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The Lead with Jake Tapper

More Snow Targets New England; Russia's Aggression; Dangerous Snow Piles High In Northeast; Battle Between Ukraine and Pro-Russia Rebels Escalates

Aired February 09, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Bostonians now have 15 different words for snow.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The national lead, a snow emergency in New England, So much snow that they can't even ship it out of town quick enough. Roofs are now collapsing under the weight of the third major winter storm in as many weeks, and more is on the way.

The world lead, some of the most intense violence Europe has seen in years, as Russia tries to bite off another piece of Ukraine. Today, President Obama saying how deep the U.S. could wade in.

Also in world news, days of agony, an American family clinging to hope that their daughter held by ISIS may still be alive. They make a personal plea to those brutal terrorists.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I am Jake Tapper.

We are going to start with the national lead, the desperate situation in the Northeast of the United States, as even more snow falls. As we speak, as of today, Boston has broken this record, according to the National Weather Service. Boston has seen more snow in the past 30 days than at any other point in the city's history. Before today is done, Boston alone could get up to 10 more inches.

Add that to more than six feet already on the ground and the weight of all that snow piling up on roofs. Many have collapsed. Others could fall in on homes, the snow piled so high on sidewalks, people are walking in streets right in the path of traffic. Dump trucks pushed a lot of the snow to what are called snow farms, but now many of those are reaching their limits, frankly.

These constant winter storms are wiping out city budgets and costing the travel industry millions of dollars.

We have a team of reporters standing by to show you the impact of this latest winter storm.

Let's start with CNN's Miguel Marquez, who is driving.

And, Miguel, you have been driving in this mess all day, a ton of snow, hazardous conditions. Tell us what it's like. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is hazardous and miserable out.

But I can tell you, what it is amazing is how they can keep this city going. Despite the fact that it is hobbled, it is not crippled. From the lowly snow shovel to backhoes to hundreds, if not thousands of plows that we have seen out there, Boston keeps going and this snow is slowing it, but not stopping it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): For three Mondays now, mountains of snow slamming the Northeast.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody's just fed up.

MARQUEZ: Massachusetts, Boston and surrounding cities again and again bearing the brunt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's only been 14 days, folks. And we have gotten 70 to 80 inches of snow around the commonwealth. This is pretty much unprecedented.

MARQUEZ: Across the region, schools closed once again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good because like we get to go outside more, but it's like the wind is so hard, so it makes it worse.

MARQUEZ: Transportation stopped cold, at Boston's Logan Airport, most flights canceled, authorities urging drivers, stay off the road, but emergency workers have no choice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every call gets a little bit more difficult. If someone doesn't have their sidewalk dug out or their stairs dug out yet, we either have to try to carry them through deep snow, or we can put them on these like plastic-type sleds.

MARQUEZ: For some, all this white is green.

(on camera): How much do you make per sidewalk?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty bucks, 40 bucks.

MARQUEZ: And how much you made so far?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three hundred and fifty.

MARQUEZ: Just today so far in the last how many hours?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since 5:30 this morning.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Such heavy downfall, snow days for court as well, the Boston bomber and former Patriots star Aaron Hernandez, both well-publicized trials, both snowed out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More wind, more snow, higher snowbanks. You couldn't even see the beach. It was just white.

MARQUEZ: In Maine, the storm gorgeous, but a heavy burden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I snapped a shovel this morning. But I got to get another one, because there's clearly more snow coming.

MARQUEZ: In Connecticut, piles of snow dwarf equipment struggling to remove it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is ridiculous. It's freezing. I'm ready for the summertime. I'm tired of it, honestly.

MARQUEZ: The massive snowfall weighing down roofs. With collapse possible, crews have a treacherous new job, climbing ladders to shovel them off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we get any kind of wet snow on top of this snow, that's going to become a weight issue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: And this is one of the few times that we haven't had snow today, but this is what they're looking at here, five, six feet of snow everywhere. Along these roads, the plows have pushed it up to six, seven, eight feet above the roads.

They are running out of places here, in places like Lynn, where we are right now north of Boston. Places south of Boston, the South Shore, though, in this one storm, they got over 24 inches of snow. We are headed there next -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Miguel Marquez, travel safe, my friend.

Crews are dumping mountains of snow off into remote areas. They're nicknamed snow farms, but now those piles are frankly just too large and they are taking up too much space. Workers are now trying to find creative ways to get rid of all the snow.

CNN's Chris Welch now joins me with that story.

Chris, if you can't move it, melt it.

CHRIS WELCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jake, why not?

They're starting to get very creative. Take a look behind me. This is what they're calling the snow melter. These front-end loaders have been going back and forth for hours, really for days now, into this snow melter.

In the last 24 hours alone, Jake, this machine has melted 6,000 truckloads of snow that have come in here from off the streets of the city of Boston. Take a look at that. As that snow goes in there, it just turns it straight into water and this basically has become sort of a pond here in this parking lot, and really a pond out on the street as well. If you take a look over to the right, you see why they are doing this.

These mountains of snow at these snow farms that are around the city are, as you alluded to, starting to reach capacity. The city starting to get creative. Obviously, we have the snow melter. The city actually has two of these snow melters, but the city is also considering dumping some of this snow into the harbor.

And, in fact, all they really need to do to get that process under way is notify the state Department of Environmental Protection and then they can do that. The mayor said they are considering that. That's not something they would be doing today. But we also know -- we spoke to the Department of Environmental Protection earlier today. We know that a handful, about five cities already in the eastern portion of Massachusetts, are notifying, have notified, I should say, and will be starting to dump snow into rivers and into the ocean and into the harbor -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Chris Welch, thanks so much.

Once the snow stops falling, hopefully tonight, even more could be on the way before the end of the week.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

TAPPER: This snow is also our money lead today, because the travel industry is taking a huge financial hit from these repeated snowstorms.

Let's bring in CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh.

Rene, how many cancellations are we talking about just from this storm?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, more than 2,000.

And, you know, we are talking about two storms that have slammed the Northeast in the past two weeks. And now we are talking about a third. Of course, that means more cancellations and more delays. I want to take a live look right now at FlightAware's MiseryMap.

And this essentially tells you what the situation is in real time at various airports. If you take a look at Chicago, for example, this just goes to show, when you have cancellations and delays at major airports like this, we talk about the ripple effect. This is the ripple effect. All those orange markings that you see there, those are cancellations, delays, essentially problems for airports as far as San Francisco.

Of course, the same goes for New York City. This is Boston. You can see about, you know, 65 percent of the traffic there canceled or delayed. And speaking of Boston, I want to take a live look over Boston Logan Airport. You can see, what is it, about maybe four or five airplanes in the sky there.

Compare that to what it looks on an average day and this is usually what it looks like, a lot more activity. So the situation doesn't look very good for Boston. We know that many cancellations will be under way because of all the snow that they are getting there. In fact, one company, masFlight, says that the number of cancellations this year already surpassed what we saw around the same time last year, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Rene, these cancellations are not just costly for airlines, of course. The passengers take a hit. What's the economic impact of all these winter storms?

MARSH: Well, if we take a look at exactly what we are talking about as far as cancellations go, we know that, so far, all winter, with all of the storms that we saw, we have seen more than 19,000 cancellations.

As it relates to how much it costs people, passengers, it's cost them roughly $693 million. As far as the airlines, cost them a pretty penny as well. We're talking about $60 million, of course, those figures according to masFlight -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much.

One of the biggest concerns right now, for emergency personnel in the Boston area, specifically helping residents who could be in serious danger. Several roofs have already collapsed from the weight of the tons of piling snow, in some areas, fire hydrants completely covered. And with more snow coming, it may only get worse.

And that is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back. I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

And we are back right now with our national lead, another snowstorm creating dangerous conditions in the New England area. Listen to this -- as of today, Boston got 73.9 inches of snow this season, 73.9. That makes this the tenth snowiest winter ever for that city. And every time New Englanders dig out a path, more snow just covers that up. The snow is now blocking roads, weighing down roofs. It's even causing problems for people who are just trying to walk down the street.

CNN's Rosa Flores joins us now. She's in Boston Common, if you can recognize it.

Rosa, this snow -- it's keeping emergency crews very busy.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's keeping everybody very busy, including homeowners, because this what is they have to do every single day. They've got to shovel their sidewalks. Now, officials recommend that you shovel for your elderly neighbors as well because they might not be able to do that.

Now, the other thing that's very important is that you clear out these fire hydrants for obvious reasons. In the case of an emergency, you want to make sure the fire department has plenty of access. And here this, the city has already issued about 1,500 citations for people who don't clear their sidewalks or who decide to shovel out on the street which is not recommended.

Now, this snow doesn't only just pack on the street. Where else does it end up? Take a look. That's right, on rooftops. Now, you can see how dangerous it can be when all of that weight weighs on a structure.

Now, I want you to take a look at this video because my crew and I were actually just on a roof with a contracting company that gave us a brief demonstration of what they deal with. It's very dangerous, they have to work very slowly and officials and contractors alike will tell you that you don't want to do it by yourself. You want to have a professional. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MACKERRON, OWNER OF RECON ROOFING: I have been doing this for over 30 years. I have seen a lot of storms. We're supposed to by OSHA rules be in the safest position. You should be up on the roof with a hook ladder, adequate crew. Don't move too fast. Just, you know, go at it from the top down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, one of the other hazards, simply, pedestrians walking down sidewalks. Now, in this area, Jake, they are lucky enough to have a sidewalk. In other areas that we have been, folks are forced on to the streets when they are pedestrians just because there is no other way.

Now, the other thing I want you to take a look at is how narrow this street looks. Imagine driving through here? Not only is it very narrow but visibility is also very low. And then, of course, there's plows everywhere.

So, Jake, one of the things that the mayor is recommending is if you have earphones or headphones and are you used to walking down the street with them, don't use them because then you're not going to be able to hear the plow and there is another danger -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Rosa Flores in Boston Common -- thank you so much.

Let's go to Peter Judge on the phone. He's with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

Mr. Judge, thanks for joining us.

Just minutes ago the subway system there announced it's suspending service after 7:00 this evening. What are the dangers of the snow once the sun goes down tonight?

PETER JUDGE, MASSACHUSETTS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: Well, the sun goes down, you know, we're going to see a lot of freezing on the roads that have been plowed so certainly driving is going to be a problem. And the MBTA is going to have issues relative to dealing with ice on the third rail, on a lot of the transportation problems. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff we'll have to deal with this evening and again, as Rosa just said, folks, who -- pedestrians who can't walk on the sidewalk walk out in the street and street's not wide enough for the cars, let alone pedestrians as well.

TAPPER: How dangerous has it been for people in Boston in the last -- or Massachusetts, more largely, in the last couple weeks? Have there been fatalities, have roofs caved in and actually hurt anybody?

JUDGE: Well, knock on wood, you know, there have been only a few fatalities in the original storm. There were a few folks who had heart attacks following shoveling of the major storm.

As far as roof collapses, the ones that we've had, we only had a handful, have taken place in sort of industrial storage facilities, warehouses, those types of things. There have been a couple of homes that folks have been asked to evacuate because the integrity of the structure looked like potentially coming down. But fortunately, considering what we have been through over the last three weeks, very lucky as far as the lack of serious injuries or certainly deaths.

TAPPER: And, Peter, I keep hearing about the fact that hydrants are buried in the snow as a major concern. Why?

JUDGE: Well, as we saw with a couple of fires earlier in the week, crew shows up, fire engine shows up and there's no hydrant because it's somewhere buried and they've got to waste precious time to dig them out.

First of all, locate them, and then dig them out. So, repeated, it's something folks have repeatedly had to do and literally, they dig them out and the plow comes down the street and throws some more snow on it and they disappear again. So, folks in neighborhoods really have been vigilant as far as trying to keep those hydrants dug out simply for their own safety.

TAPPER: All right. Peter Judge, thank you so much. Good luck with what you're doing there. Appreciate it.

Coming up, a fireball lights up the sky in Ukraine as the fighting on the ground intensifies. Nick Paton Walsh visited one town that was completely decimated. We will go live to him on the front lines in Ukraine, next.

Plus, as ISIS continues to kill its hostages, we are learning new details about the terrorist group's plan to kidnap more Westerners -- and not just ones in Syria or Iraq. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

Our world lead: a new round of intense fighting and attacks in Ukraine, brutality Europe has not seen in 20 years.

Powerful explosion at a weapons depot rocked the city of Donetsk last night. The Ukrainian government says at least two dozen soldiers and civilians have been killed in the past 36 hours at the hands of pro- Putin rebels and perhaps even Russian soldiers.

More than 5,000 people have died since the violence began 10 months ago.

CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is in Donetsk, Ukraine. He joins us now live.

Nick, you have been near mortar fire all day today.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We went towards a town of Uglegorsk, taken by separatists in the past week, very little left, frankly, after the fighting. One house torn simply in two by shelling. Another, a huge apartment block of nine floors emptied out of people but now peppered with shelling. Those who emerged from underground spent their days there frankly sheltering from the violence.

You are hearing there and seeing pictures of an explosion too that rocked the city where I'm standing, Donetsk, last night. That massive blast shook the building I'm standing in. We thought perhaps it was shelling landing near where I'm standing. But in fact, according to one European diplomat, it was an arms depot potentially hit by Ukrainian military artillery. That caused the enormous explosion.

But civilians caught in the middle of this increasingly terrified. And we are hearing now, too, that the separatists claim they have taken a key part of a road which effectively encircles, in their opinion, a town of Debaltseve, they have been fighting for that for a long time, a strategic hub. Both sides want it keenly. There could be thousands of Ukrainian troops still trapped inside it. Ukraine denies it is encircled but does admit that one key access road is under attack. A volatile situation here, it's far from the backdrop of peace talks -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, Nick, you have been telling us for months about the Ukrainians and Ukrainian military desperately pleading for lethal aid, weapons from the U.S., from the West. But when President Obama and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke today from the White House, they kept talking about a diplomatic solution.

How was that received in Ukraine?

WALSH: Well, it's clear Kiev wants to see weapons, wants them fast and you only have to look at the condition of the Ukrainian military to understand why. The soldiers doing in their opinion a valiant job obviously holding ground but are held back by significantly outdated weaponry. Remember, this is a country whose armed forces have been underfunded for decades. Many accuse the Yanukovych administration ousted last year of being behind corruption that enabled the military to be in such a sorry state.

And, in fact, also, if you look at the Russians fears that Ukraine could one day join NATO, they are far from any condition to be part of that pretty selective force. It's a mess here. Frankly, Ukraine struggling to hold ground because of that outdated equipment, much of which we saw blown up littering the streets of Uglegorsk earlier on today. That's a key reason why they keep losing territory here. They are facing a better equipped, up-to-date military, that some say is the Russian army -- Jake.

TAPPER: Nick Paton Walsh in Donetsk, Ukraine -- thanks, my friend. Please stay safe.

It looks kind of like a slickly produced news report from the front lines in the fight against ISIS, but this man is one of the terrorist group's hostages. He says this is his last installment in this propaganda series. What does ISIS have planned for him, next?

And what more are we learning about the fate of American Kayla Mueller? We'll discuss it all, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)