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Hurricane Dorian Swells To Maximum Intensity, Category 5; Dorian Inches Toward U.S. As Category 5 Hurricane; Odessa, Texas Holds Community Vigil After Mass Shooting; FBI Warns We May Never Know Texas Shooter's Motive. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired September 01, 2019 - 21:00   ET

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

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[21:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: It is 9:00 in Freeport, Bahamas, 8:00 P.M. in Odessa, Texas. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York, and this is CNN special breaking news coverage, and those two cities are the focus this hour.

Tragedy in Texas as another gunman in America claims the lives of seven people, wounding another 22. Right now, a vigil is being held to honor the victims.

Meanwhile, in the Bahamas, Hurricane Dorian unleashed catastrophic wind and rain. The strongest storm on record to hit that island chain, and it is still setting its sights on the U.S., though it's exact path still unclear.

It's an enormous hurricane that is already one of the most powerful storms ever measured, hurricane Dorian right now, a Category 5 and destroying homes in the Bahamas.

Roofs are torn off, cars flipped over and this is just on the outer islands of the Bahamas. The full force of the hurricane has not yet reached the big population centers of the country, Nassau and Freeport. We are hearing about widespread power outages already and that the government has now disconnected the public water service as this storm bears down.

Let's go to CNN's Tom Sater now in our Severe Weather Center. Tom, the destructive power of the storm is just compounded by how slow it's moving, right?

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Ana, I'm kind of loss for words here when we think about what they are going through right now. Very few people who have ever lived on our planet are going through the horrifying conditions of these family members huddled in their homes in the dark of night without power and they are putting up with wind gusts equivalent to an EF-5 tornado and going through it for hours. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Getting ready to make another landfall in the eastern of Grand Bahama headed toward Freeport, where it's moving at five miles an hour and should slow down at two-and-a-half miles.

Well, you can out-walk it. It may hang over Freeport for 30 hours straight. But that slowdown is going to allow the environment around it to kind of make up its mind where it's going to take it.

Though historically speaking, these systems just want to take their heat and transfer it to the north and they take the path of least resistance.

If you go back and look at the history here of Dorian, landfall, Barbados, Saint Lucia, right over Saint Thomas, splitting the hairs between the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. They actually had more rain the day after, and then plowing in with 204 mile-per-hour gusts, again, EF-5.

Now, why wouldn't it just continue its movement to the west? It could. These storms do not know there is a land mass here. They don't have eyes. They don't know that Florida is here. So we've got to rely on the modeling and, of course, the fine men and women in the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center and all the pilots. Because if you go back and even look at the track of all of their forecasts in the five-day panels, you will see how they've had that cone of uncertainty in the same location for several days and still that could be a landfall in Florida, could be South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, in fact, it may. But, again, it's an evolving system.

When you look at the red lines here, this is a hurricane hunter flying around it earlier, but also went up and down, north and south, north and south, well to the north, trying to gauge the environment behind this area of high pressure. As winds circulate clockwise, it kept it from going to the north, like it wants to and was steering it toward the west.

Now, we're hoping with this stall gives us more time to have this area of high pressure break down, maybe slide off to the west -- or to the east, southeast and then maybe those steering currents could kick it to the north.

This is going to be a game of miles here. When we put the wind gusts in, Freeport, there's 125 miles per hour.

[21:05:03]

A difference of 40, 50 miles is the difference between billions of dollars of damage and maybe just scattered power outages. But, again, these winds are getting very close to do enough damage on the coastline so anyone on that east coast needs to slide to the other direction.

And then we're still watching the possibility of hurricane winds up around Wilmington and Hatteras at 109 in the days ahead, evolving at every moment.

CABRERA: Yes. And quickly confirming with you, because yesterday, we were talking about how it looked like. It was good news, had moved in a way that it was less likely to make landfall in the U.S. But now, you're saying it's actually gotten closer to the U.S. and could make landfall.

SATER: Well, yesterday, it was trending away from us. Today, it was trending a little closer. In about two hours, we're going to get a new advisory and a new track from the National Hurricane Center.

CABRERA: We will be watching. Tom Sater, thanks.

Let's go live to the Bahamas now, where this Category 5 hurricane is already just sitting and spinning and causing enormous damage. CNN's Patrick Oppmann is in Freeport.

Patrick, we've been watching conditions there get steadily worse, and now it's dark. This will be a very and frightening night for the people of Freeport.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Probably the most terrifying night of their lives. The people who live both in Abaco and the people who live here in Freeport where we are feeling the wind slowly pick up. And I will continue for hours and hours until people really will not be able to believe the strength of the winds. Again, a strong category 5, the strongest hurricane the Bahamas has ever experienced.

And anybody who is here right now, their lifetime, so for the people who have told us over the last few days that they were going to ride this out, I think perhaps they are realizing on this dark and terrifying night that they are in over their heads, because no one has gone through a storm like this.

We have seen videos all day long coming out of Marsh Harbor, nearby Abaco, people who have lost roofs, who have cars flipped over in the street near where they are, people who have shown us videos of whole communities underwater. And that will repeat itself here in Freeport as the winds pick up here, as the rain dumps perhaps over a foot of rain and water here, and as that storm surge rises perhaps to 20 feet.

And we're on an island where the high point is only 30 feet. So the majority of this island, much of this island will be underwater. Surrounding islands which are much more low-lying will be completely submerged. It is a worst case scenario.

CABRERA: Okay. Patrick Oppmann, you have been reporting long hours today. We're very grateful. Thank you for being there for us. Please do get rest and stay safe.

Tropical storm force winds from Dorian are expected to start lashing southeastern parts of Florida as soon as tomorrow morning and hurricane force gusts could hit as early as Monday evening. Mandatory evacuations are already in place for several South Florida communities. And tomorrow, they will start going into effect in parts of South Carolina.

We can't forget, Dorian is still this Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. Now, just keep in mind, 157 miles per hour makes a Category 5 hurricane. So we're talking about the upper echelons of a Cat 5. With that kind of wind, you can almost guarantee there will be power outages and lots of them.

So let's turn to CNN's Rosa Flores. She is at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. And, Rosa, the speedway, I understand, is being used as a processing center for utility companies getting ready for what could be a long power restoration process.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. NASCAR's Daytona 500 is actually doubling right now as a processing center that, really, if you look at it, it looks like a mini army of utility trucks. This is what you want to see ahead of a hurricane.

From talking to FPNL, they've told us that there are more than 18,000 men and women from 34 states in Canada that have made their way to the State of Florida to processing centers like this one. This is one of two in the state.

Now, here is how it works. These utility workers drive in from across the country. They sign up. They get a security briefing. And then they get deployed to 20 strategic places around the state. Once power outages happen, wherever they happen, then these utility workers will be dispatched to those impacted areas.

Now, I'm in Volusia County. This county is about the size of Rhode Island. And we're expecting for mandatory evacuations to be issued tomorrow at 10:00 A.M. Those evacuations will include the barrier islands, anyone who lives in a mobile home park or an R.V. park and in those low-lying areas.

[21:10:08]

But, Ana, what officials here are urging residents to do is, if they feel they should evacuate sooner than that, then they should for the safety and security of their families.

CABRERA: Okay. Rosa Flores in Dayton Beach, Florida, thanks for that reporting.

Happening right now in Odessa, Texas, a community prayer vigil to honor the victims of yesterday's mass shooting. Let's listen in.

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CABRERA: We are learning disturbing new details about the man who went on a deadly rampage yesterday in West Texas. One of his neighbors now says he came to her house last month with a rifle and yelled at her for leaving trash in a nearby dumpster. Veronica Alonzo also described how he would shoot from on top of his house, these are some images from his property, she says he would then go to retrieve dead animals. Alonzo says she called police after being threatened last month.

[21:15:01]

But she says they never came out because the property didn't show up on GPS.

Now, all of these allegations are surfacing a day after that man went on a shooting spree in Midland and Odessa, Texas, killing seven people and wounding 22 others.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is joining us now to talk more about what we are learning. Shimon, threatening a neighbor, shooting at animals, these sound like red flags.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: They certainly do. And if she called the police and the police never showed up, that's going to be a problem for the police, because they should have responded. And they should have taken some kind of action, at least a report, try to figure out was there something going on in this person's life. We need to hear the police side of this.

Unfortunately, today, it seems while there was information, there was a flow of information yesterday early on in this investigation. Now, it seems that the police just have stopped providing any kind of information. So perhaps there's something -- there's a reason for that. And right now, we are hearing -- this is very troubling certainly to hear from a neighbor saying that they called the police, the police never responded, that he had this violent history. There's violence here.

And his is what exactly the FBI talks about, people who have a history of violence and you are reporting them to the authorities. And if the authorities are not doing anything about it, that's a problem. So this is something that we need to hear from the police. Did they respond?

CABRERA: Let's talk more about what we do know. And we did learn more about the initial traffic stop, right?

PROKUPECZ: Right. That traffic stop, I think, is still something that's going to be the key in all of this. Was he trying to lure police in or did police just simply pull him over over this traffic violation where he didn't put on his blinker basically when he was switching lanes? They pulled him over. Did they stop -- and where was he heading? I mean, we don't know where he was heading. Was he heading to go do something far worse?

And the police simply just got lucky and they were able to intercept him and stop him from wherever he was going, or did he lure them in? Or was there something else going on? Could this have been just a situation where it was spontaneous and something happened to him and he just started firing? I mean, the way he did this is so weird.

CABRERA: Like you said, there are still so many questions. But they did confirm that he was initially pulled over because of a traffic violation that he didn't turn his blinker on. What can you tell us about the weapon used? PROKUPECZ: So it's an AR-15-style, obviously high-powered. We have seen these kinds of weapons used in other mass shootings. Almost every mass shooting that we talk about, we hear about the style of a weapon, it's high powered, lots of ammunition. We don't know the amount of ammunition he had. But when you're talking about 22 people injured, the continuous sound of gunfire that we heard yesterday from video from people who were witnesses on the scene, it sounds like he had a number of bullets with him that he was able to use. So those are good questions that we need answered as well.

Look, I think we're day two into this and we still have so many questions. And for whatever reason, the police here in this case have decided not to release a lot of this information.

CABRERA: Well, they are being tightlipped. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you for being here.

Let's get to CNN's Ryan Young, who is there on the ground at a vigil that just wrapped up in Odessa. What are you hearing from people there, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is very tough, obviously, to be here for the vigil. So many people have an outpouring of emotion. And then we noticed this poster here and these two young ladies knew one of the victims. And this is sort of our first chance to learn information about some of the victims.

You guys were saying, who is your friend and what happened to her?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her name is Leilah Hernandez. And she wasn't supposed to be at the place at the right time. I don't know why it happened to her but it just did. It shouldn't have because someone that's sweet and kind doesn't deserve to go through this.

YOUNG: What can you guys tell me about her? What kind of person was she?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Leilah was -- everybody loved her. Because, again, she had a smile, a laugh, her hugs, they made people's days. And she was the most nicest, kindest person to everyone, even when they didn't like her, because she doesn't like drama, but she helped me through a lot, I mean, a lot when I was going through stuff. She was there for me. And she kept it. And she's there for everyone else too.

YOUNG: How did you guys find out the terrible news that this had happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was going around social media before we even knew. We have got informed by her parents later that it was actually true, and it just tore us apart.

YOUNG: I mean, these last 24 hours, just knowing your friend is lost -- I know you guys are hurting.

[21:20:07] What do you guys feel right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel torn apart right now. I'm pretty sure she does too. We're devastated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm confused on why it happened to her and why does she have to go, because I still need her here. I really do. She should have never went.

YOUNG: You guys thought it was important to be here tonight. Why did you want to be here tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For her. Even though she's gone, she's still here in our heart. And this is all for her, so people can know who she was because she was everything. And everyone misses Leilah Hernandez.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just think that she needs to -- like, in my mind, I want her to come back, but she can't. And I don't know. I just pray to God that she's okay wherever she is doing well, and we'll see her again.

YOUNG: Ladies, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Is there anything you would like to say to her if you could?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I hope she's okay. And I'm sorry that this happened to you because it shouldn't have.

YOUNG: Thank you, ladies. Thank you so much. So, obviously, tough to hear that from some friends of obviously someone who is lost, and you're hearing stories like that over and over again. And, obviously, as we start to learn more about the victims here, there is more of that just raw emotion. I mean, they are such young people and they're dealing with something this terrible. It's really hard to listen to.

CABRERA: Absolutely, Ryan Young, thank you for bringing us that story. We have to remember the victims, the people who are really impacted in that community that needs all of us to send our healing energy their way. Words cannot begin to convey the emotional impact on people affected by a mass shooting.

But I want you to imagine now being Rosie Granados. Rosie was on the phone with her twin sister, Mary Granados. Mary was a postal carrier in Odessa. She was wrapping up her shift. This, in fact, is doorbell camera video of her at work on Saturday before the shooting.

But suddenly Rosie could hear her start screaming. And we now know Mary Granados was killed yesterday during the shooting rampage in West Texas.

Rosie Granados, her sister, is with us now. Rosie, my heart absolutely breaks for you tonight. How are you holding up? ROSIE GRANADOS, LOST HER TWIN SISTER MARY IN ODESSA ATTACK: I'm just trying to stay strong for the family, you know? It's really hard for me, you know. But I still can't believe it's real, you know?

CABRERA: What do you want people to know about Mary?

GRANADOS: I want them to know that she was a hard working person and that she loved her family so much. She was a very honest person and she was an amazing person, a beautiful person. She was always smiling. And she never tried to hurt anybody. She had so many friends. And she was always very friendly.

CABRERA: Yes.

GRANADOS: I just want -- I want people to know that she did this, she worked really hard because she was very responsible.

CABRERA: She was your twin sister, your sibling. And as a twin, I imagine you are even closer in some cases. What was -- what did she mean to you? What was your relationship like?

GRANADOS: She meant the whole world to me because we came to the world together. Unfortunately, she left before I did. And I wish she would have waited for me. We would have grown old together. But she left before. And she was just -- she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

CABRERA: if you can --

GRANADOS: She didn't deserve this.

[21:25:01]

CABRERA: No, she didn't. Nobody deserves this. If you can, walk us through what happened. I understand you were on the phone with her at the time.

GRANADOS: Well, I was talking to her on the phone. And she mentioned something about hearing gunshots. And she didn't know where it was coming from and if it was near her or anything. She was still doing her job. And I heard her screaming. And I wasn't sure what she was going through. I was just hearing her cry and scream for help. And I didn't know what was happening to her. I thought it was just a dog attacking her. And my first response was just to get in the car and go where she was to go help her.

CABRERA: How did you find out what had happened?

GRANADOS: I went to help her out. And, unfortunately, I did see her laying on the ground.

CABRERA: Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry.

Help us understand what it's like to be in your shoes, to have someone you love so much taken from you like this. GRANADOS: It is the worst pain somebody can go through. It's just like losing anybody you love in your life, you know, because we were always together. We made so many memories. And she was just part of my life, part of my whole world and she was taken away from me and my mother, my family. She was just such a good person. She loved everybody so much.

CABRERA: Well, I can tell how much you love her.

GRANADOS: I wish she could be here with us.

CABRERA: I do too. I do too. Rosie Granados, I wish I could be there with you just to offer that emotional support. I know it's a tough time for you. Thank you for honoring your sister, for sharing her memory, your memory of her with us. And we will certainly be keeping your family in our thoughts and prayers tonight.

GRANADOS: Thank you. I appreciate it.

CABRERA: Thank you. We'll be right back.

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[21:30:00]

CABRERA: A monster hurricane, bigger and more intense every hour, is now doing major damage as a destructive Category 5 storm.

This is just the beginning. Hurricane Dorian is already flipping cars, tearing roofs from homes in the Bahamas as it marches slowly toward the east coast of the United States. Hurricane warnings are already in effect up and down the Atlantic coast of Florida. Mandatory evacuation orders already issued for several communities or will go into effect in the next few hours.

I want to check in with Tom Sater in the CNN Severe Weather Center. Tom, people on the Florida Coast, Georgia, the Carolinas are all wondering how much of this hurricane will come ashore in the coming days.

SATER: Yes. I think we'd all would like to know that. It's going to put on its brakes, Ana. And when it does that, and it's going to spin for a while, until that spin, that stall stops and it starts to make its movement northward, then we will know how close to the coast it will be, because these storms are fickle. I mean, they could wobble, it could go through an eye wall replacement cycle. And that could change the center. It's moving at five miles an hour right now.

369,000 live in the Bahamas. It's heading to Freeport, a home of 26,000. And it's the dark of night. Without power, we started losing now some weather observations from around Freeport.

But, again, as this thing moves and just crawls, it's a harrowing in the dark of night as roofs are being ripped off and trees snapped, power, no doubt, is out. There has only been one other hurricane with stronger winds, in 1980, it was Allen. But Allen didn't make landfall with those kinds of winds. Since 1851, we've had 90 hurricanes and there's only been one other at landfall in the Atlantic basin with winds like Dorian, and that was the Labor Day hurricane of 1934.

So what we are seeing is unprecedented. Here is a picture, it's kind of hard to see from NOAA as they were up there. Of course, there's a little bit of clearing. They were in the eye. When the eye made its way into the Abaco Islands, its first landfall, they were actually able to get in some heavy machinery and evacuate some of the citizens that were there before the back end.

We still have the trend of models offshore, but that doesn't mean we're not -- we may not have a landfall. This cone of uncertainty is on Florida for a reason because there are models, some of them that still want to put it on Florida's shoreline, even inland, and then even parts of South and North Carolina could have a landfall.

So there's so many unknowns. If you look at our track, still a Category 5, this could spin over Freeport for 25 or 30 hours. And until it makes up its mind and that stall is over, then we'll watch it more forward. This is much like Matthew back in 2016 that brought devastating flooding to parts of, of course, the North and South Carolina area.

But our models, still both of them, European and the American model, Ana, keep it offshore. Every mile is going to count, 10, 15, 20, 30 miles. Of course, the farther away, the better.

CABRERA: Okay. Thank you for watching that for us. We know 11:00 is a key time period when we will find out more information. Tom, we will check back.

I want to pick up on something kind of cool that Tom just touched on. Check this out. This picture was taken by hurricane hunters from NOAA. They are from inside the storm. The view shows the stadium affect, if you will, of the eye-wall of Dorian. Just take a look at that.

You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

[21:35:00]

We're back in just a moment.

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CABRERA: Welcome back. The FBI special agent in charge of the investigation into yesterday's mass shooting in West Texas warns, we may never know what caused the gunman to open fire killing seven people.

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CHRISTOPHER COMBS, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Frankly, there may never be an answer. If you look at the Vegas shooter, we're still trying to figure out exactly what brought him to his spiral into violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, this comes as a neighbor tells CNN that just last month, the gunman threatened her with a rifle after she put trash in a nearby dumpster. She says that he would shoot into his backyard from a structure on top of his house and go and retrieve dead animals.

She also tells us that she called the police after that incident last month but claims they never showed up because the property seen here doesn't show up on GPS and is hard to find. The FBI found it today though. They are searching it now.

Joining us, former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe, he was with the FBI for more than two decades. Sir, thank you for being here with us. We had a chance to speak yesterday. Now, we know a lot more today. With this new information from the gunman's neighbor, what do you make of it?

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Boy, Ana, you know, that is exactly the kind of information that the FBI and law enforcement generally is trying to message to the community.

[21:40:02]

When you see things like this, when you experience changes or violent reactions on the part of people you know and interact within your life, you should bring that to the attention of law enforcement.

It sounds like this neighbor did exactly that. Remains to be seen how the police department handled that call. But I'm sure that's one of the questions that will get answered in the next knew days.

CABRERA: And then the police withheld a lot of details at their press conference earlier, wouldn't reveal the gunman's name at that press conference because they said they didn't want to give him notoriety. Do you think that was the right call?

MCCABE: Well, it seems to be a common way to handle these things. I have noticed that over the last few mass shootings. There's a reluctance to want to give credit or fame, if you will, to people who commit these horrible acts. And I think there are tactical reasons as well to want to kind of maybe play down the contagion effect or copycat effect to try to take that media splash away from the event in a way to try to discourage others from following down the same course.

So I would assume those are the sorts of things that were motivating their reluctance to talk about his name.

CABRERA: We did learn that when it began, as a traffic stop, that what was the initiation of that traffic stop was -- it was a routine type of move. He didn't have a blinker on, so they went to pull him over. Does that make you lean more towards maybe this just being a random act of violence or is the fact that he even had an AR-style rifle on him suspicious?

MCCABE: It's hard to imagine a completely random event where he was driving around town with an assault weapon and a lot of ammunition. So, you know, as we discussed last night, the so-called routine traffic stop is one of the most dangerous things that our folks in law enforcement can do and they have to do them thousands of times around the country every day. It's incredibly dangerous work for exactly this reason. They never know what they are going to walk up on in the vehicle.

In this case, hopefully, the investigative work that's going on now will shed light on whether or not this was truly just a mistake on the part of the gunman. Maybe he was in route to a different location. Maybe his plan was to stage this attack in a different way. And he just happened to get pulled over. Or did he provoke the interaction with law enforcement by breaking the law and then trying to kind of lure them up to the vehicle to start the attack?

We just don't know this at this point. But, hopefully, the investigative work they're doing on the ground will shed light on his intent and his motivation.

CABRERA: Well, where do you think the investigation is at this stage?

MCCABE: Well, it's pretty clear they are doing everything they can to basically reassemble this person's life, to build a detailed timeline of events that led him to this shooting. They are, as we have seen, conducting -- executing search warrants at his residence. I'm sure they are trying to identify other locations or vehicles that are also associated with the subject. They will get search warrants on those locations as well.

I would expect they are trying to identify every communications facilities they can. So those would be phone numbers that the shooter used, email addresses that he corresponded through and with, social media accounts, things like that, essentially go back and collect all the remnants they can that might shed some light on why he did this, how he did it, how he planned it and executed it. Did he have help in that effort? We want to find who those people were if, in fact, anybody knew that this was coming.

CABRERA: You were in the FBI for more than 20 years. You held the highest office. The bureau has studied mass shootings for years. So I want to ask you about prevention. Because earlier tonight, we heard from Juliette Kayyem, the former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, she called the AR a mass murder weapon. She noted it's becoming a go-to firearm for mass shooters.

Based on your experience, do you think an assault-style weapons ban could help prevent these kinds of tragedies?

MCCABE: Well, I'll tell you, Ana: I think that as many folks have said today, there's not really any one thing that we can do to ensure that these mass shootings won't happen again. But there are many things that we could do to try to reduce the odds or effectiveness of the shooter or the lethality of these events. And an assault weapons ban is one of those steps that we could take had we the political will to do so.

I was an agent on the streets of New York City many years ago while the assault weapons ban, the federal assault weapons ban was in place. It was not a perfect law. It was a tough statute to actually charge people with offending. But the facts are, if you go back and look at the mass shootings that we're experiencing now compared to those that we experienced under the assault weapons ban, they have gone up significantly.

[21:45:06]

So at some point, Ana, we have to -- we have to look at these situations and commit ourselves to doing whatever is necessary to protect the lives of Americans and reduce the likelihood of another one of these events. We're running almost 300 mass shootings a year if you go by the FBI's definition of a mass shooting, which is a shooting in which three or more people are shot at a single location by a single perpetrator. That is an outrageous amount of violence and we should be taking whatever steps we can to try to reduce it.

CABRERA: And this mass shooting unfolded in a way that was unusual, right? Police say they train for active shooter situations in one location, not something like this, spread throughout the area over several miles. And this incident lasted about an hour. I mean, how does law enforcement prepare to respond to a situation like this?

MCCABE: Right. So we've spent so much time and effort and resources training first responders to think differently about how they react to active shooters and mass shooting events. And I think a lot of that training has really paid off. And that was the result of studies and work that was done after events -- attacks like the Virginia Tech shooting, for instance.

This was a particularly challenging attack because of its mobility. Typically, mass shooters, they engage at one location or locations that are very close to each other. This one is spread out over miles. I heard the FBI SAC, Chris Combs, state in an earlier interview they had 15 crime scenes that they are trying to get through and harvest the evidence from at this point.

That is just a massive undertaking. Our folks are incredibly capable. They are very good at this. They will do it well partially because they have had a lot of unfortunate experience with these events.

CABRERA: When they said earlier they don't believe there's any nexus to domestic or international terrorism, does that tell you anything? Is that -- I mean, how can they rule it out so quickly?

MCCABE: You know, Ana, that's probably an indication that they haven't seen any definitive evidence of a connection to terrorist groups or terrorist ideology, either domestic or international. It doesn't mean they won't find that evidence at some point. And when and if they do, I would expect they will change that characterization.

But, again, they're at the very front end of this investigation. They are weeding through his life. They are trying to find those communications facilities, find those email correspondents he may have kept in touch with, look through a record of the sorts of sites that he was visiting on the internet and things like that to establish that kind of state of mind or intention that he was bringing with him into this attack.

So stay tuned. I think there are a lot of questions still to be answered.

CABRERA: Absolutely. Andrew McCabe, I really appreciate you taking the time and lending your expertise to all of us. Thank you.

MCCABE: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: We're back in a moment.

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CABRERA: Catastrophic, life-threatening, dangerous. That's how the National Hurricane Center is describing the monster Category 5 Hurricane Dorian. On the southeastern coast of the U.S., it may be calm now, but just offshore is this gigantic storm packing sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. Hurricane Dorian is now the strongest storm on the planet this year. And this is what the storm is doing to the Bahamas.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is now my house. The water is up to my calf. That's the kitchen, stove.

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CABRERA: Complete destruction caused by strong winds and torrential rain. And the storm that did this is expected to move up the Atlantic to the coast of Florida. Though its projected path is very uncertain, mandatory evacuation orders for parts of Florida and South Carolina have been issued. For many in the storm's potential path, this isn't the first hurricane they've endured.

Christina Dowe lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. And as you can see, her home was all but destroyed during Hurricane Florence last year. She bought a new house in November, three blocks from where she was down that storm. And Christina Dowe joins us.

Now, Christina, here we are again. Oh my goodness, what's going through your mind right now?

CHRISTINA DOWE, RESIDENT OF WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA: I really don't know what to think. I'm just kind of on edge right now trying to get prepared for it.

CABRERA: How are you preparing?

DOWE: Well, we've just been trying to get perishables, getting water, getting flashlights, just trying to get the necessity things that we need so we can be better prepared than we was last year.

CABRERA: So, last year there was obviously quite a bit of damage at your house. Do you feel like the house that you have now is better prepared to sustain potentially, you know, storm-force winds?

DOWE: I pray it is. I mean, I don't know because, I mean, it's more startling than what I had last year. But no one can really tell on how strong it's going to hold up. Do you know what I'm saying? So all we can do is pray.

CABRERA: And what is your plan? Obviously, we know the hurricane is still potentially a few days away and it's still unclear exactly where it's going to hit, if it makes landfall in the U.S. That's still a possibility. What is your plan?

DOWE: Well, I mean, we plan to stay here, me and the boys.

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I don't know like where we would go to get away from it because I don't want to leave and then we can't get back. So we're just going to buckle down and just pray that everything works out, better than it did last year.

CABRERA: How has it been in the past year trying to recover from that last storm, from Hurricane Florence?

DOWE: Well, I mean, it was hard. It was stressful. It took us -- we ended up getting this house a week before Thanksgiving. But, I mean, we had a good support group. We had people that were actually, you know, pitching in and helping to kind of ease it up a little bit, but it was hard. It took a while, but we made it through.

CABRERA: I'm glad you landed on your feet and hoping for the best for you and your whole family this next go-around. Please stay safe. Good luck in preparing and let's keep in touch.

DOWE: All right. Thank you so much.

CABRERA: Thank you, Christina Dowe.

Ahead here on CNN, what can be done to stop mass shootings? CNN's Fareed Zakaria shares ideas from around the world, global lessons on guns tonight at 11:00.

I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks so much for being here with me on another difficult weekend.

Anderson Cooper's interview with The Late Show's Stephen Colbert is up next after a short break. Thank you. Good night.

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[22:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360: Welcome to this --