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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

South Carolina Ravaged by Floods; Oregon Campus Massacre Survivor Speaks Out; Doctors Without Borders Demands Investigation on Strike; Russia Intensifies Syrian Airstrikes. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:14] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now. Flooding of historic proportions in South Carolina. Flood levels seen once every 1,000 years. Inundating huge parts of the state. We have the very latest on the damage and how much more rain is on the way.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A woman who was inside the classroom during the shooting massacre in the Oregon Community College speaks exclusive to CNN. What she says happened and how she managed to escape with her life.

ROMANS: Troubling big questions after a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan apparently hit the Doctors Without Borders hospital. More than 20 people killed including staffers and patients. We're live in Kabul with what the Defense Department says this morning.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: Nice to see you. I'm John Berman. Monday, October 5th, 4:00 a.m. in the East. And we begin with epic, deadly flooding in South Carolina.

Governor Nikki Haley announced he is deploying 600 members of the National Guard with the state experiencing rainfall total never seen before. She called this a once in a thousand year weather event. The floods have killed five people so far, triggering more than 200 water rescues, knocking out power to more than 21,000 customers.

Look at that. Roads all over South Carolina had been shut down by the flooding. Cars and trucks, as you see, just washed away there. This is an aerial view of Huger, South Carolina. The water levels there are rising so fast, the Coast Guard had to airlift a mother and her 15-month-old infant to safety there.

I want to show you the capital in Columbia, South Carolina. The situation there is just a mess. These folks are rescued after being caught in those raging waters. Search and rescue operations set to begin there this morning. The torrential rains and floods are leaving so many people with no choice except just to rebuild.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We lost everything. What I've got on my body is what we have. Pretty much everybody down that hill there has lost everything this morning. Our vehicles, our clothes, everything. But the best thing is that we still have our lives. We still have our lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Parts of South Carolina devastated by 18 inches of rain. 18 inches or more in a single 24-hour period. With catastrophic flash flooding and more rain in the forecast overnight.

Want to get the latest from meteorologist Pedram Javaheri. I mean, wow, that is so much rain so quickly. It's almost hard to comprehend how much water is in the Charleston area in South Carolina.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it is remarkable. It's one of the more prolific rain events that I've ever covered actually in the -- for the United States when it comes to weather. And you take a look at this and we know 18 inches in and around parts of South Carolina. And you work your way into Mt. Pleasant which is just a beautiful site outside of Charleston. And they recorded 24 inches of rainfall, which by the way, you do the math for the surface area of land across this region of South Carolina. That equates to 65 billion gallons of water.

And to put it all in perspective, you would take the American side of Niagara Falls, that is how much water that flowed over the Niagara Falls area in 10 days is what occurred this weekend across portions of South Carolina. But want to kind of lay out the land as far as the entire Palmetto state as a whole because you're looking at an area about 60 miles wide, indicated here in purple and pink. That's where the heaviest rainfall came down.

You take all of that rainfall, the state average for the entire state was about eight inches of rainfall. You take all of that and put all that together, we're talking over four trillion gallons of water. That could fill up about seven million Olympic sized swimming pools. That's how much water came down across this region of South Carolina in just a matter of couple of days. The third wettest weather event in United States history that we're able to tabulate when it comes to other events. You have to go back since the 1970s there was a hurricane that made landfall in Texas that brought slightly more rainfall but we know Joaquin of course indirectly impacting the region. You notice the moisture being peeled back.

I kind of compare it to peeling back a layer of onion almost where you see the storm move away but layers of it see jacking out towards South Carolina as we have another storm over this region bringing in the heavy rainfall. So the question is, are we getting more rain out of this? And it certainly looks like we are. The vast majority will be locked in and across portions of far northern coasts of South Carolina on Myrtle Beach where we could get upwards of another maybe half an inch to one inch of rainfall in parts of interior South Carolina, just south of Columbia, certainly could get an additional an inch to 2 inches as well. So definitely a dangerous scenario even for this Monday across this area, guys.

ROMANS: It is a dangerous scenario. You know, in Columbia, South Carolina, hospitalized there are preparing -- they haven't done it yet but they're preparing for evacuations because they don't have water. BERMAN: Fresh water. Right. Clear water.

ROMANS: They don't have fresh water. Clean water available for their hospitals so this is something that will be going on for the next hours and probably days as they deal with all of that water.

Pedram, thank you so much.

One of the hardest hit areas of South Carolina is the city of Georgetown. It's halfway between Myrtle Beach and Charleston. And EMS workers and the National Guard have been stretched to the limit with water rescues. One man who drove around a barricade had his car swept away. He had to be rescued by boat while he was clinging to a tree.

We get more this morning from CNN's Boris Sanchez.

[04:05:06] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Georgetown is one of the hardest hit areas in South Carolina. As you can see all around me, part of the reason for that is because the city lies at the bottom of a geographical bowl with several bodies of water and rivers all around town. And as it continues raining, that water has nowhere else to go so this keeps happening.

There is an inlet just to my left where the water keeps rising and it's risen into these businesses more than once. One of them is getting pumped right now but it's likely not to make a huge difference because the water is expected to rise again as the rainfall continues into the day.

When we arrived in town, there was actually a police barricade, not letting anyone through. A lot of the roads are disheveled. There are emergencies all across town. We've had gas leaks as well as several structure fires here. So authorities are really rushing to emergencies left and right. We actually spoke to two ambulance workers who told us that they've been going for more than 24 hours and every ambulance in the city is out attending to emergencies.

Fortunately, it appears that most people are safe. But the mayor of Georgetown, I spoke with him, he told me that it's better for people to just stay home and be safe and to go against that natural curiosity to come out and see what's going on.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JACK SCOVILLE, GEORGETOWN: Just don't be stupid. I mean, that's the thing -- keep saying, you know, don't try to drive through flooded areas. You don't know how deep they'll be. We're supposed to get a lot more rain later today. High tide is going to be about 4:00. So it could actually be worse in two or three hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That was actually right near city hall which was also submerged under water. Fortunately most of the water there has receded. But in places like this in Georgetown it's likely going to take several weeks to clean up this mess and get things back to normal -- John, Christine.

BERMAN: The U.S. Coast Guard has discovered a 225-square mile debris field in the Caribbean in its search for missing containership. The Jacksonville, Florida, based Alfaro was carrying a crew of 28 Americans, five Polish nationals on its way to Puerto Rico and went missing near the Bahamas last week in the middle of Hurricane Joaquin.

Search crews have found wood, cargo, Styrofoam, life jackets, and an oil sheen in the debris field. Buy still no positive confirmation that it came from the missing ship. Family members are holding out hope that their loved ones are still alive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The blame that's to be done on the hurricane. Not the captain. The captain is looking out for his crew.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of people have changed their profile picture to Mike's graduation picture. So when I open up my Facebook page, I see it's like it's all my post because it's my baby's picture in there. So it's just been amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The Air Force and Navy now assisting the Coast Guard in the search. They've already covered more than 70,000 square nautical miles.

ROMANS: The father of the gunman who killed nine people and wounded nine others at a community college in Oregon insists he had no idea where his son got his weapons and he refuses to comment on his son's mental state.

Ian Mercer says he was stunned to learn his son owned 13 guns. He claims those guns are to blamed for last week's campus massacre. He demands to know how anyone can get so many weapons so easily.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN MERCER, GUNMAN'S FATHER: It has to change. It has to change. How can it not? Even people that believe in the bear -- the right to bear arms, you know, what right do you have to take people's lives? That's what guns are, the killers. It's as simple as that. It's black and white. What do you want a gun for?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Again, he refuses to comment on his son's mental state saying that he'll let the police investigations find the truth about that.

A CNN exclusive now. Tracey Hugh was inside the classroom where the shooter gunned down his victims one by one. She suffered a bullet wound to her hand, she survived. She spoke about the ordeal to CNN's Sara Sidner.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, this is the first time we're hearing a firsthand account from someone who was inside of Umpqua Community College in classroom 15 at Snyder Hall when a gunman came in and started shooting people one by one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRACY HUE, SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I was sitting in the front of the classroom facing the teacher when everything happened. He just came in and shot in towards the back of the wall and told everybody to get in the center of the room on the ground.

SIDNER (on camera): So did he hit anyone? Did he hit anyone when he first shot that first shot?

HUE: No. He just got everybody's attention and then everybody looked over there to the door and he had guns with him and he was armed. He had a bulletproof vest on. And he didn't seem like he was like anxious or anything. He just seemed like he wanted to do that. And he seemed happy about it. He didn't seem stressed. He didn't seem nervous.

But when he came in, he told everybody to get on the ground. So everybody tried to huddle to the ground. And the girl in the wheelchair tried to get -- she got off and tried to get down on the ground.

[04:10:12] SIDNER: Wait, there was a woman in the wheelchair during all this?

HUE: Yes. And she had a dog with her, but the dog was just on the ground. And she got off the chair. She went on the ground. And then he told her to get back on the chair. And then she tried to climb back on the chair and then he shot her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: She says after she witnessed that, she knew that he would have no mercy, not on anyone. She said she lived because the person next to her was shot in the head and the blood ended up covering her body. He thought she was dead and she played dead, so that she could live -- Christine, John.

BERMAN: Just horrifying.

Hillary Clinton is expected to release a new plan to curb gun violence today. The proposal that could draw the most discussion is using executive action to close loopholes in current gun laws. Mrs. Clinton wants to label anyone selling a high number of guns in the business of firearms dealing subject to the same regulations as retailers. This would be gun show loopholes and private gun sellers mostly. This is days after the secretary said she wanted to lead a, quote, "national movement to counter the NRA." Hillary Clinton is holding a town hall style even today -- this morning in New Hampshire. The race to replace John Boehner as House speaker is getting really

interesting. Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz throwing his hat into the ring. Chaffetz says he was recruited by fellow Republicans and claims there are more than 50 House Republican members who will not back the current frontrunner, the majority leader, Kevin McCarthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: There are several people who took a couple runs at me, suggesting that maybe what we should do is, you know, could I be that fair arbiter that brings together the far, far right of our party with our more central members and be a fair arbiter, and somebody that could go out and make the case to the American people. And I was recruited by a number of people and finally said all right, I'll give it a shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Chaffetz says he wants to bridge the divide within the GOP. John Boehner is stepping down as House speaker at the end of the month.

ROMANS: The group Doctors Without Borders demanding an independent investigation of a deadly bombing at one of its hospitals in the Afghan city of Kunduz. At least 22 people were killed by this aerial bombardment, 12 staffers, 10 patients. The Pentagon acknowledging it may have accidentally hit the facility during a military operation.

Want to go live to Kabul, Afghanistan and bring in CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson.

And Nic, Doctors Without Borders keeps saying they think this is a war crime and they think the investigation should not be in the hands of the Americans but an independent party. They don't trust a fair investigation.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What they're saying is they don't think it's right that a party involved in this should be involved in the investigation of it. An independent international transparent body, they think, should be the one that brings the investigation.

We're hearing from Doctors Without Border over the issue. For them, it's not just this specific hospital. It's the message that it sends any people involved in conflict about hospitals not just in Afghanistan, but all across the world which is where Doctors Without Borders and so many of these nongovernmental groups provide vital medical care in desperate situations. So they want it to be -- the investigation here to be very clear and to send a very clear global message that there could be no kind of cover-up or anything here.

The language that they used over the past couple of days to say that they are disgusted by the Afghan government, by statements that the Afghan government has made. That they say Afghan and U.S. forces working with them had chased the Taliban into the hospital compound and therefore the implication that that was OK. They say that flies in the face of what the United States has said that possibly that the hospital was caught up as collateral damage. The details from NATO here so far again support that thesis potentially of collateral damage.

ROMANS: Very early on, Nic Robertson, in the investigation to exactly what happened there at that compound. But again Medecins Sans Frontieres said they had told authorities in Afghanistan, they had told authorities in the United States, multiple different parties of exactly where they were and what they were doing, and did not, certainly did not expect to be caught in that crossfire.

Nic Robertson, thank you for that.

Fifteen minutes past the hour this morning. Time for an EARLY START on your money. Good start to the week so far. European and Asian stocks are higher, so are stock futures, recovering from big losses. Look at what happened Friday. Friday the Dow climbed 200 points after kind of an ugly week. Investors focused on higher oil prices and a weaker than expected jobs report. The Dow gained 200 points.

[04:15:11] More Wall Street bankers should have gone to jail. Let me say that again. More Wall Street bankers should have gone to jail. That's what former Fed chief Ben Bernanke said. He still thinks the bailout in 2008 was the right call, but he wishes more people had been held accountable. Bernanke told the "USA Today," quote, "Everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual. Not by an abstract firm. There should have been more accountability at the individual level."

Bernanke also says he wishes Lehman Brothers which collapsed in the bankruptcy could have been saved. We know that they frantically where Hank Paulson frantically worked to save Lehman Brothers and had a very, very tough time with that. But interesting to hear in hindsight -- picking through the wreckage of 2008. Bernanke wanted people in handcuffs.

BERMAN: That's a man I bet who's enjoying his retirement.

Russia is escalating its involvement in Syria. Now Syrian President Bashar Assad speaking up as Russia takes heat around the world for its actions. We're going to go live to Moscow next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Russia stepping up its air assault in Syria. Officials in Moscow claim to be targeting ISIS, Al-Nusra and other terror groups. But the U.S.-backed coalition accuses Russia of attacking civilians and rebel groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian president speaking out about the Russian involvement saying it must succeed or else.

CNN's Phil Black following developments. He's on the phone this morning from Moscow.

Good morning, Phil. PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.

I'm not sure if you can see or hear me at this stage but what we are talking about this morning here in Russia is an incident that is believed to have taken place over Turkish air space over the weekend involving a Russian jet. The Turkish government says that a Russian jet intercepted violated its air space before being intercepted by two Turkish F-16s within that airspace before eventually returning back to the Syrian side of the border.

[04:20:08] Now Turkey is pretty angry about this. There's a lot of concern with so many -- so much air power from so many countries operating over Syria, that incidents and mistakes could quickly escalate with unintended consequences. So Turkey's message to Russia and its large bomber planes is don't let this happen again.

Meanwhile, Russia is in fact talking up still its continued air operations over Syria against what it says are ISIS targets, saying it's one real damage to ISIS and its ability to operate and fight on the ground there. It says it's even triggering panic and desertions with hundreds perhaps thousands of fighters abandoning their positions.

Now that Russian assessment is of course very different to that of the United States and its coalition partners which continues to say that Russia is in fact targeting other groups other than ISIS. That is other militant groups that are concerned with fighting the regime and the military of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Phil Black, nice to see you this morning in Moscow for us. Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Live from New York, a double dose of Hillary Clinton. We will show you Mrs. Clinton on "Saturday Night Live" seeing double.

ROMANS: Wait. Which one is real? Where is she?

BERMAN: Is it real? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Hillary Clinton on the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live." The real Hillary Clinton and a reasonable facsimile. They appear together. That's Kate McKinnon. One of them is Kate McKinnon. The other one is the real Hillary Clinton playing a bar tender named Val.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:25:14] HILLARY CLINTON (D), DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: I'm just an ordinary citizen who believes the Keystone pipeline will destroy our environment.

(LAUGHTER)

KATE MCKINNON, ACTOR: I agree with you there. It did take me a long time to decide that, but I am against it.

CLINTON: It is really great how long you've supported gay marriage.

MCKINNON: Yes. I could have supported it sooner.

CLINTON: Well, you did it pretty soon.

MCKINNON: Yes. Could have been sooner.

CLINTON: Fair point.

(LAUGHTER)

MCKINNON: Val, I'm just so darn bummed. All anyone wants to talk about is Donald Trump.

CLINTON: Donald Trump? Isn't he the one that's, like, uh, you're all losers.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Maybe you should take a vacation.

MCKINNON: A vacation?

CLINTON: A vacation.

MCKINNON: What did you say?

CLINTON: A vacation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did somebody say vacation? Oh, my god. They're multiplying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So it all ended with this right there. The two Hillary Clintons singing an interesting rendition of "Lean On Me."

ROMANS: OK. Question, John Berman. Political guru.

BERMAN: Yes.

ROMANS: Does the next 15 months, is it full of everyone trying to be funnier than the next one?

BERMAN: Well, look, it always is good -- it is always good to do "Saturday Night Live," to do Oprah, if it still existed, to do Ellen. To do any of those things. It always, always helps. Kate McKinnon does a brutal Hillary Clinton in a way that may not help her long term, although that I thought was genuinely funny. I mean, I thought that was really, really cute.

ROMANS: I do, too. I do, too.

All right, 27 minutes past the hour. A flooding disaster gripping South Carolina. Historic levels of rainfall. Cities and towns under water. You can't believe these pictures, folks. And there's more weather rolling through overnight.

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