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Flood Warnings and Evacuation Orders Still Up in Colorado; Fire Destroys New Jersey Boardwalk; High Stakes Syria Talks Continue; U.S. Lawmaker Writes a Response to Putin; Al Qaeda Leader Calls for Attack on U.S.; Blast Near U.S. Consulate in Afghanistan; Twitter Files for Initial Public Offer
Aired September 13, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Thousands evacuated, two towns becoming islands, completely cut off from the rest of the world. The National Weather Service this morning calling it a flood of biblical proportions.
Also boardwalk blaze.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's horrifying what's going on here.
COSTELLO: Seaside Heights, the town boardwalk battered by Sandy, just rebuilt, now burning to the beach. Brand new details this morning and a message from Governor Chris Christie.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: As soon as this is over we'll pick ourselves up, we'll dust ourselves off, and we'll get back to work.
COSTELLO: Plus the bird worth billions. Twitter planning to go public. What it means for your feed in 140 characters or less.
And the real-life "Up." A 39-year-old man from Raleigh, North Carolina, attempting to cross the Atlantic with 370 helium party balloons. It's no joke.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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COSTELLO: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
The National Weather Service calls it biblical, and when you see the pictures out of Colorado this morning, you will understand why. Record rainfall has turned towns into islands, walls of water 20 feet high traveled swiftly through mountain canyons and now that the sun is up the Colorado National Guard will begin evacuating the town of Lyons, Colorado, all 2,000 residents.
Overnight rains combined with rushing floodwaters have entire cities, school districts and businesses shut down again today. President Obama has responded by signing an emergency declaration for all of Colorado. In the meantime thousands are forced to seek higher ground or have been ordered to stay put in their homes but travel is dangerous as huge sections of roads have washed away. Flash flood warnings remain in effect until further notice.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never seen anything like this. This is just mind- boggling.
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COSTELLO: George Howell is in Boulder, Colorado, this morning with more.
Good morning, George.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning. So you look around, you know the rain has stopped for the moment and you can see what's left over on this road, all of the debris that's been pushed down the road. We know that more rain is expected later today. We know that the water that you see now will continue to cut off neighborhoods. This situation remains volatile out here.
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HOWELL, (voice-over): Overnight along residents along Boulder Creek were warned to get to higher ground for fear of this. Fast-moving water, carrying dangerous debris, steadily rising. Emergency crews struggled with relentless rain throughout the night, as historic flooding has devastated the area around Boulder, Colorado. Rescuers spent Thursday evacuating the worst-hit neighborhoods, getting people and pets to safety.
In the small town of Lyons, officials describe the scene as a 500-year flood, many residents were urged to stay in their homes, dramatic scenes played out across the region, like this one in Aurora, a partially submerged car and a woman stranded on top. This firefighter came to her aid. The entire neighborhood of Erie evacuated. Fire crews saving precious lives.
GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), COLORADO: We have declared disaster and requesting emergency declaration from FEMA.
HOWELL: This washed-out road in Jefferson County left residents in Jamestown completely cut off from the world, no roads and spotty communication. Trouble began Wednesday night after an unusually powerful storm dumped more than a half a foot of rain in a 19-hour period.
You can hear flood sirens blaring in this video taken by a student at the University of Colorado. In this video, water raging from Boulder Creek gushed on to campus.
Thursday, two people were rescued from this horrific scene, trucks twisted and dangled over rushing water. And then this heart-pounding rescue. A man trapped in an overturned car for more than an hour. It was a race against the clock. Rescuers finally pulling him to dry land.
LT. ROB WILLIAMS NORTH METRO FIRE RESCUE: Fortunately the windows were up and they had a good air pocket in the vehicles and we were able to go over to it and break the window and get him out.
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HOWELL: So a lot of people are dealing with this situation as best they can. There was one situation that we saw just the other day, Carol, we got here, right at the corner of 16th and Lyons -- 16th and Iris, I should say, right there we saw this family doing everything they could, they brought buckets, they brought boards trying to stop this flow of water from getting into their home.
It's one of those things where you see people coming out, fighting the -- the good fight, doing the best they can but, you know, this situation remains dangerous especially with more rain expected.
COSTELLO: Yes, the best thing I see in your shot is that car turning around and avoiding the water. Thank goodness he's going the other way. It was happening right behind you, George.
Good idea, Mr. Driver.
HOWELL: Yes, you know --
COSTELLO: Thank you, George Howell. Go ahead.
HOWELL: Thanks. Well, I was going to say we saw some of that earlier. I actually saw a car going through here on "NEW DAY" and it's one of those things where, you know, people are advised to stay away from this, but they still do it anyway. It's very dangerous, the officials warned them not to.
Just remember when you go into standing water you don't know how high it is. You can really find yourself in a dangerous spot.
COSTELLO: And people appear to be listening. Another car is turning around behind you. George Howell reporting live from Boulder, Colorado, this morning.
HOWELL: That's smart.
COSTELLO: Famous boardwalk damaged by Superstorm Sandy, destroyed again. The New Jersey boardwalk in Seaside Heights was rebuilt and reopened on Memorial Day but now it's a charred mess after a massive fire swept through Seaside Park. Flames spread over four blocks, hundreds of fire fighters from dozens of towns battled nine hours to get that fire under control. Fifty businesses are either damaged or destroyed.
Don Lemon is in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, this morning.
Good morning, Don.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. What a mess. I mean, that's the only way to describe it and how sad, they just opened. You know, one business owner I interviewed had just opened his business in July, Carol, after Sandy, and then now this. And I had a chance, I want you guys to see this. This is exclusive video of that business and also one of the fire trenches that they had to dig, just like they're dealing with a forest fire, in order to stop that fire from eating up more of the boardwalk. Take a look.
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LEMON: This is the trench that they dug from Lincoln Avenue here in Seaside Heights. They dug this so that the fire wouldn't go any further. It's the same thing they do with the wildfires to try to hold it back.
And there is the boardwalk. They're still putting out hot spots down that boardwalk. This is what's left of John's business. Not much here to salvage.
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LEMON: Not much for him to salvage, not much for really any business owner here to salvage. The reason they're treating it as a wildfire, as the forest fires, because of the winds. The winds are so high, upwards of 30 miles an hour. The first trench they dug didn't hold, so they scrambled and went further down the boardwalk and they had to dig another trench.
The governor showed up, Chris Christie, you saw him out here during Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm Sandy, so much and as he toured this devastation, as it was going on in its height, he had a very real emotional moment.
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CHRISTIE: I feel like I want to throw up and that's me. After all the effort and time and resources that we've put in to help the folks at Seaside Park and Seaside Heights rebuild, to see this going on, as I said at the top, it's just unthinkable. So I know how I'm feeling. I can only imagine how the residents and business owners in this area are feeling. My heart goes out to them. That's why I'm here to make sure that every resource is brought to bear to contain this problem.
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LEMON: A lot of people are sickened by this, Carol, and I just want to tell you the governor was here all day yesterday into the night. Over my shoulder here you can see the massive media getting ready. The governor is going to come here in about an hour's time, he may get here sooner and hear all the helicopters. He's going to give a briefing as to what they're going to do next but he says they're going to rebuild, but man, this is devastating after, you know, suffering such a loss from Sandy, and as people here put it, what Sandy didn't take away, this fire certainly did. COSTELLO: But they got the fighting spirit there in New Jersey and I know they'll rebuild. And --
LEMON: They do.
COSTELLO: In the end.
LEMON: Yes.
COSTELLO: It's going to be OK. Nobody lost their lives, so that's a good thing.
Don Lemon, thanks so much.
COSTELLO: A good, constructive talk, that's how Secretary of State John Kerry described negotiations with the Russian foreign minister as the two men worked to fight a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria. Those high stakes discussions now in their second day with a pledge to meet again later this month in New York.
Before I get to that, though, kind of a bizarre moment today on the way to those talks when the media tried to get a picture of the two diplomats. Watch.
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SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: You don't give us orders. You just catch the moment.
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We'll see you after the meeting. Thank you.
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COSTELLO: That was the Russian foreign minister, he was yelling to photographers trying to take his picture like, "You don't control things, I do. You catch the moment, I'm not going to stop to have my picture taken." So you can imagine what -- how tough these negotiations are for Secretary of State John Kerry.
Our senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is in Geneva with more on those talks.
Good morning.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right. Sergei Lavrov there showing that he's a very tricky customer indeed. I've met him several times, very difficult, I imagine, to sit across the negotiating table with him.
You're right, though. John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, talking about how this was a constructive session. They've been having today. They're still engaged in talks now. But they haven't hammered out any final agreement on what Syria is going to do to put its chemical weapons under international control, but they've agreed in principle of course that must happen. It's a question now of how that's going to happen. The big roadblock at this point is the issue of the threat of force, that the United States believing that the threat of credible -- credible threat of force of its forces against Syria is the only thing that will really push the Syrians into action. The Russians taking an opposite point of view at this point and saying the country can't be expected to disarm if another country is preparing a military strike against it.
So this is the main obstacle at the moment and these talks are continuing with at the moment no briefing, no word on what their outcome may be.
COSTELLO: Matthew Chance reporting live from Geneva this morning.
Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of New York.
Good morning, sir.
REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: Thank you for having me on, Carol.
COSTELLO: Thanks for being on with us. We appreciate it.
Vladimir Putin still getting strong reaction including lots of criticism for his "New York Times" op-ed and now other questions have popped up like why did the "New York Times" give Putin a platform anyway? Should the paper have done that, Congressman?
ISRAEL: Well, of course. You know, we have free expression in this country, but free expression is a two-way street and so what I decided to do is test the proposition that free expression is a two-way street and I submitted an op-ed rebutting President Putin in "Commisant," which is the kind of -- considered the "New York Times" of foreign policy in Russia.
And I'm pleased to tell you that literally a few minutes ago en route to join you we heard that it is the intention of that newspaper to translate my op-ed and actually run it on Monday. Now we'll see whether it actually runs. I'm optimistic that the Russians agreed that free speech is a two-way street and we'll see if that free speech dead ends before now and Monday.
COSTELLO: Well, you talked about American exceptionalism in the column that you wrote for that Russian magazine. Can you tell us what you said?
ISRAEL: Yes, here was my point to the Russian people. I disagree with President Putin's criticism of an American view of our exceptionalism. As an American I hold dear that exceptionalism.
I also know this, that our two countries have been exceptional on many different things. We defeated Nazism, we explored space together, and if President Putin can now turn words in an op-ed into deed, if he can now work with us to create an international way of containing and controlling Syria's chemical weapons capability, that would be one more exceptional thing that our two countries have done together but deed is a heck of a lot different than word. COSTELLO: Yes. I know that Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian foreign minister talked about a timetable. Secretary Kerry didn't like the timetable that the Russians laid out. Also of course the most pressing thing on the -- on the table right now are military strikes. The United States doesn't want to take that off the table, the Russians do. What do you think needs to be done?
ISRAEL: Well, I think that we have to continue to vet the Russia proposal out. And that's exactly what we're doing. We have to put it in a pressure cooker and make sure that it can withstand the pressure. So Secretary Kerry and Minister Lavrov will continue to talk over the next day or two. Next week the United Nations is expected to present its report on Syria's use of chemical weapons, and those are two very important benchmarks. At that point we should make an assessment on where we go from there.
COSTELLO: Can you guess at a conclusion? Because nobody much can right now. Everything seems so up in the air and kind of messy and kind of scary frankly.
ISRAEL: We have learned one thing about this process from the Russians and from the Syrians that the only thing that you can predict is the unpredictable and we have an obligation to make sure that we are not allowing countries to use chemical weapons, not only against their own citizens but to threaten our core interest. That has to be the strategic objective. How we get there remains fluid.
COSTELLO: Congressman Steve Israel of New York, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
ISRAEL: Thank you, Carol.
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COSTELLO (voice-over): Still to come in the NEWSROOM the bronze is back. Lance Armstrong returning his medal from the 2000 Olympics.
Plus, water spout in Wisconsin. Amazing pictures direct from Lake Michigan.
Also on guard in Turkey. Our Ivan Watson on the ground where U.S. Patriot missiles and soldiers are ready.
And brothers in arms, the Mannings, Cain versus Abel, battle on the field, the game everyone is waiting for.
NEWSROOM is back after a break.
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COSTELLO: As the country remembered 9/11 this week, al Qaeda pushed for more terrorist attacks on the United States. The group's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued an audio message to rally terrorists. He asked them to attack on American soil and pointed at the Boston marathon bombings as an example. He also outlined a plan to hurt the U.S. economy.
CNN's Nic Robertson is in Beirut, Lebanon, with more on this.
Good morning, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. No surprise in many ways that Ayman al-Zawahiri would release an audio message, close to the anniversary of 9/11. The al Qaeda leaders always like to do this. They know that this is a time when they get attention and can get the message out to their audience.
So, what he said this time is that al Qaeda operatives should land a large strike on America, he said, even if it takes years of patience. He said that the Boston bombing was an example of that -- interesting, because in the past he's also talked about lone wolf and small type attacks, al Qaeda's sympathizers and supporters know what they should do.
But the thrust of his message and quoting from the audio message, not a video message, an audio message, quoting from it, he says, "We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure."
He is trying to target the economy by terror attacks that will cause people to spend more money on making sure they're safe. That was his message this time, Carol.
COSTELLO: Gotcha. So, it wasn't al Qaeda, it was the Taliban claiming responsibility for an attack outside a U.S. consulate in Afghanistan.
Can you tell us more about that, Nic?
ROBERTSON: Yes, that was an attack in the early hours of the morning, either 5:00 or 7:00, the numbers are unclear. People, attackers came, small weapons supported by a large truck-borne bomb, that blow up, blew off the gates of the compound.
Two policemen and a local security official were injured in that attack. The Taliban have claimed responsibility. Of course, Herat -- right in the east of Afghanistan, very close to Iran, Iran in the past has supported the Taliban, given them weapons, given them money.
And this time, of course, because of the situation in Syria, because Iran supports Bashar al Assad in Syria and Iran is opposed to U.S. strikes in Syria, tension between the United States and Iran and right on the border of Iran this U.S. consulate gets attacked in the early hours of the morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Nic Robertson reporting live from Beirut this morning.
In 140 characters or less, what the Twitter IPO might mean for you. We'll talk about that, next.
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COSTELLO: Big news came via a little tweet. Twitter has announced it will file for an initial public offering, and investors are hoping the payoff will be better than just 140 characters.
Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange with more on this.
Good morning, Alison.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
Would you expect Twitter to deliver this news in any other way? Yes. In fact, it went under that 140 character limit and made it 135.
Look at the tweet, Twitter tweeted, "We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO." And, yes, the media went wild. Just minutes later, another tweet from Twitter, "Now back to work."
So, this is not a huge surprise because, you know, after Facebook went public last year, Twitter was expected to come next. It is a good time for technology IPOs, at this moment. You look at Facebook and LinkedIn shares, both hit record high this week. But there are some concerns about Twitter and here's why.
Analysts are out there wondering what kind of staying power does twitter have, meaning does it have long-term, does it have a long-term growth plan? Also it has the same problem as Facebook, how is Twitter going to make money off its tweets?
Sure, it has the promoted tweets, those tweets sponsored by advertisers. But, really, how successful are they? The problem is we don't know the answers -- Carol.
COSTELLO: We don't know so many things because Twitter's IPO filing is confidential. Are they holding something back? Is this normal?
KOSIK: It is normal, because although this is more of a health filing, it's legit because it was because of a law that passed last year letting companies go public without having to disclose all this paperwork, there's also less pressure to reveal financial data. It also gives these companies a chance to work out the kinks in private. You look at how traditional IPOs have done it. Companies have had to show the accounting going back three years.
So, this is actually a good way for these new companies to kind of test the waters to get an idea of investor interest without having all those eye balls, look at the public scrutiny. But on the other hand, what it also does, it makes it tougher for investors to know how many shares are going to be sold or what the pricing is going to look like.
So don't ask me when the public debut is aware, because we just don't know at this point, Carol.
COSTELLO: Understand. Alison Kosik, many thanks.
Dream deflated. Jonathan Trappe, the man trying to mimic Pixar's film "Up", did not make it. He and his helium balloon landed in Newfoundland, Canada. Trappe took off from Maine early yesterday morning with 370 balloons. He was the first person to cross the English Channel with a balloon cluster like this. Five people have died trying to do something like this to cross the Atlantic.
Trappe's trip to Europe was supposed to take about a week when he landed late last night. Trappe tweeted, "Hmm, this doesn't look like France."
Trappe's dream, he's a 39-year-old IT guy from North Carolina, sprung from the adventure of Mr. Frederickson, Russell and their talking dog.
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DOG: My master made me this collar so that I may talk. Squirrel!
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COSTELLO: I like that. That was just an excuse to show that. I love dog.
Anyway, Trappe spent two years preparing for his flight. If he landed in the ocean he had a small lifeboat to help him survive. Who knows? He may try, try, try again.
Still to come in CNN NEWSROOM: tragedy again on the New Jersey shore as a famous boardwalk damaged by Superstorm Sandy goes up in flames. Hear Governor Chris Christie's reaction to this charred mess.
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COSTELLO: Happening now in NEWSROOM: Chris Christie and the boardwalk fire, a governor supporting Seaside Heights sanding by a town swamped by Sandy. Christie and his own words, straight ahead.
Plus, Wal-Mart versus Washington in a living wage battle. The winners and losers in this paycheck war.
