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In the Arena
Devastation in Joplin, Missouri
Aired May 24, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Eliot Spitzer, welcome to the program. It's as if the weather has turned into mankind's worst enemy.
Up first tonight, from Joplin, Missouri, one man's heartbreaking story. It brings home the horror of all this. Michael Hare has lost his 16-year-old son. The dad is in Joplin, Missouri, searching right now, everywhere for his boy, Lance.
I just spoke with him. I want you to hear what he had to say, even though it may be difficult to listen to.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: Michael, when's the last time you heard from Lance or have any word about where he might be?
MICHAEL HARE, FATHER OF MISSING BOY: I actually talked to him the night before the tornado and his little brother called me and said that he was trying to get home in it. And that severe hail had hit his car and nobody had heard from him.
And that was roughly about right 10 minutes after the tornado went through Joplin. And I actually live in Tulsa, and I was in my car on the way to Joplin as soon as I got that from my youngest son.
SPITZER: Well, I hear that he was in the car with somebody else who has survived. Is there any way to use that lead as a way to help track Lance down?
HARE: Well, that lead was actually how we found the car, Lance's car, and where a start point. Before that, there were just massive searches in -- I mean an 8 block by 25 block radius. All my friends, my ex-wife's friends, my wife's friends, my friends, everyone was just looking for him.
And through that kid being found at Freeman Hospital, we were able to locate the car, as soon as he came to, he got life-flighted out of Freeman Hospital here in Joplin to Springfield, Missouri, to St. John's.
And through him coming around, we were able to pinpoint where the car was, the last place, the grocery store that they pulled into and the window, the front window and the back window imploded. He jumped in the backseat and that was the last time he actually seen my son. SPITZER: Look, I don't want to create false hopes, but is there any sense that it's good news that you haven't found any sign of him right near the car and that maybe he's just -- we know communications are incredibly hard right now in the whole region. Any possibility he's somewhere else and just can't reach you somehow?
HARE: Luckily, we all have cell phones and we've gotten out to hospitals from Dallas to St. Louis to Kansas City to Rogers, Arkansas, and no news is good news right now. I guess you could say, as long as nobody pinpoints where he's at, there's still hope. We just want to find him.
SPITZER: Look, everything we hear is that people are going through every house, lifting up everything that can be moved to look for people, to look for survivors. And as you say, the fact that he hasn't been found has got to be some form of good news.
HARE: From the firefighters to National Guard to Lance's friends that actually located the car to, you know, we got from J.T, Jonathan Taylor, the kid that was with Lance, where to look for the car.
But one of Lance's friends with the Bridge Minister, it's a Christian-based organization here in Joplin was actually the ones that found the car and we were all there within minutes. And firefighters, National Guard, cadaver dogs and we've ran every hospital.
We've ran every lead and thank God you guys put us on to get it out there, maybe somebody's seen Lance hare. He's 16, 190 pounds, 6 feet tall and his family just wants him back.
SPITZER: We'll put that picture up on the screen so everybody can see it and maybe we'll get word of where he might be. J.T. is the name of his friend who was with him in the car.
Does J.T. remember anything about where Lance said he might go or what condition Lance was in when the tornado was hitting?
HARE: No. J.T. was actually -- when he came to at Freeman and my ex-wife, Michelle, was -- we were all on our way there, but she got there first and she got to talk to him before they took him back to the E.R. and he said the only thing he remembered was walking up in a van on his way to Freeman Hospital.
And since then he has been in critical condition in the Trauma Unit in St. John's. He's been able to give the nurse leads to give us about where and how it all went down, like I say, the windows imploded. He jumped in the backseat and next thing you know, he was in a van.
So now he remembers being at Dylan's and subsequently we found the car, and through that, a National Guard member told us that he had found Lance, wasn't sure about his condition -- or somebody fitting Lance's description, and that he was life-flighted, and we just don't know.
We've called 150, 200 hospitals. We've done everything we can. Now it's a waiting game to find him. Hopefully he'll wake up somewhere and call his dad.
SPITZER: What is the best way for people to reach you if, in fact, they find Lance?
HARE: My cell phone is 918-497-8498 and we have phone charges for the house, the car. We haven't been home, but we find a way to charge our phones. We will accept every phone call. Every lead, we will run down. We won't leave anything unturned.
SPITZER: Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take that phone number and put it up on our web site, so anybody who see Lance's picture up on this broadcast and can go to our web site cnn.com/inthearena, and obviously, we're praying that he's alive and doing well.
HARE: Thank you and there are two web sites, there's one on Facebook, find Lance Pantz, and another one that is findlancehare.com.
SPITZER: All right, just one last question, what condition was the car in when you found it?
HARE: It actually looked like it had rolled over. There was the grocery store, railroad tracks, and his car was found about 150, 200 feet away and they originally started in the grocery store parking lot. It looks like it just rolled and rolled and rolled, I have no idea how many times, but the car is destroyed.
SPITZER: All right, we will, you know, pass on any little bit of information we get obviously. We hope somebody can find Lance and can in some way, shape, or form help and let's just hope we get a good happy ending to this story. All right, thanks, Michael, so much for joining us.
HARE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: We're all praying for Michael Hare and his family. Let's hope there's a happy ending there.
Now to Oklahoma, where we've been watching frightening footage from just outside of Oklahoma City. Deadly tornadoes touching down there. Watch this clip from affiliate TV station KOFR.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's crossing Gregory Road right now. It's right in front of me. It's a maxi. It's another quarter-mile-wide tornado. It's a quarter-mile-wide, maybe half-mile-wide maxi tornado.
There's the power flashes, crossing Gregory Road right now. Crossing Gregory Road as a maxi tornado right now. Look at the size of this thing, mike. It's an EF-4, maybe an EF-5.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Piedmont, get below ground or get out of the way. You're running out of time. You're down to like a minute or two. Get out of the way. Piedmont, get out of the way. Get below ground. You're out of time. Do it now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's a -- look how big it is, Mark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My gosh!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here! Get out of here now!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maxi tornado coming into piedmont. Piedmont, get out of the way. Piedmont, get out of the way, get below ground right now. It's crossing Northwest Highway at Gregory and Semron Roads right now.
Maxi wedge multi-vortex tornado. Get to your safe room, storm cellar, basement, interior closet or bathroom may not do it. Get out of the way. Get out of the way or get below ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Unbelievable footage. And of course, we now are used to seeing what damage and havoc is wreaked in the wake of those unbelievable tornadoes.
Chad Myers standing by in our Severe Weather Center right now with the latest on these tornadoes in Oklahoma. Chad, where is there the greatest threat and risk right now?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Moving on up from Stillwater to Tulsa, and the new risk that I'm seeing now is in North Texas and that's even including Dallas-Fort Worth. Most of the rotation is now south of the Red River. That's where the air is warmer.
It's been sunny all day down there. There were big tornadoes -- now, the man that was just on that video, David Payne, found this tornado very close to Hinton. It moved across I-40 to El Reno, just south of Cashen and south of Edmond, south of Guthrie and it traveled on the ground, Eliot. It was on the ground for about 60 miles as a half-mile-wide tornado.
It's impressive in itself, but it's also scary to think that something that could be that big could be on the ground for so very long. Get rid of this here for you for a second. We have some video here, and there's couple of reporters in the shot, but that's OK.
This is actually some of the damage from that tornado. And I'm going to circle something for you. There's a little brick building right there. The people that you see in this shot were in that little structure. That's the only reason that they are alive.
There used to be a house right here. It is completely gone, leveled, leveled right on down to the slab. There is nothing left of the house. Without that storm shelter, they would not be alive today.
Then we take you to KOCO, Channel 5 affiliate there. Here's a tractor-trailer -- well, that's just really the trailer. They disconnected the tractor, because it had already completely fell over I-40. A lot of devastation here on I-40, up and down the turnpike, and they are still chasing these tornadoes. This is still the same storm chaser that was on that storm that you just had. The video you had was two hours ago. These guys are still out there chasing tornadoes now as they move well east of Oklahoma City.
And it's going to be a long night and the threat now, Eliot, is that in two hours, this weather will be getting to Joplin, Missouri. Now Joplin, Missouri, a big town, the problem is half the town is in rubble. That rubble will get picked up by a 40-mile-per-hour wind gust. They could get 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts.
If you are in that zone or know somebody in that zone, trying to retrieve something or fix something, you need to be out of there before the storms come. Sheets of plywood will be in the air, flying all over the place, that wouldn't have been there.
The rest of the town, even with a 40-mile-per-hour wind in a normal day would have been fine. But sheets of plywood are just laying around. They will be in the air and they will be missiles.
SPITZER: You know, Chad, you're making a point, just thinking about when a tornado, if it goes back over territory that has already seen this sort of massive destruction and you have all that loose rubble laying around.
It will be picked up and whirling around at 180 miles an hour. My goodness, the devastation from that is absolutely horrifying, even to think about, and that can travel across whole territories of property.
MYERS: I have told all of our crews tonight that before this weather gets to Joplin, they need to be out of that zone. North or south by 10 blocks to 12 blocks, I don't care, but you can't be there. Because there's going to be so much debris in the air with a 60-mile- per-hour wind or an 80-mile-per-hour wind, let alone if at last tornado, I hope there's not.
And there probably won't be because the odds are astronomical, but irrelevant. An 80-mile-per-hour wind gust will take shards of glass and broken boards and just send it on down and hurt a lot of people. We need everybody out of there before that happens.
SPITZER: All right. Thank you, Chad, for that not terribly happy report.
All right, terrifying reports tonight from storm chasers taken as a tornado touches town in Oklahoma. Twisters are ripping apart homes and two are confirmed dead.
Joining me now is Reed Timmer, meteorologist and host of Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers." Reid, where are you now and what did you experience in the center of the storm?
REED TIMMER, METEOROLOGIST AND EXTREME STORM CHASER (via telephone): Right now we are due east of Shawnee and about 20 minutes ago, we did see a tornado that crossed I-40. Looks pretty intense. It was a rope tornado and that one moved off to the north.
We're dropping south down to the Red River. Earlier we saw a tornado that was about a half mile wide in northwest Oklahoma. It seems like every single storm has a violent tornado underneath it.
SPITZER: Are you seeing any tornadoes now as you're driving south across I-40 in that region?
TIMMER: Yes, well, right now we have a rotating wall cloud just to our north that could put down a tornado any second and we're trying to get in position to deploy probes to collect data on this one. It could touch down any second. I'm looking at it to my north and it's right at the intersection of 377 and Interstate 40.
SPITZER: All right, well, if anybody's listening, and we hope they hear the location of that devastation and certainly either get below grade or get out of that little region right there. What are the wind speeds that you can tell? Can you measure that from the car that you have?
TIMMER: Well, it's off to our north, so we don't have a tornado on the ground yet, but we have the intercepts a less tornado in northwest Oklahoma earlier. And those are the strongest winds I have ever experienced with a vehicle. I bet it was well in excess of 150 miles an hour. Thankfully, our vehicle is made to withstand those winds.
SPITZER: And if I remember you've designed it to be aerodynamically safe in order to prevent the wind from getting up underneath you so you can't be picked up. So sort of sit down and hunkered down in that car, but you said what were the wind speeds? You said an excess 150 miles an hour you experienced?
TIMMER: Yes, we launched parachute probes out of our air cannon and I saw them get lifted up into the tornado. We'll have to go back and retrieve them. We have actually the second tornado tank that has spikes that can anchor us to the ground and we definitely needed those today.
SPITZER: All right, and tell us where you're headed right now so we can keep track of you?
TIMMER: Right now we are going north, towards of Wattmy County in Oklahoma across I-40.
SPITZER: All right, thank you, Reed. Stay safe and keep in touch. We'll try to get back to you later in the show.
TIMMER: All right, thank you so much.
SPITZER: All right, be safe. Now joining us from El Reno, Oklahoma, Jeremy Smith, Director of Emergency Management in Canadian County there. Tell us what is the condition of things. Have you been hit by any of the tornadoes and how do things look?
JERRY SMITH, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (via telephone): Well, north of El Reno, the tornado track is actually north of El Reno. It was on the ground from the southwest portion of Canadian county, traveled to the southeast of Calumet to the north side of El Reno and then tracked to the northeast side of Canadian County and going through the city of Piedmont.
We've got two confirmed fatalities at this point however, the news has been reporting as many as four. That has not been confirmed to me as of yet. We've got numerous injuries. We've got a lot of structures that are completely destroyed.
And right now we're in the process of doing some damage assessments and we've got our fire departments out doing some search and rescues on some of those homes that were hit and destroyed, with the possibility that we've got some people that may still be in a storm shelter with debris over top of it. We're going to concentrate our efforts in trying to locate those.
SPITZER: You know, Jerry, with so many tornadoes breaking out all over the place, are you getting any warning, or does it almost seem haphazard the way they're just landing and striking willy-nilly all over the place?
SMITH: No, we're actually getting some good warning. Our news stations with were on top of it. We had as much as 15 to 20 minutes notification that they were on the ground. Our news, local media stations have done a fantastic job in advising us.
We were watching it as it come in and so we knew exactly where it was going. It took the tracks that they pretty much said it was going to take. So we were able to get notifications out to those communities in advance and hopefully the people were watching.
SPITZER: All right. Well, thanks, Jerry, so much and let's just hope that those casualty figures don't begin to creep up any higher than you already gave to us.
SMITH: I know. It's pretty devastating at this point. We've got a lot of structures that are damaged, but we'll know more probably tomorrow when we're able to actually get some roads cleared and get out into those areas where we can do a good damage assessment.
SPITZER: All right. Well, thank you much. We'll be checking back in with you later on.
All right, coming up, I'll be talking to Anderson Cooper. He's there on the ground in Joplin where tornadoes are threatening. We hope they're all safe. But first, E.D. Hill is here. E.D., you talked to President Bush's FEMA director. What have you got for us?
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: That's right. You remember Mike Brown. He has an explosive new book out that he's going to talk to us about and he's going to explain how the lessons they learned from Hurricane Katrina are now helping the federal government handle things differently in places like Joplin.
SPITZER: All right, it should be interesting and certainly, we don't want everyone to think this, but the book came out at the wrong or right moment, depending. All right, thanks so much, E.D.
We'll also be talking with the governor of Oklahoma, real trouble there tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: With deadly tornadoes moving across her state, Oklahoma's Governor Mary Fallin is warning residents there to take cover. She joins me live now on the phone from Oklahoma City. Governor Fallin, thank you so much for joining us.
GOVERNOR MARY FALLIN, OKLAHOMA (via telephone): Well, thank you.
SPITZER: First of all, what can you tell us in terms of loss of life, how devastating has the loss been so far? How many folks have lost their lives?
FALLIN: It has just been an incredible day in Oklahoma, and we're still right in the middle of our storms. We're not out of the threat of tornadoes. We still have several active areas where we think we still have tornadoes that are on the ground, but so far, we think we've had around 12 plus communities that have been hit by tornadoes.
We're still not quite sure how many have occurred in the last, basically, two hours. We have had reports and still not quite confirmed yet, that we may have had seven fatalities certainly, lots of injuries throughout the state. We're still in the mission of search and rescue.
We have first responders throughout the whole state and we're, of course, going door to door and even looking at cars and trucks that have been hit on highways, as you just saw on your station. We have power that's down, shelters are open right now.
But we still have very dangerous storms that are still hitting down south in Oklahoma so we're warning people to take cover and take this storm very seriously.
SPITZER: Well, Governor, as you know, we've been covering this full-time to try to get out as much information to focus as we possibly can.
Any one particular region of your state where you want people right now to be conscious of the fact that there is high risk that the storms are coming through, they should either get inside to a safe, secure spot or get below grade. Any towns or counties in particular you want to pay attention to this warning?
FALLIN: Well, it's still a large storm front that is coming through, but it basically goes almost from the Texas border clear up into the Kansas area, but down around the Ardmore area.
They're showing possible circulation around there, up around Perry, Bartlesville, there's still pretty heavy storm activity and possible threat of tornadoes. It's sort of a moment-by-moment situation right now, but we're still not out of the woods with this very strong, heavy line of storms as you come through Oklahoma today.
SPITZER: All right. Well, Governor, obviously you're busy with all these tragedies and this hard weather passing through your state, so thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
And let's hope for the best in terms of no more loss of life and minimal damage to your economy and the property the there in the state.
FALLIN: Why, thank you, Eliot. We appreciate you helping us get the word out.
SPITZER: All right, we'll do what we can. Thank you, Governor.
We turn now back to Joplin, Missouri, to Dr. Jim Riscoe. He was an emergency physician at St. John's, the hospital that no longer exists. It was decimated by the tornado.
He's now the site commander at the Triage Center in Joplin where he's been treating injured patients since Sunday night. I talked to him just moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: Dr. Riscoe, thanks so much for chatting with us again.
DR. JIM RISCOE, PHYSICIAN AT ST. JOHN'S MEDICAL CENTER: You're welcome, and thanks for coming to town.
SPITZER: You know, in the midst of all the devastation we're seeing, the pictures are absolutely horrifying, how are your patients doing and how are they progressing and what are you seeing today and what are the injuries you're seeing?
RISCOE: We took care most of our priority one and priority two traumas between the two hospitals on the night of the tornado. Since that time, we've basically re-established our emergency room in the municipal auditorium called Memorial Hall about a mile north of us.
So we've been trying to unload the patient load from freeman hospital, which is our only operating hospital right now, by taking care of the walking wounded. Normally, we see about 120 to 130 patients a day so those patients still need to be seen.
SPITZER: So you're basically doing triage, just as if you are dealing with an ordinary emergency room, but doing it in the midst of an auditorium. You've almost recreated your hospital in this high school auditorium.
RISCOE: Actually, not the high school auditorium, the night of the tornado, my son, Tanner, and my partner, Dr. Hagedorn, I sent down to the Catholic high school auditorium to establish a triage center for kind of our walking ambulatory patients to kind of unload the auditorium.
So we had two treatment sites about two blocks from each other, and we basically, physically recreated as much as we could our emergency room on the floor of the auditorium, and other than the physical displacement, things progressed about how they would on a usual night.
Our biggest problems were communication, the cell towers were down, and our ability to communicate with the EMS and police was very limited that night.
SPITZER: Now, I know they're right behind you, is the school, I believe, that your kids went to, I mean, now there's nothing more than brick and rubble. How does this strike you? It would just be dramatic emotionally, if nothing else?
RISCOE: Well, I spent an awful lot of happy moments here and I just walked around the school and the church with the principal of the middle school and grade school. And this is where my -- I can't tell you how many hours I spent here with the kids and to see the only thing left standing is a cross.
The memories we have here are gone and I'm standing here in the parking lot of the grade school, and I can see a half mile away the hospital and the rooms of the hospital. It just looks like a bomb went off.
I think the biggest memory I have is my son, when he graduated from preschool to kindergarten, thought at lunchtime it was time to go home, so he grabbed his coat and marched down 26th Street to where I was in the emergency room, because he always felt safe there.
Fortunately, the principal caught him about halfway down, but that's the kind of place this is. My son felt safe enough in this town to walk from his grade school to the hospital emergency room, which is just a few short blocks away.
SPITZER: What have the hardest cases been? Has it been the kids? Has it been seniors? What have been the hardest cases for you emotionally to handle?
RISCOE: I think the biggest thing is just the shock and displacement the people have, trying to find their loved ones. With we had people wandering on to the floor of the emergency room -- or I should say, the Memorial Hall, just coming up to doctors and nurses and asking if they've seen people.
And you have to understand, even though this is a town of 50,000 people, kind of everybody knows everybody and it's kind of hard to walk through Wal-Mart without being asked for medical advice or being told what happened the other night in the emergency room.
So people can come down to a place like Memorial Hall and actually expect that some neighbor or some friend would know what had happened. So that was the hardest part, trying to answer questions that you just didn't have the capability to answer. SPITZER: Are there plans to rebuild St. John's? Is that financing going to be able? The town is committed to doing that?
RISCOE: Well, Mercy Health System, which is based out of St. Louis, their administration, the top CEOs and all have been here today and yesterday and are fully committed to bringing us back as a newer, better hospital.
It's just hard to lose your home. Most all the hundreds of thousands of people here in Joplin have lost their personal homes, and of course for 300 physicians and 2,500 employees, nurses and ancillary help, this is their home and their job. It's really, really hard to look.
SPITZER: Dr. Riscoe, we can't thank you enough for what you've done and your service over the past couple of days, saving lives, caring for those who've been hit and wounded. So thank you, sir, for all you've done.
RISCOE: Thank you, sir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: Coming up, more on these devastating storms. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: As Joplin digs out from this deadly tornado, it is impossible not to remember Hurricane Katrina and how badly the government fumbled it in New Orleans. The infamous phrase that President Bush used he gave to then FEMA Director Michael Brown. Remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, 43RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Again, I want to thank you all for -- and Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA director is working 24 --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Well, Michael Brown has a new book called "Deadly Indifference" about the experience and the political lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
Thank you for joining us.
MICHAEL BROWN, FORMER FEMA DIRECTOR: My pleasure, E.D.
HILL: I want to get to that, but I want to start with your reaction to how they're handling things in Joplin?
BROWN: Well, they're doing extremely well. I've been mesmerized by the television because I grew up in the Midwest, and watching these things reminds me of how many times we went to the cellar or went to the storm shelter and they're doing exactly what they need to be doing. They're accustomed to this.
HILL: Now, to go back to the phrase we just heard --
BROWN: Right.
HILL: The praise.
BROWN: Right.
HILL: You got the praise, then you got the blame.
BROWN: Correct.
HILL: Were either of them fair?
BROWN: Well, look, the praise, if you watch that segment closely, you'll see me wince when the boss kind of taps me and says, hey, you're doing a heck of a job, because he and I had just come out of the holding room in which I was describing to him all of the problems we were having. And we got interrupted to come out and do the photo op, and it was like, oh, my God, I just explained to you how bad things are messed up and you say that, and I knew there would be an immediate disconnect between what he was saying and what people were seeing on their televisions.
HILL: Right, and there certainly was. You know, what we watched, one of the scenes that I will never forget, was watching the president and he was coming back from the West Coast, I believe, and he told them, bring the plane down low, and they flew over New Orleans. And the video and the photograph that came of that was the president, I think we've got this shot, leaning out of the plane window, looking down at that, to see what was going on. Well, now -- he was criticized for that.
Now President Obama is over in Ireland --
BROWN: Playing ping-pong.
HILL: Yes, ping-pong and tonight having dinner with the queen. He's being criticized for that. How important is it for a president to be on the ground at a disaster site, though? Is that significant or should they stay away?
BROWN: It's not significant in every instance. And I don't think it's significant in this case. I think the administration currently is being tone deaf by recognizing that you shouldn't stop and do a segment playing ping-pong when people are dying. But when you have a disaster the size of Katrina that covered 90,000 square miles, the thing that I was furiously on the telephone to Air Force One was, I don't want you to land in New Orleans. Land in Baton Rouge where the operations are because all I needed was for the president to step foot on the ground, say "I'm concerned" and basically send a message to the cabinet, I'm taking this seriously. You give the undersecretary everything that he needs.
HILL: Now, I watched this and I saw in Mississippi, you know, you know, they seemed to handle it pretty well. Then you watch what goes on in New Orleans.
Now, in your book, and you have explosive things in there. You say that a couple days before Katrina hit, the president, Mayor Nagin, and the governor, Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, were told, if this storm hits here, and it looks like it will, the waters coming into the city and the city's going under. And no one evacuated.
BROWN: Well, not only did we brief everyone about the potential of either the levees topping, waters coming over the top where the levees breaching and falling apart, you don't have to live in this country very long to know if you pay any attention at all to geography that New Orleans is a fish bowl.
HILL: Yes.
BROWN: And New Orleans has pumping systems all the time, even outside hurricane season.
HILL: Yes. I want to talk about some of the lessons because this is in a book. Let me dump blame on everybody else. You really take a look at what the mistakes were and what you've learned from that. There's something I thought was so insightful as you talked about how you had gone through preparedness, you know, scenarios right before this.
BROWN: Right.
HILL: But you hadn't taken into consideration, things like how people lead their lives. Pets. Folks don't want to leave their pets. Some people in say Joplin, they've all got cars, they're used to driving and moving around. In New Orleans, it's not that unusual to, you know, be born, you know, raised, get married and die in the same ward.
BROWN: Well, in fact, let's just take New Yorkers. 9/11 occurs, what do New Yorkers do? They get on their feet, they get in the cabs, they get across the bridges, they get out of town. That's because you're accustomed to that kind of lifestyle. And in New Orleans, you have this almost sedentary lifestyle. You have a different demographic. You have a different social, economic background, where people are accustomed to living in a four, five-block area. Their church, their school, their grocery store, everything is there.
HILL: And so you tell them, hightail it, they're scared.
BROWN: They're scared and they wouldn't know where to go.
HILL: Yes.
BROWN: With nowhere to go.
BROWN: Mike Brown, thank you so much for being with us. The book is called "Deadly Indifference" and it is really good. Thank you so much.
BROWN: E.D., thank you. Appreciate it. HILL: All right.
Coming up, we will take you back to Joplin, Missouri, for a harrowing escape for one family. Their story up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Breaking news. Unfortunately, there is a tornado watch again in Joplin, Missouri. Let's go quickly now to the Jason family in Joplin.
Four years ago, Pierre Jason received a heart transplant. On Sunday, he and his family survived the tornado. They join me now from Joplin.
Pierre and Penny, and their children, Akisha (ph) and Perm (ph), thank you for being with us.
PIERRE JASON, JOPLIN TORNADO SURVIVOR: How you doing?
SPITZER: All right.
PENNY JASON, JOPLIN TORNADO SURVIVOR: Hi.
PIERRE JASON: Thank you.
SPITZER: We're just thrilled you're alive. Tell us the harrowing tale. As you pointed out, you got your heart transplant, that was miracle number one. Miracle two was surviving a couple days ago. Describe it for us.
PIERRE JASON: Wow. Well, we were sitting back watching TV. We heard the alarms go off, the sirens, and we just assumed, OK, there's going to be another tornado watch and it wouldn't affect us. Then the clouds came over and it got dark. My wife, she still didn't take it quite seriously enough for me and I ran to the bathroom to get her to come in. I pulled her in. Our pets refused to come in the bathroom with us and next thing I heard was the breaking of glass and the back wall of our house just collapsed and the wind picked up our dog and blew it out the front window.
After that, we huddled in the bathroom and the house just tumbled and came down on us. We just held tight to each other, just prayed, hoping that it would pass by and the next thing I knew, we were covered in rubble. The washing machine and dryer were laying on its side, on my leg, and that's pretty much the whole thing. Thirty seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime.
SPITZER: You know, Penny, you know, first of all, for all of you, we're watching the weather systems for you and Penny, you may not have taken it seriously enough when Pierre was trying to pull you go into the bathroom. We're going to make sure you guys know if anything is beginning to approach Joplin. We're not going to let you go through this again. We'll do the best we can. So, Penny, tell me from your perspective, you're going to listen to Pierre next time? PENNY JASON: Oh, I tried to listen to him once in a while, but, yes. I've lived here all my life. He's from Baltimore, so he's only been here like, 18 years, something like that. And I'm just so used to going through these. It's just like it's always somewhere else. You know, I used to live over on May Lane (ph) when I was a kid and I watch the trees fall down across the street at Penningham (ph), but that was the worst. Never had any damage to my house, I was always blessed. And then, so when this happened, I didn't see the dark clouds yet, and I figured, you know, it's just going to be another time. And when it started to get really bad and dark and the winds were picking up, and then we heard, like my husband said, the back windows and the wall, you could hear the blinds rattling and we had the windows shut, because we had the air on. So when we heard all that, we knew that they had busted out the windows, and then you could see the wind just go through the house. I mean, it was just like you could see it and feel it, and then it busted out and pulled in our front wall and windows in the living room. And so we were downstairs, so that's when like he said we went and got in, got in the bathroom and shut the door and next thing you know, he had that on him. I had the roof on me and we managed to crawl out afterwards, but God blessed us. We were OK. I never want to have to do that again. So, yes, I'll listen to him on the tornado anyway.
SPITZER: All right. That's a fair compromise.
Look, this is such a positive, affirmative story. But I just want folks to realize, you're standing in front of what remains of your house. What's behind you is all that's left.
PENNY JASON: Yes.
PIERRE JASON: Yes.
SPITZER: All right. Well, you know --
PENNY JASON: Yes, all this area is --
SPITZER: You know, the miracle is all four of you --
PENNY JASON: Yes, it was a miracle.
SPITZER: -- are in good shape and all we can say is that's what matters most and so count those blessings. And, you know, the dogs made it too, we hope?
PIERRE JASON: Yes, he did.
PENNY JASON: Yes, we found him the next day, when we went back to try to dig through and find some of our stuff. Bella (ph) came crawling out. We lost our cat, I think. I can't find him.
SPITZER: All right.
PENNY JASON: But the dog came crawling out of the rubble the next day and she was just fine.
SPITZER: Cats have nine lives. Maybe the cat will come crawling back in a day or two. And the dog is there and all for you are there.
PENNY JASON: Yes.
SPITZER: Pierre, Penny, Akisha (ph), Perm (ph), thanks for being with us. Best of luck to you. Find some shelter. We want to make sure you stay safe.
PIERRE JASON: Thank you.
PENNY JASON: Thank you very much.
SPITZER: All right. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: In his address before a joint session of Congress today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again pushed back aggressively against the controversial idea that Israel should withdraw to its 1967 borders with land swaps that both sides could agree to.
My guests tonight had been watching the back and forth between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu for the past couple of days, but they have come to completely different conclusions about how to move forward. Simon Schama is a professor of history at Columbia University here in New York. Bret Stephens writes about foreign affairs at "The Wall Street Journal."
SPITZER: All right, Bret, let me start right with you. You wrote an article with the very neutral title, "An Anti-Israeli President." How do you get to that conclusion and how do you justify it?
BRET STEPHENS, COLUMNIST, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: It's the president who's retreated even from the stock formula of land for peace. He gave a speech on Thursday in which he suggested that Israel withdraw to some approximation of the '67 lines with mutually agreed swaps. We all know about that. The basic problem is existential. And when the president puts the existential questions of Jerusalem, but particularly Palestinian refugees whose rights Mahmoud Abbas, a supposed moderate, just strongly reaffirmed in a "New York Times" op- ed, it's a recipe for continued conflict.
SPITZER: But here's why it can get fundamentally wrong. I agree with you and the president agrees there is the existential threat, and that's why the president said you know what? The territorial issue isn't the hard one. Property isn't the risk here. The risk, he said, is that Hamas and Fatah no longer agree that you should exist. And he said to Israel, as long as Hamas says you do not have a right to exist, you do not need to negotiate. What better statement do you want than that?
STEPHENS: The disaster --
SIMON SCHAMA, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HISTORY PROFESSOR: He picked the fight. There's no difference, there's no daylight whatsoever between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu or anybody else in Israel about Hamas. It's a clear, clear principle.
STEPHENS: Look, you can even read columnists in Haaretz, which as you very well know is a left-wing paper making exactly the same points (INAUDIBLE) Haaretz making exactly the same point that I did.
This is not between Obama and Netanyahu, two personalities. This is a fight that Obama has picked with a majority of Israelis who first of all feel '67 is indefensible, but more importantly feel that the president has not conceded the fundamental point that Israel's problem is existential claims that Palestinians continue to make.
SCHAMA: That's factually untrue, actually as you know. Opinion poll after opinion poll actually particularly during the election campaign of 2009 showed the majority of Israelis are prepared to accept the principle of land for peace.
STEPHENS: In the context --
SCHAMA: Let me finish. Let me finish here, Bret. And I promise I won't take a long time.
It's not, of course, you're obviously right about saying it's not about territorial withdraw. It's what's in its place. In its place has to be a viable Palestinian state for there to be any chance of a peaceful future.
STEPHENS: In its place has to be a Palestinian state that renounces further claims on Israel. You just had --
SCHAMA: I agree.
STEPHENS: Exactly. And you just had Mahmoud Abbas in "The New York Times" not renouncing further claims, and you have a president who says, we'll discuss that at some --
SPITZER: No, no. But, Bret, that's why I think you're wrong. The president was basically saying we all agree, and we know where we begin to discuss property. Put that aside. That's land. When it comes to the critical issues of the moment, whether the U.N. should recognize a Palestinian state in September, the president said, forget it, it's a nonstarter. When it came to a demilitarized, non- militarized Palestinian state, he said, I'm with Israel. You cannot have arms.
SCHAMA: Right.
SPITZER: When it came to the issue of negotiating even now with Hamas, he said, you don't need to unless they renounce their threat to your existence. What more could you have wanted?
STEPHENS: Eliot, many things you just said in rapid fire succession are mistaken, but just from your experience in government, you know that in both government as well as in negotiations, you do the hard things first. The problem with the whole Oslo process is it put off the hard things. The peace process ought to begin by Palestinian renunciation of a right to return to Israel. Any right to return has to be to a future Palestinian state, and that's something that an American president needs to affirm. This is not what he did.
SPITZER: The right to return.
STEPHENS: He did it as candidate, by the way, but not as president.
SPITZER: Let's be clear. Nobody thinks there is going to be a right of return. It can't happen. It would eliminate --
STEPHENS: Who's nobody?
SPITZER: Nobody who's sensible on the Israeli side --
STEPHENS: The Palestinians?
SPITZER: Or the leadership of the Palestinians --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: No, no. Everybody knows that what you need to do is use that as the last give that they will make.
SCHAMA: Let me ask you, Bret, where would you draw the frontier that is defensible for Israel?
STEPHENS: Look, the issue --
SCHAMA: No, no, where would you draw it?
STEPHENS: I would -- let me tell you this. I would be happy to draw it on the '67 lines if the state that's on the other side of it -- one moment -- is Canada. None of us here worry about the 49th --
SCHAMA: Look, but -- given that it's not Canada, where do you draw it --
STEPHENS: Simon, let me finish my point.
SCHAMA: Yes.
STEPHENS: OK. The issue -- we don't worry about the 49th parallel because we have a friendly, liberal neighbor to our north. The issue is not fundamentally where you draw the lines. The issue is not fundamentally territorial. It is the nature of a future Palestinian state and the claims that it may continue to have against a Jewish state.
SCHAMA: We cannot force this Palestine -- we can force it not to happen, in which case start of September, there'll be the third intifada. An intifada that makes all the others look like picnic by comparison. Time is not on our side. We do not have Canada to the north. We can't, you know, force the Palestinians to be warm and cuddly. You can't weave fairy dust over them overnight. So you're saying actually there can be no peace until Palestinians en masse told by the millions say we love Israel, we're prepared to settle down with -- you know? I mean --
STEPHENS: As they should --
SCHAMA: The majority of Palestinians on the West Bank say they're prepared to --
SPITZER: Simon, here's where I disagree with you. I don't think there is going to be peace now, but I think that the speech the president delivered was unbelievably favorable to Israel to set up a dynamic or you could say, we've done everything and now it's their fault. Because Israel can say, we accept this boundary. Every prime minister, as Simon just said, has done so --
STEPHENS: If that's the case, then an overwhelming majority of Israelis, and I suspect a large majority judging by the mail I've gotten this morning of American Jews fundamentally disagree with you, Eliot.
SPITZER: No, no, I think they misunderstood the speech.
STEPHENS: No, I don't think so. He gave it twice. He gave it twice. They heard him. They're not stupid.
SPITZER: No, no, no, no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying people misunderstood what the White House was trying to do, which is to create a dynamic where he said, as you just said, the issue isn't territory. That is just drawing a line in the sand. That's easy, remarkably. What is hard is the existential issue, and what he said to Israel was, force them to deal with that existential issue. Don't make land the hard part, and so step back and agree with that process.
STEPHENS: No, what he said is Israel withdraws to some less defensible territorial line --
SPITZER: That they agree to. Not less defensible.
STEPHENS: No. A much less defensible territory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
STEPHENS: You're an athlete. You can run that -- you could run that distance at the neck of the --
SPITZER: Ten years ago I could have.
STEPHENS: -- at the neck of the West Bank.
SPITZER: Nine miles, we all know that. We've all been there.
STEPHENS: Yes. And the problem is, that he's saying, well, at some future point, we're going to deal with these fundamental conflicts. That's a heck of a burden to lay at --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Ten seconds, final words.
SCHAMA: We agree on this, a Jewish democracy, right? We agree on that?
STEPHENS: I agree.
SCHAMA: Fine. Then it cannot in perpetuity or even in the medium long term preside over a violently disaffected Arab population?
STEPHENS: And it also has to be a secured --
SPITZER: Ten seconds. Last word for Bret.
STEPHENS: It has to be a secured Jewish democracy and the demands have to be at the feet of the Palestinians to radically alter their attitude towards the existence and the future of a Jewish state.
SPITZER: Which is what I think the president tried to do in that speech.
Anyway, you're outnumbered two to one at this table, but you held your own.
Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.
Coming up, breaking news. An update on the tornado watch in already devastated Joplin, Missouri. We'll have the latest. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: We've got new information now on the tornadoes ripping through the Midwest, including a tornado watch tonight in Joplin. Chad Myers joins me from our severe weather center.
Chad, what's this bad news?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. The potential does exist for severe weather to move right into Joplin, I mean, as close as Tulsa right now. It has moved through Stillwater, Oklahoma City, Edmond, damage to the west and south of Oklahoma City, and still more weather up into Kansas itself.
I'll get rid of this and I'll take you to some place a little bit farther to the south. Here we go.
This is Dallas-Fort Worth tornadoes and even a new tornado warning for Fort Worth and Dallas coming here from the National Weather Service out of Fort Worth in the next couple of minutes. They just alerted us to that.
Take a look at damage from all over the place. KOCO showing damage, houses destroyed across much of western Oklahoma. Just many lines of severe weather back and forth. And WFAA, our affiliate out of Dallas, searching for that tornado north of Fort Worth right now. It will move across the northern metroplex, but is too close for comfort right now, Eliot.
SPITZER: You know, Chad, we've just got a few seconds left. Tell us, Joplin, Missouri, has gone through so much. What are the odds they're going to be hit once again by another tornado?
MYERS: Well, the odds for a tornado, I say probably not. I mean, there's just not that much energy with rotation here, near Tulsa, that's the storm that would move there. But there's a lot of wind damage here. I would say easily to get a wind gust of 60 to 70, that will do damage to stuff that's already on the ground.
SPITZER: It sure will. And as we discussed earlier when there's so much rubble there that can be picked it, it can do an enormous amount of damage.
All right, Chad.
MYERS: Yes.
SPITZER: Thanks so much for joining us.
MYERS: Sure, Eliot.
SPITZER: Thanks so much to all of you for joining us IN THE ARENA tonight. Good night from New York.
"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
