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Record Rains, Floods Kill 6 in Texas, Oklahoma; Rockets Fans Ride Out Storm in Arena; Iraqi Troops Surround ISIS From All Sides; Anger over Youth Jail Plans and School Cuts in Baltimore. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired May 26, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:12] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, deadly flooding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The relentless tsunami-type power that this wave of water can pose for people.

COSTELLO: Millions at risk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I kept calling him over and over, and I was like, are you OK? Are you OK? And he was, like, I don't know if I'm going to make it, but he's like, I love you.

COSTELLO: Rescues by air, by boat. But help coming too late for some including a high school senior heading home from the prom. Who's in the danger zone this morning?

Also called out for not having a will to fight? Right now Iraq is launching an operation to take back Ramadi and more from the grip of ISIS.

And the spying trial begins for an American reporter in Iran. The U.S. and "Washington Post" calling the case absurd but for Jason Raison it's his future that hangs in the balance.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. In Houston, a river runs through it. Believe it or not this used to be a freeway, not a waterway, and it flows right through the nation's fourth largest city this morning.

Houston is virtually cut off. Floodwaters swallow interstates and major roads. Schools are closed. Public transportation is shut down and the worst may be yet to come. Six people are dead in Texas and in Oklahoma 12 people still missing. And that's just from one small area west of Houston. Just outside Austin, in Hays County, as many -- as many as 400 homes have been swept off their foundations and simply washed away. Many of them with the people still inside.

So let's begin our coverage in Hays County with CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray.

Good morning.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning to you, Carol. Yes, we're standing right in front of those homes as you mentioned. Some of them wiped completely off their foundation.

I want to start with the river, though, because the river is down now. But just a couple of days ago it was as high as I'm standing. It rose about 43 feet, triple its flood stage, and it did it very, very quickly. And you can see the trees on the other side of the bank and even the ones on the same side that we're standing on just laying over. And this is the power of water. It has ripped bark completely off of trees and the river was once this high.

Swing around. I want to show you the power of this. You said 300 to 400 homes completely destroyed. This one here wiped totally off its foundation and it is a total loss. And so this entire street that we're standing on, all of the homes look exactly like this. They are completely destroyed. This one has a green sticker on it with a black X. You can only hope that that was good news.

The rescuers came in and didn't find anyone. Hopefully they got out and a lot of people were trying to get out ahead of those floodwaters. But as we continue to pan around, you can imagine the fear that these people had when the water started rising and rushing. This is normally a calm river down there, Carol. And it is raging past. We did -- we do know that it crested just a couple of days ago on Sunday and so now the water is finally receding.

But it's all flowing downstream and then you have rain on top of that as we've seen in Houston. Eight or nine inches in 24 hours. When you add to it, all of this water that's flowing downstream, it's adding insult to injury and that's why we're seeing the massive flooding now south of here in Houston.

COSTELLO: All right. Jennifer Gray, reporting live for us this morning. Thanks so much.

Some Houston Rockets fans stuck around long after watching their team win game four of the NBA Western Conference Finals. During last night's game, the Toyota Center posted an advisory on the scoreboard suggesting people ride out the severe storm inside the arena rather than venture out on to flooded streets. A few hundred fans heeded that advice. In fact one Rockets Game Day employee is still there. His name is Gage Mueller and he joins me now on the phone.

Hi, Gage.

GAGE MUELLER, ROCKETS GAME DAY EMPLOYEE: Hi. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So how people are still in the Toyota Center? MUELLER: Well, there's a changeover happening because there's a

concert tonight. So I don't think -- I haven't been out to the bowl so I don't know how many people are actually out in the bowl. But there's about five of us still from an employee game day staff that are here.

COSTELLO: Can you get home?

MUELLER: No, I cannot get home. I've got about four different TVs on, on all the different channels and where I actually live is still completely under water. So I'm not even attempting it.

COSTELLO: What was it like last night when there were 200 people staying overnight?

MUELLER: It was new and different, that's for sure. You know, it's kind of -- Dwight stayed for a while so he had gone out to the court and, you know, kind of made the fans feel like, hey, you're not the only ones that are stuck here. So it was -- it was cool.

[10:05:15] COSTELLO: OK. So they're expecting more rain today, right?

MUELLER: Correct.

COSTELLO: So I'm -- I'm wondering why aren't they canceling that concert?

MUELLER: Well, that's beyond my control. I know that they are setting up for it. You know. Who knows what's going to happen but I would imagine that it may be postponed. But who knows.

COSTELLO: It's a game -- I mean, in retrospect, and you know hindsight is always 20/20, but should the game, the basketball game have been played last night?

MUELLER: You know, who knows. Again, you never know how bad it's actually going to be until it hits. And I know that I had a bunch of friends that were here at the game that after the game when they did make the announcement they actually left anyway and they made it home. They made it home OK. So I think it really just depended on what part of town you're in and the direction that you went and I guess the chances that you take.

COSTELLO: Yes. You're right. But you're taking a big chance because it could cost you your life. So talk about how unusual this is for Houston and help us understand.

MUELLER: So I have lived in Houston for 40 years, and we've seen flooding before but not nearly to this extreme. You know, the problem is in my opinion it rained for probably the last two weeks so the water really had nowhere to go. And then once it starts to rain here in Houston, it just -- it rains and it rains and it rains.

And there's really nowhere for the water to go. So to see it like this from my perspective, I heard the mayor that was on earlier, I'm in the same boat as her. I've never seen anything like this. It's just -- it's ridiculous. My --

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MUELLER: You know, we did --

COSTELLO: Do you think it was handled properly by the city?

MUELLER: I think so. You know, at that point there's really not much you can do. You know, we were so busy working, you know, getting everything taken care of after the game that we have to do that we didn't really get a chance to kind of sit down and pay attention to the TV stations and to what was going on. But, you know, people only listen so much.

And you can only tell people to do something so many times and most of the time people are -- their curiosity overruns their smarts. So, you know, I think the city did a great job with what I've seen on TV and, you know, the problem is people just don't like to listen.

COSTELLO: Well, if I had tickets to that basketball game, I might take a chance myself. I mean, I'm just being honest here. And you say --

MUELLER: Yes.

COSTELLO: You know, it's -- I don't know. I guess it's a tough decision because you don't want to cancel something --

MUELLER: So what you're showing right now is where I live.

COSTELLO: Oh my gosh.

MUELLER: That's literally two blocks from my house.

COSTELLO: Do you know if your house is still standing?

MUELLER: Yes. My house is fine. I talked to my wife and, you know, my kids. The street is flooded. We didn't get water in the house. My in-laws, thank God, they didn't get water in their house but three of their three cars are -- they're done. They totalled.

COSTELLO: Yes. Thank you, Gage Mueller, for your insight. I sure appreciate you joining me this morning and get home safely.

We're learning more about one of the victims killed in those -- in that fast rising water. 18-year-old Alyssa Ramirez was on her way home from prom on Saturday night when flash flooding struck Divine, Texas. She was stranded in the high water. She called her father and 911. But the current's force was simply too powerful.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was at prom with her date, and, you know, laughing and dancing next to her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was a good person. She was always competitive.

ROBERTA RAMIREZ, AUNT: She did the right things. You know, she called 911. She called her father. But it was just too much and too quick.

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COSTELLO: Alyssa's car stalled just a couple of miles away from her home. You can hear more from her aunt coming up at 11:00 this morning. She joins "AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN."

The rate of all that rain -- the rate that that rain is falling is simply astonishing. So let's head to Atlanta with Chad Myers so he can tell us more about that.

Hi, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Carol, truly a dramatic night in Houston where rainfall came down two to four inches. Some spots almost six inches of rain per hour. It rained all night. This is the estimated rainfall from the radar. Even at about 8:00 only had about four to six inches but put this into motion and by midnight there are spots with 10 inches of rainfall on the ground from this one storm and that's really less than about six inches. So anywhere in the country if you get 10 inches of rainfall in six hours is going to flood.

[10:10:10] Look at this unprecedented. This is eight feet. This is where the water was in this bayou. About eight feet deep. Two hours later it was 36.5 feet deep. All of a sudden that water comes up so fast people couldn't get out of the way and there are still cars obviously in that floodwater right now.

Now later on today we are going to see the rainfall move through New Orleans and then into Mississippi and Alabama, and even into Georgia. Here we go here for today, this afternoon into tonight. Montgomery, Birmingham and then Atlanta. There will be very heavy rain showers, thunderstorms, and could even be some flooding, localized flooding because it's a street. There's a lot of pavement in Atlanta.

There's a lot of pavement in Houston. So the pavement doesn't soak in. When that pavement -- rain on the pavement it runs off. That's what we're getting here in Atlanta, maybe even Charlotte as well.

One more spot to take you to, up toward Detroit, Chicago, maybe even to Indianapolis. Cleveland, Cincinnati, could see some severe weather today. Not a lot of severe weather, not like we're seeing like in the plains but certainly a thunderstorm with hail, gusty winds, maybe some wind damage. We'll keep watching that for you -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Chad.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Iraq says its forces have surrounded Ramadi and it's about to retake the city. Is it true? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:15:02] COSTELLO: Right now Iraqi forces are surrounding ISIS from all sides in an attempt to reclaim the city of Ramadi. That's according to Iraq's Defense Ministry. The goal, to try to liberate Anbar Province from the grip of terrorists.

All of this happening after Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN in an exclusive interview that Iraqi forces showed, quote, "no will to fight" when Ramadi fell.

Let's bring in CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, he's live this morning in Baghdad to tell us more.

Hi, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, this morning marked by the announcements of this wide ranging operations but we don't see signs at this stage that the fight for Ramadi has necessarily begun. What we do see is the announcement from the Hashd Al-Shaabi, which is the name given to the Shia militia backed by Iran here. They say their first detailed focus will be cutting a supply route into Anbar that ISIS used. That's actually in the Saladin Province to the north of Anbar.

Then it seems that a semicircle of a mixture of Iraqi Security Forces, that's police and military, the Shia militia I mentioned and possibly also thousands of Sunni tribesmen. They are now in a semicircle to the south of Ramadi potentially in the days ahead to move in or even encircle it. But there is a worrying, Carol, sectarian, I mentioned, to all of this. As always the case here in troubled Iraq that is Hashd Al-Shaabi that came forward and announced their name for the operation and they said it would be called answering the call of Hussein.

ISIS very redolent in Shia culture. Hussein being the son of Ali, the founder of Shias, and that may potentially put off or make feel increasingly disenfranchised those Sunni tribesmen who are potentially going to get into the fight here for areas that are predominantly Sunni.

Whether or not these different groups fighting ISIS read off the same script or cooperate will massively defend influence, whether they are successful or not. The most complex fight still ahead but now it is potentially a moment of truth for Iraq's Security Forces -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Baghdad this morning. Now to the politics of war playing out here at home. Some appreciated Defense Secretary Ash Carter's candor when he said the Iraqi military turned and ran from ISIS. Many Americans felt they got a rare dose of truth out of Washington. But in the end Carter's comments may have sparked more confusion.

Hot on the heels of Ash Carter's candor came Joe Biden's call to the Iraqi prime minister. Biden reassured him the U.S. -- reassured him of U.S. support and then praised the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces. So are Iraqi forces brave or cowards or what? With me now, CNN

political analyst and former presidential adviser David Gergen. I'm also joined by CNN military analyst and former aide to General David Petraeus, Colonel Peter Mansoor.

Thanks to both of you for being with me. I appreciate it.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Carol.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: So I want to start with you, Colonel. Do you believe that Iraqi forces have surrounded Ramadi and they're ready to retake it?

MANSOOR: No. I think we're in the very preliminary stages of gathering forces and it would be astonishing if Iraqi forces were ready to retake the city. What they are doing is fighting further east in the twin villages of Karma and Garma. A hot bed of Sunni radicalism by one account, the place where Surveillance Intelligence Services went to ground after 2003.

In fact the brigade I commanded in 2003, 2004 fought a battle in the area. We called it bad Karma. So there are -- there is some progress in Anbar Province further east but I doubt that the battle for Ramadi is going to begin any time soon.

COSTELLO: Well, at least there's some sort of action, I guess you could -- I'm trying to look at the glass half full, David, here. So let's talk about Ash Carter's comments.

First, did he speak out of turn? And second, might his comments have sort of goaded Iraqi forces into action?

GERGEN: Thank goodness for Ash Carter and for speaking the truth the way he did. We need more unvarnished truth -- the United States public will support this war more fully if they understand what's going on instead of getting sugarcoated versions from various members of the administration.

I think we'll have to wait and see what happens with Ramadi. It's well possible that this is going to shift back and forth, that the Iraqis will retake it. But, Carol, the bottom line is, the fight is not going anywhere near as well as we hoped or expected. The Iraqi forces lost Ramadi basically because they were out-generaled, they were out-led. It may well be that the troops themselves on the ground are brave and courageous and they have sacrifice.

But they have a mess in the upper structure and the command structure of the Iraqi forces and it led to a lot of chaos. And they outnumbered the attackers coming from ISIS. But as I said, they were outplayed, they were out-generaled, they were out-led, and that led to this mess we're in now.

[10:20:14] COSTELLO: OK. So, Colonel, I pose this question to you. So you heard what Joe Biden said to the Iraqi prime minister. All those brave Iraqi forces. And then you heard what Ash Carter said. Are the Obama -- is the Obama administration and the military on the same page?

MANSOOR: Well, Iraqi soldiers are brave when well-led. And as David said in this case they were not well-led. These were forces that weren't trained by the U.S. train and equip mission over there. So the secretary of Defense said what he believed to be the truth and created a diplomatic dust-up and I think the vice president tried to paper it over with his comments.

The fact is that the Iraqi army is not well-led. Nouri al-Maliki, the previous prime minister, got rid of a lot of the competent commanders, the staff, the armed forces with his political cronies and the -- and the Iraqi army is still recovering from that and it will take months if not years to get back to a completely functional state.

COSTELLO: And, David, I know that President Obama has talked about this in interviews with various reporters. But should he come out and say something to help Americans understand what's really happening in Iraq and with ISIS?

GERGEN: I think, Carol, when you're in the midst of a fight that's going to be long-term, there ought to be periodic reports, maybe once a quarter or every two months, where leading Defense folks from the Pentagon, the top brass, along with civilians and along with the White House provide a report to the American people about how things are going. And just tell us straight. Yes, sir, we made progress over here but we've had -- you know, Mosul, we wanted to go into Mosul this summer but we're delayed now. But give it to us straight.

American people are, you know, very understanding. Very supportive when they think they can be trusted. We're not -- you know, I thought what's so welcome about Ash Carter was, we finally had somebody who's put it on the line.

COSTELLO: I'd have to agree with you, David Gergen. Colonel Peter Mansoor, thanks to both of you for joining me. I appreciate it.

GERGEN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new protests planned today in Baltimore. But these are not about violence, but about education and incarceration.

I'll be right back.

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[10:26:00] COSTELLO: Baltimore in the grips of a crime spree that has earned -- that has earned the distinction of the deadliest month in over a decade. That would be May. 35 people dead. Seven of them killed over the Memorial Day weekend. The murder rate is up 47 percent for the year. And today residents are taking to the streets angered by not only the violence but also the governor's plan to cut funding to city schools while approving a plan to fund a youth jail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MALACKA REED, MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER: More of us should be outraged that the governor has chosen incarceration over education. That makes absolutely no sense at all.

REV. JAMES BRYANT, PASTOR, EMPOWERMENT TEMPLE: They're angry but we're angry that those -- if $30 million is being spent for a jail they have no intention of keeping it empty. They plan on somebody filling it and those of us who have sons and nephews and brothers know that we're the target.

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COSTELLO: Suzanne Malveaux is in Baltimore with more. Good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You heard the sentiment there. They know that the commuters were angry this morning because they disrupted traffic. You know Baltimore very well, Carol. It was Russell Street and 395 just over there the pass-way where they briefly about 50 folks disrupted traffic and came over here.

This is Washington and MLK where they ended the rally. But they say, look, we've got to get people angry here to respond to some of the things that we're talking about. Baltimore police, Carol, say overnight there was a man who was shot, a bullet grazed right by his head and a 9-year-old boy who was shot in the leg.

You broke down the statistics here. We are talking about record number of shootings. A three-day weekend that was absolutely devastating to this community. Thirty shot. At least seven died from those injuries and then May, looking at May, we've got 35 homicides, 108 in total for this year. So I asked folks what is this about? What is going on in your community? And they say in part they believe that the police department is kind of slowing down in their policing, that they are not doing aggressive policing, they are just responding to 911 calls.

We've heard some of that from police officers who do not want to go on camera but who have said they in fact believe that some of that is happening within the force. But also the protesters said, look, they accept the responsibility and know that part of this is in the community, that there are people who are taking advantage of what is going on. Listen to this.

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REED: I don't think the police are doing their jobs. But I do not think that it's all of the police. We do have some police officers that are doing their jobs. I know them personally. They are doing their jobs. But what I say is the majority of them? No, it isn't. It's a small amount.

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MALVEAUX: So that was Malacka Reed, and she was just one of the people who was out here who says look, everybody plays a role in here. And she says there's an incredible amount of negative energy in the city and that is why you're seeing a deterioration, if you will, of law and order in this community.

The other thing, Carol, that you brought out which is so important here and is why they came out on the streets this morning to be disruptive with rush hour is that they are very angry with the governor's budget which essentially does slash $11 million out of Baltimore public schools. They say money that they desperately need for summer programs while at the same time contributes $30 million to this juvenile detention center.

The governor's office says the reason that they did that, at least the detention center, is because they have a lot of juveniles in the adult facilities and they don't get the proper care. They don't get education. They don't get what they need so they specifically decided they're going to go ahead and invest in that juvenile facility, but that is exactly the problem, Carol, that the community says.

It's like don't invest in this message, in this symbol, in this idea of putting our kids in jail, but rather put them back into schools. So there's a lot of concern, Carol, about the crime rate that it is going to get much worse if they don't have the resources they need this summer -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Suzanne Malveaux reporting live from Baltimore this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Iraqi forces say they're making headway against ISIS. So will the U.S. join the fight against a common enemy?

Barbara Starr will join us from the Pentagon.

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