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Search and Rescues Underway, Louisiana Governor Expected Ida Death Toll to Go Up; Ida Pushes Inland, Still a Major Threat to Millions; Pentagon Says, Threat Stream in Afghanistan Still Real, Still Active. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 30, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: Thanks for joining us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And as we come on air, catastrophic devastation, buildings leveled and desperate rescues right now underway after Hurricane Ida unleashes its fury, leaving more than 1 million people without power in Louisiana, and President Biden is expected to speak soon about all of this. We will bring you his remarks.

But, first, let's give you a closer look at what's happening in the storm zone. On the right side of your screen, a look at the category 4 storm as it was striking the city of Houma, Louisiana. Ida now considered one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the U.S., winds of 150 miles per hour. That's like an EF-3 tornado hitting for hours.

Now, on the left side of your screen, what's left. We know at least one person has died. But Louisiana's governor says he expects the death toll to climb considerably in the coming hours. And we're getting reports of people trapped in attics and on roofs and the water is not done rising.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSHUA, WAITING FOR HELP RESCUE PEOPLE: A couple of people behind me have a lot of friends and family out there. So, I got a fairly decent- sized boat. So, if I can get a couple people to ride with me, we'll check on everyone once we get out there.

No one has any cell phone service or anything, so, it's just a waiting game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let's begin our live team coverage of Ida first with Brian Todd. He is just outside New Orleans. And, Brian, I understand the entire city is right now without power and entire buildings are gone?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana. We're just outside New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish in Chalmette just outside of New Orleans. We can show you one of the buildings that was flattened by the storm. Take a look at this house, look at the damage, completely taken down by the storm. This is one of those bracing periods after a major hurricane when local residents, local officials are just trying to get their minds around some of the damage that they're dealing with here, and we can kind of -- we have to dodge cars trying to move around this. We can show you a little bit more of a scope of the house here that collapsed Chalmette.

Louisiana State Police just sent out an alert saying that if you're stranded, they can't get to you right away. It may be some time before they can get to you. This is just -- this is one of those, again, very daunting, initial periods right after a hurricane where people are assessing damage like this, and trying to get help.

We were told by neighbors that regarding this house, they don't believe there was anybody inside this house when the hurricane hit. So, that's good news. This is completely flattened. Whatever they had is, of course, lost. Look, you can see down here -- let's just move just to the right here a little bit, Jake. You can see the massive tree down here. Vehicles are trying to get around the downed trees here in St. Bernard Parish. This, again, is just the initial assessment.

We also heard from Entergy, one of the main companies providing power to all of Louisiana. They said it's going to take several days just to assess the damage that they're dealing with as far as the power grid. Then it's going to take several more days to restore service. And what they're also warning about, Ana, is something I can show you over here with these downed power lines. You can see some of the downed power lines right here. They are warning that a lot of these power lines are still energized.

So, again, officials are telling people do not go out of your home if you -- unless you absolutely have to. But even you really have to make a hard assessment. Try not to go out of your home, because they don't want you, number one, to get in the way of the first responders. But also it's things like this, you're going to run into downed power lines all over the place.

Now, regarding the main outages of New Orleans and elsewhere, Entergy also said that there's a massive power -- there was a tower that collapsed and much of that is in the Mississippi river along with power lines there. So, again, that gives you a sense of just what people throughout this area are trying to deal with, the damage that they're assessing right now and the fact that they're going to be without power probably for several days, Ana.

CABRERA: And obviously with the conditions calming down there, there's still so much moisture in the air. We're seeing condensation there on Brian's lens. But thank you for hustling for us to give us a look at what's happening right now in New Orleans. Thank you, Brian.

Rescues are ongoing for trapped residents in LaPlace, Louisiana. Hurricane Ida's eye wall passed over this town causing massive flash flooding, and CNN's Ed Lavandera is there.

Ed, what are you seeing and what are you hearing from people there?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, well, anyone you go up to, the first words out of their mouth is describing what they endured overnight as simply as horrible and the rescue and search efforts continue here this afternoon in LaPlace, Louisiana, which is a small town just west of New Orleans along Interstate-10. Here, you have local law enforcement crews about to launch a tank-like high water vehicle into this subdivision.

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And we're along this highway. There's water on both sides of where we're at. And here, you can see people just starting to emerge out. There are some places that are shallow enough where people can walk and either get into it with a boat like that, but as you go deeper into these neighborhoods, Ana, there is water that is six feet to eight feet high. Some residents said they escaped into their attics last night in the overnight hours. The flood waters started pouring into their homes. One woman told us she slept on her kitchen island. Several other people said they escaped to their attics waiting for the water to keep going up.

We spoke to one family after they were pulled out from -- on a boat from their home that was really just a couple of blocks away from this high point on this highway and they described what a horrific night they spent inside their home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON DOTTOLO, RESCUED FROM RISING FLOODWATERS: I don't know. My (INAUDIBLE) says if it went past that, God take me.

KAREN DOTTOLO, RESCUED FROM RISING FLOODWATERS: Yes. And we were afraid for a little while because it was coming up the stairs.

D. DOTTOLO: I wasn't afraid of the water but the wind kept going, and I felt the walls in the house move, the exterior walls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And they described it as hours of agony, everything that they endured last night inside their home. They said, watching that water rise up along the staircase leading up to the second floor of their home was just really frightening.

And what many of these people here in this area say, Ana, is that one of the things that was so difficult for them is they're used to flood waters. They're used to gulf storms coming in through this part of Louisiana. But it was the intensity of the winds and just how long Hurricane Ida remained a strong hurricane. That was the part that really shocked them throughout the night in this storm. Ana?

CABRERA: Yes, those 150 miles per hour wind gusts at times, like an EF-3 tornado just bearing down for such a long time. Ed Lavandera, thank you and your team for being there and please stay safe. Ida is now a tropical storm but still a major threat to millions. Deadly flash flooding is still a big concern, also tornadoes. Meteorologist Tom Sater is tracking it all for us. Tom, what's going on?

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's still a tropical storm, which means it still has a center core, it's still circulating and it still has enough power to funnel up moisture from the south, and there's plenty of moisture here to the south. So, what we are seeing the difference from yesterday, which is about land fall 24 hours ago, it stayed as a category 4 for six hours. That's tremendous. But now, it has to release all of that kinetic energy in the forms of wind, waves and rainfall.

And what we're seeing here, remember yesterday, it was a large circular red pattern on an infrared imagery, you look for those brighter colors. That's the higher, colder cloud tops, they're no longer around the center but they're on these feeder bans. So we still have severe weather threats and, of course, with the flooding, but if you look at this, these bands, they mean business.

We had another heavy rain band move through Grand Isle just as the waters were starting to recede, impeding to get the folks out there, looking out for some aerial views. But now it extends all the way into the panhandle of Florida. And we've got numerous flash flood warnings, not only back in the areas of the core and around areas of New Orleans but around the center of the storm and, again, these bands where, again, funnel clouds moving on shore, we'll take a look in a minute to see if there's any tornado warnings.

We still have this watch and that's in effect until 4:00 P.M. starting to see the tropical storm warnings get whittled down somewhat. The center is now about 25 miles southwest of Jackson, Mississippi. So, they haven't seen the center move through. And now look for Mississippi to possibly have more power outages as these thunderstorms can create still some problems not only with the flooding but the tornadoes.

This is going to be slow in the pace for another several hours here so we have to really start to see it kick up in the speed by later on tonight. That will help but they're looking at heavy rain there as well.

CABRERA: And there are still so much we don't know about what happened overnight and this morning. The rescues are just getting underway. Tom Sater, thank you for keeping track of where the storm is.

Let's turn to Todd Terell now. He is the president of United Cajun Navy. I know you are in Denham Springs, Louisiana, I'm told, which is located just east of Baton Rouge. But you have teams all across the region, right? Where is the situation most dire right now?

TODD TERRELL, PRESIDENT, UNITED CAJUN NAVY: The two main areas right now are Houma, Louisiana, which is Terrebonne Parish as well as and LaPlace. Houma and Terrebonne Parish, there's a ton of debris down everywhere. There's roofs off the houses, just houses just smashed up. A lot of people had to hunker down in their houses since last night, so they're just getting pulled out of their houses today. LaPlace, there's just still a flooding situation. That flooding looks like it's going to be bad for another two or three days over there.

CABRERA: Wow. We're told again more than 1 million people are without power and that it could be weeks to get everybody back on their feet essentially. How many rescues have your teams done so far?

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TERRELL: They've clocked over 300 rescues today. There are a lot of those are coming in from houses in Houma where there's 10 or 15 people in the house. Everybody kind of hunkered. Some of the neighbors and family kind of went to a house because their house roofs come off. So, they were hunkered down. So, it's a little different this time, rather than rescuing one or two people, it's more like 8 to 10 to 12 people in a house.

CABRERA: And what are the biggest concerns at this point, the biggest challenges?

TERRELL: The biggest challenges are where we have numerous challenges. First of all, cell phone service is nonexistent right now. We have very, very little phone service. The other thing is the power lines are down. In Louisiana, you got water where it's three or four foot and then you have a situation where it's no -- it's completely ground. So, the airboats have to go across the roads and stuff.

We also have no place to bring people. So, water is real tight. There's no water anywhere. So, supplies are going to be a really real challenge here coming up in the next 24 hours.

CABRERA: And so where are you taking people?

TERRELL: That's a good question. We happen to have volunteers come behind us in cars and bring them just wherever. We are trying to find churches. We're trying to find parking lots. One of the biggest problems are the people that we're rescuing, their phones are either dead and their batteries -- because the batteries are dead, there's no phone service. So, they can't get in touch with relatives or anything to pick them up. So, we have a major problem today with volunteers taking people that we rescued and trying to get them to where they need to go.

CABRERA: Do you get a sense that people were prepared for this storm?

TERRELL: I don't get a sense that people were prepared for the intensity of the storm. I think that none of us expected this storm, especially to be such a strong category 4 for six hours. The original forecast was that it was going to be a four and weaken to a one almost as immediate landfall, which was a way different situation than what we are dealing with right now. So, people just weren't expecting it.

CABRERA: Well, Todd Terrell, thank you for all you and your teams are doing. Thank you for taking the time to share with us about your efforts and what you're seeing. You're our eyes own ears on the ground. Best of luck to you. Stay safe.

TERRELL: Thank you.

CABRERA: Now, to a different kind of threat. Just hours before the full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, rockets fired at the Kabul airport, an ISIS-K target destroyed and a family of Afghan civilians reportedly killed in a U.S. drone strike.

Plus, Tropical Storm Ida and a crush (ph) of unvaccinated coronavirus patients putting hospitals in the south at a breaking point. Now, a shortage of oxygen threatening to make matters even worse.

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CABRERA: Welcome back. As the U.S. races to evacuate as many people as it can from Afghanistan, the Pentagon is warning that a very real and active threat remains to U.S. troops on the ground. As many as five rockets were fired at Kabul airport just this morning by ISIS-K militants.

Now, over the weekend an air strike by the U.S. took out a car that the pentagon described as an imminent ISIS-K threat near the airport. Despite this danger, the U.S. still managed to evacuate 1,200 more people in the last 24 hours.

Let's bring in CNN Senior International Correspondent Sam Kiley who is in nearby Doha, Qatar. And, Sam, what do we know about this ongoing threat to troops at the airport?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very real and it's imminent, even though -- and this is according to the Pentagon, even though there was this attack of five rockets from a six-barrel rocket launcher mounted in the back of a saloon car, firing out through the rear window and knocked out rear window, hopelessly inaccurate and easily shot down by the anti-missile system that the United States have as part of their defense capabilities there at the international airport.

But it's not the only attempt by ISIS-K, and, in all probability, it's unlikely to be the last. They are, according to the Pentagon, dedicated continuing these sorts of attacks may well have been plotting what they call complex attacks, that is attacks in multiple locations or involving different sorts of weapons, such as rockets, bombs and personnel with guns.

And this all, of course, comes, Ana, after the killing of ten civilians in what the Pentagon seems to be hinting may have been the secondary blast after a drone strike against another suspected ISIS-K team, notably in a vehicle. They're saying the secondary blast, which they are pretty convinced was what has killed these civilians. The secondary blast, of course, being the explosion of explosives inside the vehicle that was, of course, detonated by the drone strike.

So, a tragedy of pretty terrible proportions, six of those dead were children, two of them were two-year-olds. And the Pentagon is saying that they're going to continue to investigate that just as they continue their withdrawal of U.S. troops and the very last of evacuees essentially over the next 24 hours. They've got until midnight Tuesday night local time in Afghanistan to have ended this withdrawal. It may end sooner than that but this is the most vulnerable period, because, of course, it is during that period that at some stage, those defensive systems are going to be taken down and put on aircraft and flown out. But that presumably would be among the very last things that the military do before they pull out altogether. Ana?

CABRERA: Okay. Sam Kiley in Doha, Qatar, thank you.

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Joining us now is Joe Felter. He's a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense. He was a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer and a Senior Adviser to Generals McChrystal and Petraeus in Afghanistan. Colonel Felter, you have a unique perspective and expertise in this region. Thank you for being here.

The Pentagon says the terror threat stream is very real and still active right now as these evacuations continue. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby called the situation on the ground particularly dangerous right now. What makes this final phase dangerous and vulnerable for our troops?

JOE FELTER, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Let me just offer condolences again to those 13 gold star families and all the sacrifices that they've made, and also not just amazing work that our paratroopers, Marines, Special Operations and others are doing right now in this really difficult time. You nailed it, Ana. This is a very, very dangerous part of the mission, moving out, when security is deteriorating. We're going to see it play out in real-time.

But I would also like to emphasize again, there's no right way to do the wrong thing, and the wrong thing is to leave American citizens behind, green card holders, special immigrant visa holders. So, we have the opportunity to do the right thing going forward. This is going to be a long haul. It doesn't end tomorrow. We're going to be moving -- people are going to need to move over land, move Central Asian republics, Pakistan, other countries, and they're going to need to get out. They're going to need the help of the U.S. government.

And, fortunately, there are private organizations, like Task Force (INAUDIBLE), which I'm supporting and many others. They are trying to fill that gap that exists currently. But let's give the U.S. government -- it's not helpful to point fingers and to put blame. We need to pull together going forward and get our Americans out and get all those that helped us along the way. We need to honor that promise. And I hope we can do that going forward.

CABRERA: Exact numbers of how many of those people remain in Afghanistan are a little bit fuzzy right now. At last check, we were told somewhere in the realm of 300 American citizens who wanted to evacuate still were there and they were working with officials here in the U.S. to try to do that. When the U.S., though, is gone, we're told these evacuations will continue and especially including those Afghan allies who may remain in the thousands. We don't know exactly how many are there.

But the president's national security adviser says the U.S. does have leverage over the Taliban to make sure that they hold up their commitment and they allow U.S. citizens and other Afghan allies to leave after the U.S. is out. What do you see as that leverage? What is that?

FELTER: Well, I'm skeptical. We certainly had leverage when we had some presence on the ground. We have a lot less leverage now. Our leverage now maybe working with allies and partners to collectively pull together and try to pressure this new government, to call it that, to cooperate with us, to allow us to get our American citizens, our NATO and other allies out and all the many Afghans that helped us, again, to honor the promise. So, it's going to require consular work, consular sections at embassies in Central Asia, Pakistan, other places, they're going to need to get those -- that paperwork filed. They're going to need to make it as easy as possible for these individuals if they can get out over land to get back to safety.

CABRERA: What or who do you view as the largest national security threat to the U.S. right now?

FELTER: The same threat that brought us 9/11. It's these terrorist with global reach, call it Al Qaeda, call it ISIS-K, call it a range of other organizations. We can't just decide to leave a war. We're not leaving the war in Afghanistan. We're leaving at a more disadvantageous position because the terrorist threat still exists and we're going to be a lot less capable of interdicting it.

I would say the over-the-horizon counterterrorism is, to some degree, an oxymoron. We do it great. There's no one better than the United States doing it. We can't bring in allies and partners into it because it's too difficult. It's going to be a lot more difficult. But we cannot choose not to fight this fight, and that's the terrorist threat to the United States and our allies and partners around the world.

CABRERA: So, bottom line, after the U.S. leaves tomorrow, is the U.S. less safe than it's been since 9/11?

FELTER: Well, I would argue we are. We are going to be less capable in posture to interdict terrorist threats. But, again, there's no right way to do the wrong thing. The wrong thing is to leave but we have an opportunity to do the right thing. And that's to stay and do everything we can to get our Americans and those Afghans that helped Americans out and also to work with allies and partners to regenerate this counter-terrorist capability which is -- this is a threat not just to the United States, it's to all humanity. This is -- we're not going to see the end of this. We've just taken a little bit of hit. But we have to reconstitute and get back in the fight because the fight is not leaving us.

CABRERA: The majority of Americans believe that it is time for U.S. troops to come home. They don't want boots on the ground there in Afghanistan. So what I'm hearing you say, though, is that's the alternative, is that you stay, that you have boots on the ground. Is there a way to have enough security there to ensure that the terrorist threat isn't growing without boots on the ground?

FELTER: Well, I mean, it's going to be more difficult. And I was at the camp a couple thousand troops with double that of our allies and partners. It's about the right presence given our interests in the region. But the last administration and this administration decided we're going to go zero.

So, certainly, I don't think there's anyone that would say we're going to zero the right way.

[13:25:00]

There're a lot of missteps along the way. I think now we have to work more with our allies and partners across the region. This is a threat that concerns everyone, that threatens every country and we're going to need to work together given that the U.S. won't be present, we have to work with allies and partners, pull together, pool our resources and cooperate and make sure we do the best we can.

And, sadly, we may have to go back in. It may not be our choice. It may be a requirement. But let's hope we can address this threat short of that. But, personally, I'm skeptical.

CABRERA: Is ISIS-K now the biggest terror threat there on the ground?

FELTER: Well, you've seen the attacks recently. They certainly demonstrate their capability to inflict these great attacks. And that's their trademark. They want to have a lot of casualties. But, sadly, they're not the only group in town. There're others that will manifest itself. And let's remember, Afghanistan is the land of revolutions and insurrections. We're going to see a lot of instability and the conditions that create -- the conditions that allow these types of terrorist groups to operate freely.

CABRERA: Colonel Joe Felter, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

FELTER: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Out of ICU beds, scrambling to keep air in lungs. Hospitals in the south were already pushed to the brink at the latest surge in COVID patients. But now, they have Hurricane Ida, which just made things even worse.

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