Return to Transcripts main page

EARLY START

Monster Blizzard To Hit Northeast; ISIS Apparently Kills Japanese Hostage; Boko Haram Attacks Big Nigerian City

Aired January 26, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Severe weather warning for the northeast and what an understatement that is. An historic crippling blizzard set to bury millions and up to 3 feet of snow and the snow may not be the worst of it. The winds are just going to be awful.

Forecasters saying it could be catastrophic. This morning, thousands of flights have been canceled already. Communities are bracing for whiteout conditions, hurricane-force winds, and blackouts that could last days. We are tracking what you need to know this morning.

Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. Happy Monday. A lot going on, a lot to get ready for, it is 5:30 in the east. The National Weather Services uses words like historic and life threatening to describe a monster blizzard set to hit parts of 12 states.

Officials take that warning pretty seriously. Worst-case snow fall amounts could range from 2 feet to 3 feet from New York to Boston area. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio warning that his major nor'easter forecast will blow in tonight and it could break records.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: This literally could be one of the top two or three largest storms in the history of the city and we need to plan accordingly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The latest, latest National Weather Service New York bulletin has 18 to 24 inches for New York City, but much more than that for the western suburbs. The Northeast, Midwest are getting ready for all of this. Columbus, Ohio, putting 70 to 80 plows on the road and drivers working 12-hour shifts.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will have 400 trucks out in the Philadelphia area plowing and salting their way through this huge snow storm and the airports are getting ready for rush of flyers this morning and not much else after that.

BERMAN: Let's get the latest sense of what this forecast is saying. I want to bring in meteorologist, Pedram Javaheri, for the details. Good morning, Pedram. PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, guys. You know, mark January 26th and January 27th in your memory books. This has the potential to be all of what it takes to produce a significant weathermaker around the north east.

The time period, the onset of it, at around 10:00 a.m., Philadelphia and New York, you will begin to see some snowfall, and then by the afternoon hours, pushing up towards New York. By the evening hours, that's when the intensity really picks up.

It progresses on into portions of northern New England and that is the case for the initial band of snow showers, generally 1 inch to 2 inches, maybe 3 inches by the afternoon and evening hours.

It's beyond say 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. when the intensity really picks up. Throughout the overnight hours and by the time, you wake up tomorrow at this hour, you are talking about potentially seeing 7 to 10 straight hours of 2 to 3 inches of snowfall across much of the northeast metro cities.

New York City, 22 inches based on this model. Boston, 20 inches on the ground. Philly could see about 9 inches. The cutoff is 9 inches to 20 inches. I want to show you variety of models, four models.

The first four depictions here, notice the numbers are all over the place with a couple of them put in the 20-inch range. The National Weather Service forecast going on the higher end of it, 28 inches around Boston, 22 for New York, about 13 out of Philly.

No matter how you slice it, this is going to be the largest snowstorm across the region all season. Of course, you want to plan for no power for several days across this region. Get your food and water supplies ready and fill up your car and charge your mobile devices or electronics going to be a good.

Check in on the elderly as well, but about 50 million people are going to be impacted by this. Notice the zone for 20 million right on the immediate coast. That's where the blizzard conditions are in place. When the winds are over 35 miles per hour, you have it over three hours and your visibility comes down to a quarter of a mile.

Go towards the coastline, immediate coastal areas could easily see hurricane force wind gusts with blinding conditions here when it comes to the blizzard. In fact, I want to put the speeds of the winds in place for you.

At 7:00 p.m., Monday night, about 30 miles an hour in Philly, 36 in New York, look at Boston and Nantucket. It stays in the 30 to 40 range throughout much of the afternoon. By Tuesday, still seeing winds sustained in this range of 30 to 40 miles per hour.

So these blizzard conditions even after the snow stops on Tuesday afternoon will still be experienced because the snow that is going to be falling overnight tomorrow is going to be blowing everywhere across this region, guys. BERMAN: Pedram, I was looking at Nantucket and the Cape and the Maine coast. My friends are seeing wind gusts of 59 or 50 miles an hour. That is dangerous stuff, correct?

JAVAHERI: Absolutely. When you have the snow coming down at the rate that it is going to be coming down, the winds are this powerful. Of course, the temperatures are going to be below freezing. So exposure to those wind speeds and air temperatures is already dangerous as it is.

But then you factor in the visibility being reduced then you go into the major cities, you have tall buildings, which also act to enhance the winds. You get up about, say 30 stories up in some of these major metro city buildings, winds go up 30 to 40 percent.

Get up 80 stories up, it could be up to 40 percent to 50 percent. It is something worth noting definitely that a lot of people are going to be in harm's way unless they get out of some of these dangerous and susceptible areas.

ROMANS: All right.

BERMAN: Be careful, folks.

ROMANS: Charge all your devices and prepare for power outages. That looks like it could be really possible for potentially millions of people.

The airlines this morning bracing for this blizzard, they are cancelling thousands of flights and they are prepping for a major backlog. Airports in the worst shape right now are Newark, JFK, LaGuardia and Boston's Logan.

So far more than 1,900 flights have been canceled today. Another 1,600 have been canceled tomorrow. Those numbers are growing. Several airlines like United and U.S. Airways have announced plans to halt all Tuesday operations at New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

The backlog is expected to make traveling a nightmare probably through the end of the week. You know how the ripple effect goes, right? Now airlines are waiving change fees to rebook flights. So check the web sites. You should not have to pay to rebook those flights.

BERMAN: You just have to wait.

ROMANS: You just have to wait.

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news from the White House this morning. Listen to this. A possible drone, a possible drone has reportedly landed on the White House grounds. The White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest will only call it a device, but local media does report in fact it is possibly some kind of drone.

That maybe a distinction without a difference nevertheless it's serious to think about how something could get over the fence there. The White House press secretary says right now it does not currently pose a threat.

The president and first lady are not there. The president is in India. That is where we find White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski traveling with President Obama. She joins us now live from New Delhi with the latest details on this device, Michelle, inside the White House grounds.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, we have not laid eyes on this device. There haven't been any pictures of it yet. We saw pictures of the White House around 4:00 this morning when there was a lot of activity there.

You could see bright spotlights illuminated. The lawn lit up. It is usually not that way at that hour. So obviously there was something going on. The Secret Service though, who we reached out to, hasn't responded.

The White House press secretary says that the Secret Service is investigating this. That initially it doesn't appear to be any kind of a threat. We have yet to hear from the Secret Service on what exactly this is.

What happened? When was it found and how did it get there? It is an interesting possibility to think it could be a drone as it was initially reported. Again, nobody is confirming that is what it was. Someone could have simply flown it over the fence.

You know, the fence isn't very high. You can get objects over the fence. You can throw a football over the White House fence if you want. So there is always the possibility that something dangerous could find its way on the White House lawn.

But obviously authorities were on it quickly and are now trying to figure out what it was and whether it did pose any threat. Again, the initial information from the White House is that this is not a threat at this point -- John.

BERMAN: We will keep our eye on that. Michelle, meanwhile, you are in India right now so you're not going to get hit by the northeast expecting the epic storm, a blizzard. What is the White House involvement on that at this point?

KOSINSKI: The president and the first lady were outside in the rain for two hours today. Not getting wet, mind you, they were under a canopy. But yes, the president has been briefed on this developing situation. The federal government says they have been working with state and local governments to try to facilitate the movement of equipment and any resources that might be needed in the northeast.

To try to position those ahead of time and make sure that everybody has help if they need it once this thing is over. So obviously the White House knows that this could be affecting the northeast quite a bit as we see it move through -- John.

BERMAN: You know, it's as an example of how the problems travel with the president no matter where he is. He is in India right now dealing with reports of a drone landing on the White House lawn and you know, a big snowstorm hitting the northeast.

KOSINSKI: Every time these trips happen, there is always something else.

BERMAN: Michelle Kosinski, thanks so much for being there for us. I appreciate it.

ROMANS: New developments this morning in the story of the two Japanese hostages being held by ISIS, new and potentially awful information this morning. A video that purports to show ISIS beheaded one of the men, Haruna Yukawa.

A known ISIS supporter posted this video online Saturday of the other man, Kenji Goto, holding what looks like a photo of Yukawa's headless body. On the video, a voice claiming to be Goto blames Japan for not saving Yukawa by not paying the $200 million ransom that ISIS demanded.

The voice also says ISIS will drop the ransom demand and release Goto in exchange for a convicted female terrorist now facing the death penalty in Jordan.

Breaking this morning, Japan now has an envoy in Jordan to, quote, "coordinate with every side in the hostage crisis." CNN's Will Ripley is standing by live now in Tokyo with the latest.

Will, as of last week, when Japanese officials were frantically trying to get in touch with ISIS to figure out how to negotiate for these hostages, how quickly it sort of unraveled and the story has changed.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It just goes to show, Christine, how ISIS is setting all the terms here and they are making the rules and breaking the rules as they choose. They posted the video. They said there was a 72-hour ultimatum to receive a ransom.

When the Japanese government was trying to reach out, they were not able to establish a direct line of communication with ISIS. There was this horrific new video, which by the way, very different from most other ISIS videos that we're used to seeing.

That is why there was a lot of initial skepticism and still some skepticism among certain experts because it did not have the ISIS watermark. It wasn't an actual video where Kenji Goto, the lone surviving hostage was talking.

It was a still photo that some wondered had been doctored and then, of course, the brutal image of Haruna Yukawa. His headless body put out on the internet for the world to see. Nonetheless, what ISIS is saying in the video is that they are looking for a prisoner exchange, as you mentioned.

They are using Kenji Goto. They are using his voice or what they claim is his voice to deliver this message. All of this just so difficult for his family and also his stepfather is skeptical whether that voice on the video actually is his stepson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YUKIO ISHIDO (through translator): I got the sense it is not his voice. I have heard his English a couple of times. I felt it was a bit different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: Japanese government officials, though, are saying that they believe the likelihood is that it is Kenji Goto's voice. That is why you see them in Jordan where they have a special envoy on the ground. They are working as closely as they can with Jordanian officials.

But again, they are essentially asking another government to hand over a pretty high level prisoner in exchange for a single Japanese journalist, now whether they can work out some sort of other deal or perhaps the Jordanian pilot that's in ISIS custody, perhaps, if he could be released as part of an arrangement.

None of that we will learn. We may never learn because all of this is happening behind the scenes, Christine. But an utmost priority for Japan is if it is possible to get Kenji Goto home alive.

ROMANS: Making rules, breaking the rules, changing the conversation, and just a really tough situation for Japan right now. Thanks so much for that -- Will.

BERMAN: One American woman does remain captive at the hands of ISIS. She was taken hostage in August of 2013 on a mission in Syria. White House Chief Of Staff Denis McDonough says that intense efforts are being made to bring her home safely.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENIS MCDONOUGH, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We are obviously working the matters aggressively. We are sparing no expense and no effort both in trying to make sure that we know where they are and prepared to do anything we must to try to get them home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: ISIS has demanding more than $6 million for the woman's freedom along with the release of this Pakistani neuroscientist convicted in the United States of trying to kill a U.S. Army captain.

ROMANS: All right, Yemen, this morning falling into political chaos has an emergency session of parliament is canceled. Lawmakers are turned away at the door. The president, the prime minister and the whole cabinet resigned last week when the rebel, Houthis, invaded the capital effectively took over the government.

President Obama insisting the U.S. counterterror strategy in Yemen is unchanged and is working saying that killing militants with drones there is better than, quote, "playing whack-a-mole" with massive U.S. deployments in perpetuity. The U.N. Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in Yemen this morning. BERMAN: President Obama is trying to preserve millions of acres of animal habitat in Alaska, a move that is already drawing fierce opposition from some Republicans.

The president says he will ask Congress to designate 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness. That is the strongest level of federal protection.

This would forbid a range of activities including drilling for oil and gas, which is why it is so controversial and construction of roads. Now this measure is not likely to make it through Congress.

ROMANS: Right, it's 43 minutes past the hour. Are you ready? The northeast U.S. bracing for a huge blizzard, millions set to be buried in feet of snow. It is potentially the hurricane-force winds that could really make this dramatic. What you need to know next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: North eastern U.S. bracing for this huge blizzard. It is so big forecasters are saying it may be one of the biggest nor'easters in history. They are very serious about this, folks.

Snow fall forecast up to 3 feet from Boston to New York. The National Weather Service right now has 18 to 24 inches forecast for New York City proper and only bigger than that when you spread out of the suburbs.

And 1,902 flights have been canceled for Monday and more than 1,600 for Tuesday. Now is the time to prepare. Snow is expected to start over parts of 12 states tonight with the heaviest snow following tomorrow.

BERMAN: You know, that is big news, also this breaking news from the White House, just in. The Secret Service is investigating what officials are calling a device found on the White House grounds, a device, what local news in Washington is describing it as a possible drone.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest says that early indications that the device, whatever it is, does not pose an ongoing threat. It raises all sorts of questions about how the White House could guard or protect about this type of situation. Questions they will be forced to answer.

Let's take a look what is coming up on NEW DAY this morning. Our friend, Chris Cuomo joins us now. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": All right, and of course, John and Christine, we are all about the storm. Wrong kind of history may be made here with this blizzard that is going to hit the northeast. We are hearing snow in amounts as much as 3 feet.

That means you will only be able to see J.B.'s head tomorrow morning when all this comes throughout the day into late night. Obviously, it's going to be very difficult for big cities to handle even more as you get outside the cities.

We are going to hear from the mayors of New York and Boston about how they are getting prepared to deal with this and also deal with all the travel things. CNN will have people everywhere the storm is supposed to be. We have it covered for you.

We are also going to give you the latest on ISIS. This is such an impossible situation. There is now the suggestion that one of the hostages from Japan has been killed. Do we believe that? If we do, what options are left?

Now there's a new tactic on the table, a new request from ISIS. What is it? Can Japan meet it? We will take you through that. Just a horrible situation, John and Christine and obviously, they are becoming way too frequent. We will get into some experts about any inroads that are being made to stop this from happening.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Chris. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: Also this morning, new attacks by Boko Haram on a large Nigerian city, a change in tactics. What we are learning this morning live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A fresh round of violence this morning from Boko Haram. The Islamic extremist clashing with troops in Nigeria's biggest city, Maiduguri, the bloodshed is happening as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visits Nigeria's president in the country's financial hub.

The secretary is there to try to encourage peaceful elections next month. Diana Magnay is following the very latest developments for us. Diana, what can you tell us?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John, well, it has been Boko Haram's strategic objective for some time to try and capture the town of Maiduguri. It is important because it is the regional capital of Borneo state where they hold a lot of territory already.

It is also the center of the military operation against them, an operation called, "Operation Flash." So if they are to capture that city, they will effectively be in control of the large swath of Nigerian territory. Even if the Nigerian government denies that they control any.

As it was, the Nigerian army managed to push them back from Maiduguri, but the militants did managed to capture a military barracks in the town called Monguno about 125 kilometers from Maiduguri up towards Bagr.

And of course, when they captured barracks, they captured weapons and become better emboldened, better empowered for further attacks. This did all happen the same day that John Kerry was in Legos to reinforce the strength of U.S.-Nigerian relations and to call for peaceful elections. Nigeria doesn't have a good history on violence. He said that for the United States, they wanted to do more for Nigeria, depending on the election outcome and the peace around it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Diana Magnay, for us. The question is, is this an unwilling government? Questions that need to be answered and soon to save thousands of live. Diana Magnay, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right, the big story here this morning. A record- breaking blizzard that could mean a big hit to the economy, an EARLY START on your money is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: We have some new video just in to CNN. This is of the emergency response to a device found within the White House grounds. Local news actually calls it a drone down there.

The White House calls it a device. The Secret Service is investigating this device that was found on the White House grounds this morning. Press Secretary Josh Earnest has told reporters whatever the device is, it does not currently pose a threat. You can see the response there.

ROMANS: The president is not home. The president is in New Delhi.

BERMAN: The president is in India, but that is going on right now in the White House grounds.

ROMANS: Let's get an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning. The biggest losers when it comes to the blizzard bearing down. Hourly workers who are going to lose pay. Lost wages they will not get back. Businesses expecting lost productivity in the next few days as workers hunker down at home.

There are a few winners in the blizzard economy. Some workers are likely to bank quite a bit of overtime pay doing snow clean up, running plows and salting roads, the streets and overtime budgets for these cities will be big.

Businesses like Home Depot and Lowe's see a surge of business as people prep for harsh weather. We certainly hope a lot of those small mom and pop hardware stores are going to see a lot of activity here in the next couple of days.

Airlines are canceling thousands of flights and prepping for major backlog. Several airlines, United and U.S. Airways, for example, have already announced plans to halt all Tuesday operations at New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

More than 1,900 flights, almost 2,000 flights have been canceled in the northeast today. Another 1,700 have been canceled tomorrow. Those numbers, of course, are going to keep growing.

The backlog is expected to make travelling a nightmare maybe through the end of the week. Airlines are waiving their change fees to rebook flights. There will be big costs for the airlines here.

BERMAN: Please pay attention, folks. Don't be stupid. Pay attention to your state and local officials. This storm is serious. The winds are going to be very, very dangerous. NEW DAY picks up coverage of this devastating storm right now.