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Further Coverage of Hurricane Ike as It Nears Galveston; LA Commuter Train Crashes

Aired September 13, 2008 - 23:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now: the biggest search and rescue operation in Texas history. More than 100,000 people stranded. Homes wiped out. Millions without power. And it feels like 100 degrees. Downtown Houston, shut down. Gas prices go up right before your eyes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The gas prices are going up quickly as they're going up on the sign as I'm sitting here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And from hurricane horror to tragedy on the tracks, mangled wreckage and a rising death toll, the pictures and the stories you haven't seen until right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

LEMON: And we start tonight at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, breaking news both overseas and here at home.

First of, a horrific plane crash in Russia. The information is coming in and so are the pictures. Some of the video soon to follow. And we're being told, sadly, everyone on board is dead. More than 80 people, including seven children, the details are just unfolding by the minute. This is the one picture that we have and we're working on new pictures and information for you. We will update you throughout the hour right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Also breaking tonight, reports that two oil drilling platforms are adrift in the Gulf of Mexico and Ike, Ike is not finished yet. Insult to injury, new flood warnings and a new advisory, right here at 11:00 p.m. Eastern. Chad Myers with the breaking details in the CNN hurricane center.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is still a tropical storm and headed to Little Rock. That means winds of about 40 miles an hour and to Little Rock and then up to Missouri and it ends up almost in Buffalo tomorrow night so that's how fast it will be moving. Flood watches and flood warnings all over the Midwest with this very heavy rainfall that's still coming down. We'll update the track and where it's going.

Obviously by tomorrow morning this thing should be a depression but tonight, still making winds, still making heavy rain and those flood warnings are posted all across parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, even on up into Missouri.

LEMON: All right, Chad Myers, will check back with you throughout the hour. Thank you very much. We cannot predict what Ike will do in the hours ahead but we can definitely show you destruction left behind. We want to show you some of the best pictures we got in here to the CNN NEWSROOM.

Look at all of this, this is the first one we'll show you. This is from Houston. This is Fire Department video. Take a look at this. This place is completely destroyed. It is an apartment complex. It is in South Houston, Texas. Can you imagine being one of these family members who probably were at home at the time and all of a sudden where you live is destroyed?

Go now to number two, this one, right here, on the bottom. This home, it is Surfside Beach, that is also just outside of Galveston West of Galveston Island. We don't like Ike. That's what they are saying there. Look at all this damage and devastation. The destruction here.

Number three, check this one out. People arrested for looting. Looting. If we can get that video for you. Can you imagine your home is destroyed, you're in a shelter and people are looting in your home.

And also we're following another developing story right here in the CNN NEWSROOM. It's a disaster just outside of Los Angeles, all of the bodies have been pulled from the mangled wreckage of a passenger train. But the death toll, it just keeps climbing. We have a live report coming up in just a few minutes for you. Can you believe that video there?

But first, more on the aftermath of Ike now. It is going to leave a deep scar on Texas. At least four deaths are blamed on the storm so far. Fortunately, most people heeded warnings to get out but some people didn't.

As you can see, fires burned out of control because firefighters could not reach them. In Houston itself, nearly 3 million customers are without power and probably will be for weeks and weeks. That means no air conditioning in the South Texas heat and humidity and I'm told by our weather people tomorrow it's going to feel upwards of 100 degrees. For the foreseeable future the local economy is shut down as is Downtown Houston itself. Authorities, they have made downtown off limits until they can assess the damage and get the widespread debris cleared up.

If there was a silver ling to any of this, this 900 mile cloud, it is that the surge of seawater was only 13 and a half feet. That's plenty high but we say that only because forecasters feared it would be nearly twice that high, up to 25 feet. CNN correspondents are fanned out across the Gulf Coast of Texas. Our Ed Lavandera at Randolph Air Base in San Antonio.

To Gary Tuchman, he is Galveston and Ali Velshi who is in Baytown and of course our very own Chad Myers who is tracking the storm from the CNN severe weather center. Hurricane Ike roared ashore with 110 miles an hour winds and enormous waves. And our Gary Tuchman was there. And he joins us live. Gary, I saw you riding the storm out last night. Unbelievable.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really was unbelievable. Very scary, Don. Twenty hour ago the eye came right over our heads here in Galveston and right now the city is in utter darkness. People have no power, they have no air conditioning. Most people have no water. And it is closed to outsiders. There is one causeway from the mainland. No one is allowed here because of all the destruction, all the work that needs to be done, also the causeway is in bad shape so officials don't want civilians to come over the bridge. But they have a lot of work to do on streets like this because scores of streets are underwater.

It appears as of now, that nobody was killed here in Galveston. That's good news. But search and rescue people have been allowed across the bridge to go door-to-door to make sure that's the case. On this street we met a couple of families who decided to ride this out. And one of those families is very sorry they did it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCHMAN: This is Avenue S and a Half in Galveston. One of scores of streets we've seen today under water after hurricane Ike. The reason we're on the street it's full of one-story one-family homes. These were the homes the subject of a dire National Weather Service notice that said people who didn't leave the moments homes the beach and were near the beach would face certain death. Fortunately it wasn't true. A lot of people stayed behind.

That doesn't mean it was easy. As a matter of fact, it was very scary for many of these people, including the people in this house who I talked to a short time ago and have agreed to talk to us.

Burle and Jamie Holmes, we'll knock on the door, they will let us in to talk to them.

Thank you for letting us back in. This is Jamie, this is Burle, this is Trouble, their dog. You guys rode it out. Four feet of water you said came into this house, right, Jamie, what was it like as the water was pouring in into.

JAMIE HOLMES, GALVESTON RESIDENT: It was pretty scary. It was pretty scary.

TUCHMAN: Why did you decide not to leave, Burle?

BURLE HOLMES, GALVESTORN RESIDENT: We just had a lot of stuff here we needed to take care of.

TUCHMAN: That's what a lot of people say. The water started coming on. The eye of the hurricane came, it was calm and the back end came in. That was worse for us, worse for you, you went to your attic right? What was that like climbing into the attic while the water was climbing into your house.

J. HOLMES: That wasn't too bad getting up there ...

B. HOLMES: But the wind and the noise got scary up there.

TUCHMAN: It was frightening event for you, wasn't it?

J. HOLMES: Yes.

TUCHMAN: Here's the big question. Let's look at the house, first of all. The water has receded now. But you can see you have a lot of damage here, right, Jamie?

J. HOLMES: Oh, yes. I think we've lost everything.

TUCHMAN: I'm really sorry about that. I'm glad you didn't lose your lives.

J. HOLMES: Yes. Thank you.

TUCHMAN: If this happened again, would you do it differently next time?

J. HOLMES: We'd leave.

B. HOLMES: I'd leave. No question about it. We'd leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: We hear stories like that after every hurricane. That is the case again wit this one where we heard this from the National Weather Service. Certain death. Those were chilling words to hear. Fortunately doesn't appear to be the case but they're not done looking. The door to door over the next couple of days, we'll be keeping a close eye on what's found here in Galveston because there's a lot of houses to go through.

And as far as we know they haven't searched on this block. I do want to mention to you, Don, that before the hurricane came ashore they got at least 300 calls on the city's 911 system for people saying, we wish we left, please come rescue us. And the police did rescue them and they were able to go do so.

But then during the heart of the storm they got another 100 calls or so and they couldn't get those people. As far as we know of those 100 calls they got, none of those people are on any kind of casualty list. Don, back to you.

LEMON: Yeah, that's good news, Gary. And they were warned, though.

All right. Thank you very much for that, Gary Tuchman. And get some sleep, will you. You were up all night and day. Thank you very much.

Well, just the threat of Hurricane Ike was enough to send gas prices soaring in many places and a lot of people scrambled to fill up their tanks. Nationwide the price of unleaded jumped six cents a gallon and even more than that in the Southeast. AAA says that's the largest one-day gas price spike in a year. The Gulf Coast accounts for about a fifth of the nation's oil refining capacity and power outages are going to keep some refineries shut for days. Our Ali Velshi is in Baytown, Texas tonight, home to the nation's largest oil refinery. What can we expect, Ali?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's right over my shoulder. That's the ExxonMobil Baytown refinery. It is 10 percent of Texas' refining. More than 570,000 barrels of oil a day typically are made into gasoline.

Now despite how bright it is and those flames you see, that refinery and 13 others in Texas are shut down while the oil companies try to inspect the damage and get a sense of it. Now, my initial look at this, and I'm no expert. I drove around and it didn't appear to be flooded and it doesn't appear to have anything toppled. In fact the refineries probably did better than some expectations but we saw were some big gas price spikes. Some experts were telling we could see a 20 cent on average national spike very soon.

That takes gas up close to $4 a gallon after just seeing weeks and weeks of retreat. We were getting some relief, getting down around $3.60 and now it's headed back up. You're going to see some sort of increase. As you said, this increase not the only biggest this year, the one that we've seen overnight. It's the biggest one since Hurricane Katrina.

Now there are shortages of gasoline in parts of Texas. Here's what we know. As of tomorrow the major oil companies are going to try and get the tankers filled up. The gas tankers filled up, going to gas stations and trying to get generations in there. Getting power. We've already seen gas stations around here start to open up. Here in Baytown, this is refining central, power is starting to come back although it's not coming back at the he finery.

But there is some sense that we can get this thing up and going. You also mentioned we're trying to follow the story of reports of two rigs that were blown off their moorings in the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Ike. I should tell you, rigs by definition are not moored to the ocean floor. Platforms are. So rigs are more likely to be moved. One thing they do before they evacuate the rigs is they seal off the oil so there's very little spillage if they do end up off their moorings.

But we're going to over the course of the next 24 hours have fly-overs by the Department of the Interior and by the oil companies to get some sense of the offshore damage and the refineries. We might start seeing people getting back to work at the refineries as early as tomorrow. Within the last few hours we've observed cars going into the Baytown Refinery and a number of helicopters flying overhead potentially assessing the damage here.

So, Don, the situation might get better but it's pretty certain everybody is going to see higher gas prices.

LEMON: All right. CNN's Ali Velshi. Ali, thank you.

Hammered by Gustav, now flooded by Ike. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're flooding and that's about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: South Louisiana, swamped again, tens of thousands of homes underwater.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: I want you to take a look now at Southwest Louisiana where Hurricane Ike flooded tens of thousands of homes. Hundreds of people had to be rescued. So far the storm surge, breached levees and drenched areas still reeling from Hurricane Gustav which struck on Labor Day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just think if it hit us directly what would have happened. It's unbelievable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just left for Gustav and went all the way to Alabama and figured we could ride this one out and this is worse than Rita and we're flooding. And that's about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Man, you can hear the sorrow in her voice there. About 177,000 homes and businesses around Louisiana are without power. A combined effect of Ike and also Gustav. There's some good news, though, the rebuilt levee system around New Orleans appears, it appears to be holding. But, still, there is no doubt, Louisiana took a real beating again. Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu joins us now by telephone, you guys just held a press conference a short time ago. Thank you for joining us. You guys are really hurting, especially around Cameron Parish and we also heard about flooding in Plaquemines Parish as well.

LT. GOV. MITCH LANDRIEU, LOUISIANA (on phone): Well, there is no question. This is the fourth major storm that we've sustained in three years so folks just getting back on their feet from Katrina and Rita. Gustav was a very difficult storm. It flooded not only South Louisiana but North Louisiana and Ike came right behind it and it filled in the gaps that Gustav left. So there's a tremendous amount of property damage, a lot of folks are under a lot of water in South Louisiana, especially in southwest where they had 14 feet of water in Cameron Parish.

LEMON: I was just there two days ago where we met with you and rode around with the governor and also the National Guard and looked at some of the damage there. And what was amazing is that many people around the country didn't realize just how badly Louisiana fared during Gustav and this is a double whammy now.

LANDRIEU: Unfortunately what happens is everybody was focused on the levees in New Orleans, and when those levees didn't break everyone just assumed there wasn't any damage which was completely incorrect. The piece of property you were standing on two days ago when you were here is now 14 feet under water. And when you go very north there is flooding in North Louisiana, still, as a result of Gustav, so the extent and the breadth of the damage was even much greater than Katrina because it just covered a much broader area and as you said before we had upwards of 170,000 people still without electricity. That's down from the 1.3 million that was out of electricity a couple of weeks ago.

LEMON: OK. Now back to Ike. You guys okay? Are people seeking shelter and getting the services they need?

LANDRIEU: Yeah. We were out very early this morning doing search and rescue missions. The National Guard has been deployed. We've been flying across the state. We're getting along as best as we can right now.

LEMON: OK. We know it's been a very busy couple of days, we appreciate you staying up for you. Lieutenant governor of Louisiana Mitch Landrieu, thank you for joining us.

Meantime there's other news here tonight on CNN, horror on the rails. The death toll continues to climb from a train collision outside of Los Angeles. The investigation focusing on whether the engineer was texting, texting, before the accident.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: You know it was only three years ago when Houston became a refuge for Katrina evacuees, and now people in that city are dealing with their own held. And we'll take you there in a few minutes.

But first another major disaster just outside of Los Angeles. A tragic accident that we're learning could have been prevented. And CNN's Ted Rowlands has been following the story. Ted, we have new information, namely that the engineer might have been doing what he was doing before the crash, texting?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. It's unbelievable, Don, but that's one of the things that NTSB officials say they will be looking into as the cause of this horrific accident. Is the fact that there could be a chance that this engineer, who apparently ran a red warning light, may have been distracted and it might have been because he was text messaging just before the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): Now that rescue crews have completed the horrific job of pulling victims from the wreckage, the focus at the scene has shifted to the investigation.

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, L.A. MAYOR: It was firefighters there who searched the entire area of the wreckage, it was determined that there are no more victims there. And no more individuals to be found. ROWLANDS: More than 130 of the estimated 220 on board the commuter train were injured. More than 40 of them, critically. Overnight as crews pull bodies from the wreckage people waited for word from loved ones that they couldn't contact.

For a few moments overnight, rescuers stood silent as the body of an off-duty L.A. police officer was lifted out, killed like most of the other victims on her way home from work.

The commuter train originated in downtown Los Angeles and was headed northwest. At the point of the collision, there's a stretch of single-shared track. Authorities are still investigating this but at this point officials believe the engineer of the commuter train, somehow, missed a warning signal that a freight train was coming in the opposite direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe that it was our engineer who failed to stop at a signal.

ROWLANDS: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the site this afternoon praising rescue workers and offering condolences to the victims and their families.

GOV. ARNOLDS SCHWARZENEGGER, CALIFORNIA: I just met the family of bun of the officers that died in this accident here. So it's a very, very tragic situation. It's one of the train accidents modern history in California.

ROWLANDS: The condition inside the lead train car is being described as Horriffic.

DEP. FIRE CHIEF MARIO RUEDA, L.A. FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's been very, very difficult work. But the firefighters and police officers have just done a great job. I'm very proud of them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (on camera): The NTSB has taken control of the situation. They will be moving the train cars out of here over the next few hours and then probably into tomorrow. As for the engineer of the commuter train he did die during the crash according to Metrolink officials. NTSB officials caution that the texting aspect of this is one of the things they are looking into. They say it's way, way too early to have a definitive cause for this horrific train crash but say they are confident they will figure it out soon.

Number one on their list, a lot of people's lives altered forever because of what happened here.

Don?

LEMON: Ted, you said horrific. That is a great way of describing it. Ted Rowlands, we appreciate you joining us tonight. We want to tell you coming up in a little bit, a man who lost his father speaks to CNN about looking for him among the wreckage and the people injured in that train accident. You don't want to miss it. That's coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Some political news now, Governor Sarah Palin leaving the nest, so to speak. This campaign rally in Anchorage, Alaska, without John McCain. She told supporters goodbye. She'll be hitting the stump pretty hard for the next seven weeks ahead of Election Day.

CNN has also learned that Palin and McCain will hold joint town hall meetings in Michigan and Wisconsin.

This will likely be the first time Palin takes direct questions from voters.

Straight ahead from the Hurricane Zone, CNN I-Reporters leap into action with remarkable images with the storm's destruction as they experienced it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We always get pretty good amazing pictures and video and stories from our I-Reporters. We want to tell you about this one we've gotten from all across the country. This is Jerome Baker, he is in El Auago (ph), Texas. This is a boat ramp. Look at that. What was a -- this looks like the front of a mall. This is Kristin Pearson. This is not the one we're talking about.

Kristin Pearson, Downtown Houston, glass rains down on street after windows blown out is what she says. It appears to be some sort of mall or business, but look that. I would imagine that's the facade of the building. And maybe a porch here for people to get out of the rain.

It is now gone. OK, this one is from Ken Germain and look at that, this is, I guess it looks like a boat ramp there in the water. You can see this is a truck down below swamped in water and what looks like a bayou of some sort or a river behind that. That one is from Ken Germain.

All right, let's take a look at the next one, guys. What's the other one that we have? That's it for this. We're going to get more I- Reports for you. If you want to solicit or get I-Reports to us go to cnn.com/ireport or go to ireport.com.

Also, I want to tell you are Twittering tonight. We want your responses as well. Go to twitter.com/donlemoncnn and send us information or questions that you want to know about this storm and about what people are doing.

We've been hearing a lot, Chad Myers about people who remained behind. Some people are saying you know what? These people should pay the rescue workers or go work in shelters for not leaving when the officials told them to leave.

MYERS: I don't disagree.

LEMON: You don't disagree at all. MYERS: I don't. Because if it's a mandatory evacuation, I know what the word "mandatory" means.

This is what this whole storm did. Three four, Category 4 right into Cuba. That was ugly right there. And then across Cuba back to the Gulf of Mexico, look at -- we talk about these computer models. Computer models can't figure this out. This wiggle. This wobble.

LEMON: The jog.

MYERS: And this is the jog it took that really spared Galveston Island from that 20 foot storm surge. Just a little bit of a turn right there moved it from, maybe, a Freeport or Surfside, if this would have hit Surfside, the whole bad side of the eye wall would have gotten Galveston Island and that would have been devastating.

LEMON: Doing your thing. Getting out of your way.

MYERS: You're in the in my way. I'll tell you exactly what's going on right now.

The rain showers and thunderstorms will continue across parts of Arkansas, across parts of Missouri and even into Oklahoma. We do have flash flood warnings across some of these areas even though the rain in this storm is moving very quickly, I don't mean maybe. Look at this. This is tomorrow night at 8:00. It is over Detroit. So it's a 25 mile per hour pretty insignificant storm but it is going to really start to pick up speed and that picked up speed will actually send more winds with it. You may get winds across Indianapolis and Muncie and all the way back and towards Anderson and back to southern Illinois as well and certainly a couple showers across parts of Detroit. You've seen heavy rainfall tonight as well.

The other thing I want to talk about is how much flooding we're getting from parts of Missouri all the way back into Arkansas. Just be careful of these flash food warnings. These fresh water flooding, not salt water. Just rain getting into the creeks and streams and running downriver. Don?

LEMON: And you had tornado warnings early?

MYERS: I did.

LEMON: All gone?

MYERS: They're gone.

LEMON: Everything's good. Thank you very much for that, Chad Myers.

MYERS: You're welcome.

LEMON: Let's talk now about being cut off from civilization and refusing to leave. Would you refuse help in the aftermath of a hurricane? Believe it of not, some people did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: We wanted to go through the best video tonight on CNN and bring it to you so you can get a concise version of what's happening. Check this out. Let's bring this full. This is Ellington Field in Houston. This is Coast Guard video in people being rescued. Hundreds of people had to be rescued here, I'm told, in a massive search and rescue effort still going on.

It is described, of course, as Texas, the largest in Texas history. Look at this lady here. Having to be rescued from all the floodwater and the wind.

Number two now, Coast Guard video shot over Galveston Island. I am told that. You see all the Coast Guard markings on the bottom. This is what they saw right after the storm. You can see big chunks of areas submerged, fires are burning out of control. There is a fire there and also, firefighters trying to get to those flames. But they are having problems getting to those flames after the hurricane, the resources there of course are in dire straights in many places.

OK. This is also Ike. Video from Ike. At least 17 buildings, we're told, have been toppled and rescuers are going door-to-door to check on thousands of people who decided to ride the storm out. So you see there, walkways, all of this stuff is demolished by this major, major hurricane which is now a tropical storm.

But still wreaking havoc.

Meantime, we want to go now to our Ed Lavandera. In Bridge City, Texas, that's where people having to be rescued from their homes. It is part of a massive search and rescue mission we told you about. Rusty Dornin spent the day in Bridge City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bridge City, Texas lies between two rivers. But post Ike, it resembles a lake.

(voice-over): Storm surge poured into the town, stranding more than 400 people in their flooded homes. Alan Swiere and his wife decided to ride out the storm but then all hell broke loose.

ALAN SWIERE, BRIDGE CITY FLOOD VICTIM: We got up and then within 30 minutes, the water was almost two feet deep. What we were concerned about was getting trapped in the attic but I had an ax just in case the water came up in the attic.

DORNIN: Rescue teams used everything from boats to dump trucks. We joined a team of monster trucks. Dave Stangus had already rescued more than 40 people.

DAVE STANGUS, FIRE AND RESCUE: Two of these trucks and two big earth movers and then what pick ups can come in here.

DORNIN: Earlier, we had seen a man with a dog on the roof of this house. But the water was too deep to get to him. It turned out to be Dom Dickerson (ph) who cut a hole to get on his roof. We actually saw you but couldn't get you so you had to wait and find another boat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had to wait for another ride.

DORNIN: Power lines were down and rescuers faced other obstacles as well.

The storm knocked out cell phone communication and many people had to just yell out to rescuers. There were those that rode out previous storms who never thought this would happen.

(on camera): Were you concerned about your own life with the waters rising.

GREG BENOIT, BRIDGE CITY FLOOD VICTIM: Certainly. Once the wind started blowing like it did we didn't realize it was going to be quite that bad.

DORNIN (voice-over): But nearly every person we rescued had nearly the same answer.

Would you ever stay again if you heard a storm like this was coming.

JAN SPARKS, BRIDGE CITY FLOOD VICTIM: Oh, no, and I'm getting rid of that house.

DORNIN (on camera): Hundreds of people have been rescued by teams continue to search flooded streets just in case someone is left inside and stranded. Rusty Dornin, CNN, Bridge City, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Appreciate that reporting, Rusty. Thank you very much.

Now, we want to check in with CNN's Ed Lavandera. He is via broadband. He went up with a rescue team at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio and he's bringing us new pictures, dramatic pictures, as a matter of fact. Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, we spent seven hours today up in the air over Galveston and a little town called Crystal Beach up to High Island, this is another barrier island. To the northeast of Galveston where the brunt of Hurricane Ike roared ashore overnight. What we saw was absolutely devastating many of the homes. Hundreds and hundreds of homes, essentially just blown away.

All that was left in many cases was just the stilts that the homes once stood on. Miraculously some homes managed to make it through the storm. It's incredible to see. You can see how much of the storm surge ate up the coastline. It was absolutely incredible what we could see from the air. Believe it or not, the rescue team we went with, we had two paratroopers onboard the helicopter and these Air Force guys jumped off the helicopter four times and each of these times, the people they had gone down to try to rescue refused to be pulled out. So even though we've heard countless stories of people being rescued and pulled out of high water there's still a sense of defiance among many people that refuse to evacuate.

In fact these parachute jumpers left behind some MREs and water for these folks and they think in the next couple of days when they see how bad the conditions are, they'll want to pulled out. But as for today they want to ride it out so they'll sit there in complete darkness.

The town of Crystal Beach, from what I was able to tell, seems to be completely cut off from anyone trying to reach it, only by air. Everyone there seems stranded. We also made it up to High Island. The town seems to be rather dry but that appeared to be completely cut off. In fact, at one point, the crew that I was with was getting frustrated at not being able to pull people out of the waters.

In fact, as we turned around, one house, we be saw a cow strand alive, just standing on the back door on the porch of a back door to one of these houses, completely stranded in high water trying to figure out what to do. And at that point, some of these guys on board the held come saying we'll rescue anything at this point, give us a dog, anything to pull out of these waters. So, it was a rather frustrating day for these guys because these people didn't want to come out.

They will continue trying in the days ahead. And we'll see how that changes. But to give you a sense of how incredible and how widespread the damage is, one of the guys I was standing next to had a GPS monitor and it showed that we were supposed to be flying over land and when we looked over the aircraft all you could see was water. Everything where there was supposed to be land was completely inundated with water.

Don?

LEMON: All right. CNN's Ed Lavandera and just amazing pictures, Ed. Of course, we appreciate your reporting for us tonight.

CNN'S Ed Lavandera.

People all over the Gulf Coast facing a massive clean-up and a long recovery. Debris and lost livelihood everywhere you look. We'll take you back to the heart of it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Piles of debris for miles around made up of people's homes and their livelihoods, that's what Hurricane Ike has left behind all across the Gulf Coast. Our Sean Callebs shows us just how bad the damage is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, we've been out in hurricane looking at areas south of Houston. Just seen an unbelievable amount of damage. We're at a bridge at the base of a town that separates Kemah from Seabrook.

I want to show you out here. That is actually the Galveston Bay and look how it is swamped in. Devastated this area of Kemah causing unbelievable amount of damage. Come back here and you can see this debris along the highway that extends down from the bridge. We had a chance to go through here. Of course you'll find things like appliances. Pieces of roof, clothing, all kinds of items but then, there are very personal items down in here as well. Authorities have just been overwhelmed. As another fire engine moves down we saw them put a boat in a while ago. They left with three people and came back with four. So we can only presume they were able to go out to perform some rescue which we are seeing all over this area in the aftermath of this storm

Just look at the damage, how much has been splintered through here. What we're told these are homes and part of shops that were in this trendy part of the Town of Kemah. No one knows how long it is going to take to get this removed. How they are going to restore power. It doesn't end there. Look at this. This is normally a road right here, an access road that butts up to the Marina. This is Clear Lake. It has jumped its boundaries as well and swamped in this way and in the distance there some flood gates. They are trying to figure out how to raise those. That should alleviate some of these problems in this area but, boy, it is just staggering. One thing we found a short while ago down here.

Look at all this. Giant poles washed up. These concrete abutments to my left here got blown away as well. Just an incredible amount of damage. You can see it's everything imaginable. Just splintered. It reminds me of what Hurricane Katrina did to the Mississippi area when it came through with its massive storm surge swamping a huge area.

It's just we're seeing this as far south as we go. Everywhere we venture off into. And it's going to be a long, difficult and painful process for all the folks in this area. Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right, CNN's Sean Callebs. Sean, we appreciate your reporting. Hard-hit high rises.

Ike shatters windows, glass rains down on Downtown Houston which is now off limits.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. Welcome back to the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. I'm Don Lemon. You remember the tornado that hit downtown Atlanta back in March? Well, Downtown Houston is dealing with something similar from the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and they're dealing with it extremely well. Let's go to CNN's Chad Myers. He has been looking into exactly what happened and is it similar to what happened here in Atlanta back in March?

MYERS: It's exactly what happened to the Omni Hotel and to most of our building here at CNN, there is a pebble and tar roof down wind of what we had and that's why all of our glass broke. And here's how it happened in Houston. As the storm came in, a tar and pebble roof, you put down tar. You put down a rubber layer, rubber bladder and glue it together and put tar on top of that and throw pebbles on top of that. A very good roofing system for flat roofs. And most of these buildings are flat roof.

As the storm came in, the pebbles were literally picked up off of these, not every pebble is glued to the tar, some are a little bit loose, those loose one spun around, J.J. and there's the building right there that took so much abuse. From about 40 stories up, all the windows are still there, but from 40 stories down most of the windows are go because that's where the pebbles were and the pebbles broke out a lot of windows in other buildings as well.

The whole storm system could have done a lot more damage to the upper floors as well but the winds were not strong enough to break the windows up here and the wind was stronger here than it was down here at the surface but the wind is not enough to break the windows but those tiny little pebbles acting like shotgun pellets hitting all those glass panes, breaking every single one of them, Don.

LEMON: Ah, very interesting stuff. OK, Chad Myers, we appreciate that.

We have been giving you the latest details about that horrific commuter rail accident. When we come back, you'll hear from a man that lost his father in the crash. You don't want to miss this.

Back in a few minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: He lost his father, but he hasn't lost his hope or his faith. Joining me now is 30-year-old Jeff Buckley, whose dad Alan was one of the 25 people killed in yesterday's train collision, just outside of Los Angeles. Jeff, thank you, very much. I know it's been a very tough time for you over the past 24 hours. You have a horrific story about going through the wreckage, and the injured people and looking for your father.

JEFF BUCKLEY, LOST FATHER IN TRAIN WRECK (on phone): Yeah, that's correct, sir. I was on my way home, and I got a call, and it was from my mother, telling me my father's train had crashed and I was just in the area. And I was right there when it happened. And I couldn't get up there via car, so I sprinted up to the -- literally to the crash site. I followed the press through, and got to the triage site, and saw some very horrific things. And my father was not there.

LEMON: You said you saw things that you never thought you would see in your life.

BUCKLEY: That's correct. I mean, I -- if we wanted to get graphic, we had compound fractures, we had people with sheet metal sticking in their head, people screaming. Everyone in there was bleeding, one way or another. And it was bad.

LEMON: And Jeff, you -- your father was 59 years old, and next monday, the 22nd, he would have been 60 years old, it was his birthday. BUCKLEY: That's correct.

LEMON: But the irony in all of this is that he believed in trains and mass transportation, loved it.

BUCKLEY: Absolutely. He -- his father worked for the Southern Pacific railroad when he was a boy. He grew up around trains. He actually rode the first Metrolink, I believe, in 1991 when they opened this Ventura County Line. And he's been riding it ever since. He rides it six days a week, not five. On Saturdays, when he goes places he rides it. It was his life. He knew everyone on the train, everyone knew him as Buck. He had his own seat.

LEMON: And I have got to ask you. For the last 24 hours, you know, I asked you earlier how your mom is doing. What's your family going through? How's your mother?

BUCKLEY: You know, my mother, they've been married for 38 -- almost maybe 40 years. She's not doing well. It's -- they were -- back in the day, you know, they were dating when they were 17. They were married at 18 and a half. The only person they ever really knew.

LEMON: Yeah. Well, young sweet hearts.

BUCKLEY: Yeah.

LEMON: And Jeff, again, we are sorry for your loss and we wish you the very best, as we do for all of the families who have family members who were involved in this.

BUCKLEY: Yes. I wish all of the best to all of the family members and all of the people who lost family. God bless them.

LEMON: Well put. Jeff Buckley. Thank you.

BUCKLEY: Thank you. Thank you, sir.

LEMON: All right. We want to update your breaking news we told you about at the top of the show. This is out of Russia where a jet carrying 81 people has crashed. An airline spokesman says, there are no survivors. The Boeing 737 was headed from Moscow from the city of Perm. The details are unfolding by the minute. We're hearing it is 750 miles east of Moscow. That's where it was headed to Perm. They are saying there is no indication that it was a terrorist attack, but they are checking this out to find out exactly what happened. Everyone on board this plane dead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We know Hurricane Ike was a howler. It barked and snarled and chewed up the Texas coast for some 48 hours. And CNN correspondents were in the teeth of the storm at its worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The national weather service has said that anybody who lives in a one-family house that's only one or two stories high faces certain death.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: It's going through a major metropolitan area, one of the biggest cities in the United States. It's been a while since we've seen a storm actually do that.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Sea walls get pounded, streets flooded and people who should have gone by now take their chances. Their lives are in their own hands at this hour on Galveston.

VELSHI: Thirteen of the 26 refineries in Texas are shut down right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounds like a roaring freight train that's going through this city. Torrential rain. Forecast of the possibility of much of the city to be underwater a few hours from now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the waves keep getting larger. This is getting really, really intense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're starting to feel the outer bands just a little bit stronger now. Wind and the rain, a little bit stronger than it was just about an hour ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the moment. These are the winds. We've had hurricane-force winds for the last couple of hours. We may have the eye within the next couple of hours. But this is the moment where people who are inside those homes who decided not to leave are facing the most treacherous time.

COOPER: Anything that may be flying through the air, that's going to be a big concern in the hours ahead as those hurricane-force winds really start to his us here in Houston and start to hit the glass in those skyscrapers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is naturally pitch dark out here, and you know the expression, you hear things go bump in the night. You're starting to see it, but you can't -- whoa-oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even if the rescuers wanted to go out right now and rescue people, they couldn't do it. It is way too dangerous right now, and aside from that, it's dark. So you're stuck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got some e-mail pictures today from Fort Bouchon (ph), and there is one road leading in there and it's swamped. This is going to do a great deal of economic damage to the country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Winds stronger than they have been before. Water streaming into the parking lot now. And coming down in the proverbial sheets.

SANCHEZ: It's finally getting to the point now where we're seeing large chunks of metal flying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The eye of Hurricane Ike is right over Galveston. It is completely calm. It is not raining. I could sit down here and have a picnic. SANCHEZ: Rains are coming hard, and there goes my cap. By golly, i'm getting out of this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just won't know how serious the flooding is until it's daytime and we won't know if there are any casualties until daytime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heck of a day for Galveston, Texas. A place that hasn't been hit by a hurricane in 25 years. They are getting nailed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some 4 million people are without power here in Houston.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Downtown Houston, we're taking a look at the debris, because the sun is starting to come up, and we're being able to see a little bit down the street, a little bit farther than we were a little bit earlier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now that the sun is up, though, beginning to get a little bit of an assessment from our vantage point.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was a powerful of storm that blew through Downtown Houston, and just as we are getting daylight here, we're getting a good look at the damage left behind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That is Hurricane Ike, through the eyes of our intrepid reporters. Hurricane Ike is blamed for at least four deaths and maybe, maybe one birth. A woman at a hurricane shelter in New Braunfels, Texas went into labor. A city council woman explains what happened next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHLEEN KRUEGER, NEW BRAUNFELS, TEXAS CITY COUNCIL: We were leaving the shelter, when someone ran up and said there is a woman about to have a baby. And we went back into the bathroom of the middle school, the girl's bathroom, and Kupao (ph) was lying on the floor on a towel. And within minutes, I -- honestly, by the time you arrived, I would say it was less than five minutes later, the baby was out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You'll be glad to know, mother and daughter are doing just fine. And we thank you for staying up late and joining us on CNN for this Saturday night. And now, CNN PRESENTS, "Sarah Palin: Revealed" followed by "Joe Biden: Revealed." Good night.