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CNN Saturday Morning News

Atlanta Storm Damage

Aired March 15, 2008 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounded like a train coming through, it only lasted for about, like, 15 seconds and then it was like gone. All we heard was the wind and it was shaking and the trees were coming down and the windows, like, exploded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN, ANCHOR: Yes. Look at the damage. We're going to give you some shots of downtown Atlanta where a tornado ripped through the city last night. Good morning everybody, I'm Betty Nguyen at the CNN Center which has sustained some major damage from the storm. Part of the roof that covers the CNN Center atrium has just blown away. Water has in fact flooded portions of the building and just a few miles to the east, some 20 homes flattened in one Atlanta neighborhood. We'll take you there live as search and rescue efforts are happening at this hour.

As you can see, we're giving you a live look at downtown Atlanta. Look at this high rise building right there, you can see the windows have been blown out of that building. And that is one of many. I understand that at the Omni Hotel which is just adjacent to the CNN Center, there have been dozens of windows that were blown out there. In fact, they had to evacuate people staying in those rooms to an exhibition hall to get them out of harm's way as that tornado blew through overnight.

Let's get to this. My partner T.J. Holmes, he's at a damaged apartment building about a mile away from downtown. This is a historic district as well, T.J.?

T.J. HOLMES, CNN, ANCHOR: This is a historic district, an old cotton mill area where a cotton mill used to work here in Fulton. The Fulton Cotton Mills as it's called, some nine buildings really, some of them up to 100 years old. The area is on the national registry of historic sites and this building is a part of that. The one behind me. It's a building that had been converted into lofts, apartments where people had been living. Well, one section, we have a different vantage points for you on some of the video now that the daylight has hit and given us just a better perspective of exactly what happened here.

The top level has been pancaked. This is what we were told overnight by some of the fire officials. The area had pancaked the top area of the building, and you can see that is exactly what happened. We do know however according to officials that they don't believe anyone was living in that top area that was pancaked. That is certainly good news.

Also the word is, this entire complex, of course, this entire building, people were living in, but fire officials say they feel pretty confident after going through with search dogs and listening equipment that they don't believe anyone is trapped. They believe they have everyone out and accounted for. They went through that search already, but they do plan on going through another search now that the daylight is out an going through again just to make sure in fact that no one has been trapped in there and no one has been killed.

But it's amazing, some of the daylight is out now, and we're seeing some of the damage and it's amazing. We're only talking about 30 injuries. Of course, so many of those injuries considered minor strap scrapes and cuts and bruises. So it's amazing starting with the damage we saw last night. In downtown Atlanta, there were so many people who were down there last night for so many events but it's minimal in terms of the casualties, in terms of the injuries to people.

I am here in the Cabbage town area. This entire area, of course, I told you about this industrial complex and these nine buildings, but in the surrounding area is Cabbage town, which is made up of a lot of one-story homes and those homes are where a lot of these mill workers, when this place was operating as a mill, where they would live. Well, that area has been on the way back and being revitalized and now it's taking a hit. Our Cal Perry, as many people will recognize and know as who spent so much time covering Baghdad for us, and well he is now here covering another disaster zone, certainly a different type of disaster zone. Cal, glad to have you with us this morning and I'm sure, we have been talking all morning, it was dark for a while, but now a good daylight and the sun is coming out, are you seeing a whole new perspective now?

CAL PERRY, CNN, CORRESPONDENT: An entirely new perspective. And as you said, about 20 homes damaged here. And I can tell you I've done my own count just between the last live shots, and it's far more than 20 homes damaged. Were also seeing people coming out of their homes for the first time and some people w ho have evacuated, seeing their homes for the first time. And in fact with me right now, I have Megan and Michael who live just down the street here and as you can see, some of these houses completely destroyed by the trees. You guys had a bit of a lucky break, the trees sort of fell the other way, what was last night like?

MEGAN SMITH, CABBAGETOWN RESIDENT: We were just actually watching a movie and it was just really fast. I saw a flickering of lightning outside and then we opened the curtains and just saw, I mean, just so much wind. You know, we could hear the wind and it was just really, we could tell something --

MICHAEL CUESTA, CABBAGETOWN RESIDENT: Something different?

SMITH: Something different had happened.

CUESTA: It wasn't like a regular rainstorm and we heard a lot of things hitting the house like rocks and debris. We didn't know what to do because we have never experienced it. And we don't have a basement which is everybody is saying you should go to your basement. So, we just sort of run...

SMITH: The power went out and then we couldn't see anything and we just ran into the bathroom, which doesn't have any windows. And it was over really fast. Like, I don't know, like, ten, 15 seconds, you could you could tell the noise settled down and we went outside and just saw the tree.

CUESTA: There was a massive, massive tree, probably as big as these in front of our house, and we're blocked in. Our house luckily didn't sustain any damage outside of like fences and stuff. But we can't get our cars out. We have no power obviously.

SMITH: But these people, I mean, we're so fortunate because there's people here with trees right down the middle of their house and crushing their houses and their cars and I think the man who lives behind us had to go to the hospital.

CUESTA: Yes.

SMITH: So we're lucky but.

PERRY: In downtown Atlanta, would you ever expect a tornado? I mean that's what, you know, everybody was talking about. It's just so unexpected in downtown Atlanta.

SMITH: Yes. I don't think it's normal for them to come through this part of the city. So, now, we were definitely surprised and caught off guard. We didn't get any warning or anything.

CUESTA: We didn't know the extent of anything either because when we lost power, we lost our radios. We lost TV. We lost everything. So, we luckily found an old walkman and it also had a battery in it and we were able to hear that CNN got hit and the Georgia Dome got hit and we realized it wasn't just us. Walking around the neighborhood this morning is just unbelievable.

PERRY: You know, (General) said something interesting in our ad. Of course, he was involved in Katrina and he was saying communities really have to come together. What's next for Cabbagetow? I mean what's next for this community?

CUESTA: It's kind of a unique community here already because everybody's really, it's not like any place I've ever lived. It sort of reminds me of where I grew up, like everybody knows each other. Everybody's friendly with each other. It's not like...

SMITH: Everyone watch out for each other.

CUESTA: Yes. I lived in Roswell for, like, a year, and I didn't even know my neighbors. Here, I've only been here for about a year and you know everybody, everybody's friends. I mean, as soon as it happened, we were all outside and checking on each other, talking to each other.

SMITH: Yes, people were helping peach other each other find their dogs. And people are definitely concern about one another.

CUESTA: Yes, we'll ounce back. It will be fine.

SMITH: We'll try to help our neighbors and some people who were less fortunate and try to help them recover.

PERRY: I'm glad you guys made it through the night. T.J., you know, as you can hear quite plainly, you know, the community is coming together here and people are coming outside and looking at their neighbor's houses and just doing whatever they can. T.J..

HOLMES: Yes, and we're starting to see that, Cal, over in this area as well and certainly we'll see that throughout the day. The cleanup is going to be a big part of it. And then we see so many times in disasters, people get hit hard and they get hurt and it certainly brings communities together. In Cabbagetown, we certainly expect people to do that.

Back over here, we know there's debris all over the place in many of these neighborhoods and trees have come down. I mean, those trees falling on power lines. And you see power lines really literally just draped across streets, literally. And we saw that makes it down here to where we are and people have been warned. I mean, officials say over and over again, be careful of those power lines. Don't come down here. They tell people to stay away. Let's give you now an example.

We're going to show you some video of exactly why they tell people to be careful and stay away from those power lines. Take a look and take a listen.

(SHOW VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: That is what they're talking about. That happened literally about 20 feet, I'm still looking at it, about 20 feet from where me and some of our crew were standing in our satellite truck. And what that was just a live power line out here that was rubbing up against a tree and it triggered a series of explosions. We do see a crew, I could see them right now. They're over there working on that particular area.

But that is just an example of why they're telling people stay away, don't come down just yet, we know you want to see your homes and try to get the cleanup going, but it is dangerous here for a lot of reasons. And Betty, it certainly jolted us. If some of the crew wasn't quite awake this morning, they certainly are awake now. Because that literally happened just feet from us and even some of our crew members took off running when that happened. So, it's some scary things happening down here and it's dangerous and that's certainly an example of what we're talking about.

NGUYEN: Good thing you were far enough away from that. Definitely though, it speaks to the nature of the danger out there and why police are telling people to stay away from the dangerous areas. In fact they're saying stay away from all of downtown, because there not only is debris in the streets, downed power lines but glass is still falling from a lot of these buildings, which the windows were simply shattered as the tornado moved through.

We're looking at some live pictures now from our affiliate WGCL. As you can see, the damage is extensive and in many, many areas, there is a massive cleanup also going on in downtown. About a mile from where our Cal Perry was reporting, part of the roof of the Georgia Dome was ripped off during a college basketball game. The streets outside CNN Center, well they were just simply littered with debris. The building itself was damaged as well. The storm blew down a wall at the Georgia World Congress Center Convention, which is next door to us.

I want to show you this video. Hopefully, we bring it our very quickly. Not of the game, but of this broken water line that you'll be able to see shortly when we get that video up for you. It looks like pretty much a water fall, but it's not, it's a staircase where water is just flowing down. Obviously we're having some trouble getting that. The pictures that you we're just seeing were pictures of people being evacuated from the Omni Hotel which is next door to the CNN Center.

And here's a look at the CNN center itself, the atrium area where water was coming through this roof right there. You see portions of the roof are missing. And as one person described it to me a little bit earlier is it looked like it was simply a water fall falling through the top of the building here at CNN Center. It's really amazing that a lot of people weren't injured in all that was occurring here downtown as the tornado blew through.

We had thousands of spectators in for the SEC tournament over at the Georgia Dome. We had an Atlanta Hawks game at Phillips arena next door to CNN Center and of course people mill about here at the CNN Center. The picture that you're looking at right now is not of a waterfall, that's the staircase I was telling you about just moments ago, as a water line broke and just sent water just flowing down. So there's lots of damage in and around the downtown area. And we here at the CNN Center, we have not been spared by any means, not only are there a hole, several of them, several holes in the roof of the CNN atrium area.

But there is a portion of our newsroom. This is typically where our writers and our producers sit. As you can see, there is tarp covering all of the computers here because the ceiling has been leaking all morning long. Above us is the seventh floor and because there are parts of the roof that have been blown away in the storm, water has come just gushing down into the seventh floor above us. That caused the leak here into the newsroom and then our teams had to move into other areas. If we can pan over to the right.

You can see they're sitting in other portions of the newsroom that are working, that are away from the damage of the water, that has been flowing in throughout the morning and you know what, this is just the beginning of it as we're trying to clean up and gather things and put them back in place. Reynolds Wolf has been following the storm systems outside and Reynolds, I understand there are more severe storms headed into this area?

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN, METEOROLOGIST: Yes. We're going to be dealing with another round. And have you noticed, this has been kind of like a three-pronged attack by mother nature. We had the first round that came through at around 9:00 or so last night. That's when the fringe of this began to move through the Atlanta area. Let's go to the weather computer is we can and I'm going to zoom in on a couple of locations. You can see Atlanta right here, now to give you a more exact area of where some of the damages had really been.

We're going to take you right down to the Georgia Dome. This is the Georgia Dome right here. Then over here, you got the Phillips arena, CNN Center is over here and then you have, let's see, let's zoom in a little bit more. You've got Centennial Park right here. Beautiful area, certainly not beautiful this morning. Then you have the World of Coke and then you also have the, lets see, the Georgia Aquarium.

So many events were taking place last night right here in this area. And you had, of course, the round of severe weather which is just devastating, but it's the same time a miracle that we didn't have wider reports of injuries and fatalities. We had all these elements come together in a crowded downtown area, with the storm raging on through.

Now, we are getting a break, as Betty mentioned, a little bit of a break in the action right now. As you can see, not so much happening here in Atlanta. We got a lot of sunshine that is poking up. But that's really the last thing we want because we got a lot of moist air here at the surface in Atlanta, but you also have plenty of moist and warm air coming in from the Gulf of Mexico.

So, this area is going to percolate right over parts of north and Central Georgia. This is the elements that the storm that came through earlier this morning and this is our big concern that we see further out to the west. The reason why this area concerns us is because this area is going to be driving its way to the east. And as it does so, Atlanta could deal with another round of strong thunderstorms, possibly tornadic activity at a minimum, some strong wind gusts and that is enough to really cause further damage because you have to remember many buildings, many windows here are in a weakened state due to the strong storms we had last night and that we have had this morning. So, it doesn't take much. It's not going to take a whole lot of wind to really push some o these trees over some of these windows and just give them the final push to make them crumble. It's a mess, Betty, no question about it.

NGUYEN: Absolutely. And people are trying to hurry as best they can to get as much debris out of the way as they prepare for the second round. And you know, that doesn't even mention the fact that you have people with trees on top of their homes and others who just simply don't have a roof at this hour because of all the damage. And then, again, you got crews out there trying to secure those downed power lines because that is obviously a major concern as people are trying to mill about and, you know, recover from the storms that blew through. So, Reynolds, we'll stay on top of that next storm that is headed our way.

In the meantime though, I want to tell you about this, because fans watching a college basketball game at the Georgia Dome experienced the storm when that roof began to shake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're hearing some rumbling behind us. There's some concern. The building is rocking a bit. Not exactly sure why some of our --

NGUYEN: Well, he wasn't exactly sure why but we are now, in fact, part of that roof was ripped off, forcing officials to postpone last night's Georgia-Kentucky game. The teams will play at this afternoon at Georgia Tech Alexander Memorial Coliseum. The SUC championship game has been moved to tomorrow, actually from tomorrow to Monday. So lots of things are being switched around because of all the damage. And the downtown Atlanta area, in fact there was supposed to be a St. Patrick's Day parade that was going to be underway in about two hours from now, that has since been canceled.

So, we will keep you updated on all the developments in this. And we have so much more on the storms that barreled through the southeast. But we do want to tell you about some other stories because we are following other news today.

Mother nature also destroying the southwest. Parts of Texas, New Mexico they are on fire and what started as a peaceful protest turns to violence.

The Dalai Lama, Richard Gere and many more want you to know what is happening in Tibet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Now for a quick look at some of the other stories that we are watching for you this morning. Crews across Texas are fighting more than a dozen separate wildfires in different parts of the state. More than 5,000 acres have been burned. So far, there are no reports of any injuries.

Votes are being counted in Iran today. Early results point to a strong showing for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supporters in the parliamentary elections. Conservatives were also doing well. The United States has been dismissive of the elections because of the disqualification of many of the reformists candidates.

And we are seeing new pictures of violence in Tibet this morning. Look at this video. Freedom protests have been going on all week in Tibet. But just yesterday those protests turned violent. There have been in clashes with Chinese police. A Chinese ran news agency says at least ten people were killed but Tibetan exiles in India cite unconfirmed reports saying that at least 100 are dead.

We'll continue to follow that story for you. And this story as well, the storm, in fact the tornado that blew through downtown Atlanta. T.J. Holmes is live in one of the most damaged areas. And we want to tell you more about politics today. There's a lot going on. The next primary isn't until next month but the fight to win Pennsylvania is already on. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: All right, so looking ahead to Pennsylvania, the state's April 22nd presidential primary is the next big battleground for democrats and is also important for republican John McCain, but Hillary Clinton is the only one in the state today. She's taking part in a couple of St. Patrick's day parades and CNN deputy political director Paul Steinhauser joins us now from Pittsburgh this morning. So Hillary is the only one in the state today even though a lot of focus had been placed on Pennsylvania. She, in fact, got an important endorsement just yesterday, tell us about that.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN, DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. She sure did. Right here in Pittsburgh, she got the endorsement of the mayor of Pittsburgh. She has already, got the endorsement of the mayor of Philadelphia and of course, the governor here in this state of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell is a big Clinton supporter as well. So, she's got a lot of the top politicians in this state backing her. And this is a good state for Hillary Clinton if you look at the demographics, Betty. A lot of union voters, a lot of blue collar workers and a lot of older, senior citizens and elderly and a lot of catholic voters.

This is Hillary Clinton's base. And right here this morning, right behind you here, you can see a bunch of Clinton's supporters. She's going to march in the parade here in Pittsburgh this morning. And then she's going to go all the way to the other side of the state to Scranton, Pennsylvania and march in a parade there as well. Not just Clinton supporter here today though but I got some Obama supporters of tonight right as well. It's getting pretty loud here.

NGUYEN: Well, speaking of Obama, where is he today? Because I know lately there's been a lot of talk about a controversy that he's been caught up in dealing with race.

STEINHAUSER: Exactly. And today he's going to be in Indiana. Why Indiana? Indiana and North Carolina vote two weeks after Pennsylvania. And the Obama campaign thinks they can do very well in both those states. So Barack Obama today at a town hall and then a rally in the Indianapolis area. We're paying a lot of attention to those states as well as Pennsylvania, of course.

But as you mentioned, his former pastor at the church that he has attended for 20 years, the man's name is Jeremiah Wright. Some of his past sermons somewhat controversial comments about race, about saying Hillary Clinton has an advantage in the race for the White House because she is white and Obama is black. Barack Obama yesterday on "AC 360" condemning those comments and saying that Jeremiah Wright no longer serves in a ceremonial role in his campaign. So, once again race is becoming an issue in this race.

NGUYEN: That among many. All right, Paul Steinhauser joining us live. Thank you, Paul.

Well, you know, we have been following this breaking news all morning. This out of Atlanta where a tornado ripped through the downtown area. As you can see, there is extensive damage, not only in the heart of the city, but in nearby areas and we of course will follow every bit of it for you and bring you the latest right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Following breaking news of a tornado that blew through Atlanta overnight. Take a look at this live picture from our affiliate WSB. This is the top portion of what is left of the Cotton Mill Loft in historic Cabbagetown neighborhood which is just about a mile to the east of downtown Atlanta. That is just one example of the extensive damage that we have seen because of this tornado and that top portion as officials have been describing it fell down like a pancake, in a pancake formation, as it just collapsed and we're looking at some of the damage throughout the downtown area.

You know CNN employees were among the first to begin snapping pictures after last night's severe thunderstorm and then tornado that rolled through downtown Atlanta. And some of these pictures include this -- this is part of the roof of the CNN Center, at least part of the ceiling that came down because of the tornado that blew through and blew so many portions of roofs and so much damage as it went through.

JOSH LEVS, CNN, CORRESPONDENT: I mean this is history. We were showing earlier, we'll show it again later this morning. We have a big top section of our own newsroom right now has a ceiling that is literally falling in. We have a matter of seconds here. I want to encourage anyone who has photos, send them to I-report, CNN.com. Let me show you a few of the photos we got up so far. Look at that, that's just outside our building.

NGUYEN: Look at the debris.

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