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New Questions Over New Orleans Safety Precautions; Terrorists Using Vehicles as Weapons; Authorities Ramp Up Security Ahead of Sugar Bowl; Brutal Blasts of Arctic Air. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired January 02, 2025 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:33:17]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning there are new concerns being raised over the security preparations for Bourbon Street and surrounding landmarks in New Orleans. CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look at how the deadly New Year's attack unfolded, and why the preparations in place, the way they had things set up, were unable to prevent it.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The city of New Orleans has known for years that the huge crowds on Bourbon Street are a potential target for terrorists. Why is that such an attraction? Well, it's an attraction in its own right, but it's also just a short distance away from Jackson Square, one of the big attractions there from Preservation Jazz Hall, just a short distance away, from Canal Street, this huge artery running through the middle of the city, and from the Superdome as well, which also is not that far away. That's why there are always big crowds here. They've always known this was a potential terrorist target.
So, why were they unable to protect it? Partially because the city was in the middle of a program to replace these steel bollards to stop cars from being able to go down the road. They wanted to have a better working system in place before the Super Bowl coming up.
The problem is, while they're in the process of replacing, there are going to be questions about whether what they were doing to stop anyone getting down here was enough. Was it enough to simply have a police car blocking the end of the road there? If you watch the video of this truck driving in, which just goes right around it, clearly it was not enough. In fact, the truck only stopped when it seemed to hit some kind of a lifting crane down the way there.
So, there are going to be serious questions about that, and there have to be, because now the Sugar Bowl is back on, Mardi Gras is going to start shortly, Jazz Fest, the Super Bowl coming up in a little more than a month.
[09:35:05] Millions of people are going to come to New Orleans. And like the millions before, they will go to Bourbon Street. And absolutely people in that community are asking, how do we know? What is the plan? Explain to us specifically what you'll do to protect those people. Maybe it'll take some time to work that out, but people are going to want to know that. And, fair enough, they deserve an answer.
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BERMAN: Yes, our thanks to Tom Foreman for that. Clearly, changes need to be made.
This morning, officials are assuring football fans in New Orleans they will be safe at the Sugar Bowl set for later today.
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[09:40:23]
SIDNER: The horror that we saw on Bourbon Street, sadly, not unfamiliar. The deadly attack is one of several in the past decades where attackers used a vehicle to terrorize and kill in large crowds.
CNN's Brian Todd explains why terrorists are repeatedly using vehicles as deadly weapons.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): One witness to the New Orleans attack says she can't unhear the screams of the victims.
KIMBERLY STRICKLIN, WITNESSED NEW ORLEANS ATTACK: I remember the screeching and him gunning the car and the impact and the screams. Like I said, the screams of those girls. I mean, I don't know that I'll be able to forget that.
TODD (voice over): The kind of horror that many cities have experienced in recent years when attackers turn vehicles into weapons.
Just a few days before this Christmas, a car slams into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing at least five people, injuring more than 200. The suspect, a doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who'd expressed anti-Muslim far right views.
Like Magdeburg and New Orleans, other cities have experienced horrific vehicle attacks during holidays.
November 2021, a suspect with a long criminal history drives an SUV through the annual Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six, injuring more than 60.
Berlin, December 2016, a tractor trailer rams into a crowd at a bustling Christmas market, killing at least 12 people, injuring dozens of others. The suspect, a rejected asylum seeker, was later killed in a shootout with police in Italy. And the deadliest vehicle attack ever. July 14, 2016, Bastille Day in
Nice, France. A Tunisian-born French resident drives a 20-ton truck nearly a mile through a crowded seaside promenade. Eighty-six people killed, more than 200 others wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility.
Why do these vehicle attacks often seem more deadly than other tactics?
PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: A vehicle attack doesn't require any special training. You just rent a vehicle, buy a vehicle, and use it as a weapon.
Secondly, just like school shooters, look at Columbine or other famous school shootings, and kind of obsess about them. And terrorists examine other terrorists and they say, well, what worked? Clearly, vehicle rammings have worked.
TODD (voice over): October 2017, an Islamic extremist from Uzbekistan jumps a curb in a rental truck in Manhattan, drives down a bicycle path along the west side highway and kills eight people. Authorities found a note near the truck claiming the attack was in the name of ISIS.
A couple of months earlier, a domestic extremist, a white nationalist, slammed his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one woman and injuring almost 20 others. Analyst Peter Bergen says vehicle attacks with their bloodcurdling optics have a distinct psychological impact.
BERGEN: Certainly, there is a short term effect where it terrorizes people. People are worried about going out in places where there are a lot of people gathered.
TODD: Security analysts say one somewhat common characteristic of these vehicle attacks is that many of them took place in cities where tourism is a key part of the local economy. One official with the New Orleans Tourism Association says it's too early to tell what effect this attack will have on tourism in that city, which was still trying to recover from tourism declines stemming from the Covid pandemic and even from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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SIDNER: Now to security officials in New Orleans who are insisting this morning that today's rescheduled Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame will be safe and secure.
CNN sports anchor Andy Scholes has more for us.
What are you hearing from game officials now as people obviously are concerned about their safety?
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, well, Sara, officials say that they will be considerably beefing up the security in the French Quarter and around the Superdome today.
You know, as any big game in the city, you know, most fans, they stay in the French Quarter and then they walk down Poydras Street to get to the stadium. The superintendent of New Orleans police, Anne Kirkpatrick, said on the "Today" show earlier this morning that that walk will be safe for fans.
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ANNE KIRKPATRICK, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE: We are not alone. We are in partnership with many other partners, both local, federal, military, police and so forth will be here. And so, we are going to have absolutely hundreds of officers and staff lining our streets, lining Bourbon Street, lining the French Quarter. So, we - we are staffing up at the same level, if not more so than what we were preparing for a Super Bowl.
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[09:45:04]
SCHOLES: That Super Bowl in New Orleans next month.
Now, with the game postponed yesterday, Georgia's football team did hold a walk through at the Superdome last night, while Notre Dame held meetings at their hotel. And Fighting Irish Head Coach Marcus Freeman, we spoke with ESPN about getting his team ready under these tough circumstances.
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MARCUS FREEMAN, NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH: We will mourn and pray for our country and we have support systems around here for anybody that needs someone to talk to or have support. But we also have to be prepared for this great opportunity that we have tomorrow in the Sugar Bowl.
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SCHOLES: Yes, and kickoff today is going to be at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. The winner of the Sugar Bowl moves on to face Penn State in the Orange Bowl a week from today. Now, this was the first time in the Sugar Bowls' 91-year history that it was postponed. And, you know, Sara, moving a game with this magnitude, with so many fans traveling in for it, obviously very tough. Airlines - the four major airlines have issued a travel advisory for New Orleans, allowing people to rebook their flights for free.
SIDNER: Wow, so unfortunate.
Andy Scholes, thank you so much. Appreciate you.
SCHOLES: All right.
SIDNER: Ahead, dangerously cold weather is rolling in over the next few days for millions of Americans. How low will those temperatures get? We will discuss. And it's a comeback no one would root for. It's really rare, but it is
possible. Your tonsils can grow back?
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[09:50:50]
BERMAN: All right, this week, dangerous blasts of arctic air expected to drop temperatures for millions across the country. Meteorologist Elisa Raffa is tracking the forecast this morning.
What can we expect?
ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's about to get cold out there, John. Some of the coldest air of the season so far.
Today we still have a lot of that cold bottled up to the north in the usual places, the northern plains, the Great Lakes, interior New England. It's not really until later in the weekend that some of that cold really starts to spill south. And this storm is going to be the trigger for it. It develops on Saturday, and then by Sunday really blows up with a lot of moisture. We've got a cold rain for most of the southeast. Could be some heavy snow and then a stripe of maybe some significant icing. That ice could be stretching from the Ozarks to the Tennessee and the Ohio Valleys. That could be significant, causing dangerous travel, problems with trees and power lines. Again, some of that snow could be heavy. So, we're watching that winter portion of this very closely.
You get some of the snow and the ice because we do have some cold air that it tries to tap into. But behind that storm it's going to pull in even more cold air and that outbreak of arctic air comes in as we go into the workweek and that's just round one of several rounds as we go through the next couple of days and weeks in January. We'll find temperatures 15 to 25 degrees below average by Monday, from Kansas City to Nashville, starting to spread eastward by Tuesday and Wednesday, Atlanta with temperatures pretty chilly, 15 to 20 degrees below average, Nashville, Saint Louis, Cincinnati.
We're looking at more than 70 percent of the lower 48 with temperatures well below freezing. We'll find these temperatures again just really cold, and it gets even colder by the middle of January.
John.
BERMAN: I was going to say, cold and then colder. Thanks for that.
RAFFA: Yes.
BERMAN: Happy New Year.
Elisa Raffa, appreciate it.
Sara.
RAFFA: Happy New Year. SIDNER: All right, police in New York are searching for multiple
suspects and a motive after ten people, including several minors, were injured in a drive-by shooting outside a nightclub in Queens. They were standing in line there when the bullets began to fly. Officials say four men attacked a group who were waiting in line, firing about 30 rounds before fleeing in a light-colored sedan. Police are asking for the public's help in finding the suspects. The victims were taken to area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. They are all expected to recover.
Disbelief and shock. A Michigan woman said she is just wowed by the fact that she would have to have her tonsils removed for a second time. Yes, two times. It is rare. But doctors say her tonsils grew back 40 years after they removed them in 1983. Studies show this only happens in 1 to 6 percent of all tonsillectomies. The patient says she has been supported by doting loved ones - I love that - but has been surprised about how brutal the recovery has been.
BERMAN: I just can't believe -
SIDNER: It's -
BERMAN: It was 1983?
SIDNER: Yes. I'm like, 40 years. That - I guess it takes a long time for those tonsils too.
BERMAN: All right. I didn't know that was even a thing, but apparently it can happen so I've been told backstage over the last several minutes.
SIDNER: Yes.
BERMAN: All right, the most popular album in the United States the last week was a brand new K-pop album by a group called The Stray Kids. It's just the latest example of K-pop's exploding popularity inside the United States.
Sunday nights "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER" takes a look at how these immensely popular groups actually come together.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Explain it to me. What is this trainee program?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The trainee program, it's almost 24/7. You find these young people, and they're going to train from early in the morning to late at night, and they're doing everything, dancing, singing, rapping, fitness.
LAH (voice over): This is industry wide. All K-pop companies have similar versions of this demanding trainee program.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We arrive at the company at 9:50 and we go to the gym at 10 to 12. Two-hour cardio. And we do this exercise to.
LAH: That's a lot of exercise.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
[09:55:01]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then we eat lunch for an hour and then we all have different classes, like group vocal lessons, rap, dance and vocal lessons. So, it's all in between 1 to 10.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they're very young, they have to go to school. And then right after school they have to train.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I wake up, get ready, then go to school at 8:30 a.m. I stay until just the second period, then take the bus to come to the office. When I get home, it's around 12.
LAH: That's late.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
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BERMAN: All right, I can't wait to see this. I love how Kyung Lah tells a story.
This report airs Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on this new episode of "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER." It takes two - I thought, because I -
SIDNER: What's your favorite K-pop band? I knew that would stump you, John?
BERMAN: That one, Stray Kids, because that's the one I know.
SIDNER: There's BTS, there's Blackpink. Like, I'm into Blackpink. I like them. I think they're good.
BERMAN: I was going to say though, because I was thinking K-pop might be an alternative for me, you know, just going forward.
SIDNER: You might be good at it.
BERMAN: But it takes too much work. It's more work than I'm willing to put in. Just saying.
SIDNER: We'll just stick to doing this.
BERMAN: Do this instead.
Thank you all for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. A lot of news this morning. "NEWSROOM" is up next.
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