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Death Toll Rises in Florida after Storm; Context of Forecasts as Florida Officials Defend Delayed Order; Ukraine Offers U.S. Targeting Oversight in Bid for New Rockets; Ukraine Retakes City, Defying Putin's Land Grab; Supreme Court Begins Term with New Justice, Pivotal Cases; Court: Alabama Can Kill Inmate with Method from Botched Execution. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 03, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Desperation and heartache this morning in Florida. It is Monday, October 3. I'm Brianna Keilar with Alex Marquardt this hour. Great to have you.

[05:59:38]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: Thanks for having me back.

KEILAR: John Berman is off this morning. We begin with the unprecedented search for survivors and the rising death toll in Florida as the state reels from the dangerous floods and destruction left in Hurricane Ian's wake.

Officials say Ian has killed at least 76 people in Florida after the monster storm barreled through the state, turning streets into rivers, and decimating coastal towns.

Governor Ron DeSantis says more than 1,600 rescues have been made since the storm struck. This left some communities unrecognizable, littered with wrecked homes, as well as boats, as you saw there. More than 628,000 customers are without clean tap water.

More than 627,000 customers are still without power. And officials warn that the extent of the death and destruction left by Ian may only just be coming to light.

MARQUARDT: Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is defending officials in Lee County, and that's where more than half of the storm- related deaths have been announced. They're now facing criticism for issuing evacuation orders a day later than the counties that neighbor the county.

Here's what Ron DeSantis told CNN's Nadia Romero. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADIA ROMERO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Is that one of the things you'll be reviewing once we get out of the aftermath, people get their power back on, looking at those evacuation orders?

Because even Lee County, if they would have followed their own evacuation orders, from what we reviewed, they should have had a mandatory evacuation order sooner.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Well, but you know, the issue is also that they were a lot of, you know -- they informed people, and most people did not want to do it. That's just -- that's just the reality. You're in a situation, are you going to grab somebody out of their home that doesn't want to? I don't think that's the appropriate use of government. I mean, I think that that takes it a little too far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Nadia Romero joins us now live from Sarasota this morning. And so Nadia, this death toll, as we mentioned, stands at 76, but it is expected to rise.

ROMERO: It is expected to rise as those search-and-rescue crews go door to door and try to figure out just how many people were truly impacted by the storm.

You know, Alex, the governor told me the same thing we heard from Lee County officials, that Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach was not in the cone of Hurricane Ian, but we know the storm surge was the most important part of warning people about this storm.

And right now, Lee County makes up the majority of those storm-related deaths.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMERO (voice-over): Parts of Florida still dealing with devastating flooding following Hurricane Ian. And where that water has receded, destruction left behind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water was actually half way to the front door, the waves crashing against the house.

ROMERO (voice-over): This man took us inside his Bermuda Springs home, which is now gutted because of Ian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is from the beach.

ROMERO (voice-over): And this woman showed CNN her now mud-filled home in Iona, a home she said her dad was helping remodel.

PATTY MCIVER, IONA, FLORIDA RESIDENT: Just got a brand-new like sink. All this was retiled, new vanity.

ROMERO (voice-over): Both those homes in Lee County, one of the hardest hit areas.

At least 76 deaths in Florida are connected to Hurricane Ian and at least 42 of those deaths are in Lee County alone. Now Lee County and state officials are facing questions about why residents there weren't told to evacuate until Tuesday morning, a day after the neighboring counties.

MAYOR KEVIN ANDERSON, FORT MYERS, FLORIDA: Warnings for hurricane season start in June, so there's a degree of personal responsibility here. I think the county acted appropriately.

DESANTIS: They delivered the message to people. They had shelters open. Everybody had adequate opportunity to at least get to a shelter within the county, but a lot of residents did not want to do that.

ROMERO (voice-over): Florida Governor Ron DeSantis echoed Lee County officials on Sunday, saying even after the evacuation orders were issued, many people chose to stay put.

DESANTIS: It's easy to second guess them, but they were ready the whole time. They informed people, and most people did not want to do it. I mean, that's just -- that's just the reality.

ROMERO (voice-over): The governor made those comments while visiting another hard-hit area, Arcadia, where floodwater levels remain high. The U.S. Army is working to get food, water and other necessities to the people in this area.

CAPTAIN RYAN SULLIVAN, U.S. ARMY: I was born and raised in Tampa, to see, you know, fellow Floridians needing help. It's -- that's the reason we're here is to help them.

ROMERO (voice-over): And the National Guard, Coast Guard and firefighters are landing helicopters on barrier islands to perform search-and-rescue missions.

DANA SOUZA, SANIBEL CITY MANAGER: Our situation is that we're still in the search-and-rescue mode and trying to access all parts of the island.

ROMERO (voice-over): So far, there's been more than 1,600 rescues in Florida. Also, more than 42,000 linemen are working to restore power across the state.

Overnight, around 670,000 customers were still without power. Most of the outages are in Lee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Collier, Volusia and Manatee counties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can we get some help down here? You know, would that be too much to ask? I mean, look around here. There's nothing. We have no power, no phone service, nothing. So we'd just like a little help, get a little help to get my home back in shape, because I have nowhere to go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMERO (on camera): For many people, recovery will begin when the lights turn back on. And so we're standing here at the Sarasota County Fairgrounds.

This is the main hub for power crews that have come from all across the country. They are leaving right now to spread out all across Florida.

Florida crews and some people came from New York state, as far away from New York state. I spoke with a lineman from Ohio, who told me, "You know what? It looks like we're going to be here for quite a while" -- Alex

MARQUARDT: Yes. People pouring in to help. Such heart-breaking scenes. Nadia Romero, thank you so much for all your terrific reporting in a very, very difficult environment.

KEILAR: In the meantime, the Lee County sheriff is pointing to the shifting forecast ahead of Hurricane Ian for any delay in getting those mandatory evacuation orders issued.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARMINE MARCENO, LEE COUNTY SHERIFF: We weren't even in the projected path or cone. OK? So I'm confident that we gave everything to this storm that we should have at the right time.

DESANTIS: And I think part of it was so much attention was paid to Tampa that I think a lot of them thought they wouldn't get the worse of it. So they -- you know, but they did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's bring in meteorologist Chad Myers for some context here. You know, you talk to people from Tampa. I talked to one friend from Tampa who said they got a notice that their house would be under water. and they ended up not even without power. There was this shift easterly of the storm.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The models did not agree. Early on, the models really did a horrible job.

European model over here, the American model over here. So it was a widespread in the computer model thought process.

But that does not change the cone. And I don't think anybody really understands this. The cone is where the hurricane should fall at a certain amount of time, whether it's 24 hours, 42 hours, 72 hours.

From the error that is normal for this time. But only two-thirds of the storms will fall into that cone. This is not a perfect 100 percent we're going to catch everything kind of cone. That's not meant to do that. It's meant to catch two-thirds.

So at 72 hours out, the cone, it doesn't matter what the models are doing. It doesn't matter. The cone is 115 miles both ways of the center.

But here's Friday. Five days before landfall. And there is landfall, that little orange dot. Keep your eye on that dot.

Here's the forecast on Saturday. Same dot. Here's the forecast on Sunday. Same dot. Missing, yes, missing Fort Myers in the cone but remember the cone only covers two-thirds. Right through here, another third here, another third here.

So in the technicality of it, even though it was right on the line, you have to understand that this is the worst part of the storm. Here's Monday. Still, there's your orange dot right there in the

middle. Hurricane Center did an awesome job. They really didn't drop the ball on this.

And you always have to remember where the worst part of the storm is, and that's where Fort Myers and Lee County was. They were on the right side, the dirty side, the forward moving side, the storm surge side, where Tampa had 8-foot negative surge. Fort Myers, Lee County did not.

KEILAR: They certainly didn't, and they paid a terrible cost.

Chad Myers, thank you for that context.

I want to turn now to the war in Ukraine. Great to have you for this this morning, Alex, because you actually have some new reporting this morning about the lengths Kyiv is going to in order to convince the U.S., or at least trying to, to send these new longer-range rockets to go with their systems here.

What is it that Ukraine wants, and how is the Biden administration responding?

MARQUARDT: So what we've heard for months is Ukraine saying we want more weapons. We want bigger and more advanced weapons. And the U.S. has been providing more and more advanced weapons.

One of the big things that is at the top of the Ukrainian wish list right now is a long-range rocket called ATACMS. It's about four times the range of the current longest-range rocket that the U.S. has been giving that is fired from the system that we all know now quite well, the HIMARS.

And this flies about 200 miles. And the Ukrainians are saying, listen, we know that you're afraid of giving us this rocket, so what we're going to do is we're going to offer you incredible transparency and give you the exact list of all the targets that we want to hit, because what you're giving us right now does not reach everything. That there are Russian targets in the Eastern and Southern part of the country, in Crimea that we need to be able to hit.

Now the fear here on the American side is that Ukraine could use this long-range rocket to hit inside Russia. And perhaps the bigger fear is that Russia will really see this as a provocation. And Russia has, in fact, said exactly that. That if this long-range rocket is provided to the Ukrainians, that a red line will be crossed, and that the U.S. will be seen as a party to this conflict.

So Ukraine is saying, We're not going to hit Russia with this rocket, we promise. And so essentially, they're offering the U.S. veto power over the ability to strike inside Russia.

But what the U.S. is really concerned about is, as they have been for quite some time, escalating this conflict by giving more weaponry to the Ukrainians and being seen as having a greater role in the targeting of Russian forces.

KEILAR: Even that said, over time the U.S. has gone further and further with what it is willing to give Ukraine.

[06:10:07]

Is there a possibility that they could move in this direction? And how difficult of a position would that put the U.S. in, to actually be overseeing targets?

MARQUARDT: Well, they certainly don't want to be seen as -- as approving Russian targets. We saw this several months ago when the Moskva, the flag ship, Russian ship in the Black Sea was hit.

The U.S. said, yes, we confirmed that it was Moskva, but we certainly didn't give them the targeting information.

So over the past seven months of this war, the weaponry has evolved. Remember, in the very beginning, we were talking about Javelins and Stingers to take out tanks.

And then, as the battle evolved, the U.S. started providing long-range artillery, and then these HIMARS systems that can hit some 50 miles away.

But the U.S. has been very conscious of not wanting to give weaponry that can -- that can reach deep inside Russia. So the U.S. certainly not ruling it out. And in my conversations with the U.S. officials, they say, Yes, we could give these long-range ATACMS down the line.

But for now, the Pentagon has been quite clear that what they've -- what the U.S. has been giving Ukraine is enough for their purposes.

The bottom line here, Brianna, is that in -- in order to get these weapons, Ukraine is essentially opening up the books, saying this is what we want to hit.

And we want to be completely honest with you so that you are comfortable giving us these long-range rockets. So far, the U.S. is not comfortable.

KEILAR: Such an important development to keep an eye on. Great reporting, Alex. Thank you so much.

And so while Kyiv is making some high-ticket asks for down the road, obviously, here in the Ukrainian army made another substantial gain over the weekend.

It retook the Eastern city of Lyman just hours after Russia illegally claimed it as part of its sham referenda. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and his team were on the ground there just moments after the Ukrainian president confirmed Russia had moved out. Nick, give us the latest.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, Brianna, we're the first television crew into Lyman to see the devastation caused by this onslaught back and forth.

But also, see how ghostly empty it was and hear from locals the possibility that some Russian troops did, in fact, manage an orderly withdrawal roughly at about the same time that their commander in chief, Russian President Vladimir Putin, was standing on a stage and rallying people towards victory, signing pieces of paper declaring where I'm standing, in Lyman, forced it to be part of Russian territory. An extraordinary paradox there.

It goes to the heart, perhaps, as to why this is such a strategic defeat for Russia. Here's what we saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH (voice-over): It may not look like much, but this is where Putin's defeat in Donetsk began. A prize from the last century perhaps, but trains and tracks are still how Russia wages war today.

WALSH: Lyman, what's left of it, now freed of Russia. This is what it was all about, the central railway hub here, now in Ukrainian hands and devastated by the fighting.

And this was such a seminal part of Russia's occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk. The concern for Moscow is the knock-on effect this is going to have for their forces all the way to the Russian border.

WALSH (voice-over): On the town's edges, we saw no sign of the hundreds of Russian prisoners or dead that had been expected to follow Moscow's strategic defeat here. Nor inside it either.

Perhaps they have already been taken away. Instead, utter silence. Only local bicycles on the street. Several residents told us the Russians actually left in large numbers on Friday.

TANYA, LYMAN RESIDENT (through translator): They left in the night in the day people said. I didn't see it myself, but they say they sat on their APCs, and their bags were falling off as they drove. They ran like this.

WALSH (voice-over): It would be remarkable timing, that Russia fled Lyman in the very same hours that Putin was signing papers, declaring here Russian territory, and holding a rally on Red Square.

A similar story in the local administration, where the only signs of Russia left are burned flags. "They ran away without saying a word to anybody," he says. "It was bad. No work, no gas, no power, nothing. The shops didn't work."

WALSH: It truly feels as if there is nobody left. A ghostly silence here, apart from occasional shelling, and small arms fire.

And it is, so much of this town, utterly destroyed. So many locals, we're told, leaving when the Ukrainian push towards it began. But now it's just this utter ghostliness, in a place that's such a strategic defeat for Russia.

WALSH (voice-over): Gunfire in the distance. They're nervous some Russians may be left.

Outside what's left of the court, the constant change in violence is too much for some. Her husband just arrested.

[06:15:0]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: You want the truth? You put on a hat, you take off a hat. You put on a hat, you take off a hat. What life is this? I am 72 years old. I'm like a rat in a basement, crawling out of the basement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: You will not show this: the truth. Yesterday, Ukraine came, checked documents on a checkpoint --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: And took my husband. A man disappeared from the police station. One hat, another hat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: People are suffering. One beats us, another beats us. And we cry.

WALSH (voice-over): The Ukrainian troops we did see had already stopped celebrating. There is little time. They're on the move again.

Another Russian target further east, Kreminna in their sights. And those left in Lyman, a town cursed to have these bars of rusting steel running through it, are gathering the ruins to burn for fuel, with winter ahead.

Left in the wake of Russia's collapse here, a town they took weeks to occupy, and only hours to leave.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Now, the staggering military defeat that's seeing a knock-on effect already towards Russia's borders, as you heard there. But there's political consequences, too. Open bickering amongst Russia's elite; criticism in the Russian state media, even.

And even now, remarkable comments from the Kremlin spokesperson saying that they are still discussing with the local population through the areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that they occupy, exactly how much of those areas, in their minds, are now Russian territory. Utter disarray, frankly, from their political standpoint and the military one, too.

And also suggestions of Ukrainian progress on the Southern front, as well. Startling days ahead, and just behind us here -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Certainly area. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you for that report.

MARQUARDT: Terrific reporting. The presidential race in Brazil not over. People waited for hours in

line to cast their ballots on Sunday, but the two candidates each failed to win more than 50 percent of the vote. And as a result they will face off again in a runoff election. That's later this month.

CNN's Shasta Darlington has more from Sao Paolo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Shasta Darlington in Sao Paolo. Left-wing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came out ahead in Brazil's election on Sunday but failed to cross that 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff.

That means he'll be facing off against his main rival, the incumbent right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a second round of voting on October 30.

It also means Brazilians will have to face another month of the most polarizing electoral race in recent history, marred by political violence and Bolsonaro's attacks on democratic institutions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: The Supreme Court is kicking off a new term in just a few hours. A preview of the historic cases on the docket. That's coming up, ahead.

KEILAR: Plus, the new British government now walking back a tax cut proposal amid major market turbulence.

And an investigation is under way after a soccer match in Indonesia ends in tear gas and more than 100 deaths.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:44]

KEILAR: This morning the U.S. Supreme Court begins its historic term with a new member and some pivotal cases. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman to sit on the high court, will hear her first oral arguments in a more normal atmosphere than the court has seen in years, with the public now able to attend and barricades preventing protestors taken down.

CNN's Ariane de Vogue is joining us now, live from the Supreme Court. Ariane, what will be the top priority as this new term begins?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The justices are back at it now with this new member, Justice Jackson, the first black woman, and right away now, she's going to have to deal with cases that have to deal with the issue of race.

There's a big Voting Rights Act case. That's section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That's the part of the law that bars rules that discriminate on the basis of race.

The case has to do with maps out of Alabama. A lower court invalidating the maps, saying that they diluted black voting power. But now Alabama has come to this Supreme Court.

And supporters of voting rights, they're worried, because this court back in 2013, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, gutted a separate section of the law.

So now, that is at issue. And they're worried that they're going to take aim now at Section 2.

MARQUARDT: And Ariane, among the major cases that the Supreme Court is going to be hearing early on in this term is that challenge to affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. What do we expect there?

DE VOGUE: Absolutely. Another case having to do with race.

Because court precedent allows colleges and universities to take race into consideration as one factor in admissions. But now a conservative group is looking at the programs at Harvard, University of North Carolina, and it says it's asking the Supreme Court to overturn that precedent, to say that race shouldn't be considered at all.

Again, this conservative court could be in the position of overturning precedent like it did last term.

There's also a couple of big cases having to do with LGBTQ rights, another voting rights case. It's a really significant term.

It comes as polls, public opinion of the court is plummeting. And it's all going to come for the very first term of Justice Jackson, a really significant docket.

[06:25:12]

KEILAR: Yes. Big year ahead. Ariane, thank you so much.

DE VOGUE: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: And this morning, the state of Alabama is working to reschedule the execution of a convicted murderer that the Supreme Court had cleared to proceed.

Alan Eugene Miller was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection after the high court's ruling. That was in September. But it was halted at the very last minute.

Joining us now is CNN's Alexandra Field.

Alexandra, what can you tell us about that ruling by the Supreme Court in this Miller case?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Look, the Supreme Court's ruling gave the green light to Alabama

officials to put Alan Eugene Miller to death by lethal injection. Miller had been convicted of killing three of his coworkers.

As soon as that SCOTUS decision came down, officials moved to implement the execution proceedings. But the execution warrant was set to expire midnight that night. They say they weren't able to complete the protocols before the warrant would have expired, so they had to stop.

Now, AL.com reports that officials actually had trouble finding Miller's vein.

The execution will move forward with a new warrant in place, but this does mark the end of the legal battle for Miller, who had argued that he should be permitted to die by nitrogen hypoxia instead of lethal injection.

KEILAR: And what can you tell us about the back and forth between Miller and the state over this nitrogen hypoxia?

FIELD: Yes, this had been the basis for weeks of this legal challenge. Miller says that he filed paperwork with the state, saying that he wanted to die by nitrogen hypoxia. State officials say they have no record of that paperwork.

At issue here, though, is the fact that, while Alabama did authorize that kind of execution back in 2018, there's never been a nitrogen hypoxia execution actually carried out in Alabama or the entire U.S.

Officials in Alabama say they aren't prepared yet to implement that protocol, that extensive training would still be needed. There is a deep divide over this method of execution, with proponents of it saying that it could be easier and more humane. Opponents of it saying that it is still untested, unproven and just too soon -- Brianna.

MARQUARDT: Yes. A very controversial case. Alexandra Field in New York, thank you very much for that reporting.

Now, a major reversal from the new British government this morning as it grapples with turbulence in the market. How it affects the United States.

KEILAR: And nine foreign nationals have been detained during protests in Iran. How Iranian leaders are responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]