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Tropical Storm Karen Will Bring Lots of Rain; DC Shooting: Who Was Miriam Carey?; Are Americans Getting Angrier; Shutdown Could Make Milk Prices Skyrocket; FBI Shuts Down Silk Road; Trapped in Snow Storm 20 Hours; Tornado Flattens Wayne, Nebraska

Aired October 05, 2013 - 17:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone, to our live news coverage. I'm Don Lemon, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Congress working today, but if you heard my conversation with the two congressmen at the top of the last hour, we're going to be hearing a lot of talking points, but no solutions to end this shutdown. There are some developments, some federal workers being called back now, that's what we're hearing. And we're going to get to all of that just ahead.

But, first, this -- it really is a weather emergency today, and not just one. A tropical storm, a blizzard, tornadoes, and perfect conditions for a devastating wildfire all on the same day. This is the big rainmaker. It's spinning off the coast right now, the Gulf Coast, right now. Tropical storm Karen just sitting there but everyone from Louisiana to Florida just waiting to see where it will actually come ashore.

CNN's Chad Myers in the CNN Severe Weather Center. Chad, dirst question to you, Karen, going to be a hurricane?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Nope. What else you need to know?

LEMON: That's it.

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: This storm was a dud. I was singing Bruce Springsteen to this song "My machine she's a dud, she's stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey." Because this storm, the low, somewhere right about here, is nowhere near the convection is, where the center of convection is, and that's the problem. This storm never got its act together. Never got all the way around. It never got an eye. Never got bigger, that's the great news. And then the storm was going to travel right like this probably stay offshore most of the way. Thirty-five-mile-per-hour storm in the Gulf of Mexico just kind of ruin your beach day, that's all it's going to do right now -- Don.

LEMON: Can you talk about this, there is also snowfall in the country, so early, October 5th.

MYERS: Unbelievable. There's 30 to 40 inches of snowfall in parts of Wyoming into South Dakota. We showed you pictures earlier, people digging out. It looked like buffalo when I lived there in the '70s and then the wind was 60 to 70 miles per hour at times. Blizzard conditions, Wyoming, into parts of the Dakotas and also into Western Nebraska. It was quite the day. And on the other side tornadoes into northeastern Nebraska about a mile wide and also into parts of Iowa last night.

Here's the snow, Don, I know it's impossible to believe, but it's still coming down right now. And, I mean, we're talking about Rapid City, the black hills, talking about Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, just snow as far as you can see, and many spots as deep as you can see as well. There you see the pictures of the tornado damage yesterday, parts of Nebraska, the town of Wayne that was hit, Sloan, Iowa, just got missed by a very large tornado as well. We'll keep you advised tonight, there could be some more severe weather you interrupt this evening.

LEMON: The bearer of bad news unfortunately, is Chad Myers today. Chad, thank you very much. We appreciate that.

We want to get to the very latest now on the tropical storm zone. John Zarrella is on the move for us right now. John, where are you? And is the weather turning ugly yet?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, no, not at all, Don. And we are actually in the CNN's rolling coverage vehicle, so we'll be able to give you a look out the front and we're actually down here in an area just going into Destin. We left Fourth Walton Beach, we're into Destin. Over to my right side, you really can't see it now, all the sand dunes which are really nature's natural barriers to storms. Fortunately not going to have to deal with this, anything like that in this particular situation. But when we get around the corner here, you can see a lot of the sea grapes and different kinds of vegetation here.

Again, a lot of the natural barriers to protect against storms, against storm surge. But, again, not going to be an issue in this case. When we come around the corner here, I'm going to jump out of the car in just a second. Give you an idea what we're looking at. A lot of this is very, very low-lying, so you can get with high winds and rain a lot of coastal flooding. But that may not be an issue either with this storm. But let me get out and we'll give you a look down the beach.

So, Don, what we have here, and you can see down this way here, this is highway 98. This is the bridge over into Destin. But all on both sides, very, very low-lying terrain and as Chad can tell you, this area all the way east into Panama City, into Apalachicola, St. Marks, areas with the convection of the storm way off to the east, they could see some rain. They could see some localized flooding, but it appears better and better with every passing hour that the effects are going to be very, very minimal.

And, Don, you can see it's been a glorious day out here. People on the beach. Young boy playing in the sand. Down the beach, people fishing, enjoying the day. I did talk to one couple earlier who said, they tried to go kayaking today, but the place was closed in preparation for the storm. They didn't get to do that. But I tell you, if that's the worst of the effects from this storm, we're all doing really, really well -- Don.

LEMON: That's how you do it. Now, that's a walk and talk. Thank you, John Zarrella. I appreciate the tour there.

ZARRELLA: Got it, sure.

LEMON: So, what's the exact opposite of a tropical storm? I want you to look at this picture. This is what people in western South Dakota woke up to today, on October 5th. More than 30 inches of snow. Other places nearby, had more than 40 inches of snow. The I-reporter who took these pictures is on the phone with me now.

Terry Anderson joins me in Sturgis, South Dakota, so, Terry, you are used to harsh winters, you're in South Dakota, in the plains. But this is crazy. I mean, when have you ever seen something like this, this early on in the season?

TERRY ANDERSON, I-REPORTER, STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA: You know, Don, it's just pretty unusual for this early in the season. We usually get snowstorms in early October, but you might see a couple inches. And this was 30-plus inches. And I'd say it's going to be probably by tomorrow before we can get out and actually get out on the streets of Sturgis here in western South Dakota.

LEMON: So, how are you dealing with the snowfall so far? Your family, I mean. I would imagine this is an emergency for your family. Are you stocked up? Are you hearing about any other families around the area being stuck?

ANDERSON: You know, it's -- we had a pretty good warning that this was coming. The weather stations around the area told us about four or five days in advance, this looked like a pretty major storm coming in. So, we were prepared for it. And my family, my wife and daughter are on the eastern side of the state right now doing a college visit. So, my youngest daughter and I are at home, but my wife and middle daughter almost got hit by a tornado yesterday on the eastern side of South Dakota.

LEMON: Goodness.

ANDERSON: So it's been kind of a crazy weather weekend for us here.

LEMON: Yes. I can only imagine. You mentioned the other side of South Dakota. What about the Sturgis area? What's that like? How are people coping?

ANDERSON: You know, we've got like I said, 30-plus inches of snow. I saw the plows out this afternoon. I can see blue skies coming from the west right now. So, the temperatures starting to warm up and things are going to melt pretty fast this week. People here are pretty tough, and they can deal with weather like this. It wasn't totally unexpected, but to get this much snow this early in the season, it's going to take us a couple days to dig out, but we'll be OK.

LEMON: Oh, yes, well, we hope so. Because I would be unhappy to say the least. What are forecasters saying about when this is going to be over for you guys?

ANDERSON: You know, right now, actually, the storm system is just passing over us right now. There are blue skies towards the west. We're going to have mid-50s by Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, so it's going to melt off and be a huge mess. But we'll just have to deal with the slushy roads for a couple of days and then wait for the next storm to roll in. Like they say here in South Dakota, wait 15 minutes, the weather's going to change and we just deal with that year round here.

LEMON: Yes. We used to say five minutes in Chicago. Listen, we're proud to have you as an i-reporter. We're glad you're safe, and we wish your family well, as well as other families. Everyone around the Sturgis area. Thank you.

ANDERSON: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: All right. There appears to be no end in sight, not talking about the snow, I'm talking about this. Government shutdown. In its fifth day. But news in the past few hours that some federal workers may go back to work. We'll tell you about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, Congress is working today, as you see, day four. Not sure if they're getting much accomplished. But a shutdown solution is not on the horizon. Here's what lawmakers have got done -- gotten done so far. Up to 400,000 furloughed defense workers will return to work next week. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the law allows the Defense Department to eliminate furloughs for civilian workers who contribute to the morale or the moral -- no, to the morale, that's right. Well-being and the readiness of service members. The Senate is in session now. Earlier the House unanimously passed a bill to give back eight all furloughed government employees, the agreement ended there. Political head butting again right after the vote.

REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: In this game of ping-pong that John Boehner is playing, his side of the ping-pong table is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), MAJORITY LEADER: What we are looking at here again is an administration, a president that seems to be unwilling to sit down and talk with us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: President Obama took a fresh jab at House Speaker John Boehner today at an interview with the Associated Press, the president blame Boehner for not ending the shutdown saying, there are enough votes in the House, Republicans and Democrats to end the shutdown if the speaker will allow a vote. The government shutdown may have opened the door for a whole new problems, cyber attacks. Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto breaks down who may have their eyes on us and how the shutdown may have left us vulnerable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The government may be shut down for you and me, but for cyber- attackers, it is open, even more open for business. Adversaries from foreign governments to terror groups, says the former head of the CIA, are almost certainly looking to take advantage.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN (RET.), FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I would have been anticipating this and I would have been saying, what is that we want to do against this adversary -- that's against us now -- what is it that would be helped by doing it while they're shorthanded? What gives us a higher probability of success?

SCIUTTO: Many government agency cyber-teams are relying on skeleton crews to police attacks in cyberspace. And a successful attack now could do damage even after full staffs return to work.

Tim Erlin, a cyber-security expert who advises agencies across the government, explained how.

TIM ERLIN, TRIPWIRE: What may happen as a result of the shutdown is that that first incident, which may have been detected previously with a full staff, might be missed, allowing a compromise to go deeper into an organization to get at more critical assets or critical data.

SCIUTTO: Another risk, while staff that monitor computer networks are still on the job, many staff who maintain them are not, meaning those networks are not being updated to resist new kinds of cyber-attacks, which can change by the second. The shutdown comes as cyber-attacks are transforming from spying on computer networks to destroying them. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says it's a serious concern across the intelligence community.

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN: It's very concerning to me that we would allow any part of our national security structure knowing what's coming at us every day, not just from cyber. None of that is going away. And you can imagine that our adversaries are trying to fill the hole.

SCIUTTO (on camera): We asked a cyber-security firm advising that if the number of cyber attacks had increases since the shutdown started. And the answer we got is telling. We're told they simply don't have the staff to count. Right now, they're focused on defending against attacks with fewer resources to keep the government's computer systems safe. Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Thank you Mr. Sciutto.

What could have prompted the bizarre chain of events that led to the capitol police killing a driver who had attempted to ram the security gates at the White House? We're going to take a look at that, next.

Also, an unprecedented number of U.S. troops are surviving serious wounds and returning home from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week's CNN hero has stepped in to help these wounded vets with housing, education, and job placement. Meet Michael Conklin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAP)

MICHAEL CONKLIN, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: The first trip to Walter Reed was one of my toughest trips, when I saw the amount of wounded, it was shocking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both my legs were amputated above the knee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I lost my right eye. I have a titanium rod in my leg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a traumatic brain injury.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I gave up the idea of having a wife and a family.

CONKLIN: I wanted to take them all home. I'm Mike Conklin. My organization helps our severely wounded members of the Armed Forces reach their full potential. My oldest son was wounded in Tikrit, Iraq. His whole group was wounded. We have a very tight, cohesive family. Not of all of them do. Some don't have anybody to come home to. We just can't forget them.

When Ryan moved into this unit, we did some things that are very simple. We put in these poles to assist him. Each case is different.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good job.

CONKLIN: Some will need service dogs, housing assistance, mentors, getting an education.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are World War II vets over there.

CONKLIN: It's a comprehensive package.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're doing a little bit of their maintenance contract.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He talked to me every day, put me back to work. He helped set up where I wanted to go. Today, I'm a husband, a father. I have my own company now.

CONKLIN: We don't call this a charity. We really look at it as an investment. These were at one time children who grew up on our baseball fields, went to our grade schools, and then left our community to serve us, and eventually, they come back. It's a full circle of service.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: The man who set himself on fire on Washington National Mall yesterday has died. A jogger found the man engulfed in flames near the air and space museum. Bystanders used their shirts to put out the flames. A gas can was found near him. This is very disturbing. Investigators will have to use DNA and dental records to determine the man's identity. How sad.

Just days earlier in D.C., a driver has a confrontation at the White House and speeds away towards Capitol Hill. Police pursue and in a chaos that follows they shoot and kill the woman behind the wheel, Miriam Carey but who was she and what could have prompted this bizarre chain of events?

Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Something was bothering Miriam Carey. Something it appears having to do with President Obama. The source says her boyfriend allegedly told police back in December that Carey believed the president was using electronic surveillance to monitor her home and keep her city of Stamford, Connecticut, in lockdown.

On Thursday morning 34-year-old dental hygienist packed a bag of clothing, strapped her 13-month-old daughter into the back seat of their black Infinity, and drove almost 300 miles to Washington, D.C. according to toll records and cell towers. Carey appeared eager to get to the White House, pulling up to a check point, exchanging harsh words and clipping a security officer with her car as she peeled away. She had worked for dentist Brian Evans, before being let go.

DR. BRIAN EVANS, FORMER CAREY EMPLOYER: We hired her. We thought she was a great employee while she was here. She had an accident, fell and had a head injury. She found out that she was pregnant during that time when she was hospitalized.

FEYERICK: In December 2012, Carey's boyfriend called police, worried the couple's four-month-old daughter was in danger because of what he described as Carey's delusional behavior and postpartum depression. A source says investigators found discharge papers, which list two prescription medications to treat depression as well as symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Carey's sister told CNN Carey suffered a momentary breakdown requiring medication and counseling following her daughter's birth. It appears Carey also left an envelope addressed to her boyfriend. But instead of a letter inside, there was a sugary substance, which was removed by a hazmat team and taken for testing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Carey's daughter was unharmed during the shooting. She was placed in foster care pending permanent arrangements. Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

LEMON: All right, our thanks to Deborah, of course.

Let me bring in now criminal defense Attorney Holly Hughes. Holly, it's very sad that this had to happen, obviously. It appears -- appears -- that she had some issues. U.S. Capitol is one of the most highly secure places on earth when questioning if this shooting was justified, there was a lot of talk about whether Carey used her car as a deadly weapon. What does that mean?

HOLLY HUGHES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, basically if you take a moving vehicle and strike somebody with it, Don, you can be charged with aggravated assault. You can be charged with felony murder because you committed an assault upon a person with that vehicle. So, basically what those police officers were saying were if we didn't jump out of the way of the vehicle in time, we could be dead. She did clip one officer. She clipped a secret service agent as well. And they're not releasing information on him. But we know the other officer is probably going to be fine. So, it is a tragedy that this young woman's life had to be taken, but, you know, we need to be grateful that her child and nobody else was injured.

LEMON: Absolutely. Her sister spoke on "AC360" last night. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY CAREY-JONES, MIRIAM CAREY'S SISTER: I want people to just understand that Miriam, she was a young 34-year-old vibrant woman. And she had a lot of dreams and aspirations. She was fun. She loved. She was very nurturing to her daughter. She was a new mom. And she was excited about that. She always talked about teaching. Her field was dental hygienist and she wanted to go further and give back in the field. Health was everything that she lived for. And she just was a wonderful person. People need to see that she was more than the suspect that was driving the car.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So, as far as you know, she wasn't bipolar, she wasn't schizophrenic. You believe it was a postpartum depression?

JONES: It was postpartum depression with psychosis, that's what her diagnosis was, and she worked very closely with her doctor to taper off the medication and get the counseling she needed so they could deal with the diagnosis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Holly, does the family have any legal recourse here to sue?

HUGHES: It would be very difficult because it sounds like based on what her sister was saying that the doctor was very attentive, very actively involved, tried very hard to get her on the right medications and then to wean her off. You know she noticed she said tapering off, so I don't really see where there's going to be liability unless they can prove somehow there was gross negligence and then you're looking at a civil suit, Don, but no criminal charges here.

LEMON: And what about police? That's what I meant. Does she have any recourse against the police? Can the family sue police?

HUGHES: It would be an uphill battle because the police officers acted appropriately. If somebody is driving a moving vehicle at you at those speeds, you don't know if it's rigged with explosives, Don, remember you can bring a vehicle in loaded, we saw it in Oklahoma City, tragically and when she tried to get at the White House and that didn't work, she clipped, you know, the secret service and the police when she was driving away.

LEMON: Yes.

HUGHES: She was erratic. They had no idea. So, no, I think the police acted in good faith and appropriately. Let's look at it this way, if there had been a bomb in that car and they didn't disarm or disable that driver --

LEMON: Right.

HUGHES: -- then we'd be criticizing them for that as well.

LEMON: For that. And if they'd blown up the car by shooting at the car.

HUGHES: That's right. Exactly.

LEMON: A capitol police officer e-mailed me yesterday explaining that and saying that the car was a 1,400-pound weapon so they did believe that she was armed. Thank you, Holly, appreciate it.

HUGHES: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: We have seen a lot of anger out there on the street and that Congress for sure, also within the halls of Congress, but why are we, Americans, so angry? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We were all shocked this past week when that video surfaced of the group of motorcycle riders surrounding an SUV in New York City. Images of a biker being run over and several of the riders then attacking the SUV. Crazy looking, right? Then a day or two later as people were talking about this, I heard some of them saying, why are we all so angry here?

So, I brought in psychologist Wendy Walsh, and I went through a couple of stories from the past few weeks, past few months, and I asked her, why are we all so angry?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WENDY WALSH, HUMAN BEHAVIOR EXPERT: There's a lot of tension in America right now. I think Americans are hurting at the macro level, you know, more and more concentration of wealth is in a tinier portion of America. The average annual wage of people has not moved up. So, that looked to me like a clash of the haves and the have-nots, a big range rover, the biker guys, although the Harleys are pretty expensive nowadays but that's all they have and I think that we are seeing more clashes than we have seen in a very long time.

LEMON: You think that, that -- the anger -- that's responsible for the anger?

WALSH: At the micro level, when you have macro things. Many people believe we're not in a modern, free capitalist society anymore, that we have thing called neo-feudalism, where 20 brands own all of us, our biology and what we choose to buy, and the government, with the special interest groups. And as a result, even those that had hope, maybe voting for the Obama administration, and then they saw that it's just gridlock, the system hasn't changed and the special interests get their needs met first. So the Average Joe is having a tough time and it's frustrating.

LEMON: And then we have the incident with the ballplayer from Australia in Oklahoma and the three young men who are accused of killing him. Where does that anger come from? What does that have to do with the economy when you're that age?

WALSH: No. You can love to say that, oh, we've gotten more loose and casual and we're not teaching morals to children, and there are many factors. And some people might argue that taking religion out of the schools has created this vacuum where we're not doing any moral teaching. We haven't replaced it with something else to do moral teaching. But I'm a big believer in that zero to 5, birth to age 5, is where you form personality, where you teach compassion, where you teach empathy. And if parents are busy struggling and both having to work, who's there teaching these kids?

LEMON: So, the anger comes from age 1 to 5, you believe?

WALSH: I think empathy is taught. I think morals are taught. And I think it has to happen in the early -- when you're developing your personality.

LEMON: It is interesting to me because, just recently, I had an incident with some kids in my particular neighborhood and my doorman, and we were shocked and even the --

(CROSSTALK)

WALSH: The lack of respect.

LEMON: Yes. And the family, the dad came back and yelled at us for telling his kid not to do something.

WALSH: Exactly. The kids have become just a weird accessory of the narcissistic adult now. You've hurt the kid, and therefore you've hurt the adult.

LEMON: You mentioned video games. You look at Grand Theft Auto. I think it's Grand Theft Auto 5, whatever the latest edition is. It has drugs, beatings -- all these things. Just that?

WALSH: How can people not become desensitized by seeing that? I was shocked because I don't play video games. When I saw a clip, and I saw the beating a woman and blood coming out of her body, as a woman that disturbed me so much.

LEMON: You can't stop video game makers from making money, from putting it out there. That's what America is about.

WALSH: Really? You can't regulate capitalism? Oh, I'm sorry, when did we make that rule? So it's OK for a company to come to our biology and say we'll get you addicted to salt, sugar, fat, video games, cigarettes, alcohol. Oh, but we don't want the government to get involved even though you have a biological predisposition to get addicted. Certain stores are experimenting with playing certain kinds of music when you walk in, it makes you buy more. So that's OK?

LEMON: Right. And smells as well.

WALSH: Right, and smells.

LEMON: All right, you mention the government. Let's talk about the government.

WALSH: Yes.

LEMON: Because we saw a whole lot of people in Congress and the House and the Senate screaming, yelling on the floor of the House, yelling on the floor of the Senate, even in an interview saying how dare you! Those people aren't poor people, so why would they be so upset?

WALSH: Well, because they have special interest groups they have to answer to.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: That's why they are so upset by this?

WALSH: Yes. Do you think they really want us to be more well and have better health care and be well taken care of? Yes. They want the status quo because it's working well for them.

LEMON: And that's why the American people, as you said, may be --

WALSH: They're rising up!

LEMON: They are rising up. They may be more angry because they think the wealth is all in pretty much in one spot.

WALSH: It is. It is. And there's lots of research out to show that 40 percent of our country's wealth lies in the hands of only 1 percent of the population while the average annual salary has continued to go down for the Average Joe. So, eventually you're going to see the lower classes rise up in anger. And here's how we see it in these tiny little outbursts of anger.

LEMON: That's where it starts.

WALSH: That's where it starts.

(END VIDEOTAPE) LEMON: Of course, that was psychologist Wendy Walsh's take on this. Do you agree? Why do you think people are so angry right now? Send me a note on Twitter, @donlemonCNN, @donlemonCNN on Twitter, and we'll try to get some of your responses later on in this show.

Are you ready for milk prices to skyrocket? They just might. Do you know why? There you go. Yep, right there. That's why. We'll explain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Up to 400,000 furloughed workers will return to work next week. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the law allows the Defense Department to eliminate furloughs for civilian workers who contribute to the morale, the well-being and the readiness of servicemembers.

Earlier, the House unanimously passed a bill to give back pay to all furloughed employees, government employees. The agreement ended there. Political head-butting started right after the vote and, so far, no shutdown solution on the horizon. No shutdown solution on the horizon.

As if you needed another reason to hate the government shutdown here's one more for you right now. If it goes on, milk prices will go way, way, way up.

CNN's Christine Romans tells us just how high they will go.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Don.

Does the government shutdown mean higher grocery bills? If Congress doesn't act, it will. The farm bill expired on Monday and, with it, subsidies for dairy farmers. Consumers and farmers are worried higher milk prices will follow. The Senate and the House, before they shut down the government, they were still negotiating. Come January 1, the country automatically, though, reverts to a 1949 law that would set the floor for milk twice as expensive as it is now. We called the Ag Committees for a progress report -- closed due to shutdown. If Congress does nothing, experts say milk prices will spike to eight bucks a gallon. Right now, the national average for a gallon of milk is $3.45. An almost $5 spike would hurt, no question -- Don?

LEMON: Thank you very much for that, Christine Romans.

The black market online -- hard drugs, assault weapons. You might even be able to hire a hit man, all at a click of a mouse. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Silk Road, one FBI agent calls it the most sophisticated market on the Internet today. According to court documents, the FBI has now shut down Silk Road. Anyone who knew how to get to the site, along with countless others, was only a couple of mouse clicks away from drugs, fake driver's licenses, passports, assault weapons, and contact information reportedly for contract killers. Wow. All of this delivered by U.S. mail.

The site is now offline, but as our Laurie Segall tells us, the shuttering of Silk Road is not the end of the road for illegal, online dealing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peter is picking up mail from the post office. It's not your typical package. Inside? Drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, that's going to be meth.

SEGALL: Welcome to the growing dark side of the Internet. In a couple of clicks, drugs on your doorstep.

Peter, whose name has been changed, asked us to obscure his identity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's basically powdered mushrooms and you can just go here and you say, hey, I want to buy 250 milligrams of it and you click the buy-now thing, like any other place you are buying something online, you end up with a shopping cart and you click the checkout button.

SEGALL: But the feds are cracking down. This week, online drug market, Silk Road, was blocked and its alleged leader arrested.

Peter's familiar with the site.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things I've bought are generally psychedelics, namely LSD, because that's the hardest one to find on the street.

SEGALL: Users sign on through Tor, an anonymous network where the only payment accepted is Bitcoin, a virtual currency worth real money.

(on camera): The idea is it's just not traceable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not traceable if you do it correctly. But if do things like buying Bitcoins on the streets or things like that, it becomes untraceable.

SEGALL (voice-over): Silk Road specialized in drugs, but as Peter shows us, the Internet gets even darker. There are other sites that haven't been shut down. Here's one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the same kind of thing. There's a drug category and you can find different things. If you are interested in looking for LSD, you go and you select the LSD thing. Apparently, on this site, you can literally buy guns -- AK-47, AR-15.

SEGALL: We were also shown screen shots of sites advertising hit men. They promised to kill for Bitcoin compensation.

Peter's never given that a test drive. He's only used Tor to buy drugs, often on Silk Road.

(on camera): Now that it's gone, you bummed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SEGALL (voice-over): It's not necessarily an end game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They killed a server. They didn't take down the technology that's used to make this happen.

SEGALL: A game of Whack-a-Mole in the dark corners of the web.

(on camera): What do you think the outcome will be of Silk Road being taken over by the government, being taken down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think people are going to be pretty fearful of using those kinds of services for a while. I imagine there will be discussions on what happened, what went wrong, how to improve on it. And later on, newer versions that have improved in some way will pop up and regain the trust that's probably dissipating right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Wow. Laurie Segall's here.

Are they able to go on so long? Why was the FBI not able to find it and shut it down until now?

SEGALL: It's complicated. They knew about it, and a lot of them were undercover on the Tor network. Silk Road is hosted on something called or was hosted on the Tor network. And it's a way of signing into the Internet and it's completely encrypted. Any of your Internet traffic you're doing, it's very, very difficult to trace. It hides your I.P. address and changes it to something completely different, so it's very hard to trace.

Also, Don, you have to add to it that people are paying with Bitcoin and that is this virtual currency that doesn't go through a banking institution. So actually it adds a level of anonymity and it's very difficult for them to crack down.

LEMON: In your story, you were reporting that people were able to buy drugs through this sort of thing?

SEGALL: They joke that this is the eBay for drugs. You can click through just about any drug you can possibly think of. All it takes as a click. And as you see, we walked with our guy, Peter, and you saw that he opened the mail that he got at the post office and they don't realize they are essentially being drug dealers, and it's right in there. And also rifles --

LEMON: And also, I was going to say, weapons, assault weapons.

SEGALL: We didn't click "buy" for that part, but every single one of these pages has reviews for these people selling rifles. Peter said you don't buy from someone who doesn't have a review, very much kind of like eBay, so it looks very legitimate. Obviously, we can't test it.

LEMON: How do you know -- the hit man thing, how do you know if that's legitimate? Because that's pretty scary.

SEGALL: It's terrifying. If you look at what happened to the guy taken down with Silk Road, they actually have conversations where he said he had hired a hit man using Bitcoin. So this isn't something we can independently confirm, but what it does show us is that the Internet and using the Tor network to access a lot of these different sites, it's this dark place, and people are doing everything from buying illegal drugs to selling pornography. And it's a place that the feds have -- they have to get very serious about cracking down.

LEMON: But it's because of the way that it takes your I.P. address, because most people can be found through their I.P. address and they can get their entire history, but this scrambles it, so it makes it very difficult to find.

SEGALL: Completely. It was meant for people to communicate safely, for journalists to protect their sources --

LEMON: Got it.

SEGALL: -- but bad actors always getting involved.

LEMON: Let me ask you this. Then, people who have used it, can the FBI now go back and unscramble -- can they figure out? Are they going to get into some sort of trouble?

SEGALL: I asked this guy because we went to go look at Silk Road and it was shut down, and he said, you know, this is the least of their concerns. You know, they're going to be looking at the much wider marketplace. And the FBI has shut down Silk Road, but many, many other sites are going to be available out there. I mean, this is -- as you heard in our piece, they shut down one part of a huge technology server, essentially. As long as the technology is there, it will be difficult for them to crack down.

LEMON: Where there is a will, there is way.

SEGALL: Yes.

LEMON: Laurie Segall, great story.

SEGALL: Thanks.

LEMON: Appreciate that. Good to see you as well.

All right, they were trapped in their car for more than 20 hours in South Dakota. We're going to talk with one member of a group and see how they're doing right now and what they went through. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Whiteout conditions, four feet of snow and howling winds, that's what a couple and their friends survived in South Dakota. These are the pictures. Jacob Eberhart, his wife and two friends were heading from North Dakota to Denver yesterday when a snowstorm swept over the road. They were stranded in their SUV for 20 hours.

Jacob joins me via Skype.

Where are you now? And how is everybody?

(LAUGHTER)

JACOB EBERHART, STRANDED IN SNOWSTORM: Right now, we are doing fabulous. A couple hours ago, we weren't sure what we were going to be doing, if we were spending another night in the car. So we were conserving everything. This morning, all four of us shared an apple.

(LAUGHTER)

That was what our food was going to be for the next few hours or whatever. But right now, we are doing well. Thanks for asking.

LEMON: Yeah. You are appreciating the little things, aren't you?

EBERHART: I am, for sure. We just got to the hotel. At the hotel, there's heat. I can feel my core-body temperature rising rapidly, even as we speak.

LEMON: Yeah. So, how did you get stuck?

(LAUGHTER)

EBERHART: Well, we -- we were driving through. We knew there was a snowstorm. We were all based in Denver at the moment. We knew there was a snowstorm but didn't think -- it's been a busy workweek. We didn't think much of it. There was definitely snow, but there was only three or four inches of slush until, pretty suddenly, it hit. All of a sudden, there was multiple feet of snow. Both all-wheel drive vehicles that we had with us got stuck.

LEMON: OK. How did you all make it until help arrived? Explain to me what happened?

EBERHART: Initially, we tried to figure out other ways to dig out the tires, that kind of thing. When that didn't work, we basically immediately decided to conserve our energy, focus getting warm. We had a lot of luggage with us. We were able to take our clothes and stack them against one side of the SUV that we were in, against the wall that the snow was aiming for to try to get a little -- to try to create more insulation through the vehicle. Then we watched a few movies on Netflix, which doesn't sound like much, but it was a huge thing to hear the outside world. As the night went on -- as the night went on, it would be more and more time, unfortunately, where we were trying to figure out does the car need to be off? Should we restart the car? Should we huddle together further -- and try to figure out how to survive.

By the time morning arrived, only one of our car doors actually opened. The rest were snowed in or iced in. That was a weird thing. I would have to get out and go around the car to dig out the tail pipe to make sure we wouldn't get the fumes from the exhaust. When I did that, I came back to the car -- this was about 4:00 this morning -- and the snow covered up the door handle and iced up the door handle. I had a bit of a panic moment where I tried to get back into the car, but I couldn't get back into the car. So I started to knock the ice off the door handle and, thankfully, thankfully, the door hadn't closed because there was snow, impacted snow on the actual hinge. So I was able to knock it enough and grab the edge of the door it, pry it open.

LEMON: Yeah. Were you worried that you and your family may not make it? Because people lose their lives in conditions like this.

EBERHART: Initially, yes, for sure. As time went on, I was able to figure out -- as time went on, we figured out different things to do. We had back-up plan after back-up plan after back-up plan. My buddy, Lee, was instrumental in making sure we were using the right amount of food. My wife packed well for the trip. That helped out a lot, too.

LEMON: Glad you are OK, Jacob. Thank you. We appreciate you coming on CNN. Get warm.

EBERHART: I appreciate it. Take care.

LEMON: All right, thanks.

Snow wasn't the only crazy weather to hit the Midwest. At least, 18 tornadoes hit three states. Up next, we'll take you to a Nebraska town that just survived a tornado with winds of up to 200 miles per hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Folks in Wayne, Nebraska picking up the pieces, literally, after a tornado flattened parts of their town.

Our Poppy Harlow has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Large tornado. Wow!

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As afternoon turned evening, this massive twister kept Wayne's 10,000 residents frightened and in search of cover. In these pictures, you get a sense if the scope of destruction. Trees split in two, taking power lines down with them. Businesses, like this one, crumbled. Big semis were no match before the powerful winds.

This woman told reporters that as the skies darkened and the winds began to howl, she and her husband feared the worse.

UNIDENTIFIED WAYNE, NEBRASKA RESIDENT: We just knew there was a tornado. The sirens went off in town. My husband was out watching. I heard on the radio it was going to hit the town of Wayne. He ran in and we went to the basement. HARLOW: When the couple emerged from their shelter, their home was gone. Thankfully, she said, her children spent the afternoon elsewhere and were fine.

Meanwhile, Mayor Kenneth Chamberlain said, while the damage is immense, he's just thankful no one was killed.

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, MAYOR OF WAYNE, NEBRASKA: Everybody that we know of are safe and sound. There were some injuries. Those folks have been taken to the hospital and treated.

HARLOW: Poppy Harlow, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)