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Getting Back on Track and in the Air; Aftermath in Vermont From Hurricane Irene; Lockerbie Bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi Found Close to Death in Tripoli; Hospitals Bring Patients Back; Vermont's Worst Flooding Since 1927
Aired August 29, 2011 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: This is according to a media relations representative who confirms to CNN that a portion of a wall in a building has collapsed. This building is known as the Old U.S. Disciplinary Barracks that has indeed collapsed. And at least one person is trapped.
I believe that we are looking at pictures here now out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It looks like our affiliate is trying to get some pictures out of the base there, the Army base.
As soon as we have information, we're going to get back to you on this story. But just to recap very quickly here, what we do know is that there is a media relations representative from the base who confirms to CNN that there's a portion of a wall in a building, this Army barracks, that has collapsed, trapping at least one individual. We notice that our affiliate is trying to get some pictures.
We're going to be following that throughout the hour. As soon as we have more information, we'll get back to you on that.
Well, crews say at least three million customers up and down the East Coast, they don't have electricity today thanks to Hurricane Irene. It may be days -- days before it's back on. At one point, four million folks lost power.
At least 21 deaths are linked to Irene. Now, the total tab, according to one insurance expert, likely to be $10 billion, the cost of the damage.
The president talked about Irene just this last hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So our response continues, but I'm going to make sure that FEMA and other agencies are doing everything in their power to help people on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Vermont is dealing with its worst flooding in eight decades. Irene turned creeks into raging rivers. At least four of Vermont's historic covered bridges just washed away. The storm dumped six inches of rain on ground that was already saturated. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. PETER SHUMLIN (D), VERMONT: We literally were taking on an inch and a half of rain an hour, and for a sustained period. You just can't take that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: North Carolina's Outer Banks got the full force of Irene's fury. Twenty-five hundred people who did not evacuate Hatteras Island are now cut off today. The storm chopped up the road to the mainland in several places. Emergency ferry service for Hatteras residents is expected, hopefully, to begin today.
The intense rain also overwhelmed towns in upstate New York. Earlier, I spoke with Diane Salter, who lives in Pratsville, and she says she has lost everything.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIANE SALTER, PRATTSVILLE RESIDENT: Our town is devastated. We've all lost our houses. We've lost our jobs. We've lost everything.
MALVEAUX: I am so sorry to hear that, Melissa (sic). How do you know you lost your home?
SALTER: We went back down this morning, and the houses aren't livable. There's fuel in all of them, and just mud everywhere and fuel everywhere. There's no way -- the basements are still full of water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Amtrak and New York's commuter rail lines are trying to get back to normal today. The city's subway system is running, but there are delays, as expected. Airlines cancelled 11,000 flights because of Irene. LaGuardia reopened at 7:00 this morning. Newark and JFK are now allowing departing flights to take off.
And here is your chance to "Talk Back" on one of the big stories of the day. Today's question: Is FEMA necessary? Presidential candidate Ron Paul, he doesn't think so.
Carol Costello joins us from New York.
Hey, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Does Ron Paul think any government agency is necessary? I think not.
MALVEAUX: He's stirring up the pot. He usually does.
COSTELLO: As he always does, you're right.
On the day Hurricane Irene clobbered the Atlantic Coast, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul pounded away at big government. In particular, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, calling it a great contributor to deficit financing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All they do is come in and tell you what to do and can't do. You can't get in your houses, and they hinder the local people and they hinder volunteers from going in. So there is no magic about FEMA, and more people are starting to recognize that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Hmm. That's not what New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie says, or Democratic Governors Martin O'Malley or Peter Shumlin say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. PETER SHUMLIN (D), VERMONT: President Obama and the FEMA team has just been extraordinary. We have been on the phone with them continuously. They're getting us the help that we need. And between the federal and state governments, we're going to get this dug out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Not to say FEMA doesn't deserve some criticism. It performed abysmally during Hurricane Katrina. But since then, FEMA has made some changes. It now sends people in before a storm hits to work with state and local officials. That way, if state officials are overwhelmed, the feds can pick up the slack. If states need federal money to rebuild or pump out flooded areas, FEMA can assist right on the spot.
Still, Ron Paul says there is no need for FEMA, states can take care of themselves, and people are perfectly capable of taking responsibility for their homes.
Insurance, anyone?
So the "Talk Back" question today: Is FEMA necessary?
Facebook.com/CarolCNN. I'll read your responses later this hour.
MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you, Carol.
Well, before the storm even hit, trains and buses, they were parked, planes were grounded, hundreds of thousands of passengers were left stranded.
Joining us to talk by phone is Ron Marsico. He is spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Ron, first of all, is everything back up and running in your area? RON MARSICO, SPOKESMAN, PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY: Well, it's back up and running, but it will take time for it to ramp up back to normal. LaGuardia airport opened for arrivals and departures at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Newark and Kennedy airports took arrivals beginning at 6:00 a.m., and just a few minutes ago started taking departures as well.
MALVEAUX: Are we seeing massive delays?
MARSICO: No. As a matter fact, FAA is reporting delays of 15 minutes or less at all three of the major airports.
MALVEAUX: That's really not so bad there.
I know New York, New Jersey -- New Jersey got hit pretty hard, but New York, they expected to be a lot worse than it actually was. Was there any damage that was done either to the planes, the airports, or even the subway stations?
MARSICO: No, at the three mayor airports there was nothing major. It will take a little while for our team to get out there and look for debris on the runway. And our employees worked pretty hard over the last 48 hours and coordinated with the FAA and TSA and U.S. Customs and the airlines to get everybody back and running.
MALVEAUX: Sure. And Ron, I guess the mayor took a little bit of criticism. There was a lot of shutting down much of the transportation system.
Do you think it was a good call when you look at it now?
MARSICO: Well, better safe than sorry. So, again, we're happy that we're getting our facilities back up and running today, and we are going to take it from there.
MALVEAUX: All right. Ron Marsico, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Well, Irene may nudge gas prices down just a little bit. Experts say that's because millions of drivers put their cars in park this weekend due to the storm. Well, the Lundberg Survey finds that gas prices have held pretty much steady over the past two weeks. The nationwide average is about $3.61 a gallon.
President Obama is bringing in a jobs pro to tackle the unemployment problem. Just within the last hour, the president nominated Alan Krueger to chair his Council of Economic Advisors. Krueger is a labor economist and a professor at Princeton. He served as an assistant treasury secretary until just last year.
Libyan rebels say Moammar Gadhafi's fighters holed up in his hometown must surrender today or face an all-out assault. Thousands of rebels have taken up positions on the outskirts of Sirte.
Now, in Tripoli, there is new evidence of war crimes. A survivor says Gadhafi's soldiers executed about 150 prisoners before they retreated. He says the prisoners had been told they would be released.
Libya's new political leaders say they will not return the Lockerbie bomber to custody in the west. The National Transition Council tells CNN that a decision will be left to Libya's still to be elected government.
CNN's Nic Robertson found Abdelbaset al-Megrahi this weekend. He is apparently in a coma in his Tripoli villa, and his family says he is near death from prostate cancer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Has he been able to see a doctor?
KHALED AL-MEGRAHI, ABDEL BASSET AL-MEGRAHI'S SON: No, there is no doctor. There's nobody to ask. And we don't have any phone line to call anybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Scotland said al-Megrahi had terminal cancer and sent him home to Libya. That was two years ago. Well, in a statement today, Scottish officials called all the speculation about al-Megrahi as unhelpful and ill-informed.
Well, who would have thought it? Irene actually sought a landlocked state.
Far from the ocean, floods from the former hurricane wash away several of Vermont's covered fabled covered bridges. A live report just minutes away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Here's a rundown of some of the stories ahead.
First, Vermont hit by epic flooding, the worst in more than 80 years.
Then, cut of and surrounded by water for miles, we check on 2,5000 people trapped in North Carolina.
Plus, unprecedented evacuations in New York's hospitals and nursing homes. Now officials have to figure out how to bring those patients back.
And Nic Robertson tracks down the terrorist responsible for the Lockerbie bombing back in 1988.
Floodwaters from Hurricane Irene are starting to recede in parts of Vermont, revealing really a lot of the damage that's left behind. Heavy rain turned streams into raging rivers. About 260 roads in Vermont were affected. Some of them now under water.
CNN National Correspondent Gary Tuchman, he has been checking out all of this, the damage and the flooding.
He joints us from Brattlesboro, Vermont.
Gary, you know, a lot of people just did not think it was going to be that bad in Vermont. What does it looks like now?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Totally unexpected for Vermonters. They're just not used to this kind of thing.
They knew a tropical storm might be heading their way, but they didn't anticipate the amount of damage. And the sad news, at least one person has died here, a woman who fell into what was a very quiet creek like this one, but became a rapids, and her body was identified this morning about 15 miles west of where we are right now.
But this is what's happened in creeks all over the state of Vermont. They become rapids because they just can't handle the amount of water from Tropical Storm Irene.
And you can look to your left at what's happened here. This particular creek used to be only about 15 feet wide. It's now about 60 feet wide, and it basically exploded with energy when the water came through and destroyed the ground under this building. And now the building is precariously hanging above this body of water and could collapse at any time, and this building was just condemned a short time ago.
Now, before it was condemned, we actually went inside the building. Not the damaged part right there, because that would have been a little stupid. But this is only partially stupid, going in this part.
We went in there with some of the artists who wanted to recover the objects they left behind, and you can see how damaged it was inside. And then at one point -- and this goes back to the "stupid" reference -- we heard this loud creeking sound twice and then we all got the heck out of there.
I can tell you, we did talk to the owner of the building, the landlord, a nice guy who was in there with us, and he was quite stunned of course by what a he saw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID PARKER, BUILDING OWNER: It's a very old-fashioned shop, a couple thousand square feet, and most of it is gone right now. So the shock will come in a couple, three days. But for the time being, my responsibility is finding places for all the tenants, all the artists in the building, so they have places to go tomorrow or the next day and can continue working, because that's what this building is, a place for the artists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TUCHMAN: And the building, as we said, is condemned now. No one will ever go into it again. It will either fall into this water or will be destroyed.
This tree right here, we know, unequivocally, this tree was standing in this very spot last night, this very tall tree that has probably been here for generations. We know that because we were here.
We stayed here. We actually camped here overnight, because it's hard to get in and out. We heard a boom in the middle of the night.
Police were here. Didn't know what happened until the sun came up, and then we saw this eroded ground, the tree falling into the water.
Most of the streets, the floods have receded, but you still have mud and a lot of damage inside the homes here in the Green Mountain State of Vermont.
Suzanne, back to you.
MALVEAUX: Yes. Gary, a very good lesson learned there. You called it stupid to be in that certain section of the house, but it brings up a very good point. You can't go in these places and expect them to be safe, even if you don't see any damage, because their foundations have been weakened so much.
Gary, thanks again.
TUCHMAN: Right.
MALVEAUX: Well, Nic Robertson is tracking down the terrorist responsible for the Lockerbie bombing back in 1988.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: I'm not sure if they've heard me, so let's try the last-ditch means, which is shout over the wall.
Hello?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Turning to Libya, Moammar Gadhafi is still on the run, but there is another man many Americans have been waiting to find. His name is Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, and he was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Well, then he was released two years ago. He may be one of the last men alive who knows precisely who in the Libyan government authorized that bombing.
CNN's Nic Robertson managed to track that man down.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROBERTSON (voice-over): We found Abdel Basset al-Megrahi's villa in an up-market part of town. At least six security cameras and floodlights outside.
(on camera): This is Megrahi's house. This is where he has been living for the last couple of years. We're going to knock on the door and see if we can get any answer.
Hello?
(voice-over): For 15 minutes or so, nothing.
(on camera): I'm not sure if they have heard me, so let's try the last-ditch means, which is just shout over the wall.
Hello? Hello? Hello?
(voice-over): Then, all of a sudden, someone comes. Nothing prepares me for what I see: Megrahi, apparently in a coma. His aging mother at his side.
AL-MEGRAHI: We just give him oxygen and -- nobody give us advice and some food by injection. If you see, his body is weak.
ROBERTSON: He had been expected to die almost two years ago, but convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi lives, only just.
This wasn't the way he looked when he was released from a Scottish jail two years ago. He came home to a hero's welcome, freed on compassionate grounds, because doctors said he'd be dead in three months.
Almost immediately, he began renovating this palatial house. Money, no object.
(on camera): It doesn't take long walking around this building before you begin to realize -- and looking at the marble here from these expensive fittings -- to realize that it appears Megrahi was being paid off handsomely for all those years he spent in jail.
(voice-over): In the two decades since the bomb exploded on board Pan Am 103, over Lockerbie, killing 270 passengers, crew and townspeople, it seemed the secrets of the attack would die with the bombers. Megrahi always maintained he was innocent.
Just a month ago, in a rare public sighting, Moammar Gadhafi had him literally wheeled out for a pro-government rally. I'm seeing him now for the first time in two years. He appears to be just a shell of the man he was, far sicker than he appeared before.
(on camera): Has he been able to see a doctor?
AL-MEGRAHI: No. There's no doctor. There's nobody to ask. And we don't have any phone line to call anybody.
ROBERTSON: What's his situation right now? AL-MEGRAHI: He stopped eating and he sometimes is come in coma.
ROBERTSON: Coma. He goes unconscious?
AL-MEGRAHI: Yes. We just sit next to him and --
ROBERTSON (voice-over): All that's keeping him alive, they say, oxygen and a fluid strip.
I ask about demands he return to jail in Scotland.
AL-MEGRAHI: My dad, he's still in the house. And if you send him to Scotland, he will die, by the way, here or there.
ROBERTSON (on camera): Do you know how long he has left?
AL-MEGRAHI: Nobody can known how long he will stay alive. Nobody knows.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): It seems I've arrived too late. He's apparently in no state to talk. Whatever secrets he has may soon be gone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: Nic joins us from Tripoli.
And Nic, first of all, as always, excellent reporting, excellent find. Is there anyone who's questioning whether or not this is indeed al-Megrahi, not someone who's trying to dupe us, that we really know that this guy, he's the real Megrahi?
ROBERTSON: He's the real Megrahi. The Scottish first minister whose jail he was freed from just two years ago talked about it today. He said it's very clear from these images Megrahi is a very, very sick man, maybe close to death. So it certainly seems it's not just us that's convinced this is the man.
MALVEAUX: Nic Robertson, thank you so much. Again, excellent reporting.
We're joined by Carl Azuz.
And Carl, give us a sense of why is Megrahi such an important figure, who this guy really is?
CARL AZUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And a very controversial figure.
I mean, first and more most, he is a convicted terrorist. And to understand his story, you have to go back to 1988. That's when Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed.
It was en route from London's Heathrow Airport to New York. It had 259 people on board, all of who were killed.
And the plane fell to the ground in a tiny Scottish border town called Lockerbie, Scotland. Hence, Lockerbie bombing. Eleven people died on the ground as well.
Now, it took 11 years to convict al-Megrahi of involvement in this, but he was the only person convicted of involvement in this bombing. He was sentenced to eight years -- excuse me -- he was sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish prison, of which he served eight years.
MALVEAUX: Tell us why Scotland actually decided to go ahead and allow him to return to Libya.
AZUZ: At the time, it was thought he only had a few months to live, Suzanne. He was released on humanitarian grounds because of the fact that he had advanced prostate cancer. They didn't think he was going to live very long after that. But there were a few interesting things that happened after his release.
One, Scottish authorities were immediately criticized because they're letting somebody spend his last days in the comforts of his family, something his victims didn't get the chance to do.
Two, he received a hero's welcome back home. You see pictures of it right here.
MALVEAUX: Sure.
AZUZ: He was greeted personally by Gadhafi. There were people celebrating in the streets. And to the west, seeing a convicted terrorist come home and get this sort of hero's homecoming, that looked bad -- very, very bad indeed.
And finally, he lived for two years after this. He was only expected to live for a couple of months. He has managed to survive for the last couple of years, and that's why some people now are calling for his extradition. At least, Suzanne, they were before Nic Robertson found him in this comatose state.
MALVEAUX: And it certainly did create some tension as well. I mean, it really changed U.S./Libyan relations. There were a lot of questions about whether or not there were business deals. You know, the Scots and the Brits and everything.
So, yes, a very important figure here. It will be interesting to see how they handle that very delicate, delicate situation.
AZUZ: Indeed. And, you know, you mentioned the Scots and the Brits, and these are people who, at least in Britain and the United States, there are politicians on both sides of the Atlantic who did call for his extradition. So there are still a number of people who want to see him tried again.
MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you, Carl. Appreciate it.
AZUZ: Thank you, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Getting a firsthand look at the flooding in the Northeast, a CNN iReporter's view of Hurricane Irene's impact. We're going to talk with him live from Vermont.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Here is a rundown of some of the stories up ahead. Up next, you're going to meet one guy trapped in Vermont without electricity, who somehow keeps sending us these riveting images.
Then North Carolina is another state in dire need. We're going to take you there to see the damage that stretches for miles.
And later, New York hospital staff got the elderly out before the storm hit, but now there is this different job ahead, trying to bring back all of them to that hospital.
Some of the most dramatic pictures from the flooding caused by Hurricane Irene have come from our iReporters, Jared Vueker (ph), he sent us this video. It's of a small mountain river near his house that turned into just a plume of rushing water.
JARED VUEKER (PH), CNN IREPORTER: Oh, my gosh. It almost makes you dizzy. During the flood of...
MALVEAUX: iReporter Jared Vueker (ph) is on the phone from Montpelier, Vermont.
And, Jared, first of all, how did you get that shot? How did you take that picture?
VUEKER (PH): Yes, there's a bridge across the river in front of our house, so I just walked out onto the bridge and there it was.
MALVEAUX: Were you afraid you might be in danger there, getting those shots?
VUEKER (PH): Well, yes, the blood pressure went up a little bit. It was a little nerve-racking. We've had floods before. There was one back in '98 that was probably this bad, but, you know, none have ever touched our bridge or taken the bridge out, so I guess I felt pretty secure.
MALVEAUX: We're glad you're OK. Where -- tell us where you are now, and what the situation is on the ground where you are now.
VUEKER (PH): Yes, well, I am at work in Montpelier, Vermont. Normally it takes me about an hour to get here and it took four hours this morning, because there are roads out in the town of Warren and Roxbury and Northfield.
So I kind of had to come the long way around. And, you know, it's a beautiful sunny day. You wouldn't even know what happened yesterday, because it's just gorgeous out today. It's a beautiful Vermont day.
MALVEAUX: Wow. I understand that you lost power. Is your power still out? VUEKER (PH): Yes, I just talked to my parents, who also live in Lincoln, and they said the power just barely came back on, so I think they're watching now even.
MALVEAUX: Well, good, good. That's good. They'll see you.
Tell us about...
(CROSSTALK)
VUEKER (PH): And the river was...
MALVEAUX: Go ahead.
VUEKER (PH): I was going to say the river is back down to normal today, too. It's still a little high, but nothing like yesterday.
MALVEAUX: Oh, good, I was going to ask you about that, because I understand the water is, what, usually ankle deep? How high did it get?
VUEKER (PH): Yes, geez, I'd say that our bridges normally may be 15 to 20 feet above the water, and it was maybe 2 to 3 feet from touching the bridge. So it was pretty deep.
MALVEAUX: There were a lot of people, Jared (ph), who were really surprised by all the flooding that happened in Vermont. Give us a sense of how folks are feeling today. You said it's a beautiful sunny day. Are people feeling a little bit more optimistic about cleaning up and moving on?
VUEKER (PH): I think so. Just trying to get into work today, especially in the town of Roxbury. It seems like they got hit really hard and it's pretty isolated. And I think a lot of people are in shock, too.
There are a lot of houses that you could tell were totally surrounded by water. I saw at least two houses that were -- looked like they were off their foundation, and pretty sad, you know. We're a small, close-knit state, about 650,000 people. And it's quite a shock to have something like this happen to the whole state, basically.
MALVEAUX: Well, Jared (ph), we're glad. It seems as if you are one of the lucky ones today, perhaps the power even coming back on. We appreciate all of the excellent i-reports. Keep sending them, anything that you might have as a follow-up. Clearly, that was a huge story, continues to be a big story from where you are in Vermont. Thanks again, Jared (ph).
Well, stranded by the storm, flooding leaves about 2,500 people cut off in North Carolina. We're going to get an update on the efforts to reach those folks. And 3 billion people still without power in the East today. So the question for you: how long was the power out in the Northeast after Hurricane Gloria hit, you might recall, back in 1985? Did fully restoring power, did it take, A, two weeks; B, one week; or C, three days?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: So how long did it take to completely restore power after Hurricane Gloria hit the Northeast back in 1985? The answer? Two weeks. Utility companies say the outages from Irene could keep them busy for weeks.
For North Carolina is just starting to recover now from the damage that was left by Hurricane Irene. About 2,500 people are stranded on Hatteras Island. Joining us with the latest on the efforts to reach them is CNN's Brian Todd. He is live from Stuckey Point, North Carolina. I believe that's about 60 miles away or so.
Brian, how are things going? Are they able to get to these folks, get supplies to them, that these islands now that are now cut off?
BRIAN TODD, CNN REPORTER: They were cut off for a long time, Suzanne, for the better part of two days. But look at this: this is the lifeline to Hatteras Island. You saw -- you see vehicles starting to go onto the Stumpy Island (sic) ferry here. This was set up just for emergencies like this.
We're going to kind of walk you over here a little bit. We can't get in the way of these vehicles, because they're going to bring a bunch of electrical trucks in here, and highway repair equipment, things like that. But the trucks are starting to be loaded on to the ferry right now.
Normally they can fit about 38 or so normal cars, smaller vehicles on here, but they are about to bring a bunch of trucks on here. They can't fit as many, but they've got to get them over there, because it's a fairly dire situation on Hatteras Island.
As you mentioned, 2,500 people there chose to ignore the mandatory evacuation orders. So they are now stranded. They were -- they have been stranded now for about two and a half days, since the -- since the hurricane hit.
And the reason for that is that Highway 12, running north and south, which connects Hatteras Island to the other islands of the Outer Banks, which then connect to the mainland through causeways, that section of Highway 12, at the town of Rodanthe, was severed by the hurricane and the storm surge. It was chopped to pieces. It caved in.
Power lines went down, and now the Atlantic Ocean is essentially flowing over it. It's going to take at least two weeks, probably, to get that operational, and probably longer than that. As for who stayed and why, well, I asked a local resident about that when we got there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: But what's the philosophy? Why do -- why do people like you stay through this?
MATTHEW WILLIAMS: I don't know. I guess it's -- I don't know, you know, we -- we were -- we grew up here. The main thing is getting back. You know, when you're gone, you know, you're wondering what -- your belongings, your property, you're wondering how it is, you know. It's your whole life here, so it's kind of hard to leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: And we just seen an electrical truck getting loaded on to the ferry right now. They're loading as many of these on as they can. It takes about two and a half hours each way to get across Pamlico Sound here, and to Hatteras Island.
You know, other people there on Hatteras told us that, you know, they've ridden out worse hurricanes before, but they were not quite prepared for the level of flooding that they got this time. The wind wasn't so much an issue for them as the flooding.
And, you know, they're just trying to cope with it as best they can, Suzanne. So far, no reports of deaths or injures on Hatteras Island, and no one has required immediate evacuation. If they did, the only way to get them out would be by chopper, which is how we got there yesterday with the National Guard, or on one of these slower boats, not ideal for evacuating someone in an emergency.
MALVEAUX: Sure. All right. Well, wish them the very best. Thank you, Brian.
We're going to go to Jacqui.
Jacqui, that's an extraordinary picture there, with that road and just the water that's rushing over it. I'm sure they didn't realize that that was, you know, that going to happen. But now, you know, they need everything, water, food, the whole bit.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN ANCHOR: Right, an incredible amount of surge, and that's why we tell you, when you prepare for storms like this that you really need to have a supply of three to seven days of food, of water, of all of your medicines and things, because you never know when people are going to be able to get you.
You really should evacuate. When your local authorities tell you to get out of there, even though it was a category 1, for folks as it hit there in the Carolinas, the surge was so great because it was such a huge storm.
All right. Take a look at this animation, Suzanne. This is really cool. We just got this in from NOAA. And this shows you the progress of Eileen -- or Irene -- excuse me -- basically from birth. So it developed into the Atlantic Ocean, and it moved through the Leeward Islands.
There you see it making landfall into the Carolinas and then it continues to ride up to the coast. We had three landfalls overall in the U.S. It's just amazing to see how this thing grew, as it made its way through the Bahamas, intensified, and then ultimately weakened this morning -- the last advisories were issued. This is also a really neat satellite I wanted to show you from NOAA.
And this is the position and what it looked like from the -- from space, really, as it was making landfall on New York City. This was 9:00 am yesterday morning. And you can kind of see that center of circulation in this area right here.
But don't be fooled. That's not an eye right there. We think that's a little shadows from the stronger thunderstorms that were developing. So Irene is finally out of here, but certainly going to be feeling those impacts from (sic) days to come, with so much rain and so much flooding
That's going to be the big thing that people remember in the Northeast. Of course, you're going to remember in the Carolinas those pictures you just saw there. We had anywhere between 6 and 16 inches of rainfall so far, and major flooding still ongoing.
We've got about a dozen states that still have flood warnings. This will improve relatively quickly in the next couple of days, but, of course, weeks and maybe months of cleanup.
Suzanne?
MALVEAUX: And, Jacqui, is it true that, at one point, that hurricane, that storm was as big as the size of Europe? Is that right?
JERAS: I'm not sure how big Europe was. It was a thousand miles across, at least in terms of the satellite. So the cloud field was at least that big, and, at times, the wind field extended out more than maybe 500 miles across. So it was an incredible storm in terms of size, huge storm.
MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you, Jackie. And, as always, good work, good job. I know you've been putting in long hours over the weekend. We appreciate it.
Well, five New York city hospitals were ordered to evacuate their patients before Hurricane Irene hit. So what's happening now that the storm has gone? We're going to check in on one hospital.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MALVEAUX: Five New York City hospitals that evacuated during Hurricane Irene are slowly letting patients come back today. Our CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth, Cohen, she is at one of these medical centers.
First of all, tell us a little bit about how this works. I understand these mandatory evacuations, they were unprecedented. Did they go smoothly? Do we know how it actually was carried out?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, we've talked to people at all five of these medical centers, Suzanne, and they said that it really went quite well. They only had like less than a day to get hundreds of patients out, but they said they did it. It went very smoothly. And now comes the harder part, which is letting them come back in.
Now, over the weekend I was given exclusive access to come inside NYU Langone Medical Center, where I am right now. I was inside an empty emergency room. I mean usually you've got like 50 patients coming in and out. It was eerie to be in an emergency room not only with no patients, but no beds. They had taken the beds out. It was very strange.
So now what they need to do is go back through the hospital, resterilize everything. Make sure everything is safe. Some hospitals had a bit of water leakage. They need to make sure that's OK. Some hospitals lost some of their Con Ed power. They need to make sure everything is ready for patients to return. And patients are starting to come back now. Here at NYU, they're bringing back the newborn babies first. And over the next three days, they'll be bringing back the rest of the patients.
Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Wow, they were moving newborn babies. That's absolutely incredible when you think about it. NYU actually kept some patients, too, right, at the hospital throughout the storm? How did that go? Why did they do that?
COHEN: They did. They kept six patients in the intensive care unit, Suzanne, because they figured that it was actually more dangerous to move them. Moving those patients could have killed them. So those six patients hunkered down for the storm with a team of doctors and nurses, laboratory technicians, people from the blood bank. They had to keep about 200 staff people here to take care of those patients. These people really are heroes to stay through a storm in an evacuation zone.
And I have one of those heroes here with me. Her name is Elaine Rowinski.
Elaine, I know you don't like it when I call you hero.
ELAINE ROWINSKI, ICU NURSE MANAGER: No, we're not heroes. We're heroes every day of the week, this staff. COHEN: It's really, really amazing. And so Elaine is the nursing care manager here at the ICU at NYU. And so tell us, how did the weekend go with the six patients?
ROWINSKI: Actually, it went seamlessly. We were able to provide all the services that we would normally provide a patient on any day. And I think that's because we at NYU Langone prepare for these types of disasters throughout the years with drills.
COHEN: You were 100 yards away from a river that people feared was going to overflow. It didn't really. But there was a lot of scary thoughts going on, on Friday and Saturday. Were you nervous being here?
ROWINSKI: You know, I wasn't nervous. You know, we had a command center and leadership was here and they brought in lots of people to help us in the event that something did happen.
COHEN: Well, that's great. I'm sure those six patients and their families are really indebted to you and the other nurses and doctors. So, that's wonderful. So, thank you. Thank you.
Suzanne, back to you.
MALVEAUX: All right, thanks, Elizabeth.
Our "Talk Back" question of the day, is FEMA necessary? Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul does not think so. We're going to read through some of your responses after the break.
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MALVEAUX: Want to go to Vermont's Governor Shumlin, who is joining us now before the microphones, as well as Senator Patrick Leahy and General Mike Duvi (ph). All three of these officials just completed an aerial tour of a section of the state.
Governor, senator, general, thank you for joining us. I understand that some of you have sound and perhaps the general does not. But if I can start with the governor.
Give us a sense of what you've actually seen. I know this is the worst natural disaster, this flooding, this hurricane, in some eight decades for your state. What state is it in now?
GOV. PETER SHUMLIN, VERMONT: Well, you know, it's absolutely devastating. And Irene really whacked us hard up here.
You know, Vermont is a mountainous state. Small rivers flowing into bigger rivers. Small brooks. And literally every small community south of the Massachusetts line is impacted all the way through up central Vermont.
We're trying to get Vermonters to focus on a few things so that we don't' have further loss of life that we've already had. The first is, stay away from downed power lines because we don't have roads and adequate transportation systems in to many of those areas to go in and fix them. The second is, stay away from standing water. That's obviously when people lose life, when they go into water they didn't know how deep it is.
And, finally, reach out to your neighbors, as we do in Vermont. We have hundreds and hundreds of seniors of low income Vermonters crammed into shelters that would be much happier in a home of a wonderful Vermont family. And, you know, it was just devastating. Whole communities under water. Businesses, homes, obviously roads and bridges, rail -- rail transportation infrastructure. We've lost farmers' crops. So we're tough folks here in Vermont. We'll get through this. But Irene really packed (ph) us and hit us hard.
MALVEAUX: I understand that there are at least 260 roads that were under water. Has anything improved here? Is the water receding? What are you doing?
SHUMLIN: It's receding from the higher elevations, but, unfortunately, that means that the water is flowing with great force into the lower elevations, to our larger rivers and streams. And so we have more flooding ahead. And, obviously, we know that we have more bad news ahead. We're looking for missing people. We're -- we've got have hands full.
But I've got to say, our National Guard, the Red Cross, our law enforcement folks, firefighters, all of our municipal transportation workers, the state transportation workers, we've all been working without sleep for a number of days and they're just doing an extraordinary job.
MALVEAUX: Sure. Governor, how many people -- you said you're still looking for people. How many people are missing in your state?
SHUMLIN: Well, we have several missing. I'm going to be a little -- a little vague on that because, obviously, we're hoping for the best, but we want to notify a family in a case of real tragedy before we talk about it publicly. But I can say with confidence that there's further loss of life ahead.
MALVEAUX: When you say several, are you talking several, are you talking dozens? What kind of loss are we talking about?
SHUMLIN: No, no, not -- not dozens. We lost one young girl, a 21- year-old woman here in Wilmington just up the ridge from where we are now who got swept away in the Deerfield River. Obviously our heart goes out to both her and her family. We're going to be landing in there shortly.
But there are -- there will be more casualties, we believe. We're searching for several people, but not dozens.
MALVEAUX: Senator Leahy, where do you head next? What area are you traveling to? What kinds of questions, what kind of things do you need to learn?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, VERMONT: We'll stay down primarily in the southern part of the state and eventually work back up to central Vermont. We started near Montpelier (ph), where I was born -- in fact, all three of us are natives of this state. And I think all three of us had the same reaction. We would go by a -- we'd see a perfectly tranquil area and go another mile and then see total devastation. I can't think of anything in my lifetime where I've seen flooding this bad, especially down here in the southern part of the state, and certainly not this time of the year. We might get in the spring with ice jams and all, but never anything like this.
So we're going to make -- I want to make it very clear to Washington that we do need help. We're a small state. We'll pull together. It's extraordinary when we see neighbors helping neighbors. Sometimes people have nothing themselves and they're still helping. But we're going to need help from Washington. And I've already gotten e-mails from both Democratic and Republican senators saying we'll help you.
MALVEAUX: All right. All right. Well, thank you so much, Senator Leahy, General Mike Duvi, and Governor Shumlin. We appreciate your time. We certainly hope that things get better for the folks there in Vermont. We appreciate it.
CNN NEWSROOM continues after this with Randi Kaye.
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