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Heavy Flooding Intensifies In Colorado; Evacuation Orders Still Up For Thousands; Fire Destroys New Jersey Boardwalk; Fire Burns 50 Businesses; U.S., Russia Continue Talks Over Syria Weapons Proposal; Update On Deadly Colorado Floods; First Lady's Water Push Draws Fire

Aired September 13, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- how fast it was, how muddy it was, and how dangerous it was, it freaked us out.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Entire towns stranded, thousands evacuated and some of the worst flooding Colorado has ever seen. And --

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GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I feel like I want to throw up. I know how I'm feeling. I can only imagine how the residents and business owners in this area are feeling.

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COSTELLO: Forced to rebuild yet again. Not even a year after Sandy, a massive fire devastates most of an iconic boardwalk in New Jersey.

And the first lady ignites controversy over water. She's asking people to drink just one more glass of water a day and the critics are lashing back. Plus --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We support each other. We want each other to play well each year.

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COSTELLO: The countdown is on, Manning versus Manning, this Sunday, but no trash talk between these two brothers before what could be their final matchup. The second hour of NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us. The National Weather Service calls the flooding in parts of Colorado biblical. When you see the pictures this morning you will understand why. Record rainfall has turned towns into islands, walls of water 20 feet high traveled swift through mountain canyons. Now that the sun is up, the Colorado National Guard is starting to evacuate the entire 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 providing federal assistance for Colorado.

In the meantime, thousands are forced to seek higher ground or have been ordered to stay in their homes. Travel is dangerous as huge sections of roads have washed away. Flash flood warnings do remain in effect until further notice.

Let's talk about this. Ryan Huff is the spokesperson for the University of Colorado Police. Good morning.

RYAN HUFF, SPOKESMAN, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO POLICE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So Ryan, characterize the situation for us.

HUFF: Where I'm standing right now is a couple miles from campus. Obviously this looks pretty bad, but I just want to reassure parents and others who were watching from across the country that the campus is in relatively good shape. We do have some property damage to buildings, about 25 percent of our buildings have some form of water damage, either in the basements or other areas, but the students are fine.

We don't have any reports of missing persons and for the thousands of residents, who were on campus last night, they were playing video games, ping-pong. They're doing fine. We only have one injury, pretty minor from a few days ago. Otherwise everything's OK.

COSTELLO: Well, I understand some students at the height of some of this flash flooding were taking Instagram pictures and the university had to put a stop to that. What are you telling students?

HUFF: Well, obviously this is something that they probably haven't seen before. This is a very unique event to happen. It is understandable why they'd be interested in this, but they're really putting their own lives at risk. You know, these flash floodwaters can sweep people up quickly and so we urge them don't go down to the creek.

COSTELLO: We're taking a look at some of the pictures. It looks like they're walking through a parking garage or a building, a tunnel?

HUFF: You know, I'm not sure which pictures you're looking at. We did have one of the underpasses in our area that flooded a couple feet. So we're really urging people don't go near the creek. Don't go in the underpasses that are flooded. It's dangerous out there. Stay inside your residence halls. It's fine there. We have plenty of food at the dining halls. If you don't go near the creek, you're going to be OK.

COSTELLO: Any idea when things could get back to normal? HUFF: You know, we haven't decided when campus will re-open. We are closed today. We were closed yesterday. The chancellor and the cabinet are meeting on that now to decide when it will be safe to re- open campus. Our facilities management crews are working very hard to pump water out of some of the basements and other areas, but we hope in the near future to re-open campus.

COSTELLO: All right, Ryan Huff, good luck to you. Ryan Huff, spokesman for the University of Colorado Police Department. Thank you.

All right, you're looking at a podium right now on the Colorado governor, Governor Hickenlooper is expected to speak at any moment. He'll bring us up to date on what's going on in Colorado. As you can see, dangerous conditions still persist there. So when the governor approaches the podium, we'll take a bit of his remarks live.

For more on the rain and when it might stop, let's go to the CNN Severe Weather Center and Indra Petersons. Good morning, Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Good morning. What's so incredible here, Carol, is many places around this region only have 15 to 20 inches of rain in the entire year. Now let's take a look at how much rain they have seen since just Monday. Colorado Springs, almost 15 inches of rain. We look at Jamestown, over 7 inches of rain. This is incredible amount of rain in such a short period of time as far as the forecast today.

Yes, we have warnings of course in Colorado as we still have that flooding occurring. But a lot of watches in New Mexico, there's a reason for a change in the forecast. Yesterday, we had all these winds coming out of the south, producing all this southerly moisture, reaching far north into Colorado.

Today we'll see a hint of a shift. Now keep in mind yesterday, we also saw the upslope, the one up the Rockies and really enhanced the amount of rain that came out of that. That's the reason we saw that heavy rain. So that shift I was talking about, will happen today, the low will move off to the east.

The reason that's so important, you get westerly winds. We're not going to see that rain as far north as into Colorado, still expected to be out there but not as high. New Mexico today should get about 2 inches to 4 inches of rain. But of course, any more rain that has too much is never a good thing.

COSTELLO: You've got that right. Indra Petersons, thanks so much.

A famous boardwalk damaged by Superstorm Sandy is destroyed again. It was just Memorial Day when the New Jersey boardwalk in Seaside Heights re-opened. Well, now it's a charred mess following a massive, raging fire. Flames spread over four blocks, hundreds of firefighters from dozens of towns battled for nine hours to get this fire under control. Fifty businesses are either damaged or destroyed.

Don Lemon is in Seaside Park, New Jersey this morning. Good morning, Don.

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. The investigators here tell me, listen, I don't have a small hand. They're saying embers as big as or bigger than my hand were flying into the air here. They didn't know where they were going to land. Because of Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm Sandy that caused so much damage, some of these fire pumps right here weren't working properly because of hurricane damage.

They had to bring in giant pumps, giant hoses and had to pump in water from the bay, which is a mile that way in order to get the fire out. Take a look right here. This is what they're doing now. They're still trying to put out some of the hot spots on the boardwalk here.

And just a short time ago, Carol, I got a chance to go on the boardwalk with one of those business owners right near one of those fire trenches where it was dug. Here's what I saw.

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LEMON: This is the trench that they dug from Lincoln Avenue in Seaside Heights. They dug this so the fire wouldn't go any further. It's the same thing they do with wildfires, to try to hold it back and there's the boardwalk. They're still putting out hot spots down the boardwalk. This is what's left of John's business. Not much here to salvage.

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LEMON: Not much to salvage but, again, at least four blocks here, maybe as many as six blocks, 50 businesses, completely gone. This boardwalk is really demolished here. The fire is not out but it is contain. You can see, again, they're working on some of the hot spots.

Just a short time, Carol, while you're on the air here, they're setting up here for Governor Chris Christie. He will be holding a press briefing in just about 20 minutes if he shows up on time and we will bring you any information that comes out of that. Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, we appreciate that. Don Lemon reporting live this morning.

In Geneva, talks continue between the United States and Russia as Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov worked to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria. At issue, a Russian proposal to force Syria to give up its chemical weapons. Kerry is underscoring the seriousness of these discussions.

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JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Expectations are high. They are high for the United States, perhaps even more so for Russia to deliver on the promise of this moment. This is not a game.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: We'll have more on the situation over Syria in just a second. We want to take you back live to Colorado where Governor John Hickenlooper is talking about the devastating flooding there. Let's listen.

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GOVERNOR JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), COLORADO: -- to make sure those people who are at risk are addressed. We did get a break last night from, and we're very grateful, to FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as the Department of Homeland Security and the White House. I was talking to people in the White House at 8:00 last night trying to make sure they could get our emergency declaration signed at night so we could keep people working around the clock and they did that.

Certainly we were very grateful that the rest of the country recognizes when you're, you know, when you need help they're willing to reach out. Again, we're getting -- continuing to get calls of support from neighboring states. We are in the process now of recognizing what types of assets we need in terms of doing the assessment once this rain begins to recede. We certainly are going to need help with the recovery.

We have a web site, I think a lot of people are aware of this, but it's called helpcoloradonow.org so people go online to helpcoloradonow.org. They can make contributions to the -- whether it's Red Cross or which of the emergency organizations are there. People can direct their money quite specifically. I think that, at this moment, is much more useful than people providing coats or perishable food or other support.

Let me see what else we have here. We'll have a video conference with FEMA at 10:30 to try and, again, tighten down some of the assessments. I did talk to the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security this morning and they are committed, again, to provide all the support we could possibly need and make sure we get people out of harm's way. The one overriding thing I tell -- try to say every single time we speak is stay out of your vehicle, if possible.

Stay home if your home is in a safe place. Obviously if you're being told to evacuate, you need to evacuate. Be ready, be prepared for whatever your local management emergency officials are telling you. Any response to a natural disaster always starts locally. They are going to be the best informed.

But most of our injuries often in these types of disasters, fatalities occur with people trying to walk through -- get from their car, walk through what looks like maybe a foot or two feet of water. It looks harmless. You have to recognize this water is filled with debris and sand. It is almost like liquid cement. Even just a foot and a half of water can knock people over and you can be swept away.

It's much different than normal water you see going down a mountain stream. We're asking people to be exceptionally careful and to, if at all possible, stay off the roads. The Colorado Department of Transportation has issued a central traffic only restriction. That's for Jefferson, Larimer, Boulder and Clear Creek counties.

We're having trouble getting emergency management vehicles around. The congestion has been such. So we're trying to get people at least for a couple hours to stay off the roads so that we can get help to where it most needs to be. I've got a bunch of our cabinet members here. I don't know where they all snuck off to.

We're going to go out to the affected areas in El Paso County, Boulder County, and make sure that we're providing direct support wherever we can. Again, our local first responders have done a remarkable job. And when you look at -- some of the work that's being done all up along this, it's about 150 miles worth of the front range, it should make every Coloradan proud.

These folks, these men and women have been out there, a lot working close to 24-hour shifts, and have, you know, done a remarkable job. Any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor, there are a lot of people living in areas where they thought it would never flood and, therefore, they did not take out a flood insurance rider. What do we say to those people about what resources might be available?

HICKENLOOPER: We're in the process right now and we're seeking an expedited process to -- is it expedited? Yes, to get this as a declaration of a major disaster, presidential declaration. That will free up some money, although, again, how that works out is -- there's a very complex framework, matrix of information we have to collect.

That's a big part of the response to a major disaster like this is making sure we get all the information together as we submit those requests. Certainly, I have not seen final numbers for the accumulation of -- you probably know this more than I. I have not seen it, the total rains. It has got to be the largest storm that I can imagine in the state's history.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With so much happening right now, resources are spread out, this morning, is there a top priority? Is there one that's becoming more urgent?

HICKENLOOPER: You know, I think we have the evacuations. So making sure we get everybody, especially the elderly out of Lyons. We have an evacuation going on in Commerce City. Those evacuations are the highest priority. We're trying to keep an assessment, an active assessment with each of the local first responders. Saying where do you need help and how urgent is it? How can we get you more resources? Partly what we need is the rain to stop, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is the plan for those areas, is it to evacuate?

HICKENLOOPER: You're talking about in the flat lands, off the front -- we're seeing more flooding in certain parts of Aurora, north metro area, people's basements. It doesn't appear to be, you know, in most cases -- I shouldn't say -- I won't make a blanket statement, but in most cases it doesn't appear to be a threat to life. I don't think they're in most cases talking about evacuations outside of the few that I mentioned. It doesn't mean people shouldn't go down in their basement and look. You can imagine someone who's got their lifetime of photographs they've stored in the basement.

They just weren't thinking, they were distracted by the storm they went down and all of a sudden they have six inches of water and it takes those memories from them. There's a level of preparedness that everybody should go through and, you know, check their house out, make sure everything is OK.

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COSTELLO: All right, we're going to pull away from this news conference. This is Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. You may notice he's on crutches. He just had hip surgery. That's why he's on crutches.

You heard many people in Colorado who have suffered through flooding have never had flooding in their homes before, they don't have insurance. Thousands and thousands of people have been affected by the floodwaters.

If you want to help out folks in Colorado, we have a place where you can go, go to cnn.com/impact. We'll explain it all there and you can reach out to our friends in Colorado. We'll be right back with more in the NEWSROOM.

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COSTELLO: As promised more on Syria now. In Geneva, talks between the United States and Russia do continue. So let's head to Geneva and our senior international correspondent Matthew Chance. Good morning, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The talks between John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov being characterized by both sides as pretty constructive. They're talking about how best to get Syria's chemical weapons under international control and eventually to decommission them.

But there's a lot of agreement as to that's what should be done, but there's sort of principle disagreement at the moment as to how it should be done. The big sticking point is this, should the U.S. continue to hang the threat of military action over Syria? The U.S. secretary of state saying that he thinks he should, because that's the only way, essentially, that Syria will do what it says it's going to do, decommission those weapons.

The Russians thought have a very different position on this. Of course, they're big allies of the regime in Damascus. They want the threats of U.S. air strikes over Syria lifted because they say it's unreasonable for a country to disarm while another country, the United States, is planning a military attack against them. So that's what they're discussing now in this hotel in Geneva behind us, how to get over the breakthrough and get to the point where Syria is actually decommissioning those chemical weapons -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So the talks will continue in Geneva, but at some point they'll stop. The two men will meet again in New York later this month, right?

CHANCE: That's right, but that's on a slightly different issue. They're going to be meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to discuss the possibility of convening a peace conference for a general political settlement to the conflict in Syria.

Now, the Russians on the one hand say that process should continue in parallel these chemical weapons talks. But the Americans seem to have made it contingent on progress here, saying that essentially we'll see how these talks go, to see if we can talk about setting a date for a general peace conference later on. So there's some distance between the two sides on that issue, too.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance, reporting live from Geneva this morning. Thanks so much.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, First Lady Michelle Obama trying to get Americans to drink water, but some say the claims she's making about the health benefits of drinking water are wrong. More on that debate, after the break.

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COSTELLO: In just about 5 minutes, we'll take you back to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. You see the podium set up in front of the fire trucks. The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie is going to give some remarks and assess the damage here after that massive boardwalk fire damaged or destroyed 50 businesses in Seaside Heights and neighboring town.

When the governor begins speaking we'll take you back to Seaside Heights. But first, First Lady Michelle Obama has made a healthier America her mission. Now she's trying to drink more water, just one extra glass of water per day. Some of her previous pushes for healthy living have come under fire particularly from critics of the president.

Now some experts are saying Michelle Obama is overselling the benefits of water. Joining me now, senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, everything's controversial.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I know.

COSTELLO: Even water.

COHEN: Even water is controversial. It's interesting, this criticism is coming from -- really from a lot of journalists who listened to what she said and said, hold on there a minute. Water is healthy, but is it really exactly what she says it is? Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COHEN (voice-over): First Lady Michelle Obama launches a new seemingly innocuous health campaign.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: You're going to drink something.

COHEN: She wants I don't you to drink more water.

OBAMA: Drink just one more glass of water a day and you can make a real difference for your health, your energy in the way that you feel.

COHEN: Advice she says that's worked wonders for her family.

OBAMA: The more water we drank, the better we felt.

COHEN: But that advice has caused a splash of controversy. Among some experts who say the first lady is just plain wrong. They say most Americans are sufficiently hydrated and so an extra glass of water isn't going to increase your energy or make you feel better.

DR. STANLEY GOLDFARB, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: There's no good evidence that drinking extra water is going to lead to a healthier existence.

COHEN: Another claim from the first lady that's all wet, according to the experts we talked to. Drinking more water helps you have more energy to do more, longer and with better focus. The experts say extra water won't do any of those things.

GOLDFARB: They decided to sort of support some of these urban myths that have been really debunked over the years.

COHEN: They do applaud the first lady's initiatives on diet and exercise.

DR. JOHN DOOLEY, FOXHALL INTERNISTS: The first lady's health campaign is based on a lot of science. The claims about extra water itself leading to extra health benefits. That's a bit overstated.

COHEN: The bottom line, of course, you should stay hydrated and water is better than soda, but don't think that one extra glass is going to change your life.

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COSTELLO: OK, so this confuses me because I have heard my whole life I'm supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day and that will make me healthier? That's not true?

COHEN: No, it's not true. You're supposed to stay hydrated, but that doesn't mean you need to drink eight glasses of water a day. One thing you are supposed to make sure you don't get dehydrated. The doctors tell us as a whole, as a nation, we're not a dehydrated people. That's not really our problem.

Our problem is we're drinking too many sugary drinks. Some people have said why didn't she say this golden opportunity and do a campaign to say drink water and don't drink soda. You have to look and see who's supporting, promoting this campaign and it's being promoted by the American Beverage Association, which sells --

COSTELLO: Soda!

COHEN: Among other things, yes.

COSTELLO: That does kind of make you raise your eyebrow, doesn't it?

COHEN: It makes you wonder why she didn't -- the scientists were saying why didn't she take the opportunity to say drink water, not soda?

COSTELLO: I understand. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a new bride accused of pushing her husband off a cliff is now out of jail. And her husband's friends are outraged.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I disagree with all of my heart at what the justice system is saying is fair.

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COSTELLO: We'll tell you why the judge let her out of jail.

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