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Florida Governor Says, 1,600-Plus People Rescued in Aftermath of Hurricane Ian; Florida Hospitals Deal with Water, Power Issues Days After Storm; U.S. Considering Responses to Possible War Escalation Including Russia's Potential Use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 03, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Monday morning. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow. We're glad you're with us this hour.

Well, search, rescue, recovery operations still underway all across Florida right now five days after Hurricane Ian made landfall there, Governor Ron DeSantis says more than 1,600 rescues have been carried out thus far. And this morning, nearly 600,000 homes and businesses in Florida are still without power. One power company official says residents may be off the grid, quote, for weeks or months.

SCIUTTO: There you see the calm waters now. It was nothing like that in the midst of the storm. In Lee County, officials try to defend their actions after facing hard questions over just how soon they ordered people to evacuate. Critics asking why those mandatory evacuations were not issued there until one day before Ian's landfall, surrounding counties had already been told to evacuate, giving folks more time to get out. This morning, the death toll from Hurricane Ian is climbing.

CNN Anchor and Correspondent Boris Sanchez has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The death toll rising from Hurricane Ian as people recall harrowing tragedies and those lost.

KEVIN BEHEN, HOME WAS DESTROYED IN FORT MYERS BEACH (voice over): Storm surge came all the way up and they had -- the windows were sucked out. These guys pushed their wives out the windows to where a tree was and they were looking at them and the guys were holding on and they just looked at their wives and they said, we can't hold on any more. We love you, bye, and that was it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Did they all make it? BEHEN: No. The two guys didn't make it.

SANCHEZ: The Miami Herald speaking to Fort Myers Resident John Galatro (ph) saying, quote, we've seen bodies everywhere, and that his group counted at least ten people from his building who died trying to get to the roof during the height of the surge. I personally covered one with a blanket. We made deceased signs so the helicopters could see them.

Also a devastating tragedy involving one of Fort Myers most vulnerable residents, Scott Lumley. According to The Washington Post, Lumley walked with a cane. His legs and right arm were progressively paralyzed by Lou Gehrig's disease. He was sheltering with friends as the floodwaters rose quickly in their single storey home, forcing them to try to break through the ceiling. They tried to lift Lumley up to safety.

One friend recounting, quote, we tried to get him but we couldn't. I feel awful about it. But I think if we kept trying, we three would have all been washed way.

I spoke with Captain Lewis MacDonald, a boat captain who has operated in the marina since 1986. His boat miraculously sustained limited damage despite being lifted up by the storm surge and tossed hundreds of feet into a mangrove.

LEWIS MACDONALD, BOAT CAPTAIN: Since my dad and I built the boat, and I've been doing this since 1995, and then a few years later, he died of cancer. So, to me, it wasn't just a boat. We were a business. It is for my family. Sorry. So, I'm thankful that God spared it and let it come down like this.

SANCHEZ: Amy Lynn with CNN-affiliate WFTX weathered the storm at a friend's parent's house. As Hurricane Ian worsened, the wind knocked light fixtures from the ceiling and broke glass.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're okay.

SANCHEZ: Eventually, Lynn had to shelter in a closet with her dogs for six hours. The damage to the home was extensive. This was the garage after the storm. Lynn says two cars were blown through the garage doors. They were eventually rescued by a Chinook helicopter.

And one Fort Myers resident sheltered aboard this boat during the worst of the storm. He was able to rescue three men who were stranded in a building.

DOUG MCGILL, RESIDENT OF FORT MYERS, FLORIDA: I tripped over beside a two-storey building. It was three guys trying to get out of the second storey window. It was just about under water and they were trapped inside. I got them out the other side and they were done. We got them on the boat.

Being at the right spot at the right time. I lost my boat and everything that I had. But I saved three guys and it was worth it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ (on camera): And, Jim and Poppy, moments ago, we got an update from Sanibel Island. Remember, this is an island that lost access to the mainland when Hurricane Ian swept away the bridge that led in and out. Officials telling us they conducted more than 200 evacuations there over the weekend. Still, some 20 residents deciding to stay behind even though getting food and supplies in and out of there is going to be a challenge. Nevertheless, they've decided to stay at their homes, Jim and Poppy.

[10:05:00]

HARLOW: Boris Sanchez, thank you for that. I mean, it really brings the despair home for folks, what people are going through. Great reporting on the ground.

You have some hospitals in Lee County, Florida, that are still struggling to try to get back to any semblance of normality after the hurricane initially knocked out power and really reduced the water pressure. They had to serve patients.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now, Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and CEO of Lee Health, which operates several hospitals and medical facilities in the area. Good afternoon to you have on, Doctor.

And I know you did -- you had a real effort to evacuate hundreds of patients since the hurricane hit. I wonder now, do you water now, do you have power and are those patients still with you? Are they safe?

DR. LARRY ANTONUCCI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, LEE HEALTH: Yes, we've been hit with a devastating storm, and Lee Health provides hospital care for 95 percent of the care that's being done here. And our facilities are in good shape. The challenge we had with utilities, as you mentioned. We ran on generator power for a couple of days. We're back to full power. And the most challenging aspect was our water supplies. We had two hospitals that had no running water. So, we had put emergency protocols in place with water tankers, et cetera.

I'm happy to say that we have water restored and we're testing those systems right now to make sure that those pressures are adequate. If they are indeed adequate, we are cautiously optimistic that we would be able to stop evacuating patients. We have had to evacuate over 400 patients to other facilities, including our entire children's hospital.

So, today, our focus is really on our staff. Now that we know our facilities are coming back, we've got to check on our staff and make sure that they're okay. We've had people come into our health system working during the initial stages who didn't know whether they even had a house, whether their families were okay, whether they have automobiles. So, we're checking on them now and checking on their housing, their health care, their childcare needs, transportation, et cetera, because we have to make sure that they're okay so we could continue our operations to take care of this community.

HARLOW: I know, Doctor, one of your really significant concerns through this has been, you know, not just taking care of the patients, but as you're able to discharge them, that many of them don't have anywhere to go home.

ANTONUCCI: That is exactly right. And one of the challenges we have in any hospital system that there is a balance between the patients you admit and the patients you discharge. And that helps you keep a stable sense of patients. But when you continue to admit patients but you cannot discharge them, it creates significant challenges for us, in flow and in ability to do that. So, we've been working very, very closely with our partners in the community to find places to be able to transfer and discharge patients safely. But that is definitely a challenge.

SCIUTTO: I know when the power went out, you have generators, you got water tankers when the water goes out. I just wonder if you're confident that you and other hospitals in the area, your hospitals have the protections, the systems they need in place for the next storm. Are the changes you need to make to be better prepared next time around because the data shows, you know, more and more frequent -- more powerful and more frequent storms coming?

ANTONUCCI: Yes. We've been very confident in our internal ability to manage storms like this. And we were ready. We had our generators all ready. We had plenty of fuel. What we couldn't anticipate and didn't anticipate was the loss of water from our utility companies. So, we are very anxious to participate in after-action meetings with the county, with others to really talk about how can we help prevent something like this.

You have to understand that the storm was so devastating, it's many, many water lines that were broken, and that is what dropped the water pressure down. So, we'll be anxious to be able to participate in those discussions so that that doesn't happen again.

HARLOW: And, Doctor, a number of your facilities or maybe all of them are in Lee County, is that right?

ANTONUCCI: That is correct. We have four adult hospitals, a children's hospital and a rehab hospital in Lee County.

HARLOW: So, I wonder if you believe that more lives could have been saved had Lee County officials evacuated sooner, not to -- you know, not to criticize, but to learn for the next storm, which as Jim mentioned, the data show could be this bad or worse because of climate change, the storms ahead. Is there a lesson from this?

ANTONUCCI: Well, our focus has been on providing the health care of this community, and so I'll leave those decisions to our officials. And as I said, we will participate in these discussions after-action.

SCIUTTO: D. Larry Antonucci, we wish you the best of luck. You have a lot of people under your care and we wish them the best of luck too. Thanks for joining us.

HARLOW: Thanks, Doctor.

ANTONUCCI: Thank you so much, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, while Florida tries to rebuild from Hurricane Ian, forecasters are already tracking the next one, Hurricane Orlene, that just made landfall in Mexico.

[10:10:00]

HARLOW: Our Meteorologist Chad Myers following all of it. What is the latest, Chad, on this?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Poppy, Jim, it came onshore just literally about 20 minutes ago as a category 1, 85-mile-per-hour storm. Here is Cabo San Lucas. And there is Mazatlan. There is the cloud cover associated with it right now.

It is still going to be disintegrating as it gets on land though, and it has been doing that for a while, a lot of shear from the southwest pushing the storm on shore and also the dry air here over parts of Western Mexico. So, only a 25-mile-per-hour wind event in about 24 hours, so really winding down.

Two things though we're worried about is this four to six-inch possible rainfall around Mazatlan, the populated area, where it made landfall is very, very sparsely populated, but also possibly the surge. We could see that surge up to six feet along the coast into the area just south of the Mazatlan, the dirty side of the eye, the right side of the eye. So, we're just going to have to keep watching that for the people there of Mexico.

Still -- okay. I had something else back there. Back to you guys.

HARLOW: Chad, thank you for watching all of this. You have got no break, you and your whole team. You've helped us understand what is coming and what is ahead. So, thank you.

Well, still to come for us this hour, as Ukraine forces advance in Eastern Ukraine, the United States is now considering how to respond to a possible escalation, including Russia's potential use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. That is Jim's reporting, ahead.

Plus, we go back to Florida, where the daunting recovery has really just begun.

SCIUTTO: And opening statements this is morning in the seditious conspiracy trial for five members of the far-right wing group, the Oath Keepers. We're going to have details just ahead.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Turning now to Russia's war in Ukraine. I have new reporting this morning that the U.S. is developing contingency plans to prepare for the possibility that Russian President Putin escalates the war. Of particular concern, the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, battlefield nuclear weapons, or also what one source described as a nuclear display, that is a military strike on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or using a tactical nuclear weapon away from populated areas in what one source described as a show of bravado. The concerns, Poppy, are real.

HARLOW: They are. And in efforts to shore up its defenses, Ukraine is hoping to get new long-range rocket systems from the United States. CNN has learned in order to ease the Biden administration's concerns about releasing those weapons, Ukraine is offering to share its list of intended Russian targets.

Joining us to talk about all of this, CNN National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt and CNN National Security Correspondent, also, Kylie Atwood.

This is something I thought was interesting that Fareed Zakaria, our colleague, brought up with the defense secretary, Alex, just yesterday. So, what can you tell us about this in the big picture?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ukraine has been pushing for some time for longer range rocket systems from the United States. The name of this system is the ATACMS. And those rockets can fly about four times the distance of the current longest range rocket that with are fired from the system that we all know quite well called the HIMARS.

The U.S. has been reluctant to give the ATACMS to Ukraine, really, for two reasons. There is a concern that Ukraine could fire then farther into Russian territory and there is concern that Russia would perceive this crossing a red line. And, in fact, the Kremlin has said that if these rockets are given to Ukraine, that the U.S. would cross a red line and become more of a party to this conflict.

So, in the words of one U.S. official, this is high risk, low reward. And the Pentagon and sources I've been speaking with say that, essentially, Ukraine has what it needs right now, that for the vast majority of the Russian targets within Ukraine, these HIMARS systems whose rockets fly around 50 miles, they can reach the vast majority of those targets.

That is where Ukrainians disagree. They say there are plenty of Russian targets in the east, in the south, in Crimea. These are ammunitions depots, logistical lines, airbases, air defenses that are out of reach, and that is why they need these ATACMS. And in order to get those, the Ukrainians have really offered incredible transparency, saying, in the words of one senior Ukrainian official, we are offering you the exact targets that we intend strike, specific targets and categories of targets, so essentially giving the U.S. veto power over the targets that Ukraine would like to go after.

Still, Jim and Poppy, that American fear remains that these longer range rockets would escalate the conflict. And so for now, the U.S. is not going to give these to Ukraine. They are not ruling it out. But for now, they say the HIMARS are what Ukraine needs.

SCIUTTO: All right. The concern is now about escalation in this war, particularly the potential, at least, for escalation with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Kylie, U.S. officials have been listening to public comments from the Russian president and others speaking about this openly. When they make contingency plans like this, what is the level of concern that you're hearing from U.S. officials you speak to?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, when they are making contingency plans that are specific, that is noteworthy, right? And so your reporting today, Jim, that they're not just preparing a range of contingencies but specific contingencies that Russia could potentially use tactical nuclear weapons. And, of course, that comes, as you said, as President Putin has been repeatedly dangling out some incredibly threatening language with the nuclear threat.

But we also have to, of course, consider the fact that we've seen U.S. officials, as recently as just this weekend, say that Russia isn't taking any action that makes U.S. officials believe that a nuclear threat is in the imminent future.

[10:20:12]

But they're also saying that with all of this language and with what is happening on the battlefield, the secretary of state is saying that they need to take those threats incredibly seriously.

I do think it is also worth noting that over the weekend, Fareed Zakaria spoke with a former Russian oligarch who knows President Putin, he is now a critic of Putin, but one of the things that he said is that, in his perspective, if this mobilization of additional Russian troops to the battlefield doesn't work, he, someone who's knowing President Putin, believes that tactical nuclear weapons could be a question on the table. So, you have to take all of those factors into consideration, but it is very clear that U.S. officials are watching this space incredibly closely.

SCIUTTO: And you make a good point there, right, that they have not yet -- the U.S. has not yet, at least in public comments, detected preparations for nuclear strike, movements of nuclear weapons or movements of nuclear forces. It is the capability that they're watching. Thanks so much to both of you.

Still ahead, as Floridians face the enormous task of recovering and rebuilding from Hurricane Ian, volunteer organizations are stepping up to help, that includes World Central Kitchen. You may have heard of it. Very active in places like Ukraine going back ten years.

Up next, we speak with Founder Chef Jose Andres about how they are now feeding thousands here in this country impacted by the hurricane.

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[10:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Mr. President, do you have -- JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm heading to Puerto Rico because they haven't been taken very good care of and it is time to like catch up from the last hurricane. I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we do everything we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: President Biden there leaving the White House on his way, as he said, to Puerto Rico, traveling with the first lady to meet with people impacted by Hurricane Fiona. There are still more than 125,000 people without power on the island.

HARLOW: And in Florida this morning, days after Hurricane Ian made landfall, inland flooding remains a big threat. In Arcadia, some 50 miles from the coast, parts of the highway, Highway 70, which served as a thoroughfare across the state, it remains submerged.

SCIUTTO: CNN National Correspondent Nadia Romero is in Arcadia. Nadia, tell us what you are seeing there. Nadia, I'm here, Jim.

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have so much going on here in Arcadia, in Florida, because all of the flooding. Yes, this area is synonymous with flooding now. You can see behind me that this is part of the Peace River that is starting to recede but not enough for there to be an ability for people to pass across this road, and that has become such a challenge. That is why we're seeing efforts like this behind me, the National Guard bringing in cases of water, of MREs and other items that people need so desperately, including bags of toiletries.

Everything in people's homes are dirty, or they're destroyed or they've been washed away. So, simple things, like baby wipes and lotions, things for everyone to use to get themselves clean, to have some sense of normalcy.

But they have been cut off from the rest of Florida. It is so hard to get to this spot. It is so hard to get out of this spot. We talked to one man who was concerned about his friends and family simply on the other side of the river, who he doesn't know if they have all of the supplies they need. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR LIPPA, RESIDENT OF ARCADIA, FLORIDA: Yes, there is no power and there is no water there. So, that is the concern. I don't know what the government is able to do in Arcadia. I hope that they've got supplies there. I tried to scope all this out on the internet, what roads are open, what roads are closed, and there is not enough information to know that all of these routes were shut down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: So, those streets have been shut down and even some of the roads we tried to access nearby have been washed away by the storm.

Take another look. This is Highway 70 right here. I was talking to the county emergency management, and she was saying that what she is so concerned about is once the waters do recede, what lies beneath. There are two bridges just down the road here that connect Highway 70 and those two bridges, she says, haven't been worked on in many years. And so they don't know if the bridges are still standing or if they've been compromised because of the battering, the beating they've taken from Hurricane Ian.

And then, now, you have all of this water on top of the bridges, you have these R.V.s and campers that have slammed up against the bridges. So, even after the water recedes, they might not be able to use this road for quite some time. It will be an ongoing problem here. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Nadia, thanks so much.

All right, so, folks are stepping in to help, those impacted by Hurricane Ian. One of them, sounding familiar, Chef Jose Andres and World Central Kitchen wasting no time to respond. Look at them at work here. So far, they've distributed more than 60,000 hot meals and sandwiches from that kitchen right there Tampa. They're also even delivering meals by helicopter and boat.

[10:30:00]

Joining us now, Chef Jose Andres from one of the hardest hit areas, Fort Myers, Florida. Chef, great to have you back on. Thanks for doing it.

JOSE ANDRES, CHEF AND FOUNDER, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.