the NBA season. Now, every other team is reportedly in favor of continuing. According to ESPN, the vote was more of a poll rather than a final vote, and the players are set to meet later this morning.

Now, this started with the Milwaukee Bucks not coming out of their locker room before their scheduled game in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake by police. In the locker room, the Bucks players spoke with Wisconsin's attorney general and other state leaders and hours later eventually came out to make this statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE HILL, MILWAUKEE BUCKS GUARD: When we take the court and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin, we are expected to play at a high level, give maximum effort and hold each other accountable. We hold ourself to that standard, and in this moment we are demanding the same from lawmakers and law enforcement.

We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: There were powerful messages being sent across the sports world. TNT analyst Kenny Smith (AUDIO GAP) last night's inside the NBA.

The WNBA also deciding to postpone its games in solidarity with the NBA. Representatives from the six teams scheduled too play locked in arms with some of the players wearing t-shirts spelling out Jacob Blake's name. The white shirts were marked with bullet holes to signify the seven shots fired by police.

Players from the Brewers and Reds deciding to not play their game in Milwaukee. Milwaukee just about 40 miles away from Kenosha. In all, three MLB games postponed with several other players opting not to play.

Mets slugger Dominic Smith, he couldn't hold back tears after his game last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINIC SMITH, NEW YORK METS OUTFIELDER: I think the most difficult part is to see like people still don't care and it's continuously happening. I mean, it just shows just the hate in people's heart and, I mean, that just sucks, you know, and being a black man in America, it's not easy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Powerful stuff there. Naomi Osaka also posting on social media saying she was not going to participate in the semifinal of the western and southern open. And, Laura, five Major League Soccer games also not taking place last night as they decided not to play in solidarity with athletes across the country.

JARRETT: It's going to be really interesting to see what happens with the NBA and, you know, these finals games. I mean, if some players don't want to do it, don't want to go forward and want a boycott, it's going to be really hard for those other players. I guess we'll see what happens,

Andy, thank you so much.

All right. Investigators are finally released a rough time line of what they say happened Sunday when Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake. Wisconsin's attorney general said police were called by a woman who said her boyfriend was at her place but wasn't supposed to be. Officers arrived at the scene and attempted to arrest Jacob Blake, although officials have never explained if Blake was that boyfriend the woman had called about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH KAUL, WISCONSIN ATTORNEY GENERAL: During the investigation, Mr. Blake admitted he had a knife in his possession, and DCI agents, that's the Division of Criminal Investigation recovered a knife from the driver side floorboard of Mr. Blake's vehicle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So many unanswered questions. Jacob did not have a weapon in the car. The officer who pulled the trigger has been identified as seven-year veteran Rusten Sheskey. He is now on administrative leave.

Meanwhile, a suspect has been arrested in the shooting that killed two people early yesterday.

This is 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, he's charged with first degree intentional homicide. He is accused of shooting two people with a long rifle. He was part of a vigilante show of force as protests grew in Kenosha. There were people there describing themselves as militia in some cases who were trying to protect private property and this all just went south in a terrible way.

JARRETT: Pretty incredible to see him walking by police with that enormous rifle and then just driving by.

ROMANS: Yeah.

JARRETT: Of course the big breaking news this morning, Hurricane Laura now a category 3, making its way over southwest Louisiana.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Breaking this morning, Hurricane Laura making landfall overnight. Now a category 3 storm, bringing with it devastating winds to the gulf coast.

Officials say unsurvivable storm surges could hit Louisiana and Texas as far as now 40 miles inland. Surges of 15 feet or higher could overwhelm coasts in both those states and water levels are already rising quickly.

[05:25:01]

This reporter forced to jump out of the way to dodge a flash of electricity over 300,000 power outages in Texas and Louisiana. We have reporters live in both states in just a few minutes.

JARRETT: So scary there.

Well, this monster storm and the unrest in Wisconsin largely overshadowing the Republican convention, but the police shooting in Kenosha was top of mind as Vice President Mike Pence took the stage. A campaign official told CNN, Trump's team believes the convention's so- called law and order message, which is essentially a firm defense of law enforcement with no acknowledgment of the violence faced by black Americans, they say it's working.

How exactly is it working when the majority of Americans support the protests, that's unclear. In a last minute change, the campaign decided to reference Kenosha only as a warning about a Biden presidency, even though the violence is happening on President Trump's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last week, Joe Biden didn't say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country, so let me be clear. The violence must stop whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha. Too many heroes have died defending our freedom to see Americans strike each other down. We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American.

Joe Biden would double down on the very policies that are leading to violence in America's cities. The hard truth is you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force spoke to a crowd that was not wearing masks. Campaign officials tell CNN despite the hurricane, as of now, the president's acceptance speech will go on as scheduled tonight on the south lawn of the White House.

ROMANS: Yeah, what a remarkable few days this has been in terms of news flow. You know, usually a convention would be the number one thing we would be covering, but we ha pandemic, we have a real moment of reckoning over racial justice in this country and now this huge hurricane.

We're going to continue to follow that hurricane, Laura, a category 3 that made landfall about three hours ago. Unsurvivable storm surge is what the National Hurricane Center has forecast. We're going to go there live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END