Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Storm Pounds 100 Million as It Hits Northeast; Life-Threatening Cold Cripples Midwest; 1/3 of the Nation In Path of Huge Winter Storm

Aired January 03, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So let's just really expand the map here. We're looking at a sprawling reach of this storm. Correspondents are fanning out from the Midwest to the northeast, showing that paralysis on the ground and the delays in the air as the impact ripples through airports across the country.

Let's begin our coverage in New York where as much as a foot of snow is burying this city.

CNN's Ashleigh Banfield is outside the Time Warner Center in the heart of Manhattan and -- Ashleigh, there you are. This is like our "Brady Bunch" spread here, in the upper left corner.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: OK. Hey --

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I feel like I'm the Foggy Brady because every time I speak it's a big cloud of mist.

WHITFIELD: But that does not stop New Yorkers. Look, there is movement all around you there. Despite all of the snow. It is pretty and convenient as well.

BANFIELD: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Take it away.

BANFIELD: But, you know something what, Fred? I mean, you've been to New York City, usually it's kind of dirty and dusty and nasty.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

BANFIELD: And then when you get a really, really pretty snowfall, it's really quite lovely. Actually I think you mentioned somewhere around a foot of snow, maybe two feet of snow in New York City, I can tell you officially behind me, a beautiful Central Park, six feet of snow. Six inches of snow overnight but drifting is the other issue.

Six inches of snow in Central Park, drifting all over the place, and then people shoveling cars out because plows go by and bury cars. So listen, there's a reason that there are upwards of oh, I don't know, a thousand plows available in New York City, and 458 salt spreaders and 5,000 sanitation workers who have been dispatched to try to keep this city running.

So here's why. Snow isn't the only problem. The cold. And looking up at the CNN center sign, 10 degrees Fahrenheit, we've dropped one degree since the morning show went on the air. When I woke up in Connecticut this morning, it was 2 degrees, and it took two hours to get here on the 95 Highway, which was completely white. You don't often see 95 completely white.

It wasn't about -- I have to say at least for a short span of my drive, about 15 minutes, I didn't see any other cars. I was the only one on the actual expressway which was a bit of a surprise, too. Only one fishtail which got my juices flowing this morning instead of coffee. One fishtail on the way in, probably the big reason why there was a ban on driving on the Long Island Expressway this morning.

They just said stop, no cars were supposed to be driving at all on the Long Island Expressway, one of the busiest expressways in New York.

Fred, I can even tell you, all of these effects, they ripple right across the country, too, because when New York City gets busy with snow and ice and blister -- blustery winds and blizzard conditions the airports get really affected as well.

I'm going to get to that shortly. But you mentioned it, the snow and the effects also stopping kids going to school. They've shut down the schools in New York City. That man who was shoveling his front walk, the brand new mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio, yes, first crisis in three days in office, he's had to shut down all of New York City schools. That's 1.1 million students just in case you're counting. It's 1700 public schools.

I keep wondering when I see those pictures what is the mayor of this massive city doing shoveling his own walk? I mean, he's got to be a pretty busy guy today because there is a lot to do to keep this city running.

This city is one part of a very major swathe of the storm that you talked about, Fredricka Whitfield, but Indra Petersons has been covering things for us as well in Boston. And I know it is so much colder there that she's got the hat and the scarf. And I just want to -- if I can, Indra, share a little secret that you sent out earlier, how you were warming your hands.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Bring it.

BANFIELD: The Twitter picture of you warming your hands. Were you using your socks or something funny inside the satellite truck? What were you doing there?

PETERSONS: Yes, we ran out of feet warmers around here so, you know, it's all about those little things. We took the hand warmers, we improvised in these bad boys.

Let me tell you. It was a negative 20 degrees this morning, Ashleigh. And with that, 10 minutes outside, that's all it took for frostbite. But no matter what we could do, we could not get out toes warm. See? We solved the problem, right? Little MacGyver right here.

(LAUGHTER)

So yes, we're definitely talking about heavy amounts of snow. Still over about a feet of snow right here in southern portions of Boston, just north of us, about two feet of snow, but the big thing really has been the winds and these temperatures. And I know I am not alone because almost 100 million of you out there are dealing with the exact same thing right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS (voice-over): The massive nor'easter battered more than 20 states into the night. Nearly two feet of snow already on the ground near Boston. The onslaught of snow is producing whiteout conditions in the area.

GOV. PATRICK DEVAL (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We are closing state government. I am urging private employers to do the same.

PETERSONS: This year's first major snowstorm forcing New York and New Jersey to declare a state of emergency.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: Please stay home tonight and stay off the roads.

PETERSONS: It's a disastrous mix for travelers, thousands of flights canceled. Officials in New York closing several major highways overnight in hopes of saving lives. Several school districts from Philadelphia to Boston closed today as officials fear the commute to class would prove dangerous.

Just check out this elementary school bus in Missouri that skidded off an icy road straight into a ditch. The powerful arctic mass has dropped temperatures in parts of the country to the coldest in years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's freezing.

PETERSONS: At around five degrees below zero, this family in Maine took boiling water and check it out, it freezes immediately.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Snow.

PETERSONS: The winds off of the lake caused windchills of 25 degrees below zero in some parts of Chicago. Salt spreaders blanketing streets as countless spinouts litter roadways along the northeast and New England highways. Millions now waking up to a beautiful but dangerous winter wonderland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS: All right, well, I talked about it being negative 20 degrees this morning. It's amazing that it is now feeling like negative 15 with the windchill and somehow I have acclimated. Things change quickly around here. I think the big story that we're talking about this morning is how cold of a system this is. You talked about the blizzard that was in Boston just almost a year ago, it's a little bit more of a wet snow.

This snow, the temperatures are so cold out here that it is very dry. I mean, look at this, I can easily just kind of kick this around, which is great news for anyone trying to clear their car out of the berms this morning, but it also is the reason we have those blizzard warnings. You're talking about snow this fine that you just blow on it.

Let me just take a little chunk here and kind of show you just blow on this guy, and that's how easy it is to have it kind of pick up in the air. That's the reason, you get these 30, 40-mile-per-hour winds out here, blows the snow around and it brings that visibility way down. And that's been the concern.

Still blizzard warnings in Massachusetts, even down towards the cape. Now the story is today, yes, it will start to pull out from west to east, things are going to improve but down on the cape itself you're going to get ocean-effect snow, so you're going to see even snow into the afternoon. So eventually it clears out and we know what's next, colder temperatures I don't even want to say. Looks like I'll even knock on wood right now actually I don't think I can do colder at this point.

BANFIELD: It's hard to believe it can get colder. When I heard that the officials were saying by 2:00 in the morning overnight there were no places in New York that weren't experiencing windchills below zero.

In New York this is some of the coldest temperatures, Indra, that I think a lot of these people here in New York City have had in many, many years. In fact, I think we had windchills gusting up to 10 below zero in certain areas where I am right now.

Indra, go back in that truck and get your socks back on your hands and keep your hands warm, my friend.

PETERSONS: Thanks, guys.

BANFIELD: That girl has been working hard, I'll tell you. Thank you, Indra.

I mentioned before, New York City, yes, my brain froze, it's 1700 plows working in New York City. And here's the funny thing. This is Columbus Circle in New York City. If you've ever been here it's one of the busiest places in the city. Tourists go wild here. There's usually a stream of yellow cabs all waiting to pick people up at the Time Warner Center, one of the tony spots to shop.

It's pretty quiet at 9:08 in the morning for New York City. Look at that. It looks like a Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. But you got your snowplows keeping things going. So, you know, when the snow falls like this, it can be messy, it can be tough to get around but it can also be awful overhead in the skies, if you can believe it. The flights just keep a-canceling. As of yesterday to today around 4,000 flights and I know that number is a moving target. 4,000 flights canceled Thursday and Friday, and who knows how bad that's going to get or if in fact it's getting worse.

But can I tell you this? If you think it's just an eastern seaboard problem or a New York or Chicago problem or a Boston problem, get this, listen to how the dominos scatter across the country, all of these stranded passengers way, way out there in lovely L.A.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Been planning this vacation for about a year and a half now so to run into this roadblock it's just --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very frustrating. We're just kind of freaking out right now because we're running out of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yes. I'd be freaking out, too, because in L.A. I'm sure it feels really lovely but that's what happens when New York, Boston and Chicago get hit so goes the rest of the country as well.

And speaking of the airports, Pamela Brown, another person who never sleeps and is on her phone constantly reporting from sun up to sundown.

I heard you with the corrections on the closures as opposed to the flight operations stop at just one of our airports in this area. Can you just run down the airport situation as it currently stands, Pam?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. So a bulk of these cancellations and delays we're seeing, Ashleigh, are at airports, major hubs in the Midwest and northeast. And at JFK Airport the terminals are open so the airport is open but the flight operations are halted until at least 9:30 a.m. Of course that could change. But at this point Port Authority telling us that the flight operations could resume probably on a limited basis at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

And at Newark Airport, there's been a ground stoppage there. There are no flights coming into Newark Airport but there are limited flights leaving we're told. Also at Rhode Island Airport, the airport there, operations are halted until at least 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. That's according to the governor's office.

And then at Boston Logan, now earlier this morning the flights were all halted there but we've learned that there are limited flights now going in and out of Boston Logan Airport, so a bit of progress there. And then at Bradley Airport in Connecticut, where flight operations are expected to resume there a little bit later this morning, but this is all sort of a fluid situation, authorities are keeping an eye on these weather conditions.

The big issue here, Ashleigh, is of course the visibility. It's really creating a tough situation for pilots because you have the snow, the light, fluffy snow being kicked up by the whipping wind. And, Ashleigh, I've been walking around LaGuardia Airport. We've been here since around 3:30 this morning. And there are people sleeping on cots here in the airport that were pulled out of a warehouse. Take a look here at the pictures that we have for you about 180 passengers sleeping on those cots. Many of them have been here since last night and you can bet a lot of them will be here throughout the day today as -- cancellations and delays resume even after the conditions calm down.

But this picture really sort of sums it up, what people here at this airport and the airports all over are really having to deal with -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: You know, one of the first things that my producer who is standing off camera, Stephen Samaniego, and I do every morning is we go upstairs to get a cup of coffee around 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, and it was closed, Pamela, because I think maybe the workers couldn't get in to open it. And that makes me wonder about the airport workers.

You may have all those people sleeping on cots but can they actually keep the operations going and actually feed them and get them what they need to drink until their flights go out?

BROWN: Yes, that's actually a really good question. We actually stayed at the hotel. You're next to the airport, I bet a lot of other employees that work at the airport did that. But it's interesting to note, Dunkin' Donuts, we've been waiting this morning for it to open. And I think it opened a little bit later because the employees, you can only assume, probably had a tough time getting in.

So it is really tough for everyone all around. I have to point this out, though, Ashleigh. You see this line behind me here. These are passengers that are waiting to rebook their flights. This is a line that snakes all the way around the corner, but good news for these passengers and others that are trying to change their flights. A lot of the airlines are working with them and waving that change fee so a lot of people aren't having to pay to change their flight to a different day. So a bit of good news there. Silver lining in all of this I guess.

BANFIELD: Yes. I hope those people who are waking up are going to be able to get out pretty soon from those cots. At least they gave them the cots. though.

Pamela Brown doing the job for us, thank you for that from LaGuardia.

So, Fredricka Whitfield, I'm going to pass it back to you in the warm, sunny climes of Atlanta.

(LAUGHTER)

Can I just tell you something?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

BANFIELD: Over the Christmas break I took my children out to Whistler, Canada, where it was way warmer.

WHITFIELD: Nice taste of cold.

BANFIELD: Yes. That it is -- no, it was lovely. It was only right around the freezing mark and so I came back here, dropped down my ski stuff on the floor, and I've been wearing my ski stuff to work for three days since I came back from vacation. I can't believe it. I didn't expect that.

WHITFIELD: Well, darn. Well, you know what, you said warm, sunny Atlanta. Guess what? It's not warm and sunny now. Typically it is but we do have freezing temperatures.

BANFIELD: Wait. Can I ask you something?

WHITFIELD: So we're kind of in the club. Yes.

BANFIELD: Are you -- are you wearing sleeveless?

WHITFIELD: I am because it is heated in the studio.

(LAUGHTER)

How's that?

BANFIELD: She's wearing sleeveless.

WHITFIELD: Just rubbing it in.

BANFIELD: Fredricka Whitfield is wearing a sleeveless, everyone.

WHITFIELD: It may not be -- it may not be warm outside but it is inside. And I'm glad to be in.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Girl, you are adorable.

WHITFIELD: But I'll put my parka on as I head out.

All right. Thanks so much, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Ready to go warm up.

WHITFIELD: Yes, this weather is inconvenient and it's uncomfortable but it's also potentially dangerous. The heart -- in the heart of the nor'easter, the Coast Guard, as well as head a little further west, the Chicago Fire Department actually teamed up to save a man stuck in the icy waters of Lake Michigan.

It is not clear why he's out on the freezing lake or how he ended up chest deep in water, but within 35 minutes of a 911 call, first responders pulled the unresponsive man to safety and had him in the hands of emergency medical services. He has since been taken to the University of Chicago Hospital and listed in critical condition. All right. Still to come, an NFL record could be set on the frozen tundra not for how the Packers play but for the conditions that they might be playing in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Dangerous cold temperatures and sub-zero wind-chills are threatening the lives and the well-being of millions of people across the Midwest this morning.

CNN's Ted Rowlands has been braving the cold for us all morning, just outside there in Chicago.

And the folks are die-hard there. They really can handle it, but give us an idea how potentially dangerous this is nonetheless?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very dangerous potentially, Fred, because the temperatures are so low. We're in Naperville, Illinois, just outside Chicago and right now below zero, about six degrees below zero and it was 10 below about an hour ago.

And you add the wind to that, it could be potentially dangerous. Downtown Naperville normally hustle and bustle but not today, because it's so darned cold. People are stopping their cars and scurrying into the Starbucks, but leaving their cars running, which is basically what we're doing, too. When we're live shots, we have to stand in the corner and freeze but normally we're in our truck over there.

These are our props, we have the old t-shirt, which is stiff is a board and our banana hammer we'll keep here. When we're not on TV, we are in either the crew car or the satellite truck warming up, because if you do hang out here for an extended period of time, four or five minutes, you start to freeze up and if you're out here for even longer, you can easily suffer frost bite. So, back to you, I'm going into that truck.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, that's a good place to be and that's where you end up getting close with your colleagues, too, you spend a lot of time in the trucks in between live shots trying to stay warm and planning for the next hit.

All right. Thanks so much, Ted. Appreciate that. Stay warm as best you can.

All right. Let's talk about the conditions in Long Island, roads there are not getting any better, people in the affected areas are being urged to stay inside.

CNN's Alexandra Field joining us live there.

We talked about roads that are closed and where are you?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, well, we've been out in this whipping wind all morning so I decided to get warm, got myself a ride here with my new friend, Steve.

Steve, let's hit it and show them what we're looking at out here if we can get this thing going.

We've been out here again about a foot of snow on parts of Long Island, six inches of snow on other parts of the island, so these guys like my friend Steve have been working all night long, and they're going to be working all weekend, it looks like when we're talking about this much snow.

Here is the good news. You can see this front-end loader cutting through the snow in this parking lot. The good news is because it is so cold this is dry, light, fluffy snow -- easier to clean up than some of that wet, slushy stuff.

Of course once you pick it up, it starts to blow around, the same problem a lot of people will be having when you get out there with your shovel this morning, and honestly, you might want to wait to do your shoveling because we're still under this blizzard warning for another couple of hours on Long Island, the snow still accumulating and the temperature is falling, it was about 12 degrees when we got out here this morning, ten degrees now the wind-chill it feels more like 8 below zero.

So, Steve, thank you for your warm place to sit.

Fred, we'll send it back to you.

WHITFIELD: Alexandra and I spoke yesterday, thank goodness it's Friday leading into a long weekend for a lot of folks -- folks who have a pretty good excuse to not go to work and kids out of school today for the most part. So, while it's inconvenient, it also comes at a rather convenient time.

Is that kind of a half glass full way of looking at it?

FIELD: Absolutely. If you have the luxury today of staying home, looking out your window and enjoying this, it's great. Then again if you are planning to travel home at the end of this holiday season, well then you're going to have a lot more trouble than you would.

WHITFIELD: That means a little extra time with family or friends, whether they like it or not.

Alexandra Field, thanks so much. Appreciate that.

Still to come, much more on the blizzards, the nor'easter, brutal cold and the social media buzz through all of it.

CNN's Christine Romans is digging through social media right now to find us the best and most extreme photos.

And I'm sure it's all pouring in, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's all fascinating. Look, shivering camels and we have cars buried in snow and little kids doing snow angels, a whole bunch of really great photos from social media that tell the story of this monster, monster storm. I'll have those for you right after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. More than 100 million people in 22 states are fighting bitter cold, below zero wind-chills and near whiteout blizzard conditions.

But some of them like CNN iReporter Megan Tracy here at a snowy Chicago zoo are braving conditions to take amazing images to share with the world.

Our very own Christine Romans is shoveling through some of the sites like Twitter and iReport, to find some of the best.

What do you have?

ROMANS: Shoveling through them.

WHITFIELD: That's right. Be careful. Bend those knees as you shovel.

ROMANS: Digging deep down, there's a whole bunch of things we could say.

This is @jennifer19, this is a real good reason to be careful driving on the roads. This picture we're going to show is not her vehicle but another car she saw, she was not injured but that's a good example of what has happened on the roads.

This is from Jason Asselin in east Kingsford, Michigan, this shows the thermometer, Fredricka, at -- read that -- can you read that?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: Almost minus 20 degrees.

WHITFIELD: That's wrong.

ROMANS: We've got a lot of them that look like that depending on where you are. And basically, the higher up you are in Michigan or Minnesota, that's where you're seeing the really low temperatures.

This is Henry Philips. He tweeted this one. This is cots this morning at Chicago's O'Hare international, getting ready for people spending an awful long time.

WHITFIELD: You know what? Sometimes that's a luxury, it beats trying to crumple yourself up on those little benches and chairs at the terminal or on the floor.

ROMANS: You need a few of those in the newsroom. Can we set up a few of those in the newsroom?

Instagram -- this was from Instagram. This is Kimberly Carolyn, Boston's Logan. I think this is kind of pretty actually. You know, out there early, as soon as the snow was deep enough, they were plowing the runway, not planes but plows everywhere. This is from Petria Clarke (ph), this is Saratoga Springs, New York. You know what? I want to be really kind of serious about this one. When I see pictures like this, every time we have a big snowstorm there are fatalities, people turn on the car, wait for it to warm up, don't clear the tail pipe.

Be real careful. That's a reminder of how dangerous that vehicle to be.

WHITFIELD: Those lights are on, those lights are on there. So, yes.

ROMANS: Yes. So, be real careful.

Also, upstate New York, let's go to karma promo a Twitter photo, shows you a bridge that's impassable, you can see how high the snow is from the guardrails.

Let's go over to Detroit now. We found this one. This is DTW, all the snow on the ground. This is (INAUDIBLE) sharing this one with us. You're going to see a lot of that today. From the terminal, planes parked at the gate, ready to be deiced, ready to go but not going anywhere.

And, finally, one more, Sam Omalas (ph), this from southeastern Pennsylvania, another car piled high, again not going anywhere. Everyone just go home. Play Parcheesi, board games, checkers, no school in a lot of places anyway.

WHITFIELD: And it's not going to work. You can't use windshield wipers to remove depths of snow. You're just going to ruin your car.

ROMANS: #CNNweather if you're tweeting or go to CNN iReport. We want to see more, because you guys are out there seeing beautiful pictures this morning. Send it my way.

WHITFIELD: I know. It's beautiful when you're on the other end of the picture, when you're looking at it as opposed to being the one taking it.

ROMANS: I'm not Indra Petersons in Boston or Laurie Segall in Cape Cod. I love to look those pictures in a warm office.

WHITFIELD: From where you are.

All right. Christine, thank you so much. Appreciate that. Keep us posted.

All right. Still to come the misery by degrees, frigid temperatures, howling winds, unrelenting snow, all of that Christine and I were just talking about, but more and in other ways it's impacting 100 million Americans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)