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New England Pounded by Powerful Winter Storm; Flooding along Massachusetts Coast; Storm Stalls over Boston; Flights Cancelled Due to Blizzard; Long Island Hit Hard by Blizzard; Obama Pays Respects to Saudi King, Meets with New King; Obama Comments on Drone at White House; World Leaders, Survivors Remember Auschwitz

Aired January 27, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

New England is getting pounded right now by that powerful winter storm moving across the northeast. In Massachusetts, officials say strong waves washed away part of a seawall in Marshfield causing significant damage to at least one home in the area. Officials are deeply concerned about the high tide later today between 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. along the shore that could cause significant flooding. The nearby town of Scituate reported icy floodwaters and debris flowing through the streets. Seven states from New Jersey to New Hampshire declared states of emergency ahead of the storm. A blizzard warning is still in effect for parts of New England. Besides the heavy snow, the area could still experience near hurricane-force winds.

Let's get the very latest on the flooding along the Massachusetts coast. Our Alexandra Field is joining us now. She's in Scituate right on the coast in Massachusetts.

What are you seeing now, Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Wolf. What's amazing is in the last hour, the snow's really starting to come down, the wind starting to pick up. These roads are impassable. That's a high-axle police vehicle that just cut through this water. These are the only vehicles that can get through at this point. They're up at the beach. That's the ocean and that's the cause of the problem. That's the seawall that's right down this road. And that's where all of that water came from, the high tide, caused the water to breach that seawall. It caused this incredible flooding, more flooding than people say here they have ever remembered seeing. Those are homes that are used to flooding. They've seen it before. But in this case, these homeowners tell me they have floodwaters four or five feet high in their basement. And now they are only wondering what the next high tide will bring that comes between 4:00 and 5:00 today. It's a big concern for the people out here because they have water on that side, water on that side and they have the ocean behind me.

I want you to see this car trying to get down the road here. This is a jeep. It's had to turn around. There are a few cars that have been making their way out to where we are. But at a certain point, they are forced to turn around because you can't get through. So many of these streets blocked by the water that's come up. In some cases, still a few feet deep.

The wind and the water combined causing a number of problems for the people who own the Houses out here. You see some of the debris that's been left behind as the water ripped through here. Down in this driveway, things knocked over, chaos all down this street. The big concern, though, what will happen later this afternoon?

I just spoke to a couple of guys who actually took their sheds out to the beach about an hour ago. When we got here, there wasn't this much wind or snow. Those guys just came through here and told me the waves are really big and it was time for them to pack it up -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Alexandra, we'll get back to you.

But I want to go to our meteorologist, Jennifer Gray. She's in Boston.

Give us an update on where the storm is heading. Has it stalled over the Boston area? Is that what I'm hearing?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it's slowed down just a little bit. It is swirling just off the coast of the cape. That's where it's going to be about 6:00 tonight, that low turning offshore. By 6:00 tomorrow morning, though, it's going to really have moved north quite a bit. It's going to be off the coast of Nova Scotia. That means things will be tapering off. We expect the snow to continue over the next several hours and then taper off during the overnight hours. By tomorrow morning, we should be in better shape. But, Wolf, the snow has been coming down just like this since I was eating dinner last night around 7:00. So we're still seeing the snow. Then we get this gust of wind and you can see the snow coming off the ground, the blowing snow combined with the snow that's falling.

I've had this little weather station out here all day as well. It's picked up winds of about 25, 30 miles per hour where we are. But we know that there have been gusts quite a bit stronger elsewhere around the city, especially like we've been talking about around Nantucket where they had winds at around 78 miles per hour. That's where you're getting the power outages. Still roughly 30,000 people without power in the state of Massachusetts.

We're also concerned with plowing the streets. People have been off the roads, which has been good. It's almost eerie here in Boston because the lack of people out and about. You can just hear that wind howling. But here are some of the roads that have been plowed. If you look over here, that's where it's all being pushed to. We're seeing snow mounds all over the city.

Wolf, it's far from over. We're still going to be dealing with this snow for at least 12 more hours. We could get close to the record, 29.8 inches of snow in Boston. Another seven more inches and we break that record. BLITZER: The two blizzards I remember, in '78 and then in 2013, we

had 27 inches in Boston. If they get more, that will be a record for Boston.

We'll stay on top of this together with you, Jennifer. Thanks very much.

No surprise the storm is crippling travel. Thousands and thousands of flights already have been canceled. Roads, a lot of them, have been impassable. There are train tracks covered with snow. We'll update you on all the travel situation information you need to know.

Also, other news, we're going to hear directly from President Obama about his critical meeting with the new king of Saudi Arabia. The president spoke exclusively with CNN today, our own Fareed Zakaria. Stand by. He also spoke about that drone that went just over the White House residence and landed on the South Lawn.

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BLITZER: The blizzard causing a nightmare for travelers. More than 4,700 flights in and out of the United States are canceled today. New York, Boston, Philadelphia among the hardest-hit areas.

Let's go to Rene Marsh who's over at LaGuardia in New York.

You have new information, Rene?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. It's not every day that you see one of the country's busiest airports look like this, Wolf. Not a lot of activity here. But we are getting new information that in about another hour from now, the very first flight will land here at LaGuardia airport. That's pretty significant. It is only one flight but it is significant in the sense that yesterday we saw all operations suspended here. We were the only ones here. Look around, there's not a lot of

activity now. So, again, in about another hour, spirit airlines coming from Ft. Lauderdale here to LaGuardia.

I spoke with one passenger who was able to get a boarding pass on that flight. And she's just very excited because she spent 24 hours here sleeping at LaGuardia. I spoke with several others who did the same thing.

And it's not just here. We're talking about a ripple effect at airports along the northeastern corridor. JFK, Newark Airport had a tough time as far as cancellations. Boston had a tough time as well. The top five airports that really got hit hard, again, Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Philadelphia, all of them really seeing lots of cancellations.

But the first sign that things are slowly coming back to life with this one flight coming here, limited operations at some of the other northeastern airport -- Wolf?

BLITZER: It's encouraging, especially in New York. Obviously, not hit as hard as a lot of people had feared.

Rene, thank you.

New York City may have escaped the worst of the storm but the same can't be said for areas outside the city. We'll talk to an official from Long Island, especially the eastern part of Long Island, Suffolk County, what are they doing to keep people safe over there right now.

Also coming up, a very dark chapter of world history. We go live to Auschwitz in Poland as it commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

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BLITZER: We're continuing our coverage of the storm that's still hitting parts of the northeast. New York City certainly missed the worst of this blizzard. But just to the east on Long Island, a very dangerous and different situation. Some areas already have seen 28 inches of snow so far. Power has been knocked out for hundreds of customers, if not more. And there are deep concerns right now about flooding and erosion along the Long Island shore. Two deaths already have been reported.

Joining us on the phone right now is Suffolk County executive, Steve Bellone.

This storm is still going on. If you move east of Islip, the airport there in Islip, the airport there, and move out towards the Hamptons and Montauk, it's still pretty awful, right?

STEVE BELLONE, EXECUTIVE, SUFFOLK COUNTY (voice-over): Yeah, absolutely. There are parts of the region here in New York that feels like they dodged a bullet. But in Suffolk County, we were hit by it and hit hard. And the storm is still going on. On the east end of Long Island out, in Montauk, other areas out there, in the Hamptons, the snow is still falling and we have more than two feet of accumulation in large parts of the county, huge amount of snow to move out of the way.

BLITZER: And so already two feet, let's say. Are you expecting more in the coming hours or is it basically over?

BELLONE: We think it's wrapping up. There's maybe a little more coming down at this point. Now we turn to the mass operation of removing the snow. And it actually worked out. The governor's travel ban that was put in place worked really effectively. We had a nor'easter a couple of years ago where we had hundreds of motorists stranded out here in Suffolk County. The difference between then and now is night and day. And it's because the operators were out there without the vehicles and the cars out of the way. And the public did a great job of responding to the calls from local officials and the governor.

BLITZER: What about flooding?

BELLONE: Flooding is always a concern here when we're dealing with Sandy victims who are still -- many of whom are still struggling to recover or still aren't in their homes. That's always a concern. We've had relatively moderate flooding at this point, isolated and scattered instances of flooding. Thankfully, we've been fairly fortunate on that end.

BLITZER: Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive, thanks very much. Good luck.

BELLONE: Thank you very much, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll have more on the blizzard coming up on CNN.

But up next, a very, very different story. Survivors and other dignitaries have gathered today to mark a somber anniversary. It was on this day 70 years ago that the outside world got a glimpse of the horrors of Auschwitz. Auschwitz, the death camp, was liberated on this day 70 years ago. We'll go there live for a report.

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BLITZER: President Obama paid his respects in Saudi Arabia today. He made a quick stop there following his visit to India to meet with the new king, King Salman, who succeeded the late King Abdullah. The president wanted to reiterate the U.S. partnership with Saudi Arabia in this very volatile Middle East. The first lady, several prominent Republicans, including John McCain, Condoleezza Rice, among others were part of the official U.S. delegation.

Before heading to Saudi Arabia, the president spoke exclusively to our own Fareed Zakaria and gave some insight on America's complicated relationship the Saudi kingdom and the issue of human rights.

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FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: Will you speak about the blogger to the Saudis?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think on this visit, obviously, a lot of this is just paying respects to King Abdullah, who in his own fashion represented some modest reform efforts within the kingdom. But we have maintained a sustained dialogue with the Saudis and with all the other countries that we work with. What I've found effective is to apply steady, consistent pressure, even as we are getting business done that needs to get done, and oftentimes that makes some of our allies uncomfortable. It makes them frustrated. Sometimes we have to balance our need to speak to them about human rights issues with immediate concerns that we have in terms of countering terrorism or dealing with regional stability. But the trend line is one that I will sustain throughout the rest of my presidency, and that is to make an argument to those friends and allies of ours that if they want a society that is going to be able to sustain itself in this age, then they're going to have to change how they do business.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: We also now know that the drone that crashed on the White House lawn yesterday was just being used recreationally by a U.S. government employee. The accident has certainly raised a lot of questions about White House security and drones. Fareed also asked the president about that during the exclusive conversation they had in India.

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ZAKARIA: Americans have been very interested to hear about this drone that landed in the White House, your backyard, where you and your family live. Are you confident that you understand how you would prevent the next one from being armed?

OBAMA: Well, this is a broader problem. I'll leave the Secret Service to talk about this particular event. But I've actually asked the FAA and a number of agencies to examine how are we managing this new technology. Because the drone that landed in the White House you buy at Radio Shack. You know that there are companies like Amazon that are talking about using small drones to deliver packages. There are incredibly useful functions that these drones can play in terms of farmers who are managing crops and conservations who want to, you know, take stock of wildlife. So there are a whole range of things we can do with it, but we don't really have any kind of regulatory structure at all for it. So I've assigned some of the relevant agencies to start talking to stakeholders and figure out how we're going to put an architecture in place that makes sure that these things aren't dangerous and that they're not violating people's privacy.

You know, in some ways, Fareed, this is similar to what's happened in cyberspace. These technologies that we're developing have the capacity to empower individuals in ways that we couldn't even imagine 10, 15 years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You can see Fareed's full interview with President Obama this Sunday, 10:00 a.m. eastern, on "Fareed Zakaria, GPS," only here on CNN.

"Witnessing the atrocities committed there is more than enough to keep me awake until the end of time" -- those haunting words spoken today by an Auschwitz survivor at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the notorious death camp. By then, more than about 1.1 million Jews and 100,000 other non-Jews had been sent to the complex and were murdered there in occupied Poland. They were killed by the Nazis. World leaders joined nearly 300 ageing survivors today to pause and to remember.

CNN's Ivan Watson is joining us live from the camp.

Ivan, I was watching a lot of this earlier today. Tell us what happened, because you were there. It was a powerful few hours.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. When you consider that some 300 elderly survivors of the Nazi death camps here, they came back to this compound of barbed wire, of prison barracks, of snow, for this moving ceremony.

We heard from some of the survivors. A woman who described it, how she was a little girl who was shot in the arm by a Nazi S.S. officer. A polish political prisoner who described how, if you were Jew, you had two days to live. If you were a priest, you had a week or two to live here. And if you were a political prisoner, or healthy, maybe you had two or three months to live.

The organizers here say that this may be one of the last gatherings of its kind with so many eyewitnesses to this, one of the darkest chapters in human history, eyewitnesses gathered together because, sadly, these survivors are in their 80s, 90s, and that added poignancy to this gathering.

But also, there were messages of warning. I'd like you to take a listen to one man, an 86-year-old Polish Jew named Roman Kent, who broke down while speaking at the podium. Take a listen.

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ROMAN KENT, FORMER AUSCHWITZ PRISONER: That's the key to my existence. We survivors do not want our past to be our children's future. I hope -- I hope and believe that this generation will bet on mankind's great traditions tempered by understanding that these traditions must embrace pluralism and tolerance, decency and human rights for all people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: And some of the speakers here, Wolf, warned also what they described as a rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe. You've had an attack in Paris against a Jewish supermarket just a few weeks ago, a deadly attack against the Jewish museum in the Belgian capital Brussels just last May. And the president of the World Jewish Congress saying, how can this be possible that 70 years after six million Jews were murdered across Europe that, once again, Jews are afraid in some European cities to walk wearing their yamacas (ph) in public. That added a contemporary worrying thought to what should have been a day of remembrance for the dead some 70 years ago -- Wolf?

BLITZER: And, Ivan, there were many world leaders who were there, right?

WATSON: Absolutely. You had the French president, Francois Hollande, who came. Of course, France and Paris still reeling from the attacks that took place in Paris a few weeks ago. You had the polish president, who was hosting the event, as well as the president of Poland's neighbor to the east, Ukraine.

A notable absence here was Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Poland having tough relations with Ukraine -- with Russia, rather, because of the war in the east. Also very notable, Wolf, because it was Soviet soldiers that liberated these death camps 70 years ago from the Nazis -- Wolf? BLITZER: Yes, it was.

All right. We're going to have much more on this story coming up.

Ivan, thank you very much.

And don't miss CNN's special report, "Voices of Auschwitz." It will premier tomorrow night, Wednesday night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. It's a very powerful documentary.

That's it for me. See you at 5:00 p.m. Eastern in "The Situation Room."

"Newsroomn" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.