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Record Flooding Hits Missouri; Interview with Missouri Governor Jay Nixon; "Affluenza" Teen & Mom Returning to U.S.; Sheriff in "Affluenza" Teen Case Speaks Out. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 30, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate your time this morning.

REV. MARSHALL HATCH, CO-CHAIR, THE LEADERS NETWORK: Thank you so much. Thank you, John.

BERMAN: We are following a lot of news, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is insanity. All of this water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rising waters all across the state of Missouri. Flooding of historic proportions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The amount of rain we've received has caused river levels not only to rise rapidly, but to go to places they've never been before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The jig is up for teenage fugitive Ethan Couch and his mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our request of the court is going to be to transfer his probation to the adult court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They kid may not end up in jail for that long but the mother could be in some serious trouble here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Air strikes killed ISIS leader Charaffe al Mouadan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An ISIS member with connections to the Paris terror attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a step in the right direction but we've got a long ways to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome back to your new day. It is Wednesday the 30th of December as December and the year winds down. It's 8:00 in the east. Chris and Alisyn obviously off today. Christine Romans and John Berman alongside me on this Wednesday.

We turn to historic flooding of historic proportions in the Midwest. More than 18 million people are under flood warnings in 13 states. Mandatory evacuations under way in parts of Missouri. We're showing you some live images from one of our affiliate's helicopters. Rivers including the Mississippi are expected to crest several feet above their record highs.

BERMAN: Missouri's governor offering a very sobering assessment of what might lay ahead in the next 24 to 48 hours. Governor Jay Nixon activated the National Guard, declared state of emergency there. We have the story covered from every angle. Let's begin our coverage this morning with Alina Machado in Pacific, Missouri, one of the cities being evacuated. Good morning, Alina.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the river here continues to inch higher and higher. You can see the scene behind me here. Some 400 businesses and homes have already been affected by the flood, and it is going to be a while before things get better.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: Missouri bracing for historic, dangerous flooding, dozens of counties facing a severe threat as the Mississippi, Missouri, and Meramec Rivers approach record levels.

GOV. JAY NIXON, (D) MISSOURI: Now that the rain has moved out the threat has changed, but it is not by any means over.

MACHADO: The deadly flood waters claiming more than a dozen lives. Many fear this is just the beginning as swollen rivers rise and crest in the next 48 hours.

NIXON: You're talking about almost ten more vertical feet of moving water. So the power we're talking about as well as the volume is extremely significant.

MACHADO: The governor declaring a state of emergency and activating the National Guard as officials predict river levels could exceed the great flood of 1993 that claimed nearly 50 lives and damaged or destroyed some 50 thousand homes, the most devastating in modern U.S. history. In the town of West Alton near St. Louis, the mayor urging his 500 residents to evacuate after water levels overtopped the levee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your notice this is serious, so you need to get your final preparations and go.

MACHADO: Parts of Missouri underwater, with homes, cars, restaurants completely submerged. And one photographer even captured video of this cabin floating away. Authorities urging drivers stay off inundated roadways fearing they will get stuck and swept away.

NIXON: The vast majority of deaths we've had, and I can't stress this enough, is people driving into the water, especially driving into water at night.

MACHADO: It's the race against time as residents and volunteers sandbag their homes and prepare to evacuate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am worried. I just don't know what to do. And it is still supposed to come up higher.

My main concern right now is just getting our vehicle out just so we're not -- our truck is not trapped in here.

MACHADO: Officials now watching and hoping that the levees hold.

WILLIE RICHTER, MAYOR OF WEST ALTON, MISSOURI: It is more just wait and see. Once it is over then we'll have to go from there, because we really don't know what's going to happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: The record here was set back in 1982 when the river reached 33.6 feet. Flood waters here are expected to surpass that by at least two feet, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alina, thank you for that. These river levels reaching record highs. Levees throughout the region are being closely monitored. You are looking right now at one of our affiliate helicopters taking pictures here in Benton, Missouri. You can see how inundated that town is.

[08:05:00] CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray is live in Valley Park, Missouri, for us. She has a look at the time and the forecast, and, boy, they have their eyes on all of those levees. Jennifer?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Christine, a chopper is flying directly above our head, that little corner in the bottom left screen is where I'm standing, and you can see that bridge right there. The water is almost touching it. That is actually Interstate 44. And the road that runs underneath it perpendicular, that is Highway 141. These are busy roads in the St. Louis area. This is disrupting travel, and not to mention the historic flooding that you are seeing across St. Louis.

We've actually hit the record here in Valley Park just in the last hour or so, hitting 40 feet. Flood stage is 16 feet, and we are now at 40. We're expected to go about three feet higher by midnight tonight when it is supposed to crest. And so that is why the city officials have been proactive, trying to get people to evacuate in the areas that are going to be impacted. The Meramec River runs just to the north of us, and it is speeding all of this way. It is going to meet up with the Mississippi River, so you're not only going to see this devastating flooding in the St. Louis area, we're also going to see flooding in the coming days in places like Little Rock, Memphis, Paducah, Kentucky, and then that is going to continue to flow downstream the Mississippi River.

This is rivaling the 1993 floods that everyone talks about which was devastating for this area. And so we are going to see a lot of the river gauges around this area even higher than they were in 93.

This has been a historic year for rainfall in the St. Louis area. They have received about 60 inches of rain this year. Normal is 40. They're 21 inches above normal. They have received 10 or 11 of those inches in December alone. So much rainwater, nowhere for it to go. It flows into the streams, into the rivers. A lot of the major rivers, as we know, flow right into the Mississippi and all meet here around the St. Louis area, and that is where you are getting this major flooding.

The good news is it looks like we are going to stay dry for the short- term so these rivers can crest and then they will slowly recede. This is very different from flash flooding where we see the waters come up very quickly and then go away quickly. John, the waters are going to rise and then slowly fall around the Mississippi River.

BERMAN: Several more hours of concern until tonight, tomorrow tonight in St. Louis, so much concern in that region. Jennifer Gray, thanks so much.

Just a short time ago I spoke with the governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, about the outlook for his state. He says that everything possible is being done to prevent a catastrophe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIXON: We'll be in Pacific today. You are right on in one of the real areas of concern. We're going to see at Valley Park and Eureka, the two gauges above and below there, the Meramec is going to be four feet over its historic level and still rising now. That doesn't come until sometime tomorrow.

BERMAN: Four feet above the historic level in Pacific. We're talking about 13 feet above flood levels in St. Louis, expected to crest there tomorrow. How concerned are you?

NIXON: You know, 13 feet above flood level is one thing. The four feet above all time historic level puts us in a situation where we're evacuating folks. That's why I called the National Guard yesterday. That's why we have a state of emergency. That's why we work with the Red Cross and others. It's cold out there too. This is not a time when this is a summer flood. This is dangerous. We've got water movement. We've already had 13 deaths in the state. So we are on -- you know, with guard members arriving literally as dawn hits and a number of places around the state we're very concerned about how this next 35 hours may go.

BERMAN: I heard in your voice in the news conferences yesterday, I sense it this morning. Are you getting the response you field you need given the level of the threat right now?

NIXON: We've had to throw a lot of resources at it, and we're working to enhance those local levels. I know down in Mississippi you've got a 30 mile levee that looks as if you're going to see historic highs there too which puts an industrial park and thousands of jobs in play. And also you look at the Mississippi River where it's going to be two feet higher than it was in the 93 flood. So we've got a wide range we're fighting from the boot heel all up to St. Louis and west. We've also got Highway 44 closed, which takes about 100,000 vehicles a day on a major trucking route, closed both ways and a 40 mile detail. So there is a lot of area to what's going on. We're trying to focus our attention on. One of the reasons I called up the National Guard is to make sure we had the forces necessary to deal with this challenge.

BERMAN: A 10 mile stretch of I-44, as you said, 100,000 people travel that every day. This will affect millions of people across the country, including in your state.

[08:10:00] Is there one area or one thing you are most concerned about this morning, governor?

NIXON: Two things, really. First of all, don't drive into moving water. The 12 deaths we have had are ones in which folks drove into moving water and perished. Number two is we're going to make sure the people are safe in that St. Louis area there. You have Pacific, Eureka, Valley Park, areas where is the water is rising high, and these are highly populated areas. So setting up shelters at places like Francis senior high school and places like that so that folks that do have to leave their homes, we're going to make sure that they are warm and safe.

Bottom line is, we're going to make sure that if they do have to leave their homes they're going to be safe. We're bringing in patrols to make sure we keep security tight and make sure that the only people coming in and out are either people working to fight the flood or folks who live there.

BERMAN: Governor, we keep tossing around the term "historic," and this is being compared to what happened there in 1993. You know what happened in 1993. It was devastating. So this comparison should be alarming to a lot of people.

NIXON: The levels of water, that is why you hear in my voice and you hear in the voice of other people around, we've never seen water this high. When it goes above record not by an inch but by two or three feet, you really don't know exactly how far that water is going to go.

But the good sign of this is we have a number of dry days, cold days but dry days. So we should get crests sometime late tomorrow night and then be on our way to recovery. If we can get it going down then we'll be over that hump. And we still today and all the way tonight before we get even near crest.

CUOMO: You're talking about 40 hours from now before this starts to recede. What will you be doing over the next 40 hours to monitor the situation?

NIXON: We'll be obviously checking in with state emergency management folks, making sure we got the guard folks working the right place, working water rescues, where necessary. Our water patrol and highway patrol working together. Our helicopters in the air flying to make sure we see what's going on, and in areas where levees are being worked, we're providing transportation and trucks to make sure if those levees have to be shored up, that they will. We're working with the Red Cross to make sure there are warming shelters, but also warning people if you get in an evacuation to get out of there and get to a safe place because this water is still coming up.

BERMAN: What has been you communication with federal authorities so far? Have you spoken to the president?

NIXON: I have not talked to the president. We focused all the local folks, whether the corps of engineers or other federal agencies that are on the ground with us, we're in the middle of a flood fight and certainly I'd be glad to talk to the federal folks. They have been shoulder to shoulder with us pitching sandbags. And they were helping us reshoot with making sure that we knew the height of all the levees. The 30 miles levee, you have to have it within a few inches, where you're going to shore it up is important. So they have been good partners on the ground. That's our biggest focus right now. We'll worry about the dollars that happen after this and the recovery later on, but right now we're in a massive flood fight across a wide swath of my state.

BERMAN: A flood fight, and it is going to be a brutal one until midnight tomorrow night. Any last message you want to give to the people of Missouri?

NIXON: Two things. It's 28 degrees out there right now, so it's going to be cold. So if you're out, make sure you're dressed for it. Number two, don't drive into water. And number three, we're going to make sure the flood fights we can win, we win, but if we can't we're going to get people out. But just because we get people out, just because the water is going down doesn't mean we're leaving. We're going to be there to rebuild all of these areas to make sure they are back. It is an important part of our state to provide a great level of concentration to the population as well as great workers. I'm from some of these areas, so we'll be out there in it with folks today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: You heard Governor Jay Nixon calling it a flood fight, a fight they will be in until tomorrow at midnight. That is when they expect the Mississippi to crest in downtown St. Louis, so a long way to go.

ROMANS: You talk about many feet above 1993 levels. It is terrifying. These are communities are going to take a long time go goat this water out of the way, and a strange time of year this time of the year to have so much flooding like this.

PEREIRA: And a difficult time too considering so many people are on the roads. We've been hearing about road closures. To pass this along, we were told by the Department of Transportation that I-70 is open. It is one of the few thoroughfares that is going to remain open at least as long as the waters stay back from it because a lot of those arteries are closed.

We want to thank our affiliate KTVI for the live aerials we were just showing. We should just point out the colonel from the Army Corps of Engineers is going to join us this hour and we're going to get a sense of the levees and how they are holding, because that is paramount to the situation there.

We'll get back to our top news in a moment, but back to another story that has been concerning us, the so called "affluenza" teen returning to the U.S. today along with his mother. Ethan Couch and his mother were arrested Monday in Mexico. The Couches had been fugitives for three weeks after violating his probation sentence for killing four people while driving drunk.

[08:15:01] Ed Lavandera is following all the developments for us. He's live in Dallas.

And, boy, this story keeps developing by the day.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and the frustration and anger towards these two has been growing as well. Ethan Couch and his mother Tonya Couch, as you mentioned, we're told expected to arrive back in the United States at some point today. And obviously, they will come back to a mess of troubles for themselves.

Ethan Couch however, for those wondering, technically hasn't committed a new crime. He's simply violated the terms of his probation. Because of that he could be sent to jail until he turns 19, which is in April of 11th I believe was the date. The maximum he could actually face in jail is 120 days.

Right now, what prosecutors are trying to do is move his case from the juvenile system into the adult system and prosecutors want to do that because they feel that they can be much tougher on him if there are other violations of his probation. If he is transferred into the adult system and he violates his probation again, he could face the maximum sentence of up to 40 years in prison.

As far as Tonya Couch, Ethan's mother, she also faces legal troubles herself. She faces -- will be arrested and charged with interfering with the apprehension of a juvenile. That is a felony charge that could make her face between two and 10 years in prison.

So, a great deal of legal trouble complicated for the Couch family even more so than they had already found themselves in. And investigators and authorities here in Texas also still trying to piece together the timeline of how the Couches moved from the Fort Worth, Texas area, all the way to Puerto Vallarta. A Mexican immigration official tells they crossed in Tijuana just south of San Diego and drove into Puerto Vallarta where they were found by Ethan Couch's use of his cell phone on Monday afternoon -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thanks for that, Ed Lavandera for us this morning.

We're following breaking news this morning.

Four Secret Service agents rushed to the hospital after a fatal head on crash in New Hampshire. Now, the agents suffered serious non-life threatening injuries. Police say the car they were in collided with another vehicle that crossed over a double yellow line Tuesday night. The driver of that car identified by local media as 45-year-old Bruce Danforth died at the seasons. His two passengers hospitalized. We'll bring you any new development as they come in.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Close call between a U.S. Navy warship and Iranian rockets. One rocket came within 1,500 yards of the USS Harry Truman at the Strait of Hormuz. It happened Saturday. Iran's Revolutionary Guard conducting a live fire exercise in the area at the time. U.S. military officials called the incident unnecessarily provocative and unsafe.

PEREIRA: One of the stars of the hit TV show "Glee" has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography. Los Angeles police took Mark Salling into custody on Tuesday being held on $20,000 bail. He played Puck on the TV Show "Glee". That series ended earlier this year.

BERMAN: All right. Coming up, we have our eye right now on Missouri. You are looking at live pictures right now. That's dry, one of the few areas in that region dry right now.

Flood waters rising around the region. There you see right there water flowing. The river not expected to crest until midnight tomorrow. The very latest on the threat coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:38] BERMAN: When the so-called "affluenza" teen Ethan Couch was arrested near Puerto Vallarta, he had a dark hair, he had a beard, he seemed to be trying to disguise himself from authorities there. This all happened after a video surface showing Couch playing beer pong or nearby a beer pong game.

His probation officer was unable to reach him, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Now, Couch faces charges for violating his provision and his mother could be charged with preventing her son's apprehension, was carrying a possible 10 year prison sentence.

Joining us to discuss the details, Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson.

And, of course, the big news, Sheriff, is that Ethan Couch and his mother due back in Texas today. What details can you give us about their arrival? What time? What will the process be?

SHERIFF DEE ANDERSON, TARRANT COUNTY, TEXAS: The U.S. Marshals will bring them back into the country and here into our custody. For security reasons, we don't talk about how or when that is going to occur. We expect them within the next 24 to 48 hours to be brought back.

The transport is completely in the hands of the marshal service and they have several ways they can accomplish that. So, we won't be talking publicly about that. But we will certainly let everyone know when we have them back here in custody.

BERMAN: When you have them in custody, are they both going behind bars immediately?

ANDERSON: That is true. Ethan will be put back in the juvenile facility there to be held for the detention hearing and we have a warrant for Tonya Couch's arrest that will be served. As soon as her feet hit U.S. soil, we will serve the arrest warrant on her and she is charged with hindering and apprehension which is a second third-degree felony here in Texas. So, she will also be arrested and have to be arraigned before a judge here in Tarrant when we bring her to our jail.

BERMAN: And, Sheriff, you have been involved with this case for years now. A lot longer than I know you wish. And, frankly, you have been upset about the way this case had been handled through the years through the legal system.

And now, the latest twist, is even after violating probation, even after going on the run, going into hiding, disguising himself in Mexico for weeks, it may be that Ethan Couch might face nothing more than 120 days maximum behind bars. That's got to be infuriating.

ANDERSON: It is. And that's just welcome to juvenile law in Texas. You know, it is designed obviously in most cases for juveniles to be rehabilitated and to think of the well-being of the child. And it doesn't really take into account a terrible crime like was committed here with the loss of life of four innocent people.

So, the way the law is written and designed which obviously we have no control over, he will be put back into the juvenile system. He can be remanded back into the adult probation system, which is what we're hoping for. But you are right, if that happens the judge with only order 120 days of jail time. But then if that occurs he'll be put on a far more intense adult probation system, which will be far different than what he faces as juvenile.

And, frankly, as I said two years ago, I don't think he's last long under that amount of scrutiny unless he completely changes his ways and his thought process, because to this point, and again they have thumbed their nose at law enforcement and left the country.

[08:25:02] He doesn't believe the rules apply to him and doesn't believe the laws apply to him. So, unless he changes that, again I say it, we haven't seen the last of him in our legal system here.

BERMAN: You know, we are finding new details out how they left the country. There is word this morning, they have made some kind of going away party themselves, throwing a party before they went on the run. What can you tell us about that?

ANDERSON: During our investigation we received some -- talk to some people who said there was a gathering, which was likened to -- akin to a going away party before they fled the country.

Again, it just to me shows the arrogance of the family that they don't believe the law applies. They thumb their nose at authority again and hold a party, if you will, before they decide to leave the country and bid everyone farewell on their -- like they were leaving on a cruise or something before they left the country.

BERMAN: At this point, are you convinced it is just the two of them Ethan and Tonya who were involved with this? The reason I'm asking is, if they throw a going away party for themselves, it seems like other people knew they were about to go on the run.

ANDERSON: You know, and that is very difficult for us to prove that people there knew exactly what was going on. You know, I don't know at this point if anyone else was involved. We certainly are investigating that possibility.

The investigation is certainly not over. We're looking at every aspect that we can. It's been a very detailed, large, multi-state multi country now investigation.

So, we've got a lot of work still to do on it. I'm not ruling out the possibility. But I will say at this point, we don't have any indication that anyone else assisted them in a real substantial way. We haven't been able to uncover any information about that if it occurred. But we're still looking and we're still investigating. We're still talking to people.

So, more things could develop in the future.

BERMAN: Do you have any estimate how much money has been spent over the last month in the search of these two?

ANDERSON: Oh, I couldn't even estimate when you look at all of the agencies involved. Our agency, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, you know, the Marshals deserve a tremendous amount of credit in this. They basically uncap everything they had, as much manpower as they needed, as much as money they needed to spend. It would be impossible to calculate because you have so many agencies involved.

I can tell you, it's been a huge expense for our taxpayers here alone, and sadly money that didn't ever need to be spent. Had justice been served two years ago, we wouldn't have gone through this?

BERMAN: And lastly, what do you want to see happen to the mother here?

ANDERSON: I hope she's prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and I would love to see her do some prison time. The maximum sentence she can receive in this case is 10 years in prison. I'd love to see that as the sentence. We all know that people sentenced to 10 years don't do 10 years, but I love to see her do some actual prison time and maybe, just maybe they would understand that they too are accountable and answerable to the laws here in Texas.

BERMAN: Sheriff Dee Anderson, thanks so much for being with us. We know this has been an issue for you some time.

Michaela?

PEREIRA: All right. Back to our top story, John, we're showing you live pictures of the historic flood in the Midwest. We are seeing some of the crews out there on the water. Whether they are having to do swift water rescues, we're not sure. Our affiliate KTVI is providing these aerial for us right here.

You can see how much water and how deep it is in this area. They are saying that this is going to surpass the Great Flood of 1993. They haven't seen this much water in that area since then.

We're going to have much more. We'll talk to the Army Corps of Engineers, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)