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New Day

Some States Begin to Lift Travel Bans; Severe Storm Remains a Threat; Interview with Mayor Jorge Elorza

Aired January 27, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a pattern of extreme weather that we have never seen before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be drifts, there will be visibility problems, there will be high winds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be a lot of snow no matter how you add it up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've already seen a few accidents, just people swerving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're prepared no matter what.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay home. The roads are horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're still in the middle of it. So we're not out of it just yet.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome back to NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, January 27th just before 8:00 in the east. I'm Chris Cuomo in New York City. This is the good news where we are, six to eight inches of snow. The city is starting to reopen. The blizzard warning obviously has passed. All of the different restrictions that have been placed on New York City and different areas surrounding it are being removed right now.

But right now we have the governor of New York who's talking in a press conference about what's going on because New York City is not what's going on in Long Island. A very different situation. Let's listen in. GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK: The snow was also less than had been

originally predicted with variations in the New York City area, LaGuardia Airport, 11-and-a-half inches of snow. So there were variances within the New York City area, but basically less than predicted, which was good news.

Long Island was much harder hit than the New York City area, 16 inches on Long Island. Suffolk County is still getting hit very hard, and Suffolk County is where we have serious issues. The track of the storm as it moved north, Suffolk County is the far end of Long Island, Montauk Point. And they have significant issues, they have blizzard- like conditions, 12 inches of snow, 14 inches of snow.

We will be redeploying much of the equipment from the New York City area, mid-Hudson area to Long Island and specifically to Suffolk. We are lifting all of the traffic bans on the roads at 8:00. Nassau, Suffolk, New York City, Westchester, Rockland, Ulster, the 13-county area that was affected will be lifted at 8:00. We coordinated that with the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who I spoke with this morning. Obviously you can't open the traffic ban on one state unless you're coordinated with the other states because you don't want people on the roads in New Jersey trying to get to New York if they can't get to New York and vice versa. So we have a coordinated opening with Governor Chris Christie at 8:00.

I also spoke with Governor Malloy, Governor of Connecticut. They also have a varied situation, and they're making determinations now to open parts of their roads and parts will remain closed. We're coordinating with them.

The MTA is in the process of bringing the trains back out, subway and rail. They were put away yesterday, last night, late at night in an area where they would be protected from the weather. They are now redeploying as we speak. Service will begin coming online at 9:00. By noon the system should be back to Sunday service, which is roughly 60 percent of the weekday service. The bridges and tunnels --

CUOMO: He's talking about the situation in New York state very different from New York City to Long Island. We can actually show it to you. Let's get to Cristina Alesci right now in Montauk. That is called the end, the eastern most point of Long Island, the part of New York state. High winds, lots of snowfall, and the storm has stalled over that area for now, so there's going to be a lot of duration of exposure to this. Cristina, how are you doing so far?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's cold, wet, and windy, Chris. And we just heard the governor say that they're going to lift the travel ban in Suffolk County. Of course Montauk is part of Suffolk County. But we are hearing from locals that not all the roads are clear yet. You know, the one in town just a few miles east of here, that's not clear yet. And the snow just keeps piling up. I've been doing live shots from this very location all morning, and every time I come out here the snow is deeper. I can barely stand in it.

And another significant issue of concern here is, of course, the ocean. This is a community that got hit significantly hard by super storm Sandy. If you take a look, my camera woman is pointing right now to that house down there. This is a restaurant that the hotel had to rebuild because the ocean basically swept it away during super storm Sandy. We're not seeing the tide come up very high, of course. As you mentioned high tide is later this afternoon. But the winds right now are breaking a little bit further out. We're not seeing too much concern about the tide and the waves right now.

But this isn't the most crucial point. Actually, it's just a few miles east of here. The town we hear, there's a lot of concern about beach erosion on the town side of things. Of course, the officials and the Army Corps of Engineers were just starting to rebuild the town beach and now they have this significant weather event yet again. And as you've been mentioning all morning, this is just beginning for the town of Montauk, the town of really East Hampton which Montauk is part of. And so people are staying inside. They're heeding the warnings by not only the officials but also the county officials. And, you know, we'll have to see how this plays out, but it's not looking too good right now, Chris.

CUOMO: Unfortunately, Cristina, as you point out, you've got a lot of time left in what's going on here. So you try to get warm. Let me talk to Chad Myers, our meteorologist, and kind of get the science side of this. You know, from my understanding of it, I know Long Island very well, obviously.

CHAD MYERS, CNN AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

CUOMO: These places are already vulnerable. Most of them are sea level, right, because they're right there on the coast. And you've told me that this storm has actually stalled over those areas. So what's going on?

MYERS: And water is getting pushed into Long Island Sound. So although we're on the ocean side, the bay side of this is getting filled up with water, and that's the surge we're seeing from this. A lot like Sandy had that almost reverse surge into Long Island Sound and the water backed up from east to west or from south to north, didn't expect that, but that happened.

We're still seeing the approach to Islip, the approach to Montauk, the approach over to Block Island and Cape Cod in the next few hours. It's not even there yet. So as it travels up the east coast we're still hours and hours away from the worst that she's going to see or for Boston. I just looked at the new models for Boston and it's at least another foot of --

CUOMO: Another foot?

MYERS: Another foot on top of what they have now. That will make their total somewhere around 26 inches by the time it stops. And now if you get down towards Plymouth towards Sandwich, you're talking about they already have 18. You add 10 or 12 to that, and you're talking 30 inches. Those are the numbers they were talking about yesterday, but those are the numbers that we didn't get here, thank goodness, because this town could have been crippled with a 25 inch snowfall. CUOMO: There's something deceptive about the unevenness. If you look

here in New York City, you say, oh, it's going to be fine. Not so depending where you are.

MYERS: True. What happened with this storm, it's far enough out to sea is that it made all snow. A lot of times this storm would have been 50 miles closer, what we saw in that picture would be right here. But it has moved off to the right a little bit. And New Haven, Connecticut, is getting it, Providence, Rhode Island, is getting it, Boston. I know we missed it. Millions of people got missed by a six to 10 inch snowfall. But out there millions of people are still getting hit.

CUOMO: Right. And look, you take good news where you can find it. This is good news that they didn't get hit. Nobody wants to have the type of devastation that you get in these big areas. But as Chad's saying, millions more still exposed. We showed you the eastern end of Long Island. You heard chad running through the geography of where we're going to see it. That means Massachusetts up into Maine. We spoke to people there earlier today. We'll check in with them again.

And Connecticut, that's where Michaela is. She went up there last night. By the time they got ready for it just a few hours later, the SUV was stuck. So she's been coming to us through Skype this morning. Heavy snow and a lot of wind as well. Michaela, how have things changed sings we last spoke?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Cuomo, we have an update, my friend. Let me tell you a story.

CUOMO: Please.

PEREIRA: As you mentioned, we were stuck in the parking lot at our hotel about three miles where I am -- from where I am now. We found a friendly plow driver by the name of Patrick. Patrick Gallagher hooked us up, drove us the three miles to this location. So I'm in front of a real to goodness live television camera right now instead of via Skype. Thank goodness for that Skype, though. It got us on the air.

What we saw on the way over here was really indicative of the situation right now in Connecticut where there is a blizzard warning still in effect. We saw a whole lot of snow, even the Patrick -- the plow driver was commenting. He's lived here a long time and he said it's been a long while since they've seen anything the likes of this.

What makes it further complicated is not just the amount of snow, the wind. I'm trying to figure out the wind pattern. You try to turn away from the wind and you get a face full of snow because the wind changes direction every five seconds. And that's causing massive drifting. We saw cars parked along the street for the night, people heeding the warning of the governor stay off the roads, hunker down, stay inside and watch movies. Their cars are covered. You can barely see the tops of the cars.

On the way here we saw a few stubborn people trying to get places in vehicles that aren't really fit for getting around in this kind of snow. We saw plow drivers trying to help them out, trying to dig them out.

We saw a whole lot of big, big equipment out trying to clear the roads as well, I want to tell you. A few years ago apparently CL&P, Connecticut Light and Power, kind of got spanked a little bit by a storm. This time they're a little more prepared, and they have crews out in advance making sure they have crews ready to get trees out of the way to prevent power outages, to clear any roads that they can. We asked the plow driver, who is a commercial driver, takes care of some of these retail properties here, he was telling us that he's seen that the federal crews out on the highways and freeways already and they're working to clear those as best they can.

But Chris, it's a question of staying ahead of it, because this snow is coming down. Just in the last few minutes of where I've been standing here I've already seen an inch accumulate by my feet, and I've only been out here for less than 20 minutes. So as much as they're going to work to get some of these roads cleared, it's kind of a losing proposition. So if you're at home and you're listening to me, stay where you are. You're not going anywhere. We're likely going to be in Connecticut with our good friends here in New London 126 miles north of Manhattan if you're wanting to know where that is for folks on the west coast watching us snuggling from their and warm homes. Stay where you are. There's no point in trying to get out. Just enjoy the fact you've got a snow day.

CUOMO: Right. And, look, you know what, you are going to be there. Good news, bad news -- you're in a nice place, but you're going to be there for a while because as Chad's been pointing out this story of this blizzard is about duration, and this story has kind of stalled over where you are right now. One of the reasons you can't tell wind direction is because Chad just explained to me, that's because it's swirling because you're getting this circular effect of the storm that's just sitting over you, so you're not going to get a definite wind direction. And you're going to get another, 10, 12 hours of snow. And you'll see with the different plows there is they've got to deal both with waiting it out, the endurance of it, and also keeping the main arteries clear. And that means people on the smaller streets where you are, they're going to have to wait.

PEREIRA: Can I just add one last thing, Chris? It was interesting. We were standing here. A few people are braving the elements. It's not horrifically cold. It's colder than I think what New London, Connecticut is used to. But this gal came walking down the street dressed for it. I asked her where she was going. She says, I'm going to work. My boss says I could stay the night but I told him I'd rather stay in my own bed and I'd see him at work the next morning. So she was walking to work. She's like, isn't it beautiful? It really is beautiful. If you don't have to go anywhere and can just get outside and say this is pretty, you'll enjoy it. But otherwise, don't try and go anywhere.

CUOMO: It's true. There's a big range of experience that people are having from -- I've been saying all morning, from the sublime to severe. For us here in New York City, it's a beautiful thing to see. The stock market is opening, the city is opening. But in so many places they're going to be hit really hard. Michaela, I'll check back with you in a little bit. I'm going to pop

up to Boston. That's where we have meteorologist Jennifer Gray. And again, a very different story there because as, Chad, you've been explaining, the rotation of this storm, and it's sitting over these coastal areas, specifically Massachusetts, even obviously Boston right off the bay there.

MYERS: That's right.

CUOMO: They're going to be dealing with this all day.

MYERS: Yes. The science behind this is called the deformation zone. They're in a deformation zone, the entire swirl, that part of the hole we talked about yesterday is sitting over the same spot now and it is snowing and will snow two to three inches per hour for the next 12 hours. Some spots could be 20 more inches. And so because it's staying in the same spot as the low moves away, that swirl stays in the same spot and that's Islip, that's Montauk, that's parts of Rhode Island and that's Boston.

CUOMO: So Michaela is seeing swirling wind because it really is swirling right over her head. That's going to create the turbine effect on drifts.

MYERS: Yes.

CUOMO: And making the road conditions different, and obviously power lines, all of that gets into the mix.

MYERS: Right. And the winds are still picking up and the low is still getting stronger. So as the winds pick up that is going to blow that snow right back over where the plow has just plowed.

CUOMO: One of the tricks in our reporting here, obviously, is to say, look, we're not going to hype what's happening here. This is the good news. This is the good news. It is not all of the news now. Jennifer Gray, meteorologist up in Boston, you're dealing with the severe side of this, and, again, you've got a long way to go, but how has it progressed?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I mean, it's just been coming down steadily over the last several hours, since we've been out here, since about 5:00 this morning.

The snow has been coming down at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour. You see the wind gusts that come along with it. I have my weather station out here, and it's clocked wind gusts of 25 miles per hour. This one that we're having at the moment is probably the strongest we've had since we've been out here.

And the snow that blows is literally blinding. You can't see anything. You can barely see your hand in front of your face when those gusts come and blow the snow. That's what we're talking about with the blowing snow. That's what creates the blizzard-like conditions out here. And just look behind me. It's just blowing so hard and the snow is

basically being picked up off the ground and carried. We've been measuring out here. We have now made it up to a foot or more here in Boston, of course, with the snow being blown and carried like this, it is very hard to measure.

Of course, the National Weather Service in Boston is holding off to declare this an official blizzard until it dies down a little bit.

But look at how thick it is. This has been plowed 20 minutes ago and then a new plow came through 30 seconds ago. And you can tell the difference in abut 20 minutes, we have a couple of inches on the ground. A lot of this of course due to the blowing snow, but a lot of it is just because it is coming down so, so heavy.

We also have reports about 13,000 people without power around Nantucket. Otherwise, about 1,000 more people statewide without power. We have that wind gust close to 80 miles per hour around Nantucket as well.

A lot of that is probably -- the power outages probably a lot to do with that -- those strong winds there. We also have coastal flooding reports just south of here.

We're protected here in the harbor being in Boston but areas south of here, Chris, definitely not as lucky as we are being protected. They have the coastal flooding, also a little bit of coastal erosion going on there as well. But you can see from the pictures it is nasty here in Boston. And to think that we have 12, 18 more hours of this, this is going to be a mess by the time we get to tomorrow morning.

CUOMO: And, Jennifer, just quickly, give us an expectation -- not a prediction, but as you have low temperatures, more snow and that wind going there, what can that mean for the power lines and all the infrastructure that people worry about?

GRAY: Yes. I think the winds are the main thing when we talk about the power. I mean, the snow is really not accumulating on the power lines because you just look at it, it's so light. And then when you have the winds blowing like that, it's just going to blow it off. So, we're not going to see really the snow accumulating on there. When you have the strong winds and the gusts like we've seen in Nantucket of 60, 70 miles per hour, that's when you get those power outages. It correlates perfectly. That's where we've had the strongest wind gusts and the most power outages with about 13,000 people right there in Nantucket.

So, no power outages in Boston, but if we pick up really strong wind gusts, I wouldn't be surprised if people lost power. But, right now, we're keeping our fingers crossed that that doesn't happen. So far so good in Boston, but if the winds keep up, Chris, I don't think we'll be quite as lucky.

CUOMO: Right. Jen, thanks for sucking it up. We'll check back in with you a little bit. And again, we're going to see -- you're hearing about sporadic power outages, Alisyn. But so far, so good. But remember, this story today is about duration. There's so many hours of risk.

CAMEROTA: Yes, let's find out how it's going elsewhere, because Rhode Island residents are still hunkered down at this hour. The state capital has 10 inches already of snow on the ground. It's not over.

Let's bring in Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

MAYOR JORGE ELORZA, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (via telephone): Good morning, Alisyn. Great to be here.

CAMEROTA: How was your night?

ELORZA: Well, we had a great night. I'm at the emergency operations center. I spent the entire day, evening, and I'll be here throughout the duration of the storm. Making sure we're tracking the storm and tracking all incidents trying to stay ahead of the storm as much as possible.

And, you know, I'm very happy to report that we had absolutely no motor vehicle accidents last night, that the travel ban in effect, we've asked everyone to stay home. I'm so proud of our residents. Everyone has heeded our advice and our warnings. Everyone is chipping in.

So, we've planned and we're executing on this. The toughest part of the storm is still ahead but I'm confident that with the city, the state, and all of our resident putting it together, we're going to be fine and in good shape.

CAMEROTA: How many inches of snow do you have on the ground right now?

ELORZA: Right now, I believe we have about 10 inches and it's coming down really heavy. One of the tricky things about this storm is it's very light and dry snow, and with the heavy gusts of wind, as soon as we plow the snow from the streets, the wind blows it back into the road and so it's a constant effort.

We have over 100 pieces of equipment out on the streets plowing the roads and it's a challenge to stay out ahead of the storm but we have fine teams out there in the city and the state, making sure we keep the equipment out on the streets plowing the roads and it's a challenge to stay out ahead of the storm but we have fine teams out there in the city and the state making sure we keep the roads clean for emergency responders. The toughest part is yet to come.

CAMEROTA: We've heard the storm has parked itself over your area. How many more hours of this do you think you have?

ELORZA: Yes, well, we're getting ready for this to last throughout the entire day. From what I understand, the next several hours will be very, very intense and strong, but even after it calms down there's going to be strong snow throughout the day, maybe well into the evening. We're ready for this. The big challenge and immediate challenge is not just the snow but it's also the wind gusts that might bring down trees and the trees might bring down some power lines.

And we're working very closely with National Grid we're responding to any incidents where the power is off and working diligently to restore the heat with National Grid and our public safety officers as well.

CAMEROTA: Well, Mayor Jorge Elorza, best of luck to you over the next 12 hours. We know you have your work cut out for you in Providence. Keep us posted.

ELORZA: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

And our coverage of this massive blizzard will continue. The storm is slamming New England and Long Island. We'll bring you everything you need to know today.

Also, send us your best pictures if you would and video of the storm. Be safe. But if you can snap a shot, we'd love to see it. You can tweet us at NEW DAY using #CNNsnow or go to Facebook.com/NewDay.

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CAMEROTA: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of this monster storm.

Massachusetts is getting especially hard hit and nowhere harder than Nantucket. So, we want to turn right now to Chief William Pittman. He is with the Nantucket Police Department. He is also the director of emergency management.

Chief Pittman, tell us what is happening on Nantucket at this hour.

CHIEF WILLIAM PITTMAN, NANTUCKET POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Good morning.

Right now, we're just trying to deal with the power outage problem that we have. We've lost power to the entire island. Right now we're working with National Grid to come up with a solution. It appears to be a problem at the main feed into the island.

Plus, we have a little bit of flooding and we have some downed power wires. We've lost cable service, that kind of thing.

CAMEROTA: That's tough, Chief Pittman, because then people aren't even able to watch television, hear the updates of what they should do.

How many people live on the island of Nantucket?

PITTMAN: Well, there's probably this time of year maybe 15,000 to 20,000. CAMEROTA: And so all 15,000 to 20,000 at this hour are without power?

PITTMAN: That's correct.

CAMEROTA: We understand that you on Nantucket have experienced the strongest winds of this entire storm. According to the National Weather Service, you experienced peak gusts at 78 miles per hour. Those, of course, are hurricane strength.

What was it like last night and this morning for you?

PITTMAN: Well, to be honest with you, that's a lot of wind, but we've had worse out here. But the worst part is the steady winds have been pretty -- I think they were approaching close to 50 mile an hour and those were harder to deal with than the gusts. We had gusts last winter up in the 90s at some times.

CAMEROTA: That's scary. I mean, you know, Nantucket is an island of some beach homes, you know, not -- it's not necessarily equipped for the conditions that you're experiencing now. Is anyone displaced or in shelters?

PITTMAN: Well, we have about a dozen people in a shelter right now. Some of them are there just because it's a warm place to go and others are there because their cottages were down on the waterfront and they were flooded as a result of this morning's high tide and the storm surge.

That flooding is ordinarily -- it wasn't unexpected but ordinarily it would have dissipated by now because the tide's going back down, but because of the direction of the wind the water is being held into the harbor and it's been holding the flood waters in.

CAMEROTA: Yes. The storm surge is certainly a challenge on Nantucket because by definition, you know, your entire island is a coast.

PITTMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: How much flooding are you seeing?

PITTMAN: Well, it mainly just occurs in the downtown area off the harbor. The entrance to the harbor is to the north and it's a narrow inlet, and what happens, the water comes in at tide and then the wind, if it's coming from the northeast or the north, holds it in there. Doesn't let it flow back out very easily. And then you get the melting snow that hits the roads and it just adds to it.

CAMEROTA: If someone on Nantucket is having an emergency, can first responders get to them?

PITTMAN: Right now, we've got access, we believe, to 99 percent of the island. There's areas obviously we haven't been to, but pretty much we don't believe there's anybody living there. We've got lists of people that have concerns that we've made contact with and are arranging shelter for them, either at the hospital or the -- our emergency shelter and we've got some elderly homes, places where people live where we're making arrangements with them to take them to shelter if and when they get to the point they feel that they want to.

CAMEROTA: Chief, we're looking at pictures right now. This comes from the Nantucket Police Department and it's showing the flooding that you're experiencing. And just this is a tweet that the Nantucket Police Department, your police department, just sent out.

PITTMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So, we're able to see the flooding there. When you say you have a list of concerns of residents, are these medical concerns? Are people without heat? What are you experiencing there?

PITTMAN: Well, everybody, nobody -- unless you have a wood burning stove or gas burning stove or something has heat right now. All of our lights, all of our electricity is out.

My own home, my family is trying to decide whether they're going to go to a friend's house that has wood burning stove or if they're going to just hunker down for a while. So, basically everybody here is making that kind of decision right now, and we're reaching out to people that, for instance, may be on oxygen supply or they may have some medical issues that we're aware ever, maybe there are difficulty, mobility issues.