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Tornadoes Hit Three States; Strong Weather Forecast; Flight 370 Search; More on Alleged Sterling Remarks

Aired April 28, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour now. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brooke Baldwin.

It may be beautiful from space, but this weather system you see in white has produced ugly and deadly scenes in the plains and the south. This generated 30 reports of tornados with at least 16 people dead, including two children in Arkansas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My ears are popping. Yes. We're in it right now. We're in the tornado. All right. We're pulling over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A YouTube video shows the black clouds of an apparent funnel cloud over Mayflower, Arkansas. All but two victims were killed in Arkansas. Teams are right now scouring debris fearing the number of dead may rise. And now other states are hoping to avoid what Arkansas suffered. Mississippi, Alabama and southern Tennessee are bracing for possible tornados right now. In fact, Tennessee has declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm. As people hunker down, storm victims are trying to keep up their spirits, thankful for their lives and for whatever was not destroyed. A news crew from our Arkansas affiliate, KARK, was able to help one woman out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know if this belongs to you, but I found this right near the tree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, it's my daughter! Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're so welcome. I'm so glad I was able to find a picture for you. Actually, my photographer found that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And joining me now, CNN's George Howell in Vilonia, Arkansas.

George, so much devastation, destruction. Tell us what you're seeing there. GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, setting the scene here in Vilonia, you look at this power pole, you can see that it just ripped in half. It gives you a real sense of how strong the winds were last night. And, Jordan, if we can pan around, you can see some of the damage and devastation here. A lot of the power lines are down.

We're in a part just before it got really, really bad. If you look down the road there, that's where it's a lot worse. Down the road officials are doing their best to go through that debris. They're keeping us back for the moment just to do the job of, you know, trying to find survivors, moving debris out of the way.

I also want to show you this. I'm not sure if you can see it well, but just over there, that community there, just behind the gas station, levelled. And you get a sense of exactly the path of this storm. It seems like the suspected tornado started over there, went across the street and then went into that community where it levelled those homes there.

Again, you mentioned 10 people who died here in Faulkner County. This country really hit the hardest. Come on by. It's fine. It in Faulkner County. Also in the state of Arkansas, a total of 14 people. And also in Iowa and Oklahoma, we know that people died in those two states. A total of 16 people died from this very strong storm system.

One other thing that I want to put out there, we understand that it's getting pretty rough right now in parts of Mississippi. This PDS, particularly dangerous situation, has apparently been issued in that area. Folks, you know, when you see something like that, it's best to stay in touch with what's happening with the weather. Watch your local affiliates because situations change very quickly. As I learned covering the same thing in Oklahoma City just a year ago, A PDS, it's pretty important to watch what's happening with the weather changes.

BROWN: Oh, absolutely. Sixteen dead at least and the death toll could rise as the search and rescue mission resumes today. And, George Howell, thank you.

And on the phone with me right now, the fire chief of Vilonia, Arkansas, Keith Hillman. Vilonia is just about a half hour drive from Mayflower.

And, chief, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. First off, tell us how much of the damaged area you have covered and what have you seen so far?

KEITH HILLMAN, FIRE CHIEF, VILONIA FIRE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): We've covered about 20 square miles, roughly. Some of the houses there were damaged and some of them wasn't. All together we got approximately about 80 structures that were damaged. Most of those were totaled.

BROWN: Incredible to see the damage. And in light of that, how do you think so many people did survive?

HILLMAN: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. BROWN: Incredible to see the damage just looking at the pictures here on our screen. In light of that, Chief Hillman, how do you think so many people did survive?

HILLMAN: Well, I mean, you know, awareness is number one. And, you know, we set the sirens off about a half an hour ahead of time. And, you know, three years ago and two days we had one here in April of 2011. So everybody -- you know it's still fresh in everybody's minds. And so, you know, we set the sirens off. We recently built a couple of shelters up here. And, you know, we had approximately 300 people in the shelters up here at the high school.

BROWN: Chief Keith Hillman, I know you all have your work cut out for you there today. Thank you so much for being here with us and talking with us.

HILLMAN: Yes, ma'am, any time.

BROWN: We appreciate it.

And Arkansas wasn't the only place in the path of Sunday's deadly storms. One person was killed when a twister ripped through the northeast Oklahoma town of Quapaw. The same line of storms hit Baxter Springs, Kansas, just a few miles to the north. The town's 4,200 residents hunkered down as a three block wide tornado rumbled through town.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY COBB, HOME DESTROYED BY TORNADO: And he says, hey, it's for real. You know, we need to get down. It's not a joke.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-huh.

COBB: And the next thing I know is my little brother pushing everybody in the bed and getting on top of the mattress and we hear nothing but windows breaking, wood going through the walls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Storms also ravaged parts of Prescott, Kansas, near the Missouri border, and eastern Iowa, where a woman died in the tiny community of Kenros (ph). So let's bring in CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray in the CNN Weather Center.

Jennifer, millions more are in the bull's-eye today. Who needs to be on the lookout?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, right now, we do have a tornado watch in effect from southern Tennessee through portions of Alabama and Mississippi, including Jackson. And the Storm Prediction Center has labeled this as a "particularly dangerous situation." These are not issued very often. When they are, it means business because this means we could get some very, very large storms, long track tornados, just as we saw yesterday. We do have some thunderstorm warnings in portions of Tennessee. These are moving very quickly. They have very large hail within them and they also have the capability, any of these storms, of producing tornados.

We have tornado warnings in effect in Mississippi right along I-55 north of Greenwood. If you are inside these hot pink boxes just to the northwest of Yazoo City, get into a very small interior room in your home. This is a very dangerous situation.

This is only the beginning. These storms are going to continue to push to the north and east and we could see much of the same that we saw yesterday in Arkansas move eastward. So we're talking about Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee. Very warm, moist air is in place. And what that means, during the heat of the day, that's when we're going to start to see these storms fire up.

And so the moderate risk area for today does include Jackson, Huntsville, just to the south of Nashville. The bright red, that's going to be the bull's-eye. Anywhere in the yellow, though, we do have the capability of producing strong storms and so that's what we'll be looking for, Pamela, as we go through the afternoon and evening hours. It's already starting up, though, as we speak. And so it looks like we're, unfortunately, we're going to have another dangerous afternoon.

BROWN: People need to heed those warnings. And, Jennifer, what about all those that are starting the clean-up process? Are they at risk for more storms today?

GRAY: The good news is, central Arkansas and points northwest are in that drier, cooler air. So it looks like they're going to stay free from all those storms for today. The storms are going to shift to the east, so it's good news that they will be able to get some of that clean-up done without any more storms. That's the last thing you want when all this debris is on the ground for another storm to come through because all of the broken pieces of wood, the nails just act as little missiles and they can be deadly in a situation like this. They'll be free from the storms today. Most of the storms will be more into Mississippi, Alabama, on into Tennessee.

BROWN: All right. We'll continue to follow this as the severe weather picks up today. Thank you so much, Jennifer Gray.

And coming up, stunning, racist comments attributed to L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling. So, what can the NBA do? We're going to discuss.

And, President Obama introducing new sanctions against Russia in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine. Could they work? And, if not, what will?

And then later, as the search for missing Flight 370 enters its eighth week, investigators are expanding the search area and bringing in private contractors to help find this plane. So, what can they do differently to help locate Flight 370 in this new phase of the search?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The outrage over racially charged comments allegedly made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is beginning to boil over. Sterling reportedly is caught on tape saying, among other things, that he doesn't want his girlfriend associating with African-Americans at Clippers games. The inflammatory comments were posed online by TMZ Sports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

V. STIVIANO (voice-over): People call you and tell you that I have black people on my Instagram and it bothers you?

DONALD STERLING (voice-over): Yes, it bothers me a lot. If you want to promo -- broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?

STIVIANO: You associate with black people.

STERLING: I'm not you and you're not me. You're supposed to be a delicate white or a delicate Latina girl.

STIVIANO: I'm a mixed girl.

STERLING: OK. Well, (INAUDIBLE) -

STIVIANO: And you're in love with me. And I'm black and Mexican, whether you like it or not.

He happens to be black and I'm sorry.

STERLING: I think the fact that you admire him. I know him well and he should be admired. And I'm just saying that it's too bad you can't admire him privately. And during your entire (EXPLETIVE DELETED) life, your whole life admire him, bring him here, feed him, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) him, I don't care. You can do anything but don't put him on Instagram so the world has to see so they have to call me. And don't bring him to my games, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So take a look. This is the Instagram picture in question showing his girlfriend with the legendary hall of famer Magic Johnson. Basketball fans, players, owners are demanding a swift response from the NBA. And CNN has confirmed the NBA will hold a news conference tomorrow morning about its investigation.

CNN is also confirming that some Clippers sponsors are pulling out. Online auto retailer CarMax and Virgin America Airlines announced today that they are ending their relationships with the ball club. State Farm says it's taking a pause in its relationship.

And the stakes here are high for the fans, the city. Should there be an all-out boycott? That's the question at this hour. And here to discuss that and more, CNN Sports, Rachel Nichols, and syndicated columnist and host of the "L.A. Urban Roundtable," Earl Ofari Hutchinson.

Great to have you both here with us.

EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: My pleasure.

BROWN: Earl, I want to start with you. I just looked at your blog and you say that Sterling is no aberration. He has a tainted history in the city of Los Angeles, having been sued by the federal government for housing discrimination. So why shouldn't people be surprised by what's come out?

HUTCHINSON: Well, actually, I wasn't. And I've got to say, most people that know his history of Donald Sterling and his relationship, by the way, with the Clippers and the city of L.A., they were not surprised. I mean this is typical Sterling. I mean we've got a long history, a well-documented pattern with Donald Sterling. There have been lawsuits. There have been allegations of harassment. There have been many claims against Donald Sterling over the years. There have been settlements with the - with many government agencies. And on top of that, Donald Sterling, by his own admission, at time has made statements that, to say the least, are intemperate. So, no surprise about that.

I think the bigger question is, why did this go so long? How did this happen over so many years? You've got to remember, Donald Sterling has owned the Clippers for 30 years. He's been a fixture in L.A. Been so much a part of the social and political tapestry of L.A. for so many years. How could this happen? And now that it has happened, the bigger question is, what does the NBA, at the end of the day, he's your baby, he's one of your owners, what are you going to do about it?

BROWN: Yes, that is still the looming question. In light of what you just said, Earl, do you support a boycott of the team?

HUTCHINSON: Well, originally, when it came out, many people were saying, we've got to boycott, we've got to boycott, we've got to do this. Here's what we decided to do. We said, no, we're not going to go with the boycott for a couple of reasons. Number one, it's grossly unfair to the Clipper players. These young men have sacrificed. These young men have honed their craft. These young man have paid diligent attention to their professionalism. They're in the fight for their life for a championship. I don't think it's fair for them and even the fans that loyally have supported them to make them pay, to penalize them for the stupidity, the dumbness, the ignorance and the bigotry of an owner. I don't think that's fair.

However, having said that, the position that we did take, and many other thoughtful people have taken too is, those that feel strongly and we hope anyone of certainly right mind would, that feel strongly about the statements and also the conduct of Donald Sterling should use their own judgment, voice their protest anyway they can or want to. And if they feel that we cannot as individuals support this team in anyway shape or form, then go right ahead. You should do that. Exercise your own judgment, but do something, take some action.

BROWN: And we saw the players doing that when they turned their shirts inside out in a showing of solidarity.

Rachel, I want to go to you. You're in Charlotte right now covering the playoffs. This story moving very fast. What are the next steps for the NBA here? What can the NBA commissioner do here?

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST, CNN'S "UNGUARDED WITH RACHEL NICHOLS": Well, Adam Silver, the new commissioner, who, by the way, has only been in office for less than three months, is going to give a news conference tomorrow. A lot of hope around NBA circles is that he's going to announce an indefinite suspension for Donald Sterling until this matter can be investigated further.

However, there is a limit to what he can do. The NBA constitution is a secret. It's not a public document. But from what has leaked out, there does not appear to be any way to force Donald Sterling to sell this team. There's a vague sort of best interest in the game power that the commissioner has and that's what he may use eventually to fine Donald Sterling, although Donald Sterling is worth $1.9 billion. So, how much of an impact is a fine going to make. He could suspend Donald Sterling maybe for a year, maybe even two years or even indefinitely. And the idea and the hope would be that if he made him so uncomfortable, if he was removed from day to day operations, if sponsors are pulling out the way that they are, there would be some way to convince Sterling, hey, it's in your best interest and the interest of everyone else to sell the team.

That's what happened with the former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott, who was in a similar situation. But Donald Sterling's not Marge Schott. He's proved himself to be a verily litigious guy. He holds on to everything. He is not a guy who is probably going to go gently into the good night. This is going to be a fight. It's going to be very interesting to see how Adam Silver handles this.

BROWN: And, Rachel, we've heard from some of the other owners around the league, including Michael Jordan. He said that he is completely outraged. How much are these other owners giving (ph) to get involved in this? How is that going?

NICHOLS: Well, Earl's absolutely right, these other owners have stood by and let what has long been considered the worst one among them stand as a member of the NBA ownership community. Nobody just woke up this weekend and realized Donald Sterling had a problem. This has been allowed to let pass. So I think that other owners are feeling now, thankfully, some of the public pressure and heat over that. We've seen some of the more new guard (ph) owners come out and say, hey, this is not acceptable. But to their credit, even some of the old guard (ph) owners have come out and said the same thing.

All of that being said, the politics that come down in the end of this (INAUDIBLE), will ownership give Adam Silver enough power to maybe change the constitution a little bit? Actually put in place ways for owners to be removed from their teams? Or in the end, will this group of owners say, wait a minute, I don't want to be the next one he points to. I don't want to be put in the position of having my team taken away. There's a lot of complicating power plays going on here that might not have anything to do with Donald Sterling and how much power they're going to give Adam Silver in this situation.

We saw it a couple of years ago, Pam, in the NFL. Roger Goodell came in as commissioner. There was a rash of player arrests. I'm sure you remember. And he grabbed a bunch of power. He basically decided he was going to be judge, jury and the appeals hearing person to be able to suspend players, even when they hadn't had any sort of trial or any kind of charges with the police. He basically used the public pressure to institute those policies for himself and he hasn't let them go, even as public demand ebbs. You have to wonder if Adam Silver is going to use that example, use this public pressure, marshal it, to take some power away from the owners. He would have to do that. He doesn't have that power right now.

BROWN: Yes, it will be so interesting to see how this all plays out. Earl, I want to go back to you. The NAACP rescinded a humanitarian award that it was going to give him I think - I believe next week. Were you surprised that he was even going to be getting this award in the first place given his track record?

HUTCHINSON: No. Because you've got to remember one thing, and I wrote about this in one of my columns in 2009. The NAACP - now, let's be clear on one thing. We're not talking about the national NAACP. We're not talking about the California statewide NAACP. We're talking about the L.A., Los Angeles NAACP. There's been some confusion about that.

Now, what happened was, in 2009, many people forget this, Donald Sterling got an award. He got a lifetime achievement award from the NAACP L.A. branch in 2009. I opposed it then. I said, you, the NAACP, are the oldest venerated - most venerated civil rights organization in the country. Why are you doing this? Why are you giving this award to an individual that has no merit whatsoever in the battle for civil rights, equal opportunity and equal justice. It seems to me an award from the NAACP must be given to someone who's earned their spear -- spurs in the civil rights battle. Sterling doesn't qualify.

So now we fast forward five years. I said then it's going to come back to haunt you if you continue to do this. Well now we see it has come back to haunt the organization.

BROWN: Yes, you can imagine it's a bit of an embarrassment for them to say the least.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Rachel Nichols, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight. And be sure to stay with us. In just about 10 minutes from now, L.A. Clippers head coach, Doc Rivers, will be speaking to the media and we'll be sure to bring that to you live.

And coming up, at least 16 are dead after powerful twisters flattened homes in the plains and the south. And more bad weather is on the way. So, what could be in store for this afternoon, in just a few minutes.

And next, as investigator enter a new phase of the search for Flight 370, experts say it could take months to find anything. So, what they say could be the key to locating the missing plane. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: So remember when officials had us thinking that we could be perhaps just days away from finding Flight 370? Well, those hopes have faded faster than the black box pings. Now everything is about to change. The search zone is expanding a lot. Take a look. That little yellow dot on your screen is about to get a whole lot bigger. With absolutely nothing to show for weeks of air and sea searches, authorities plan to suspend the aerial mission and focus solely on the floor of the southern Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy's underwater drone, the Bluefin, is now on its 16th dive and has now moved beyond its initial zone of interest. So, joining me now to talk a little bit more about this, Jeff Wise, aviation analyst.

So, Jeff, some 23,000 square miles, that's like 150 times the initial search, about the size of Indiana, we're hearing. So how are authorities determining this broader search area?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: You know, they know and they haven't really told us, it's very strange search. This is not how one normally goes about looking for a missing aircraft.

BROWN: What does it tell you then? Does it tell you that they don't have as much confidence in the pings, those black box pings?

WISE: Well, as you said, you know, they really used very strong language to promise us that these pings were associated with MH-370, that they were just, you know, at one point said hours or days away from finding the plane. That didn't pan out. And it really raises questions about, why did they think that that was the case in the first place? Why did they take this rather extraordinary steps of promising us that they were about to solve this extraordinary mystery.

And then, you know, once, you know, they were left holding the bag, as it were, you know, and then what just - just to expand the search, it's very, very strange because really the point that I think I want to drive home is that the assertion that these pings were associated with MH-370 has essentially been disproved, OK. So these did not come from MH-370. The best ping that they had, they searched the whole area within the detection range of that pinger and nothing was found. That means that whatever caused it was not MH-370. So we don't know why they're continuing to search in this area.

There's no evidence that we, the public or the media, have that the plane is anywhere in this area at all. In fact, there's no evidence at all that it's in the southern ocean. We only have the authority of the Malaysians and the Australians to go on. And now that they've - and now that they've been proven wrong about this search area, we really ought to start asking questions about how - about their judgment.

BROWN: Well, another part of this new search, Jeff, is the fact that they're going to search - reach out to private contractors to help and bring in new search technology. Why wasn't this done in the very beginning, especially when they started that underwater search? I know a lot of people have been asking that.

WISE: Well, you know, as I said, this search has been sort of carried out in a backwards fashion. Normally, you know, you figure out roughly where in the world you want to look. Then you use an aerial survey to find debris on the surface. Then once you found the debris on the surface, then you work backwards and try to find a likely search area on the bottom of the ocean. Then you listen for pingers. Then you use the side scan sonar. We've skipped, essentially, all of these steps and gone right to using, you know, the Bluefin-21 is like surgical instrument. It's a very fine grain. A very small, slow searching device. And so when your plane could be anywhere in this huge area, it doesn't' really make a lot of sense to use such a fine grained instrument. And so really the whole logic of this search is very much up in the air right now. It's really not clear why they're doing what they're doing.

BROWN: Yes, and there's other pieces of equipment that can even go deeper than the Bluefin and so forth. So curious.

Jeff Wise, thank you very much.

WISE: My pleasure.

BROWN: And coming up, shocking comments about race attributed to L.A. Clippers owner, Donald Sterling. Players and fans alike are saying he has to go. What, if anything, can be done? We'll discuss.

And next, fierce tornados flattened homes, killing at least 16 people across the plains and south. More bad weather is on the way today. What to expect next? Stay with us. We will be right back.

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