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Dangerous Flood Threat to Parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama; Louisiana State Troopers Urge People to Stay Home; Car Used as Improvised Launcher in Rocket Attack on Airport. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 30, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said, quote, the worst case scenario seems to have happened. A reporter from our affiliate, WDSU is on scene in Lafitte as rescue teams are now gathering to start searching for people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG LAROSE, REPORTER: We're right on the levee, just on the other side, is where they are marshaling all of the boats that are coming in here. Obviously, the sheriff's office, National Guard, lots of volunteers are here. It's been nonstop activities of boats and trailers going in, a few vehicles going out.

Staged on the road coming this way are a couple of Jefferson transit buses. So, you have in on idea of how many people that they are expecting to bring out of Lafitte. We've talked to a few of the volunteers. We thought maybe it was the Cajun Navy-type. It turns out these are people who know someone that is stuck there. They have a fear that they're in their attic. They haven't been able to communicate with them overnight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: All of those people trying to save lives. It is just remarkable.

The death toll at this point stands at one confirmed dead. And this morning, the Louisiana National Guard has begun their search and rescue efforts. More than a million customers in Louisiana and Mississippi are without electricity, customers that could be a household, a lot more people in one house than just one person possibly.

The power company in Louisiana said, quote, it will likely take day to determine the extent of the damage to the power grid. Ida was drowngraded to a tropical just this morning. There is still a threat because the storm is just kind of sitting there. It is crawling through parts of the state. And as it does, it's dumping several inches of rain.

The biggest hazard is flash flooding, rising waters. Officials are warning of extreme danger due to storm surge as well as high winds and tornados. Governor John Bel Edwards urging residents to stay where they are. Let the rescuers come to you.

Let's begin with Kirk Lepine. He's on the phone. He is the president of Plaquemine's Parish, Louisiana. Overnight, we should note, that Parish reported a levee, told anyone still in the area to evacuate. It is good to have you on, Mr. Lepine.

First, can you tell us what happened when this levee broke and how many people that put in danger?

KIRK LEPINE, PRESIDENT, PLAQUEMINES PARISH, LOUISIANA: It was a levee that we tried to connect from the river levee to our back levee. It is really kind of a makeshift levee. We built a road, a small bridge over the road for access for people. It breached last night somewhere around 11:00 midnight. So we had to round up some of our constituents that are in that -- who were left in that area. That was actually a mandatory evacuation area. So we had to get those people to high ground.

We were able to seal it last night. We continue to work on it today, dropping more sandbags. So we are now in the process of putting air boats out and getting the helicopter up to check our back levee and put up drones to assess what is going on.

SCIUTTO: It is hard, I know, to assess. And I know you're in that process right now. Do you have any estimate, any sense of how many people may still be trapped in the waters, in their homes, any sense?

LEPINE (VOICE OVER): This area where the water is, it's pretty desolate. We're pretty confident there are not a lot of people there. We know that people heeded our warning and got out. So, we have not received one 911 distress call yet. So, that is a promising -- that is a promising day.

So -- but, we don't know. And like I said, this is the time that we try to find out and make assessment of how bad it really is.

SCIUTTO: For sure. And, listen, it is good to hear that people heeded those warnings because so often in the storms, they don't. They say, listen, I want to stay home and protect my home.

You have another challenge going on right now. That, of course, is the COVID outbreak. And I wonder in shelters and so on, how do you mitigate the risk of that spread as you try to keep people safe from the storm?

LEPINE (VOICE OVER): Well, we were able to shelter people on our government complex. We have a multi-purpose center. It is 33,000 square foot. We've sheltered people there during the COVID time because we prepared for eight storms last year. So we were able to socially distance people. This year, we have a point-to-point contact with West Monroe, so we were able to move those people to West Monroe in a safe place. So that was five hours away from us. So we did have about 40 evacuees that we put on buses on Saturday and got them to a safe place. SCIUTTO: Well, we're showing pictures now as we speak to you of just how high the waters are, vehicles trapped and so on.

[10:05:03]

Are you getting all of the help you need now? It is a disaster area. That means a lot of federal aid. Do you have the resources now to get to people, anybody who remains in danger?

LEPINE (VOICE OVER): We have reached out to our federal partners. They have been pretty good. Our state partners have been phenomenal. They have been great with resources. So, yes, look, everybody is spread thin. This was not just hit our parish, it hit many other parishes to the west of us. So, I know resources are limited but they are helping a great deal.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, we know you still have got a lot of work to do Kirk Lepine, Plaquemine's Parish president parish there. We wish you and we wish the people of the parish the best of luck.

LEPINE (VOICE OVER): Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Nadia Romero, she's on the ground in New Orleans where there is no power right now. Nadia, tell us the extent of the damage you're seeing there.

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is damage all across the city. And you can see why we don't have power, why a million people in Louisiana are without power and the entire city of New Orleans without power.

Take a look behind me. You can see this transformer that fell on top of this car during the storm. I mean, that speaks to the wrath of Hurricane Ida at the height of the storm. And it is a big reason why there is no power for anyone around here.

Now, we have people who were at home in this neighborhood at the time that this transformer fell over and the power went out. And they say they're a tight-knit community, they are still here, they woke up bright and early. Some of them tell me they never went to sleep because the power went out, the A.C. went out and they knew they needed to clean up.

So, we're joined by Judy and Tron. You have a fun name, Judy, for this neighborhood.

JUDY ARABIE, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT (voice over): Yes. We -- actually, we're in the Marinade Triangle and we call ourselves Team Toro (ph). We're a tight-knit family here and we help each other and that is what we do.

ROMERO: And when we were driving through, we saw all of your neighbors, Tron, with their brooms out on their hands and knees picking the debris. What was it like during the storm for you?

TRON GILPIN, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: So, during the storm, there was a lot of wind. It didn't get really get -- started getting exciting until 6:00 when the power pole broke and we could hear the glass break from inside of the house and we looked out and that is when the power went out, and a lot of wind.

ROMERO: A lot of wind. Were you nervous? I mean, you decided to shelter in place, Judy, like your neighbors did.

ARABIE: We did.

ROMERO: Were you nervous when the storm came in?

ARABIE: I wasn't nervous about the wind. I was more concerned about the rain because roofs leak and so inside of our house, we have water damage inside of our house. I know Tron has water damage inside of his house. And we're just going to pull together and do what we got to do.

ROMERO: You guys are pulling together. I know, Tron, you told me your roof is open. It is exposed right now. What does it look like inside?

GILPIN: You could see daylight from inside of the attic space, so on both sides of the house. We actually live in the same building, so --

ROMERO: You share like almost a duplex. You live on the left side, you live on the right side. So you sustained some of the same damage.

ARABIE: We did. Yes, we did.

ROMERO: And you've been through other storms. How would you compare Hurricane Ida to other storms you've lived through.

ARABIE: Last year, we had Zeta and electricity was out for about five days but it was nothing compared to this, nothing compared to this. The winds, the gusts, the shingles flying everywhere, debris was flying everywhere. We were actually -- as long as we could, we were texting with all of our neighbors to make sure everybody was okay. Nobody had anything broken into, do we need any help. That was what we did. So it was -- the gust of winds was what was really the worst part of it all.

ROMERO: And you told me that you really didn't sleep last night because you were so worried. Tron, what do you do next? How do you rebuild, pick up? If you were without power for five days for Zeta, how long do you think you'll be without power this time in your clean- up effort?

GILPIN: Well, I assume power is going to be out for quite a while. It seems like there's a lot of infrastructure damage on the power lines. I'm sure exactly where but that's what I've heard. We don't have a lot of news at the moment because cell phones are down. We have no communication. But first thing would be to establish communication and let everybody know we're safe and stuff.

ROMERO: Yes, let everybody know that you are safe. You survived the storm. You at least have each other and your neighborhood.

ARABIE: That's right, everything else can be replaced. ROMERO: Absolutely. We're happy you made it through the storm. Thank you both, Judy and Tron, for talking with us.

And that is really what you see all throughout New Orleans, people coming out and picking up the pieces as a community, as a family together, because they know that emergency response crews are on their way but they are doing as much as they can now in the meantime.

[10:15:00]

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes, people doing their best to help each other out. Nadia Romero there, thanks very much.

Well, people in several states are feeling the impact of Ida. Right now, the tropical storm is moving northward over Southwestern Mississippi. You could see there on the radar. It is still posing a dangerous risk to portions of Louisiana, as well as Mississippi and Alabama.

Here is video this morning out of Mobile, Alabama. A causeway there closed, completely flooded over. It gives you a sense of how high the storm surge is. Here is a local reporter from WPMI on the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The water continues to rise. It was not like this this morning when we got here around 4:00 A.M. We are between Baldwin County and Mobile County on the Causeway right off this off- ramp here. But, again, the causeway is completely closed. They let us come down here just to get some these shots.

The eastbound lanes are completely flooded. Westbound lanes are also flooded as well, but not as extreme as these eastbound lanes. The Bayway continues to stay open but, again, of Causeway is closed and the Bankhead Tunnel closed yesterday around 7:00 P.M. No word on when the Causeway Bankhead Tunnel will reopen. But, again, just stay safe, make sure that you turn around, don't drown because it doesn't seem like the rain and wind is going to stop any time soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Risks still there.

Still ahead this hour, a breaking news exclusive to CNN, CNN is learning that the congressional committee investigating the January 6th violent insurrection is now seeking to preserve the phone records of key Republican lawmakers and the Trump family, phone calls that day and leading up to it. We'll have the details coming up.

Plus, a series of rockets fired overnight in Kabul towards the airport just as the final U.S. troops are preparing to leave. Is ISIS-K ready to move in? We're going to have an update ahead.

All of that plus our live special coverage of the devastation left by Ida continues, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, Louisiana State Troopers tell CNN this morning they are urging people to stay home while they work to clear roads across the stray. There are trees, power lines down, still rising water. I mean, this is when the danger is.

Lieutenant Melissa Matey from the Louisiana State Police joins us on the phone. Lieutenant, first, tell me how many people do you believe are in need right now of rescue. What are you seeing?

LT. MELISSA MATEY, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE (voice over): Hey, Jim, thanks for having us. We don't have a number on that right now. We're seeing a lot of 911 call centers that have gone down and intermittently going down and a lot of those calls are going to get rerouted to the Emergency Operations Command in those parishes. So, we have troopers and other law enforcement and personnel embedded in those EOCs and they're trying to get out.

So right now, we are seeing some people moving about. And we're asking people to make sure they shelter in place and just stay put. We're getting a lot of messages and inundated with people that have evacuated from this area and then also family members from other areas of the country. So, we are seeing definitely some communication issues. So just please be patient. As soon as those communications come back up, I'm sure your loved ones will get back in touch with you. But we're asking people to stay put, still shelter in place, a lot of downed power lines and downed trees, we have roads that are blocked and a lot of those wires that are down are live.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MATEY (voice over): We know that after storms, a lot of times we see a number of injuries and deaths following the storms and all of those types of injuries and deaths are definitely preventable. So, please just stay put and let us know if you need help and we'll definitely try to get out there.

SCIUTTO: Yes, you hear those stories so often. People think they could drive through a flooded road. Before you know it, the water is above and then they're washed way. It is a really important message.

I wonder what the communications options are if cell towers are down, that, of course, means Wi-Fi is down, so folks can't use things like Facebook. I mean, as they're staying put, what do people do? How do they get their messages out?

MATEY (voice over): Well, I mean, really, to go through you guys. I think it is one of the most important things for us to do and that is what we're trying to do, of course, to get that message out. I know our social media, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we are posting on there. I'm in the Baton Rouge area at the moment and we have intermittent capabilities on Wi-Fi and even through our email system and things like that. So we're working as best we can. There is multiple different cell providers that are down right now. So even when on a troop level, for us to communicate with them, it is through specific cell sites and cell providers.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Well, Lieutenant Melissa Matey, we appreciate the work you're doing. Folks, please listen to the lieutenant, stay put and don't take matters to your own hands. It is dangerous out there.

This morning officials in St. Tammany Parish are residents warning residents not to get out and assess the storm damage this morning, similar message there saying, if you are planning on sightseeing, don't. I mean, you would be amazed. Some people do it. They want to take pictures.

Joining us now Slidell, Louisiana Mayor Greg Cromer. Mayor, good to have you on. I understand your emergency crews, they've been doing some rescues. Tell us what they've seen.

MAYOR GREG CROMER (R-SLIDELL, LA): Good morning, Jim. Yes, we -- it was a long night last night and I finally got off the streets about 12:30.

[10:20:05]

Everything looked fairly decent, some trees down, some power lines down. And I went to sleep, I guess, on the couch about 2:00, and 4:00, my police chief came in and turned the light on and said, Mayor, you need to get up. We have got water in every neighborhood in town.

And in about a three-hour period, we had probably five to six-foot rise in the bayou and the lake estuary system that pushed water into a number of people's homes on the south side of our community. And we had to deploy boats at 4:00 this morning and do water rescues. We took about 15 people off their roofs of their homes.

Within three to four hours, the water was starting to recede. We had to pull the boats out because we would have been stranded. And now we're in with high water vehicles taking people out of the neighborhood on the lower side of town.

SCIUTTO: Understood, yes. Those images of people rescued from rooftops makes you think of Katrina, right, and that is how a lot of lives were lost in that storm. But you're saying now that the waters, at least in your area, seem to be receding.

CROMER: In the bayou area, yes, sir. But we don't think that is going to be the height of it yet. You were talking to the mayor -- President Lepine a minute ago. He's on the other of Lake Pontchartrain and on the west end of Lake Pontchartrain. As this storm goes north and the winds shift out of the southeasterly direction -- or to a southwesterly direction, it will start taking and pushing all of the water that is in the lake and it begins to stack up on our side, our end of the lake and we'll see another rise in water again, we think, this afternoon. SCIUTTO: Wow, that is good to keep in mind. I mean, folks might think

that the danger has passed, but you're saying it could get worse once again.

I wonder, with power lines down, as well as a lot of cell towers down and so on, how are you finding people? How are you getting in touch with people? Or are you just out there looking?

CROMER: Sporadically, people have been able to get through on our 911 system. That is been up and down all evening and into this morning. I've been receive texts quite a bit. But I'm finding that I can't respond. I'll get a phone call and I can hear a voice but I can't -- when I speak, they can't hear me.

So our service is very sporadic right now. We've had some people that walked out of these neighborhoods that waded out literally waist-deep in water and flagged police officers down and told us what was going on and we were able to get in there and find these folks. And it's been a pretty long morning for our first responders, our police officers and some of our firemen.

SCIUTTO: Final question, people like to take matters into their own hands, some people even like to take snaps, right, of the storm damage and so on. I'm going to give you a platform here to speak to folks now about what to do and what not to do.

CROMER: Look, we've already got people in our community, we're very resilient. People are out picking up limbs and debris and taking -- I saw a couple of gentlemen with chainsaws on roofs of their homes, cleaning up, taking trees off their properties. That is fine. That is all good and fine and dandy. But stay off of the streets right now. We still have teams that are out assessing damage for power outages and the electric company and the gas company, finding broken lines from where trees have been uprooted and broken lines. We need to stay out of those folks' way right now so that they can assess the damage and get in here tomorrow and start picking up and cleaning up.

That is something that feels that we could probably have our electric grid in our community back up within three to five days, which would be much, much quicker than the two weeks it took during and after Katrina. So, take care of yourself, take care of your property, stay close to home, don't venture out into the streets. Give us a day or two to catch our breath and get our feet under us.

SCIUTTO: It's good advice, Greg Cromer, mayor of Slidell, Louisiana, thanks very much and best of luck to you.

CROMER: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, the deadline is coming for all U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan by tomorrow. What happens once their gone, what is the danger? We're going to discuss with someone who knows, next.

But, first here, is what else to watch for today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: In minutes, the Pentagon will brief reporters there at the Pentagon on the latest from Afghanistan. This as we saw images overnight of a rocket attack targeting Kabul airport, a sign of the danger there. CNN obtained video showing the burned out car that was apparently used as a rocket launcher. U.S. officials tell CNN at least five rockets were fired at the airport. They were intercepted by a U.S. anti-rocket system.

[10:30:00]

I'm joined by Arian Sharifi. He was the former director of National Threat Assessment for the Afghan National Security Council. Arian, good to have you on this morning.