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Hurricane Ike Hits Houston
Aired September 13, 2008 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Ike strikes even as the storm loses strength, it is hitting Texas pretty hard. Still a tropical storm. There are rescues underway right now and we're getting a new video of the flooding as well as the damage. Continuing our breaking news coverage, I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.
A little more than a dozen hours ago, Ike roared ashore in Texas. Let's give you a rundown of the latest developments of Ike's direct hit on the Gulf Coast there in Texas. The storm is flushing northward now as tropical storm. It was downgrade just two hours ago. But take a look right now at what resulted from Hurricane Ike.
And Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff is still telling those in Ike's path to stay vigilant, as a threat of danger remains. Search and rescue efforts are underway right now for an estimated 100,000- plus people who ignored the evacuation orders all along the coast. We have now confirmed four deaths related to Ike.
Let's bring in our CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf. He's in Surf Side beach, which is about an hour outside of Houston and west of Galveston. Let's take a look right now at some of the live images if we can. There he is. Very lonely soul, and that's a good thing, Reynolds, because people there at least did heed the warning to evacuate, all except that one lone die-hard resident. Right?
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That one lone resident, yes. I think you're talking about Ray Wilkinson.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
WOLF: He's an interesting character. He rode out the storm, the surge came in, he thinks it was around pretty much said the same thing the mayor was saying, it was high, maybe anywhere from eight to ten feet. Considering I'm about 6'4", that's pretty high. You see the sign behind me, blue water highway, think it was living up to pretty much that name, just around 12 hours ago, or at least during the overnight hours. When have you that kind of water and you have that kind of storm surge, you're going to see something like this over here.
You see this big pile of debris that we got scattered on this side of the intersection, Fredricka? Well, this was actually scattered all over the place. But they piled it all up with a bulldozer to make it easier for crews to get through here, and I'll tell you, it is a jumbled mess. I mean, you've got big pieces of I suppose parts of piers. Let's see, all kinds of logs, it is just one big, nasty mess. Smell some kind of chemical in here, too, maybe even a little bit of petroleum.
Speaking of petroleum, take a look at this big drum over here. This drum happens to be filled and actually leaking now with oil, so not up to capacity, no doubt. Then over here on the other side of the intersection here, you see what appears to be either a cooler, maybe it was a - guess maybe a refrigerator. I'm going to jog over a little faster and see if we can get a look at it. It is actually filled with nothing. You know, that's what a lot of people are going to come home to. They're going to come home and try to find their homes and it will just be a slab of concrete. Because there are actually some places closer to the beach and that's going to be the story. They're going to come home and where they used to go to celebrate times with family and friends, it's going to be nothing more than just a slab, a slab of concrete.
Back here, you've got a couple of businesses. These guys are cleaning up, they're doing what they can to kind of restore a little bit of normalcy to this place. And speaking of normalcy, it's going to be a while for that to happened, to be restored in Brazoria County. A lot of the counties, at least a lot of cities in the country are actually going to be under a bit of a curfew. They want people off the streets. There have been reports of looting in the area.
Rescue crews have been going around. Thankfully, there have been no deaths reported in Brazoria county, but you know, it's still early. It still may take awhile for crews to get around and check on everyone. Fredricka, there are thousands, not hundreds but thousands of trees that's are knocked down all across many of the roads in Brazoria county. So it is going to be a real, real test, real test, and it's going to be a real exercise in futility for many people for the first couple of hours, but by tomorrow it will get a little bit better and better, and it's going to get better, I would say, definitely as we get to the middle of the week. See a lot of the crews here, way down, as far as you can see, some up here in the foreground, these guys are going to be working around the clock doing what they can to restore again a little bit of normalcy.
But restoring power is going to be something all together different. We got 1.3 million people without power in the state of Texas. And those tree that have not been knocked down, some of those are still weak because the strong winds that we're still feeling now, very shallow root systems. So there's a chance that you could have more power lines that are still live, still supplying power, you could have those trees knocked down which means more power outages.
So this is going to be a big struggle for the state of Texas, a true test but I'm sure they're up to it. They always seem to be.
WHITFIELD: Yes. It's dangerous and it's painstaking, people are going to have to be really very patient. Because while they may be very anxious to go home and you know, check out what may or may no longer be there, they've got to know that it's really still very dangerous, and the governor said that last hour, it is still a very dangerous situation.
WOLF: Absolutely. WHITFIELD: Not just because tropical storm is still in the state, but because they don't know, you know, what kinds of damage left in its wake.
WOLF: Absolutely. You know, that makes perfect sense. I mean, it's human nature. I mean, you have people that left these houses, you see up there in the distance, you know, in a hurry, probably took off, some of them took what they could in their arms, put it in their car and they took off but you know, they've got wedding silver, they got picture albums, things they weren't able to take, and I'm sure there's a lot of panic for a lot of people. And they're wondering my gosh, is that China set still there? Is that thing my dad gave me, is that still in that house? I mean, did the Gulf of Mexico take it away? I mean, there are legitimate fears and let's keep our fingers crossed for those people. They're scared to death right now.
WHITFIELD: That's right. Well, let's hope that people packed their patience and wait for the official word from emergency responders who have yet to make their way completely to the area where you are, and then the neighbors there in Galveston. We'll try to keep them posted as best we can. Reynolds, appreciate it. Thanks so much.
WOLF: Anytime, Fred.
WHITFIELD: Well, then you head a little further north, a lot further north, in fact, to Baytown, Texas where there are a number of refineries, a big oil town there, particularly with Exxon Mobil being headquartered there, and we find our Ali Velshi not only in the oil refineries there but a lot of residence and we see what appears to be one resident perhaps assessing the damage to his house?
ALI VELSHI, CNN, SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I'm going to tell you about the gas prices and the effect of that in a minute. But take a look at this. This pin oak tree, 90-foot tree ending up on this house. There's a lot of trees down on this neighborhood that we're in now. There's a lot of damage to Baytown. Some of it floodings, some of it trees.
Russell Futrell lives in this house. He wasn't here last night. He came in. He's got a pretty calm disposition. This is your second or third time back, I guess you're sort of taking it all in. You drove in when the storm calmed down this morning, just a little before we got here. What were you expecting to see, and what did you feel like when you saw this?
RUSSELL FUTRELL, BAYTOWN, TEXAS RESIDENT: I had some trees I thought were dead, I thought they would fall, they're little 40-foot pin oaks over here, and I didn't think it would be anything major. We drove in on the road, a pin oak on this side, and looked like a bomb had gone off in the neighborhood. Trees down everywhere. I said, man, these poor people. I can't imagine what's going to happen when I get over here. I didn't see anything, just a few branches on houses, get here, biggest tree I have sitting on top of the house. I was just shocked. You know, I said, the wife pulled up, she didn't even see it and I said it hit us. It got us this time. So - VELSHI: How are you feeling about this? I notice you've come back a few times, you're taking some pictures. You're just trying to take stock of what's going on now, what you're going to do about it?
FUTRELL: Right. It's too dangerous up high like that. That's 60 feet off the ground laying above that roof, and I'm not going to do it myself, I'm going to hire somebody to take it off the roof. I've called the insurance. They're supposed to come in and let me know what I need to do. I've got a swimming pool cover for my pool in the backyard, I'll try to cover the entire second story to keep more water out of the house.
VELSHI: All right. We'll keep an eye on what's going on over here. This is just one of the stories that's going on. You're seeing cleanup going on down the street.
Now let me tell you about gasoline. You talked about Baytown. The Baytown Exxon Mobil refinery is the biggest one on the continent, 590,000 barrels of oil converted to gas every day. It and 13 other refineries in Texas were shut down because of this storm. They have not been started up. The oil companies are trying to investigate and see what kind of damage has been done, whether there's flooding, but one of the problems is there isn't power. A lot of people are reporting that these refineries power themselves. They have generator power for certain facilities. They can't refine oil on that generator power. We've got estimates now that gas prices could rise to a national average of anywhere from just under $4 a gallon to as high as $5 a gallon.
We've seen in some states jumps of more than 20 cents a gallon overnight. The national average has jumped by six cents. That's one of the biggest jumps we've ever seen. Again, it will be 24 to 48 hours before we have an assessment of the damage to the nation's refineries, but one quarter of the country's gasoline is refined here in Texas. So there's a lot of damage assessment to be done. Fred.
WHITFIELD: Wow, that's pretty extraordinary. And then Ali, when you mention they can't refine oil on generator power, and if we're talking about power that is out that's affecting upwards of four million people or two million houses and businesses, how long might that particular refinery be able to operate on generator power? We're not talking about the conversion because that can't happen -
VELSHI: Right.
WHITFIELD: But just simply as a business, how long - what kind of generator power, you know, can get them through the next few days or even weeks?
VELSHI: Well, that's a very good question. First of all we heard from the oil companies, what they're trying to do is get their distribution points up and running on generator power so the trucks can go fill the gas that's been refined and take them to stations in the area so that residents can move on. Then they're moving into getting they're investigating the offshore platforms and the refineries getting staff back to those places and getting power back. But if the grid is not up and running for two to fewer weeks, I mean, the refineries will probably get priority because they need to get that oil out. But if it's more than a week, that could be a problem.
I just want to give your viewers one piece of information, Fred, that we've got from the Department of Energy, and we'll get you guys to put this up at some point, but if you think you are being gouged. If you are at a gas station that you think is gouging you, take that information down and the government would like it reported. They want you to go to a website that's called gaswatch.energy.gov. Gaswatch.energy.gov. I will continue to bring you that e-mail address and I'll ask our producers to make sure they bring that to you. The Department of Energy and numerous state governments around here are pretty clear, they want to know if people are gouging. In a couple states it's against the law but they want to know people are not being taken advantage of because of the situation that they're in. Fred.
WHITFIELD: Gaswatch.energy.gov, is that what you said?
VELSHI: That's correct.
WHITFIELD: All right. We got it. We'll keep that up to let people know if they're experiencing $4, $5, $6 gas and they know that something's wrong about that picture, they need to report it and see what can be done. All right. Thanks so much. Ali Velshi there in Baytown.
Meantime, let's talk a little bit more about Ike. No longer a hurricane, but it is a tropical storm. And it's still in the east part of Texas, making its way to western Arkansas. Our Chris Smith is joining us from the hurricane headquarters with a better assessment of exactly what kind of punch this storm could still be packing.
CHRIS SMITH, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's still packing a bit of a pinch. I mean, I'll show you in a second some of the winds still kicking up there. And even the tidal surges are very slow to come down in some locations, some still eight feet above the typical tide for this, what you typically are seeing.
Here's what's going on right now. Most of the heaviest of the rainfall continuing to lift up toward the north. The center is up near Tyler, Texas. The Dallas-Ft. Worth area, you are just on the cusp of this, probably going to come out without a whole lot in a way of any rainfall, certainly towards the Ft. Worth area, not going to be seeing a whole lot in the ay of any rainfall.
We can zoom in and show you exactly what's going on. Look at some of the winds that we have here. Now, this is kind of a loop of what the winds have been doing. But we notice here, you see still 40 miles an hour. Notice how the south, we're generally out south to southwest over here at 32 miles an hour, 38 miles an hour. Look at how far inland that is. Here you would expect to still have some gusty winds but this far inland still looking at 40 miles an hour, and then have you have more of a westerly wind over there with about 15 miles an hour as everything continues to spiral around the circulation.
Now because of the south to southwesterly winds. That's still trying to pile some water up here into Galveston Bay. And so Anwalk, which is right about there, you're still about eight feet above what your typical tide is because of the gusty winds, 20, 30, 40 miles an hour continuing to try to push this water up. If it's not enough, it's slowly receding but still nonetheless, it's still a pretty powerful storm system here.
Zooming in a little bit closer, you'll see Houston, the heaviest of the rainfall continuing to lift up to the north, mainly spotty showers around the Houston metro area. Galveston Island, you're dry for now. Still, the tornado watch that's in effect, that goes until about 7:00 this evening Central time but still tornado warnings popping up from time to time inside that watch so keep a weather eye to the sky.
Now one of the other things that we can go ahead and do is show you here, we have this storm system moving north at 16 right near Tyler, Texas. What's going to gradually happen is this storm will lift up towards the north to northeast and zip just like that but it is going to produce a ton of rainfall. Five to possibly ten inches of rainfall could occur generally in this swath right here. And you've already gotten a whole bunch of rainfall up toward St. Louis. You're going to get more rainfall up into Indiana. So again this storm system is not done yet. Yes, the winds may not be 100, 110 miles per hour, but we are going to deal with the threat of tornadoes as we go throughout tonight and into tomorrow, and also again, the heavy rainfall, five to ten inches well away from the coastline. Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks for the warning. Appreciate it, Chris.
All morning long we've been telling you about the importance of Texas, particularly the Houston area. How, what takes place there as a result of this hurricane that certainly impacted a lot of us. All corners of the country from oil, gas and we're also talking about it happens to be the home of one of the big busiest ports in America.
Our Sean Callebs has been making his way around the shipping channel and assessing the damage. He'll be bringing us some new images from there. We'll also take a look at your i-reports from this storm. Coming up.
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WHITFIELD: All right. The port of Houston right before the break I mention, it is one of the nation's busiest, but it's a far different sort of traffic now in the wake of Hurricane Ike taking place there. The port area, awash in flood waters from the storm, lots of debris now littering the roadways and the water ways as well. That's where our Sean Callebs is. He's been kind of driving around, very dangerously driving around. And where have you stopped now?
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are now at the end of the bridge that separates the town of (Kemah) from the town of Seabrook. And the last time we chatted about an hour ago, you told me you had seen images of debris. Well, we found the debris. If you look, I'm going to step slowly here. Once again, we're broadcasting via broadband. So the picture is going to lock up and freeze just a little bit, it will be a little herky jerky but what you're looking at are bits of homes there, sofas here. There are doors. There are picture frames. You see parts of shingles, a roof from a home, it just goes on and on and on.
And basically it has littered this - the end of this bridge here that separates these two towns, right along Galveston Bay. Again, we're going to pan over this way. This is actually the road that would normally lead down to the town of (Kemah). Well, follow these double yellow lines and you're going to end up in Galveston Bay. Really quite a mess down in this area.
We've seen a number of law enforcement officers here as well, also Blackhawk helicopters have been flying, and they appear to be going a little bit further south, and they could very well be going to the Galveston area, where so much of the focus is going to be on. But this is among the worst damage, the worst simply debris that has been scattered widely, coming over that bridge. It's kind of a tall bridge as you get to the top it have and look down. You just see, you know, bits of homes. People's lives just simply scattered all over this thoroughfare.
The police are closing the road. We were allowed in, but if anyone wants to get down and see how his or her home fared, that's going to be the tough news because they're not allowed in at this point. And like so many parts of the state, this area is virtually without electricity right now. The cleanup is just going to be very exhaustive and the heart break is going to be even more intense. Fred.
WHITFIELD: Wow, and I guess some assurance, you know, to a lot of those residents who want to make their way back to that Seabrook area, that Kemah area and they can't get in, they have to feel comforted that nobody else can get in either because I know a lot of times people are worried about the looting and what remnants of their property may be available. They're afraid that somebody's going to take their property. Well obviously is not going to happen here since you've got those police barricades up. That's maybe the bright side, right?
CALLEBS: Right. You know, and at times like this you see law enforcement working so closer together. When we got to the end of this bridge there was actually a state wildlife department, and they had automatic weapons, so they were doing their part as well. Just across the way at the marina, a lot of expensive boats in that area too. So, it wouldn't take much for somebody to get out here and try and clean up as best they could and clearly that's what the authorities are trying to avoid.
It's just - the damage is just unbelievable. We have been driving - we left Houston early this morning, finally got our way out of there after driving around on all the broken glass and the debris littered everywhere. Basically, trying to get to this port, this Galveston Bay, the shipping channel area. Very, very difficult to get over here. We tried a number of ways, turned around at almost every turn. Some roads were simply washed out, others police had blocked because that area had undergone a mandatory evacuation and they didn't want people back in those areas. We brought you those images of trees down in some neighborhoods.
It's just amazing what Ike did to this area. Just such a massive storm. It's easy to remember how big it was, but when you get around and look and just drive for hours and you see debris as far as the eye can go, you know, and that truck right there. The Texas General Land Office oil spilled, I went down to look at the water a short while ago and there's a nasty sheen on it. You have to think that since the bay jumped - it swamped the town of Kemah, came all the way in, think about the contaminants that are going through septic tanks, that are going through propane, and going through just about everything and now it's kind of cooking in its own, you know, nasty stew ought here.
WHITFIELD: And all that compounded by what you were just talking about, how difficult it was for you to get to that location and traverse that area in order to see this kind of damage, that really just kind of underscores the many layers that have to take place before there's any real semblance of even emergency responders, first responders to try and clear the way for any residents to ever make their way back there, let alone restore power or anything like that.
CALLEBS: First this water has to go back.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
CALLEBS: This water is just - I was down here for Edouard, and we were debating on doing a live shot from here, luckily that storm missed the area, so I do have a frame of reference of what this looked like before and it looked markedly different right now.
WHITFIELD: Terrible. All right. Sean Callebs, thanks so much from Kemah, Texas there.
Well, of course, we've been getting some invaluable video and information from our i-reporters helping us to kind of navigate all that's taking place there in Texas. Josh Levs is back with us now, also navigating the flood of material we've been receiving.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's incredible stuff. I'm so struck by what Sean just said about cooking in a nasty stew. That's quite a powerful image we got. And I'm thinking of what we're getting here as part of that brew because what we have from our i- reporters who are all over the stricken region. In fact, let's close in on the screen just a second - you beat me do it. Good.
These are some of the latest ones that we have at ireport.com. Let me just scroll down a little bit. I want you to see where some of these are coming from. We got Montgomery, Texas, Houston, a whole bunch coming to us from Houston. A whole of different reporters sending us from the stricken area. You can see that whole bunch from Houston, just coming right through.
In fact, let's go to these first ones we have in a prettier version for you from Tony Hooks who took these. He went out into this storm, and he said it was pretty incredible the things he was seeing. Let me tell you a little bit about his story. He says he lives on the seventh floor of his building. He had tree limbs on his balcony. He saw pieces of other buildings nearby falling off. He says his loft is now missing windows because he was right in the middle of all of that.
Let's also go to what we got from Cris Gilliam. We're going to shift east a little bit. We're going to take these over to Cris Gilliam because he took these in (dolphin area), Alabama. That's another stricken area that we're not hearing that much about, but keep in mind, as Ike is working it's way through the entire Gulf, all the way over to the east side, the west coast of Florida got a lot of this too. And we are getting a lot of i-reports from there.
Look at the flooding there, Fred. I mean, just some amazing stuff. People are also sending us video i-reports. And let's end with this right here. I want you to take a look at this. This comes from Witold Piorun who went out to this, inside Houston at a time that did turn out to be safe, but obviously once he was out there, he saw it was not such a good idea to stay out there.
I want to encourage you, you know, if you have videos and photos, send them along to ireport.com, but we talked to everyone first and made sure they didn't go into danger. He didn't go to danger and taken this which is why I'm comfortable showing this to you. But look at that, Fred. He took this last night. You're going to see what it looks like to someone who lives there who stepped outside. It's so ominous. It's so overpowering. So you know, we're going to keep an eye on these throughout the day, and obviously we know that because of power and other issues, a lot of people have images but they have just haven't been able to send to us yet. So expect throughout the night and certainly tomorrow in the coming days to get more and more powerful photos, videos and just stories of what it was like to be in that stew that Sean was talking about, to be part of that storm.
WHITFIELD: Yes, this was a dangerous, killer storm. We just learned moments ago that four people have died as a result of this storm. All there in Texas.
LEVS: Yes and we're going to keep hearing those numbers.
WHITFIELD: Yes and sadly, a lot of it had to do with fallen limbs and trees coming down on homes as well. But still the early stages of the assessment. So the frightening thing is death toll really could be even higher than that.
LEVS: And we know what happens, we get missing person reports, and then they go and check it out. It could happen, and obviously everyone's hoping for the best, but we certainly know it's so disastrous.
Thanks to these people who could send in these images. We could really see what it was like for them, not just for the trained professionals who knew how to go to these scenes but for people who lived there and hadn't gotten out and were stuck in that storm.
WHITFIELD: Josh, thank you.
LEVS: You got it. Thanks, Fred. WHITFIELD: And we will be hearing from the head of FEMA to see how the federal government is responding to Ike's aftermath. We'll also talk to a man who knows all about dealing with the damage and aftermath of a major hurricane. We're talking about Retired General Russel Honore. He's joining me after the break.
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WHITFIELD: Another breaking story we're following for you right now, 23 confirmed deaths now in California in that horrible crash yesterday of a passenger train and a freight train. Crews have been working all night and today to account for all the victims inside the mangled wreckage. They don't expect to find anymore survivors.
Back to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Ike, now Tropical Storm Ike. However, the warning, don't leave home. It's not over. Two warnings, repeated over and over again by FEMA and Texas officials. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke at a news conference just a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: In inland places this has been a very dangerous storm. Tropical storm winds on a sustained basis have now begun to move inland. There will be a lot of rain and the rain will continue to cause flooding problems as this storm moves through Texas and then further into the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: All right. Providing his perspective now on the rescue efforts now underway on the Texas Gulf coast, a very familiar face from Hurricane Katrina, Retired General Russel Honore, joining us now to give us an idea of how these rescues are being played out. We talked to Rusty Dornin earlier in Orange, Texas, right along the Louisiana border; 200 people who have been rescued by good samaritans and the sheriff's department because they didn't want to leave. They didn't heed the mandatory evacuation orders.
So what's at hand? Is this just the tip of the iceberg in terms of rescues?
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET), CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, we hope it is. Now big team is getting out. The helicopters are up and now the Coast Guard's out there, National Guard, active duty Army helicopters. They'll be able to do a big pass to see if there are any more pockets like that sheriff found out there.
WHITFIELD: Huge apparatus in place. Those Black Hawk helicopters, as you mentioned, all kind of vehicles, 1,000 personnel in one convoy alone.
HONORE: It's going to take time to get in there. You know the old be ready, be Red Cross ready, be state of Texas ready, three days of food and water on hand. Hopefully everybody heeded that, because the second biggest event after search and rescue, Fred, is going to be keeping people alive. We've got a couple million people without power. Many of them will not be able to stay in their homes.
WHITFIELD: And maybe they don't have enough water, bottled water. Not everyone stocked up sufficiently.
HONORE: And the effect of an event like this on poor people, many of them who lost work because of Gustav, followed right by Ike -- you talk about people thin on work, and now many of them used the end of the month rent money and mortgage money to move out for Gustav. Now we've got Ike.
WHITFIELD: We heard that from Rusty and a number of people who said the reason why they couldn't leave with the threat of Hurricane Ike is because they didn't have any money to pay for the gas in order to get out of town.
HONORE: The effect on the poor. So there will be a big need now for distribution points. This is where this gets harder.
WHITFIELD: How do you logistically do that?
HONORE: The evacuation is like the pregame show. Now we get into logistics, moving thousands of meals, first MREs, then transition to hot meals, right. And then getting people into temporary shelter. A lot of work left here for the Red Cross and the Salvation Army that feeds, shelter.
WHITFIELD: Are you concerned? You know of the plan. And you know of the people who can execute the plan, but when you talk about the volume of people, maybe 100,000 people in one very condensed area or region, and we're talking about upwards of four weeks maybe before power is restored and that's kind of the worst case scenario --
HONORE: Let's put it in context. We saw Gustav, there were 4.5 million people in Louisiana. About two million of them affected by the storm and absence of power. We've got four million people in where the eye of this storm and in Houston area that may be out of power, people, not homes, that will need food and water in the coming days, after we complete the search and rescue. That is going to be an enormous task. The good news is a lot of capability there for stores to come back online with generators. The optimum thing is for people to get food, take it home and cook it.
But without power -- remember, power, sets back the way we live about 80 years. You can't flush the toilets, no running water.
WHITFIELD: Finally get ice, it's only going to stick around for so long.
HONORE: Because of the 90-degree temperatures. So there's going to be a lot of stress. People need to remain calm as they can. I know it's hard to see your house destroyed, but listen to local officials, go to the shelters, do the best you can, be ready, because you're going to have to engage with the local and federal officials to apply for relief. That's going to take time. This is the hard part of dealing with the aftermath of the storm is going to come in. If they do that part like they did the evacuation, they're going to be in good shape.
Good strong county governments there. It's a function of being able to communicate with people. The problem is nobody's got power to talk now. They're not watching cable TV because the cable --
WHITFIELD: Not everyone has a battery operated radio. I know that's something you urge.
HONORE: I so the challenge is going to be to get the word to people where they go, when they go and who goes when.
WHITFIELD: The other thing you mentioned, which is a big thing, we're talking about The temperament. Tempers flare, you're uncomfortable for a long time. We're talking about South Texas. It's hot and it's humid anyway, and now you're dealing with not having power. All the reason why, perhaps, if you did evacuate area, you don't need to come back right now and not for a while, because you're only going to be short-tempered like everybody else who is kind of stuck there while all of the infrastructure and while all the necessities are not in place.
HONORE: They will -- folks out of the area will know more going on than those people in their homes. Unless they have a weather radio or way to get information -- so it's going to be challenging. This is going to be hard, and it's going to be a few days before the responders can get to the front of this thing to get accountability of everybody, as well as to get food and water to the right place at the right time, so we keep people alive. That's what these next three days is about, is keeping people alive.
WHITFIELD: General Honore, thanks so much. Always appreciate your insight, thank so much.
Ike is headed inland. In fact, it's inland, losing strength, but it is still very dangerous. We heard the governor say that, of Texas. We'll talk to a mom who rode out the storm with her family.
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WHITFIELD: We continue to watch what Hurricane Ike did. Meanwhile, another breaking story we continue to follow; 23 people have been killed in this collision in California. What's now being described as the deadliest rail car disaster in 15 years. This horrible crash taking place yesterday, involving a passenger train and a freight train. Crews have been working all last night and into today to try to account for all of the victims inside the mangled wreckage. They don't expect to find anymore survivors.
In the meantime, a press conference is taking place right now. We want to listen in from the NTSB.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They can be analyzed by our experts and others who can help readout and view -- readout the data and view the video recording recordings. That will give us a lot of information on such things as the speed of the trains, the brakes, any other kind of mechanical signals that are -- that the equipment provides, when the horn was last sounded. And we hope to have more of that information in the next few days. So that will tell us a lot about what was going on at the time of the accident.
And as I said, we are meeting with all of the other parties to the investigation and our full team at 4:00 this afternoon, and we will conduct a fuller press briefing later tonight, after we have the benefit of hearing from those who have been on scene since the beginning of this incident.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The crew members.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's the location for the news conference later on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll have to get back to you on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you say that you've got two data recorders off the Metrolink train and a video and data link off the Union Pacific Train?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We recovered two data recorders from Metrolink and a data and video recorder from the Union Pacific Train.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were they in working order?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what we have to -- we've taken them to a location where we can have them read out. We have to get our experts to that location, and that's what -- one of the things that will help determine --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your response to Metrolink saying they accept responsibility?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Again, our job is to look at everything and we certainly will talk to Metrolink. They will be a party to the investigation, and we'll be very interested in what they have to say. We know these two trains ran into each other, but we don't know all the factors that might have led to that. And that's what we want to look at before we reach a conclusion about why this happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us how many cars were involved with what -- was it an engine and three cars that all derailed?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know that now. That's one of the -- some of the facts that we have to gather. We've just gotten here. I did walk over with the governor to look at the wreckage. It's pretty dramatic, as you've seen. In terms of exactly how many cars, how many engines, I don't want to give you that now.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's my understanding. Again, that's my understanding.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have not -- to my knowledge, we have not talked to Metrolink. Again, we want the input, and the honest information provided by all the parties. But we want to look at it in context of everything else that we're being given. So I don't want to -- I -- that's part of our process. And we were -- as the governor and the mayor said, we know what happened, in the fact that these trains collided, but we don't know why it happened. That's what our job is to determine.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say it's among the worst. I've actually asked for that information. I'll be able to give you a better understanding of that when I get information from my colleagues back in Washington. But I think it's fair to say it's one of the worst that we've seen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this your investigation from the second collision or do you wait --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm glad you raised that question, because we've just been talking to the local law enforcement authorities and the fire department. They're still in a rescue and recovery mode. They're still looking for bodies. They're still trying to account for everybody who was on that train. We will look to them to tell us when they feel comfortable that they can end that rescue and recovery effort. And then -- we're on scene as investigators. We've begun our work. But in terms of the scene itself, it is still the scene with local law enforcement. We're working very closely with them. They've offered us every and all assistance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be clear about the Metrolink. You can't rule -- you're not ruling out --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not, but again, you know, as these accidents go, there are a lot of -- it's been my experience that a lot of things come into play in an accident like this. And we want to hear what information they have. They said we will learn a lot from the data recorders from both trains. We will hopefully be able to interview the surviving crew members, other witnesses. That will all contribute to our fuller knowledge of exactly why this happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the timeline here? Do you stay on scene for how long, and then move on to where? And then --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Again, this is our first few hours here. We -- we typically hope to conclude an investigation, and by that I mean a full report, within a year. We can't always guarantee that. How long the on-scene phase of that will be, I can't tell you. I'll know more in the next day or so, after we get reports back from the people who were doing the real work. And, you know, again, our process, we try to be as open and transparent as possible, and release information as we get it. So we will hold press briefings while I'm on scene here, and probably once or twice a day. And then we'll continue to provide updates as the investigation goes forward.
WHITFIELD: Just outside of Los Angeles, Chatsworth, California; you're listening to NTSB officials there say they're not ready to reach a conclusion on exactly how a freight train and commuter train collided, leading to the deaths of 23 passengers. They have, however, recovered data recorders from both of the trains, however. There were initial reports coming from Metrolink, a commuter train, their initial investigation said that their engineer may have run a stop signal, but you heard the NTSB officials there responding to the questions about that, saying that they're just not willing and ready to make that kind of conclusion. They're going to look at all of the material. They're just now getting on the ground to assess the situation.
But they do agree this appears to be one of the worst rail disasters in quite some time, 23 people killed as a result of this collision between a freight train and that commuter train colliding outside Los Angeles.
Meantime, we're going to talk again about Hurricane Ike and what it was like riding through that storm from the perspective of a mom who rode it out with her family. Much more straight ahead.
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WHITFIELD: We now know about 100,000 people who should have evacuated the Texas coast area didn't. And I know you're wondering why. We have one of those people on the line with us now. Mona Duna road out the storm with her husband and three kids. They've lived in Houston for 12 years. Mona is on the phone with us now. Mona, why did you guys decide to stay, knowing that a very powerful storm was heading your way?
MONA DUNA, HOUSTON RESIDENT: Well, Ike was very unpredictable in its path, and we were advised to shelter in place by the mayor, and let the people who are in more danger to evacuate, for example, those who are in Galveston, and the Clearlake areas. So we took that advice and stayed, and, you know, it passed.
WHITFIELD: So you didn't feel like because of where you're located in Houston -- you didn't feel like that you were really in danger.
DUNA: Right.
WHITFIELD: You've got three kids. What are the aches?
DUNA: Sixteen, 13, and 10.
WHITFIELD: OK. You've evacuated before. You've been through tropical storms before. You've lived there for 12 year.
DUNA: Right.
WHITFIELD: You have done evacuations in the past. Tell me what it was like and how much that may have impacted your decision this time.
DUNA: We evacuated during Rita, and that was horrible. We were on the road, we were one of the lucky people that did not stay long on the road, and that was eight hours to Austin, which is about only two hours and a half from where we live. So we chose this time not to do the same. The kids were very frustrated, and they did not want to be in the car. That was the thing, the first thing that they asked, please, we do not want to evacuate.
WHITFIELD: So Mona, tell me how you all did overnight. Clearly, you're doing OK your voice sounds pretty perky, seems you weathered it pretty good. But give me an idea of what that experience was like. Do you have power now? Do you have bottled water? What do you have in place to be comfortable?
DUNA: Well, the night was very scary. We went to bed early, knowing that we're going to be up for a big chunk of the night. So we were up definitely by about 4:00. It was very loud. The kids slept soundly but my husband and I were up, on and off, and it was truly scary. The whistling, the noise, and thumping. We weren't sure that the tree was on our roof, the neighbor's roof, we did not know anything.
WHITFIELD: Were you worrying or listening for any damage to your house?
DUNA: Yes. We live in an older neighborhood and we have a lot of mature trees in our area. So that was a big concern for us and all our neighbors. Truly, we lucked out. Because in the morning we walked out, and it was a mess. It's a disaster outside.
WHITFIELD: A mess, but no structural damage to your house, I take it?
DUNA: We don't.
WHITFIELD: You don't have power, right? Hardly anybody does.
DUNA: We don't have power, not at this point.
WHITFIELD: So what are you going to do? How are you going to manage over the next few days it could be, right?
DUNA: That is the question. Yes. Now, the weather, the temperature has dropped a little bit, which is making it a bit bearable. So we're opening windows and doors and taking care of things in the house and cleaning the yard. And we are going to see what happens on Monday. Because I doubt that we will have school on Monday. The power is still out, we'll probably leave town at that point.
WHITFIELD: I was going to say, because I've got a million questions. I know we don't have time for the million questions, but I'm wondering what you do about fresh food, et cetera. You don't have power, you don't have refrigeration. How are you going to manage over the next few days? So Monday you might pack up then and hit the road.
DUNA: Well, we have a few things in the freezer that are thawing slowly right now. So we're going to take out. And we have gas in our gas grill, so we're going to cook stuff on the grill, and just eat whatever is in there. And once we run out, we're either going to go get more non-perishables that we can eat, like canned food and stuff or just leave town.
WHITFIELD: Yes, if the stores are open.
DUNA: Right, exactly.
WHITFIELD: And then, once you get on the road, not to be the bearer of bad news here, but you'll probably have to go at pretty long distance unless you're stopping at friend's homes, because shelters and hotels are full.
DUNA: In Houston area, they are full and don't have power either. So all of the people are sitting in the lobby. And I, frankly, think that my home is more comfortable. I don't want to be in the lobby with hundreds of people. But we will probably be leaving town either to Austin or San Antonio.
WHITFIELD: OK. Well, Mona Duna, I'm very glad that you and your family did well, and you're able to talk to us about your experience and all the best in your continued journeys, because I have a feeling it's just beginning.
DUNA: I know. Thank you. This has been a trend over the last couple of years. So we really have to plan our lives from here on.
WHITFIELD: That's right. Always good to have a plan. Mona, thanks so much. All the best to you and your family.
DUNA: Thank you so much.
WHITFIELD: Much more ahead on this hurricane coverage, what's now Tropical Storm Ike. But CNN reporters, photographers, meteorologists all are blogging about Ike, and many of them from Texas. Just log on to CNN.com to check it all out. We'll be right back in a moment.
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WHITFIELD: Much more straight ahead of our coverage of Ike, what was a terrible hurricane, now a tropical storm. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thanks so much for being with me the last few hours. Don Lemon picks it up from here. Don?
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Fredricka Whitfield, a marathon day for you and all our team. Fred, thank you so much for your coverage. We're going to continue now and talk about Ike's aftermath. It's not over for Texas, not just yet. The monster storm is losing strength, but it is still very dangerous.
