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Northeast Slammed by Monster Blizzard; Massachusetts Governor Gives Storm Update; Rhode Island Declares State of Emergency

Aired January 27, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the pictures tell the story, they always do. And we see this blizzard has given you something from the sublime to the ongoing and severe. A big factor of this, as Chad Myers has been explaining from the beginning, is that this is essentially a blizzard is a hurricane with snow. And the wind is making it so difficult to get around and to deal with the snow for officials who are trying very much to keep place with the snowfall -- one inches, two inches, three inches in some places.

That's why the warning is still in effect. If you can, stay home. Stay inside. The schools are closed. The stock market's closed. Businesses are closed. Roads are closed. So think about it, if you take a risk, it will be tough for people to get to you. If you want to fly, a silly notion at this point. About 7,000 flights have been canceled, 4,400 just today. That will ripple effect across the country. We'll be seeing delays for days as a result.

The rails are also a problem. Amtrak is suspended in much of the northeast. They're dealing with wind and accumulation.

In the big cities, you could have subway issues. The subway in New York City hasn't been closed for 100 years, but it's closed today. When they'll reopen it we'll see. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City coming onto the show. He'll answer those questions for us.

And so right now let's monitor. This is sublime. This is the beauty. But now it gets very bad not even 90 miles from here on Montauk, and the east end of Long Island. That's where Cristina Alesci is.

How is it going out there now?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It just keeps getting worse and worse, Chris. And I can tell you, there's no one out here in Montauk.

What is going on right now is local authorities are concerned about the wind and visibility. Visibility is so tough, I'm standing right by the beach, and I cannot see the ocean. Just yesterday, you know, not even actually yesterday, last night I could see the ocean. And this morning, I can't. So it's getting worse and worse; and that's going to make it tricky to get snow off the roads. And if you can't go out, if the authorities can't go out and take snow off the roads, they're going to have to bring out heavier and heavier equipment.

Suffolk County, Montauk is part of Suffolk County. It has 250 pieces of snow removal equipment ready to go. But if they can't see, they can't get that equipment on the roads. And that means heavier and heavier equipment is going to have to be brought out to take care of that.

We're also concerned, local authorities out here are also concerned about power. The wind is whipping up. It's getting stronger and stronger. Anything above 30 miles an hour will become problematic for power lines. Now we're up to about 50. Gusts could go up to about 70, according to the National Weather Service, so wind is going to continue to be an issue.

And of course, you have beach erosion, which is a major issue from this community that's been traumatized by Superstorm Sandy. A lot of the beaches were really destroyed. And when it comes to the tides here, it's going to -- it's not just about how far it comes up. It matters where the waves are breaking.

If they're breaking out further in the ocean, that means that the beaches aren't going to be pounded. But if the waves are going to be breaking near the beach itself, that is when it becomes problematic for the beaches.

You know, this town, Montauk, is in the middle of rebuilding its town beach. They're trucking in 100,000 cubic yards of sand to rebuild that beach. And they're just getting over that. So now, for a major weather event like this to come and make it problematic for the beaches, you know, it's just more work ahead for this community.

And we're going to have to see how the rest of the day plays out. Because that's really going to dictate how much damage is done at the end of the day.

CUOMO: Well, you're exactly right, Cristina, and your cameraman is doing the right thing. He should be moving around his shot, if he can, to show just what a white-out condition you have there.

Let's bring in Chad real quickly here. She's at the good part of it. The tide is starting to come up.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: True.

CUOMO: The storm has stalled over the top of her. So she's got duration and tide that's going to work against those people in Montauk.

MYERS: She's going to get all the way to the next high tide before that storm really starts to taper off. So that's -- that's going to be a problem. In all of those coastal communities, we thought the first high tide would be the problem. But because the storm has slowed down so much, the next high tide will truly be it.

It's hard to think that. We got a miss here. We have ten inches of snow in the city, and it's a miss, and that's great news. Because at least the million people here or millions of people in the tri-state are in good shape. At least getting out shoveling. The people there have 18 more hours to deal with. CUOMO: And they have 18 inches, you know, in some parts of Long

Island. They're going to get a lot more. We had ten here. You know, it's nothing to bat an eye at. They still haven't been able to remove the snow. They've been working at it all morning here.

Let's go to Deb Feyerick. She's out on Long Island. And remember, that's just a long coastal community. A lot of them don't have a lot of depth of beach because of what happened in Sandy, so they're going to be vulnerable there. Deb, what's the situation? Where are you, what's it like?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, we're right now driving on the Long Island Expressway. It was interesting. We came from Manhattan through Queens. The roads there were plowed. In fact, it was surprisingly -- there was no snow because all of the salt there had melted much of it.

As we now move out towards Long Island, a lot more snow. And there's a very thin and dangerous layer of ice underneath the snow. There's a travel ban still in effect out here. We've seen upwards of two dozen snowplows and salt spreaders, which is really good news. That means at least the main highways are going to be easily drivable sooner rather than later. The problem is getting from your home, actually, out to the highway.

We did veer off onto some of the side roads in Queens. They haven't even begun to be plowed. And all the cars, they look like those Hostess snowball cupcakes. You know, they're just covered in inches of snow. All of those -- everyone is going to have to dig out of that.

But the numbers are pretty impressive as far as New York City goes. They've got something like 2,300 plows, salt spreaders and other vehicles that are out on the road. There are 6,000 miles of road in New York City alone. So think about that. That's the difference between Los Angeles to New York and back again. All of that's going to have to be plowed. That's only, Chris, in New York City. So a lot of work yet to be done. But twenty-five...

CUOMO: All right. All right, Deb. Thank you very much.

We'll get back to Deb in a little bit. We want to get to the governor of Massachusetts. He's giving a press conference right now about the evolving situation there. Let's listen in.

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R), MASSACHUSETTS: Basically, we're currently looking at somewhere between six and 12 inches having fallen across and around most parts of Massachusetts. Pretty clear at this point that the heaviest snow is falling in certain parts of Worcester and Middlesex County and down in the southern parts of Bristol County.

We did see some of the coastal flooding that we expected to see and I think a lot of local folks expected to see, as well, on the South Shore and down on to the cape.

Nantucket, by the way, has been hit particularly hard with respect to power outages. The power outage numbers at this point are significantly below where we anticipated they would be. That's a really good thing. That's due, in large part, to the fact that the temperature was a bit colder than I think most people anticipated it would be. And as a result, the snow is a lot lighter and fluffier.

We did see very high winds. We continue to see high winds. We'll see high winds over the course of the day. And in many parts of Massachusetts, we're going to continue to see snow falling throughout the day and into the evening. We're going to continue to update ourselves, region by region over the course of the day, and we'll obviously be reporting to all of you.

The one thing -- two safety comments. One is, the folks at DOT have reported -- state police, as well -- that there are people getting out of their vehicles on interstates to clean off their windshields. Not a good idea. I think we'd prefer people, if you need to clean off your windshield, to get off the road before you do that.

The other is, passing plows. That's a relatively dangerous activity. And I think we would -- we would ask people to simply be patient and not -- not pursue that avenue, as they're out there driving if they need to be.

One final comment, and then I'd be happy to take questions. We're going to continue to talk with local officials and others about the state of play across the different parts of Massachusetts. Primary conversation will certainly be about local conditions, clean-up activities. Where are they with respect to what they need to do to get their surface roads up and operating so that we can continue to make decisions about -- about travel. And we're also talking over the course of the morning to our colleagues in the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island and New York about that, as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor, what do you know about the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) power station?

CUOMO: Out of this right now as the governor of Massachusetts is there, starting to take questions from the media.

And he gave a good idea of what the story of this blizzard is so far. It's about a range. There's no reason to not balance the coverage. Here in New York, you're dealing with the sublime. It's a beautiful look here. It will be a play day for a lot of people. We're hearing that the stock market is going to open this morning, because the blizzard warning has obviously passed. And that's the good part.

But it is still and will be severe in a lot of places. A lot of people, literally millions of people, are going to be dealing and in a situation that's in harm's way.

Let's get to meteorologist Jennifer Gray. She's up in Boston. The situation there so different than what we're living with here in New York City. Jennifer, the latest?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I'm telling you, it has really been coming down. This is probably the heaviest we have seen the snow, and it is relentless. It has been coming down nonstop for the past hour, hour and a half. At this rate, I would say two inches an hour at least.

I have my weather station that I bring with me everywhere I go right behind me. And we've had peaks of about 20-mile-per-hour winds here. Of course, other places in the city have had those winds of about 35 miles per hour. The National Weather Service looking into it to see if we have met blizzard criteria here in Boston.

Of course, I've been measuring the snow. It's very hard to measure, because it's blowing around so much. But this is about the best spot I can find. And we have about a foot of snow right where I'm standing.

But you can see the drifts out here. If you walk out there, it would most likely come above my knees. Because the snow drifts, the wind blowing like it has been, just blows the snow all around. Of course, we've had wind gusts of about 78 miles per hour around Nantucket. Just what they were saying just a moment ago in the press conference, where it's been the hardest hit.

Offshore, we have had wave heights up to 20 feet, and so you can imagine, with the wind blowing in from the northeast, waves at 20 feet high, that coastal erosion is going to be massive. We're also going to have that coastal flooding, as well. So definitely not over.

You say oh, Boston has about a foot of snow right you now. You have to keep in mind, we still have 12, 18 more hours of this. So we could easily pick up another foot, foot and a half here in Boston, especially if it continues to come down at this rate.

So Chris, we are still a long way to go. I know you guys are drying out in New York City, but up here in Massachusetts, it's far from over.

CUOMO: There's no question about it. We have to stay on it, because there's going to be people who are going to be in a situation where it will be difficult to control. Stay warm. We'll be back with you.

And just think about it, Alisyn, for some perspective on this. We have about a foot of snow here in New York City. And it's a miss. This is the good news. Imagine the other areas and what they're still going to deal with, especially where that storm is stalled.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We hear estimates of two to three feet, two and a half feet in some places in Massachusetts. So as we've been talking about, Massachusetts is getting particularly hard-hit.

Let's bring in Sergeant Mark Cabral. He's a spokesperson for the Barnstable Police Department. That's the largest town on Cape Cod. Sergeant, good morning.

SGT. MARK CABRAL, SPOKESPERSON, BARNSTABLE POLICE DEPARTMENT (via phone): Good morning.

CAMEROTA: It seems as though Cape Cod is taking the brunt of this massive storm. How many inches of snow do you have on the ground there?

CABRAL: We have drifting in our -- the lot at our facility of up to two to three feet in some areas. It's still coming down pretty heavy, and it's white-out conditions.

CAMEROTA: Do you have any sense of what the estimates are for how much snow you will get at the end of this next 18 hours?

CABRAL: Well, you'll have to check with your weather department for that. But it's coming down pretty hard.

I just want to take this moment here to urge any of our local listeners to continue to stay off the roads. They've been doing a good job with that so far. Let our emergency people work, getting these roads cleared, so that we can have everything ready and get the town back to shape as quickly as we can.

CAMEROTA: Do you have an official travel ban in place?

CABRAL: What the governor has put out is what we are following here. And so far the residents on the Cape, from what we're seeing, are doing a very good job of keeping the roadways clear for us to clear the snow.

CAMEROTA: We understand that basically the storm has skirted up the East Coast and is parked now over areas of Connecticut and Cape Cod. And that you have another 18 hours of this to deal with.

Do you think that this will be a record-breaking snowfall for you?

CABRAL: The way it's building up so far, it definitely -- it has all the makings to be -- to be so. We have -- fortunately for us, we have everything ready and in place. We prepared early. We have representatives from the local power company, both here at the police department and in our regional emergency management shelter, which is in our town. We've also opened up our shelter early, at 6:30 p.m. yesterday, to area residents. And at last count, we've got a little over a dozen people utilizing it at this time.

CAMEROTA: That's good. You guys were so prepared.

High winds, you're still having blizzard-condition winds up there. And that, of course, often leads to power outages. What's the status?

CABRAL: Fortunately, we have not had any power outages reported directly through the police department as of yet.

CAMEROTA: That's great. Because we just heard the Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, talk about how they are having a lot of power outages just across the water from you in Nantucket. They're having a higher number than was predicted. But it sounds like you guys, the winds not as high as you expected?

CABRAL: It's blowing pretty hard here. And like I said, there may be outages, but nothing that has been reported directly through the police department or what I'm hearing on this end here. We have had a few trees down. We do have some coastal flooding up at

the north side of town, near the Barnstable Harbor. But other than that, a bunch of stuck vehicles, and no major disturbances or injuries to report as of yet.

CAMEROTA: Governor Baker was also warning about that coastal flooding. How bad is it?

CABRAL: At this point, we only had one road that we had to shut down which is adjacent to the harbor. We did have a high tide around 4 a.m. And it seems to be probably receding at this point, and we have no other roads shut down as of now.

CAMEROTA: We understand the town of Sandwich, which is of course, right near you, has now had 18 inches on the ground, which is remarkable, given that you're going to be seeing more snowfall and heavy snowfall for the rest of today. So it sure sounds like you're going to break some records up there. What are you telling all of your residents at this hour?

CABRAL: Just hunker down, stay in. Continue to do what you're prepared to do. Anyone that listened to what the information the town was putting out I'm sure is prepared quite well. And we're there if you need us. We're just a phone call away. And just ask them again to continue to stay off the roads until this thing is completely over and done, and they're hearing locally that it's OK to go back out.

CAMEROTA: Sergeant Mark Cabral, best of luck to you as this unfolds throughout the day.

CABRAL: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

Let's get now to Michaela Pereira. She is live in New London, Connecticut, for us. We understand there's blustery winds. We've been seeing you fight the elements, brave the elements out there, Michaela. Tell us what's going on.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: You know, if you're dressed for it, Alisyn, it's fine. So good morning, everybody.

Yes, we were scheduled to get down to our live location here in New London, Connecticut, this morning. My producer and I got up bright and early, ready to go -- yes. The whole idea of this travel ban is not only just to keep you safe, but also to keep you from getting frustrated. You're not going anywhere.

The plow, we just saw a plow come right through the parking lot of the hotel where we're staying. So we're going to attempt to get to our other location here in a little bit.

The snow, I want to show you this, Alisyn. It's actually pretty light. It's not that heavy kind of snow that I'm used to on the West Coast. It's pretty powdery. It would be great to ski in. It's pretty powdery and light. Now, if you're going to do any snow clearance at your own house, obviously, take your time. You're in no rush. You can't get anywhere, anyway, so really take your time. Because we know you can get yourself into a little bit of fatigue trouble if you're out there shoveling.

There is a blizzard warning in effect for most of Connecticut at this point, from areas down in the southeast -- Danbury, Bridgeport, et cetera -- or southwest, pardon me -- that are not under the blizzard warning, much like New York City, where that warning for the blizzard has lifted.

But you can see the snow is really coming down. Every once in a while. Check that out. Look at that. I don't know if you can see that wind, Alisyn, but the gusts, we're measuring wind gusts of up to about -- not we are, but the weather service is measuring about 45- mile-per-hour gusts. When it's not windy, it's actually very calm and peaceful, and the snow is just falling.

Around 3 a.m., the National Weather Service said that there was about eight inches of snow falling. We were out here around 4:30 a.m., and it sure felt more than just the eight inches. You have to remember, the wind is pushing all of this snow into drifts. In fact, you can see really good evidence around this pillar. There's a lot of snow on the ground. Some of it is moving because of the wind. But it just continues, and it's not stopped snowing.

Because we are in the thick of it. They're expecting this throughout the day today. They're expecting the blizzard warning to last throughout the day today. So that's the big question here.

Now obviously, plowing, power, what's going to happen? We haven't seen evidence where we are of power outages. So far, the power has remained at this hotel where we're staying at. They didn't -- they said they don't have a generator. A lot of the places don't, because they don't expect this kind of weather. They had a storm like this, we're told, in 2013. But they are not -- they were not expecting this level, this late into the winter.

So obviously, we're going to kind of see what goes on today here, this morning. We're going to try and get that car of ours out of this parking lot. As I mentioned, plow came through, did a couple of passes. We're going to see if we can get down to our other location, get a sense of how things are going here. Obviously, plowing for this city is paramount. But again, small towns, budget constraints. Who knows how many plows they have out? We'll try to get a sense of that and report back to you later.

I'm dressed for it. I'm Canadian, I'm ready to go, Alisyn. Where you want me -- where you want me to head?

CAMEROTA: You're looking good, Michaela, first of all.

Second of all, I hope that you're charging the hotel for shoveling their parking lot, which you are, which is great.

And third, there is a hot toddy in your future when you come back.

PEREIRA: Is there? Only the one?

CAMEROTA: Many. Many. All right, Michaela, thanks so much. We'll check back in with you. Of course, go get warm.

And our coverage of this historic blizzard will continue throughout the morning. Stick around. This storm is still very active. We're tracking it all for you. You can also send us your best pictures and video of the blizzard. Tweet us, @NewDay, using the hash tag #CNNsnow. Or go to Facebook.com/NewDay. We'll be right back with more breaking news.

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CUOMO: All right. Welcome back to NEW DAY. We're tracking every move of this monster blizzard that is just battering areas of the Northeast.

In Rhode Island the governor has declared a state of emergency, warning people to prepare, be patient, stay put. That state no stranger to severe snowstorms, but they'll be put to the test with what's coming their way and what's already been there. Two years ago they lived a real disaster up there.

We have Sara Ganim. She's in Providence for us. Sara, now as the sun starts to come up, the situation not necessarily better. You're still dealing with the winds there with this stalled storm Chad's been telling us about, the different circles of this. How are you now?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're still dealing with those gusts of wind, Chris, that are tropical-storm-force gusts. And just in the last few minutes, we've learned that the snowfall has actually picked up; the temperature is dropping. The National Weather Service says that there's an accumulation of more than ten inches of snow in Providence, Rhode Island. The temperature has dropped two degrees since we last talked.

And I just want to show that, while we have about ten inches of accumulation on the ground, these drifts -- take a look at this, Chris -- these drifts are pretty -- pretty deep. I would say more like -- oh, closer to a foot of drifts of snow in some places, if not higher.

And this is -- you know, this is while we have some good news, which is that the snow -- the plow trucks, the salt trucks are keeping the roads relatively clean. So if you walk out on the road, you're not seeing the same accumulation. But it is most certainly the winds; this is the peak hours for the wind. This is what we've been -- we've been standing out here all morning, and the winds have not been as strong as they have been up until this point, at least that's how they feel -- Chris.

CUOMO: Sara, we'll check back with you. You know, one of the tests for government in this situation is the management over time of the conditions. You know, everybody has got a lot of equipment and a lot of road salt and sand, but it's when do they use it, because they don't want to run out and then get caught with bad conditions.

One of the states that you haven't heard about a lot this morning but is also really going to get hit here is Maine. And we have Lynnette Miller, a spokesperson for the Maine Emergency Management Agency on the phone.

Ms. Miller, what are you dealing with up there? What's the range of impact, and what are the concerns?

LYNNETTE MILLER, SPOKESPERSON, MAINE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (via phone): Well, the storm is just winding up here in the state of Maine. And we have blizzard warnings that are going to be in place all day today and into tomorrow morning.

And as with all of the states up and down the East Coast, really, road conditions are of prime concern. The governor declared a state of emergency this morning and is urging everyone to stay off the roads. He has closed all state offices, and a number of other businesses and offices have followed suit today.

So really, the No. 1 thing that we're hoping for is people do comply with that and our crews are able to keep up with the road conditions as best they can.

CUOMO: And Lynnette, what are the concerns about power? I mean, obviously, you know, we get caught up with snow and snow totals and wind. But really, it's about their effect, and that's obviously going to be about power and people being stuck where they are. What do you know so far?

MILLER: Well, right now we're not seeing huge power outages. But as I say, the storm is just beginning to wind up.

The only good news here is that it will be very dry snow, so we don't expect snow accumulation on the wires. But the winds that we're expecting can easily bring down tree limbs.

CUOMO: Yes.

MILLER: And so we are expecting at least scattered power outages, and we're hoping that it won't be worse than that.

CUOMO: Right. And you know, there's something deceptive about what we're dealing with in the coverage right now. People see where I am in New York City, and they say, "Oh, it's not that bad, and some of these totals aren't what we thought they would be." But we have two things we have to deal with.

One is going to be the range of impact. There are many places like where you are, a very different story than here in New York City. And also how long? How long do you people up there in Maine think you have to be on alert for this?

MILLER: Well, the warnings are in place through Wednesday morning. So we know that actual storm conditions are going to persist at least that long. But after that, there will be a clean-up period. If there are power outages, it will be difficult to get to them. The utilities will act as fast as they can. But if a road is blocked, they won't be able to get there. So any power outages that are sustained could last a little while.

CUOMO: What's your biggest vulnerability at this point?

MILLER: Well, we have a great many elderly residents. We're a grayer state. But one of the strongest things we have going for us here in Maine is really that neighbor-to-neighbor...

CUOMO: Yes.

MILLER: ... mentality. And we expect that that will help everyone weather the storm.

CUOMO: Well, Lynnette Miller, thank you very much. We'll check back in with you. And also, as we've been offering all the different states, if there's information that you want to get out about changing conditions and circumstances there, please feel free to call in and let us know, and we'll get the word out for you. I hope you're safe up there.

MILLER: Thank you so much.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. Up to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Our blizzard coverage continues. The storm still very active in the northeast, so we'll update you on travel conditions and snow totals. Stick around.

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