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Almost 5M People Under Tsunami Warning In California, Oregon After 7.0 Quake; Politico: WH Debating Preemptive Pardons For Possible Trump Targets; Miles Slattery, (D), Eureka, CA, City Manager, Discusses 7.0 Earthquake and Tsunami Warning For California & Oregon. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 05, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MAUREEN LONG, SEISMOLOGIST: We -- we you know, don't yet know what the actual impact of any tsunami that has been triggered is -- is going to be. We'll learn that I think in the next, you know, minutes to hours.

But for now, always important to heed that warning. Stay away from the coastline and move to higher ground if you're in that affected area.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: So I'm looking at the warning for San Francisco. It's -- its 12:10 p.m. Pacific time that there's expected to be tsunami activity. That's about 40 minutes from now. Why does it take so long for that impact to be felt?

LONG: Yes. So earthquake waves, the shaking -- the waves that give us shaking from earthquakes, those travel much faster than tsunami waves.

So tsunami waves in the ocean, you know, in the open ocean tends to travel about as fast as a -- as a jet plane flies, whereas earthquake waves travel much faster.

And that means that its -- its, you know, it's easier for us to give tsunami warnings because there's a little bit of a -- of a time delay there. So that's the reason for the kind of the -- the difference in arrival time between the shaking from the earthquake and any potential tsunami wave that gets triggered.

MARQUARDT: And, Maureen, how concerned are you right now about aftershocks?

LONG: Well, aftershocks are -- you know, are part of the phenomenon of having earthquakes. So the USGS has -- has issued already an aftershock forecast for this event.

So folks can go and look that up on the details of that up on the USGS Web site. You know, they are forecasting that there's, you know, maybe about a 40 percent chance of an aftershock larger than about a magnitude 5 or 5 and a half. So certainly, it's something that we need to be aware of.

Because this earthquake happened beneath the ocean and not directly under any population centers, it's certainly the most likely scenario is that any aftershocks will be smaller than the initial shock.

We can't rule out the possibility of a larger earthquake, but the most likely scenario is that any aftershocks will be smaller.

So certainly, again, for folks who are in that affected area, it's good to be aware of the possibility of -- of aftershocks, because that is something that we -- we do expect for an earthquake of this size.

MARQUARDT: All right. Lots of questions still about what the potential impact of this earthquake may be on land.

Maureen Long, don't go far. We may want to be coming back to you on this breaking news. We're going to keep following it for now.

There will be more to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Stay with us.

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[14:36:58]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have some breaking news. Nearly five million people in northern California and Oregon are under a tsunami warning after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake just off the west coast.

CNN's Chad Myers is live in the Weather Center.

All right, Chad, tell us where this happened in northern California. And the depth of this quake, which will obviously be significant.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, the depth if -- if correct, because we don't actually know, it's been fluctuating up and down a little bit. But if the depth is correct at really about a half a mile deep, that means the ocean floor moved an awful lot.

And if the ocean floor moves, it pushes water. It usually pushes water up. It doesn't matter if it pushes water down, water will fill in and waves will still be made.

That's why the tsunami warning has been posted from Oregon all the way down to San Francisco. And 7.0 is a significant shake here, and likely in the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

We've always known about this, but very close to Fort Bragg is where the -- the first shake happened. I've seen some pictures online already where there is some damage to some businesses, where bottles are knocked off.

But the problem is not that. There are 19,000 people without power. So something was shaking up there. Certainly, we know that.

But the problem is, how much water did this 7.0 actually move? It is a large movement of the ground and considered a strong and right on the edge of a major quake.

So when the earth is moved close to the bottom of the ocean floor, very close to that, that means a lot of water got pushed. And somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15 of these seven earthquakes happened per year. So one per month.

But they typically don't happen so close to land. This was not very far offshore.

There will be aftershocks. We know that people are already feeling them there. But it's the shallow part of the quake that is the problem. It's the movement of the water.

If you're down around San Francisco area, somewhere probably still another 30 minutes for that wave to arrive. But in closer to northern parts of Oregon, also, of course, at Fort Bragg. It happened already about 20 minutes ago.

But if you get close to that coast and you don't have a lot of time to get warnings -- we know the phones were going off. We know those alarms were going off. And it said, head to higher ground.

So hopefully, if you needed to head for higher ground, your phone did go off as well. There was the emergency alert system there that went off.

But this is part of the Ring of Fire. Brianna. This is expected. We expected the Cascadia Subduction Zone to, well, go off one day, and maybe today it did. We'll have to see if the 7.0 holds, and we'll have to see if that depth holds. The depth is the problem.

KEILAR: All right. And this is just -- it's so important, Chad.

I should just note that we are looking at some coastal video. As you noted, it's always pretty wavy up there off the rugged northern California coast, especially in the winter. But we'll be keeping an eye on the waves to see what happens.

Chad Myers, thank you so much.

[14:39:53]

We're going to have more news when CNN NEWS CENTRAL comes back.

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MARQUARDT: We will have much more ahead on our breaking news. Five million people on the west coast under tsunami warnings right now. We'll have more on that ahead.

In the meantime, in the White House, a debate is taking place over a move that, at one point might, have been unthinkable: Should the president preemptively pardon people who could be targeted by the federal government after Donald Trump is sworn in as president next month?

According to "Politico," Biden aides are discussing doing that for Dr. Anthony Fauci, Senator-Elect Adam Schiff and former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

CNN contributor and former Nixon White House counsel, John Dean, is joining us now to discuss all of this.

So, John, according to this "Politico" report by Jonathan Martin, officials in the White House are concerned about offering blanket pardons to those who have committed no crimes.

[14:45:07]

Do you think that could be problematic?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't see an issue really. What they're what they're offering by granting a pardon would be a safe harbor.

It doesn't mean that the person -- while there is sometimes in the case law presumption that a person accepts a pardon is conceding guilt, that really isn't true. It's the circumstances and situation. Here, the president would be offering a safe harbor.

I thought Jennifer Rubin, in "The Washington Post" this morning, did a wonderful explanation of this issue.

MARQUARDT: But it is unclear, John, whether Trump will actually act on these promises of revenge.

So is the possibility that he could reason enough for Biden to issue those pardons?

DEAN: I think that is. And certainly, some of his aides have been much more, vicious, if you will, in saying they're going to attack his enemies when they get in power.

Kash Patel, there's going to be a big issue if he, indeed, has a confirmation hearing. What does he have in mind? He's issued a list in his book of deep state people that he doesn't see with favor.

So, you know, I think the broad-brush general kind of amnesty that has been offered in the past -- we go back to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion. He didn't know any of the people who might use the pardon, but he issued it to give them safety.

Same thing happened with Lincoln and Andrew Johnson during the Civil War. More recently, Jimmy Carter did it for draft dodgers during Vietnam.

So it's not an unusual situation to do this. But it provides protection for people who don't need to be taken and dragged through the criminal process for behavior that has now been forgiven.

MARQUARDT: So there is that precedent.

How do you think Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter, factors into this potential decision on these preemptive pardons?

DEAN: Well, he was -- I think, a lot of the decision to change his mind, because he had been very clear during the campaign he was not going to issue a pardon. But when he was -- it was brought to his attention how irregular the prosecution had been and how political it had been, and what the potential in the future might hold for his son, he saw the situation.

That same situation exists for a lot of people who've done nothing but speak out and participate in the process, from Hillary Clinton to Liz Cheney and Jack Smith, the special counsel, and his staff.

They don't deserve to be -- any of these people, nor people in the media like you and I.

MARQUARDT: Yes, a really interesting debate with so much uncertainty ahead.

John Dean, thank you very much.

DEAN: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: And up next, we'll be speaking with a city manager in northern California that comes right after that 7.0 earthquake offshore. Five million people along that long stretch of coastline under a tsunami warning right now.

We'll be right back.

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[14:52:39]

KEILAR: We're following our breaking news. Nearly five million people in northern California and Oregon under a tsunami warning after a 7.0- magnitude earthquake just off the west coast.

Joining us now on the phone is Miles Slattery. He is the city manager for Eureka, California, which is a town in an area that is under the tsunami warning.

Tell us, how are you and city officials preparing? What are you seeing?

MILES SLATTERY, (D), CITY MANAGER, EUREKA, CALIFORNIA (via telephone): So, we just started -- well, it didn't just start, but prior to the warning, we evacuated the area of town that's in the red zone, which is basically north of Fourth Street here in Eureka, and had everybody move south of fourth street.

It's basically our old town, kind of commercial area of town, as well as an industrial portion of our town. So that area of town has been evacuated.

The National Weather Service told us that it was supposed to come around 11:15, but there was a 45-minute to an hour window of when it could come. And so we're kind of in a holding pattern right now with those locations evacuated.

I just drove by Eureka Slough, which is attached to the bay, and we're not seeing any evidence of one, but we're still preparing as if it may still come.

KEILAR: And we are actually looking at some live pictures of the sea off the coast of northern California.

Miles, tell us what the quake was like. I mean, people in California, anyone near the big fault there, they're used to some kind of seismic activity but this was still a pretty big one. What was it like?

SLATTERY: It was -- I mean, I've been up here for off and on for over 30 years. I would rank this, I don't even know if it'd make the top five. It was -- it was rolling.

We had one last year that was much more significant as far as on land and what it felt like on land. It was a different fault that created that one. But this one was -- was long but not quite as, I would say, violent as the previous ones. But, you know, it was a pretty good one.

We're used to it, though. And it's just this particular fault that it came from. It can create this tsunami that you don't have much warning for. And it can be significant. So we've always known that that was a potential.

[14:55:10]

But, yes, this one from the ground part of it, I was in my vehicle. So, to be honest with you, I didn't really feel it. But according to the people at city hall that I spoke to, it was pretty good one.

KEILAR: Yes. Hard to feel it roll when you're already rolling in your car.

But so it sounds like it was more of like a roller than kind of a shaker. And I say that -- I'm from -- I grew up in southern California, so I've been through a few quakes myself.

But it sounds like you're saying this was one that sort of rolled instead of feeling so violent?

SLATTERY: Yes. The other one was much more violent and had a roll that was long. And it was a little over a year ago, but that one was pretty significant. We had a lot of damage in that one.

This one -- that our car dispatch haven't received a lot of reports of damage or broken gas lines. The previous one, we were inundated with it.

We haven't had time because of the evacuation to go out and do windshield surveys to assess damage. But based on the calls that we've received that are dispatched, we haven't had anywhere near the -- the structural damage that we had in the previous one.

KEILAR: That's really interesting.

So in your area, as you said, it's sort of common knowledge that, you know, at some point, if there's a quake, you may be dealing with tsunami. What -- what is kind of the preparation for folks who are right there

on the beach? Maybe they live there or they operate a business there. What's the awareness level? And the -- I don't know, do they drill for this kind of thing? What do they do?

SLATTERY: Yes, we do. With our police and our emergency operations at the county of Humboldt, we do drills and practice and go to trainings related to tsunami response and just general earthquake response.

As far as the community and notifications, we have signage in all of the tsunami runup areas and that signage tells them either to go to high ground or go to a certain location.

And we have a spit on the outside of Humboldt Bay that has a bunch of dunes, and that is an area of potential for run up to happen. But there's dunes in a close proximity that they could go to high -- higher ground to avoid it.

But here in town, which is on the inward bay side of it, it's -- you know, people have this perception of it being, you know, some waves that you can pull out your board and paddle into. It's not that type of thing.

It's just more of an extreme fluctuation in the tide and it's increasing and getting to a level where it can flood the area. But it's not a -- you know, a big wave that comes in and we can paddle out into.

KEILAR: Yes. No, definitely worth noting.

And did -- did you get an alert on your cell phone? I mean, is everyone sort of in the affected area alerted that way?

SLATTERY: Yes. Similar to an Amber Alert. Yes. And I'm on a -- I'm on an emergency operations center. Sends text messages. And I get information through the National Weather Service.

So I got multiple, not only from just generic National Weather Service, but also kind of an Amber Alert-style for that as well.

KEILAR: All right. Well, Miles, listen, thanks for talking to us. All the best to you as we wait for this window to close. And, hopefully, nothing happens is obviously the hope. Thanks for being with us.

SLATTERY: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: All right, Miles Slattery, thank you.

We'll have more breaking news when CNN CENTRAL -- CNN NEWS CENTRAL comes back.

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