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Flights Halted Across The U.S.; Deadly Storm Slams California With Heavy Rain, Massive Flooding. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired January 12, 2023 - 04:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hey, everyone. Hope your Thursday is off to a fantastic start. I`m Omar Jimenez, a CNN national correspondent based in
New York, and I`m filling in for the one and only Coy rest of the week.
We`re going to be covering extreme weather in California and looking at the potential impact of social media on teens.
But first, we`re going to start with news from the sky. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a short ground stop yesterday of all
domestic planes after there was an outage to a system that provides pilots with notices they need before flying. Now normal operations resumed later
yesterday morning, but delays from the ground stop continued into the day.
When we recorded our show on Wednesday, there were more than flight delays nationwide. The airports in Chicago, O`Hare International and Midway
International Airports, were especially impacted and they continued to have a ground stop for all inbound and outbound flights into the day on
Wednesday.
Now, the specific system experiencing the outage is called the notice to air missions which alerts it`s about closed runways equipment outages and
potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could impact flight. The Biden administration and secretary of transportation, Pete
Buttigieg, are looking into what caused this disruption and if you saw over Christmas, Southwest Airlines canceled thousands of flights stranding tens
of thousands of travelers. The federal government is zeroing in on Southwest and their system to figure out how to prevent future issues like
these.
All right. Ten-second trivia:
Name the third largest U.S. state whose state motto is eureka.
Is it Texas, Alaska, California, or Montana?
And meaning "I have found it", eureka is the state motto of California.
Up next, we`re headed to California where residents across the state are recovering from deadly storms that brought area rainfall totals 400 percent
to 600 percent above average. The storm meant heavy downpours and strong winds forcing thousands of evacuations. Response crews were responsible for
clearing flooded neighborhoods and crumbled roadways and at least people have died as a result.
Also, more than million people are under flood alerts this week and it`s not over yet. Another round of rain is on the way. It`s the first of four
more atmospheric river events. But what does that mean? Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow regions in the atmosphere that can transport moisture
thousands of miles. They`re expected to hit California in the next 10 days.
So we`ll hear now from Kyung Lah, a national correspondent for CNN based in Los Angeles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During recent historic droughts, California prayed for rain, but not like this.
Two days of torrential rain, thunderstorms, and wind gusts are pounding California, causing mudslides, overflowing rivers, and triggering extensive
flooding.
LYNDA HOPKINS, SUPERVISOR, SONOMA COUNTY: We`ve got trees down. We`ve got mudslides. We`ve got actually folks trapped in areas where we have major
road failures.
LAH: At least 17 people have died as a result of the storms, after more than 18 inches of rain fell in parts of southern California. And high wind
advisories were issued on the central coast.
In San Francisco, a rare hailstorm in Haight-Ashbury. And throughout northern California --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rain hammered here pretty bad.
LAH: -- the rushing river has flooded, following torrential downpours. Some residents have been without power for a week. In Santa Barbara County,
mass evacuations, after that storm saturated the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was pouring, the wind was whipping.
LAH: Following years of extreme drought and fires.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the mountainside here, the debris started coming down, filling up to four feet or so. Pretty much buried the truck, and now
it`s starting to flow.
LAH: More than 30 million people are under flood alerts, and across southern California, flash flooding trapped drivers. Firefighters here
rescued a motorist stranded in rushing waters. And mud and rockslides creating havoc for residents.
TYRONNE MCGRATH, RESIDENT, CASITAS SPRING: A 800-pound rock just smashed the house, it just hit the wall and blew everything out.
LAH: In northern California, the rain flooded roads, and vineyards, it almost doubled the snow pack in local mountains, offering hope that these
storms may somehow ease California`s historic drought.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re riding through it. Yeah, it could be a lot worse.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAH (on camera): It`s hard to think about drought when this is what southern California is dealing with. I`m standing on a roadway that goes
back behind, me you cannot see it because of all the debris on this road. This came from this mountain, this hillside five years ago burned in a
wildfire. And with all the rain and lack of vegetation, it all came down onto the street and into these yards.
The concern now is what happens in the upcoming days, with rain in the forecast.
JIMENEZ: Up next, we`ll hear from Vanessa Yurkevich, a CNN business and politics reporter, who recently took a look at social media, specifically
TikTok`s impact on teen brains. Her reporting focuses on social media usage and the rate of depression especially among Gen Z users. Her research comes
as more than a dozen state governments have actually banned TikTok on government-issued devices and at least 22 states have taken some sort of
action on TikTok since 2020.
So let`s hear more about her research in the teens she speaks with on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER (voice-over): In just five years, TikTok has amassed more than one billion global users.
Eyeballs around the world glued to the endless content and viral videos.
How long do you think you spend on TikTok every day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two to three hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three to four hours.
YURKEVICH: But last month, the U.S. government, along with more than a dozen states, banned TikTok on most federal devices, citing national
security concerns over its Chinese parent company and the possibility it could pressure TikTok to hand over personal data.
There is no public evidence the Chinese government has done that but there is evidence of another risk, social media`s impact on mental health
particularly among Gen Z.
DR. JEAN TWENGE, PSYCHOLOGIST: Teen depression started to rise after 2012. So did self-harm.
YURKEVICH: Dr. Gene Twenge says as smartphones and social media grew, so did the rate of depression among teens, nearly doubling between 2004 and
2019. By that year, one in four U.S. teen girls had experienced clinical depression according to Twenge.
TWENGE: What the algorithms trying to do is get people able to use the app for longer because that`s how the company makes more money.
YURKEVICH: TikTok in a statement said, quote, one of our most important commitments is supporting the safety and well-being of teens and we
recognize this work is never finished. We continue to focus on robust safety protections for our community while also empowering parents with
additional controls for their teen`s account through TikTok family pairing.
Users of TikTok spent an average of an hour and a half a day on the app last year, more than any other social platform.
What is it that keeps you scrolling even if you know maybe you`ve spent one two hours on it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once you watch the one video, you`re like, well, time to watch another. So you just keep doing it`s like a cycle you don`t
realize that the time is passing.
YURKEVICH: That`s exactly what happened to Jerome Yankee (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve definitely done all-nighters on TikTok before I had just been scrolling until the sun came up.
YURKEVICH: He says he lost sleep. His grades suffered. He lost touch with his friends. He lost his sense of self. In 2021, he deleted the app.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Getting disappointed by my own life is never something I want to be doing, especially when I have the power to change it but I
just wasn`t because I was spending hours on this app.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have like a lot of cool resources that we give to our audience for free.
YURKEVICH: But Hannah Williams (ph) proves the positive side of TikTok, allowing her to create a business, Salary Transparent Street, providing
paid transparency to her new nearly million followers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think TikTok definitely helped just because they have such audience reach potential.
YURKEVICH: She hopes TikTok`s algorithm works in her favor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Helping people in marginalized communities is the only reason I am doing this. It`s my entire mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: Up next for today`s 10 out of 10, we`re showing you a volcano that`s erupt to no good. Yeah, even I`ve got to get in on the puns here.
Come on.
Check out this time lapse video of the Kilauea volcano erupting in Hawaii the time lapse shows smoke and lava flowing all captured by the U.S.
geological survey there`s something truly so beautiful about this, so hot, the temperature. As you can see the lava cooling on the surface and forming
crustal plates it`s fascinating science happening right in front of our eyes.
Last up on the show today, you know, we got to do it. I want to give a special shout out to Kennesaw Mountain High School in Kennesaw, Georgia.
That`s where I went. Go Mustangs.
It`s been amazing hanging out with you all today. I`m Omar Jimenez. This is CNN 10. Have a great Thursday.
END
