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Floodwaters Trap Drivers In Texas; Five Inches Of Rain Fell On Dallas Area Overnight; Eight People Remain Missing In Texas Floods; Decision Time For World Soccer Leaders; Second Round Of Voting For World Soccer President. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 29, 2015 - 13:00   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: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 here in Washington, it's noon in Houston, Texas, 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem. Wherever you're watching around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Let's get right to the breaking news in Texas. We're seeing more flooding problems once again, not only in Houston but in Dallas as well. There you see traffic jams as floodwaters choke off major interstate highways in the town of Wharton, southeast of Houston. Residents are being threatened by yet more flooding. The mayor there calling for a mandatory evacuation and that's happening, in fact, right now.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is on the scene for us. He's in Garland, Texas. That's just outside of Dallas. Ed, it's bad in Dallas. It's bad in Houston and several other places in Texas and Oklahoma. First of all, where you are, what's happening?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. Well, it's been another treacherous night of flash flooding across parts of Texas. And here in the town of Garland, which is a suburb in the northeast part of the Dallas area, crews have been dealing with, for the last several hours, scenes like this. This roadway near a popular golf course, Fire Wheel Golf Course, and as floodwaters have been receding throughout the day, a few hours ago, authorities here discovered this car.

We were here as fire, water, and rescue teams with the Garland Fire Department went into the waters here to make sure there was nobody inside that particular car. Luckily, there was nobody inside. In fact, they've been able to track down who the driver was there in the last hour or so and that person was able to make it out of this flood situation safely.

But we're told that some of the water rescue teams here in the Garland area have performed about a dozen or so rescues in the late morn -- in the early morning hours overnight and into this morning as well, including the rescue of a police officer that was trying to help some other folks that were stranded in the floodwaters.

And when the flash floodwaters rapidly came up on his police car, he had to be pulled out by helicopter. So, dramatic scenes. And, again, authorities here reminding people that, at this point, given the amount of rain that has fallen aparts cross -- aparts cross -- across Texas, excuse me, that it doesn't take much for these flash flood situations to really fire up. So, a great deal of concern.

But the good news is here, Wolf, is that these waters are receding. But it is turning up scenes like this, many, many cars abandoned on the roadways. And, of course, for the water rescue teams, these are very treacherous and scary situations because you don't know if these people were able to make it out alive given just how quickly these waters are rising up. Wolf, we've talked to many people who live in this area. This is an area that many people here have never remembered seeing being flooded out like this.

So, it's, you know, quite dramatic pictures. As you look over here off to my side, this is a golf course. And as you stand here and listen to it, it's like a raging river rapid that is cutting across this golf course.

And if you see out in the distance, a couple of young kids have jumped on kayaks and are paddling across the golf course here which is exactly the kind of scene that first responders and rescue teams across the Texas area desperately don't want to see. But, you know, there you have it. That's what's unfolding here in Garland, Texas, at this hour -- Wolf.

BLITZER: In the Dallas area. I want to stay on top of what's going on in Dallas. Ed, stand by. I want to bring in Sana Syed, public information officer for Dallas. Sana, thanks very much for joining us. How bad is it in Dallas?

SANA SYED, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, CITY OF DALLAS: Well, for city wide, we're actually seeing water levels recede so we're in pretty good shape right now. The particular area that has been a huge problem for us, for most of today, has been route 12 at I-30. And we had a backup that stretched for miles. And so, now, we're approaching about six hours into it, finally some relief for these drivers. And we think it's in the next five to 10 minutes that area should finally be cleared up.

BLITZER: What are the latest numbers as to how many people have died in the Dallas area? How many are still unaccounted for?

SYED: Well, right. We are so incredibly grateful that we have no injuries to report. We had 12 high-water rescues overnight but no injuries to report. We've had also a few homes that flooded, but there, too, it's been -- it's been sporadic in different parts of the city and so we're still assessing property damage right now. But, really, we're counting our blessings right now that we have no deaths -- no deaths to report right now.

BLITZER: And what's the forecast for the Dallas area?

[13:05:00] SYED: We're expecting more rain tomorrow which is concerning. I mean, overnight, what really caught us off guard was the sheer amount of rain that stretched over such a long period of time. And so, that's what caused our biggest flooding problems. For tomorrow, really, right now in Dallas, the issue is that we have nowhere for this water to go.

And so, if we continue to get this rainfall, we are pleading with residents, with drivers, if you see or hear there's water, turn around. If you see a barricade or you see a flood sign, please do not ignore it. Those signs are there for your safety. We're doing everything that we can to protect people.

BLITZER: How unusual is this flooding in the Dallas area? We heard Ed Lavandera say, where he was in Garland which is right outside of Dallas, folks there don't remember anything like this in a while?

SYED: We have shattered all of our records from May which was one of the last months that we had on record for the most expensive (ph) rainfall and we've shattered that rainfall. Now, this particular that had the really bad backup at route 12 and I-30, we haven't seen anything like that since 1989.

So, yes, we're seeing -- we're seeing some very unusual weather right now. But all we are hoping for is that, you know, all the infrastructure, the millions of dollars that we have spent on reservoirs and levees, that, you know, honest to God, that is what has saved us from dealing with what Houston is dealing with right now. We have the amount of rainfall that could have flooded us out.

BLITZER: What -- Sana, what do you need? Do you have all the equipment, personnel? What do you need? Do you need any extra help?

SYED: We don't. We are -- we're doing OK. The infrastructure that we have in place has done its job and this is why we have not seen more widespread flooding like Houston has throughout the city. But, you know, with more rain headed our way, what really hurts us is when we have that rain for any extended period of time. So, we're hopeful that everything we have in place will help us get through this next phase of rain that's headed our way.

BLITZER: Sana is a public information officer for the City of Dallas. Sana, thanks very much for that update. We'll stay in close touch with you. Good luck to all the folks in Dallas and Houston and Oklahoma, other parts of Texas and Oklahoma. We'll stay on top of this story.

But there's other breaking news we're following this hour as well. A second round of voting now required after surprising results in the vote for FIFA president. We're going live to Zurich. That's coming up next.

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[13:10:45] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: The world governing body for soccer has gone into a second round of voting for a president amid a huge corruption scandal that has rocked the organization. Neither candidate received the required 140 votes as members of FIFA, the world Congress meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, right now taking place.

Let's go to CNN's Alex Thomas. He's there in Zurich for us. He's joining us live. What is the very latest, Alex, what's going on?

ALEX THOMAS, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, an historic day in what has been a staggering week for the most popular sports on the planet. Sepp Blatter at 79 years of age started this week thinking he would be a shoe in for a fifth term as president of FIFA, the world governing body. He's been in charge since 1998. And only once since being elected for the first time has he ever faced a challenger on Election Day.

This time, it was Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, given no chance at all three or four days ago. Then, after the astonishing events of Wednesday, with the dawn raids on the luxury hotel here and that explosive U.S. Department of Justice news conference, with a list of 47 charges that sounded like a Hollywood mafia movie script, suddenly, the game completely changed and Prince Ali has secured enough votes to take it to a second round of voting. A two-thirds majority of the 209 votes available was needed. Sepp Blatter did not get that. That has surprised many of us, although he still has a lot of support in the hall to my left, Wolf, heading into that second round of voting.

BLITZER: I take it the vote on the first round was 133 votes for Blatter, 73 votes for Prince Ali, three spoiled ballots? And you say they need 140 to get the two-thirds majority required. What is the sense over there in Zurich right now? How does it look?

THOMAS: It's really, really difficult to predict what will happen now because Prince Ali's camp was saying to us, and they've got a very powerful P.R. machine behind them, it has to be said, that they figured they had 60 votes outside of the European confederation with the 53 votes available there. They knew they would (ph) get only about 46, 47 of the Europe votes, but, clearly, the 60 on top of that haven't materialized because he would have gotten over a hundred votes. He only got 73, as you said.

So, if Sepp Blatter only needs seven more votes for everyone to go away, have some dinner and enjoy their evening now, surely they would just switch to Blatter. Not necessarily. If Prince Ali stays in this race, and there are a few rumors floating around, Wolf, that perhaps he could pull out just to put this issue to bed, may be doing a bit of a deal with Blatter along the way about the future of the organization, then, perhaps, people will say, Blatter's not as unbeatable as we thought and they could switch their allegiance wholesale. All results still up in the air at the moment -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I know so many countries have lost confidence in Blatter. He's been, obviously, around for a long time, especially in the aftermath of these charges put forward by the U.S. Justice Department. The attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the FBI director here in the United States, James Comey, they minced no words against these high- ranking FIFA officials who were formally charged with corruption and other charges. The United States voted for Prince Ali, right, not for Sepp Blatter, is that right?

THOMAS: Yes, they did. And Sunil Gulati, the head of the U.S. Soccer Federation, although he didn't personally cast a vote, he's not allowed to because he's on the executive committee, did make that abundantly clear. And that's breaking away from the rest of the United States region which is called the CONCACAF region. Remember, it was the CONCACAF president, Jeffrey Webb, seen as a rising star in soccer administration who was one of those unceremoniously woken up and hauled out of his bed back on Wednesday morning when all this controversy first started.

So, the USA has broken ranks with their regional bent towards Blatter. We know Australia also wanted to publicly say they backed Prince Ali, the challenger, and so did the UEFA president, the European soccer governing body president, Michel Platini, also said he and most of his members would back Prince Ali.

[13:15:00] And the question is now, if Sepp Blatter does get in, will there be reprisals or will there be one less place for a European country at a future world cup? Will it affect the USA's chances of hosting a world cup in the future? They haven't done so since 1994, let's not forget. So the story is only beginning, not even ending, and we don't even know who's won the election yet, Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, I just want to quickly listen in to -- they're actually counting the votes right now. Let's listen.

PRINCE ALI BIN AL-HUSSEIN: So thank you all very much and I wish you the best of luck for the future. Thank you.

BLITZER: That's Prince Ali speaking. Obviously we missed the thrust of what he was saying, but we'll continue to watch what's going on.

Alex, I guess so many - so many leaders of international football, soccer as we call it here in the United States, they've lost total confidence in Sepp Blatter. I think the charge is, they really don't believe that he was ignorant of all these other allegations that have been put forward by the United States government, that he must have known about these corruption, these alleged corruption. That's the sense that - the sense we're getting and people are only beginning to fully appreciate that. Realistically, even if he is re-elected, he's going to lose a lot of credibility and a lot of influence, right?

THOMAS: Yes, that's right, Wolf. And as you speak, we're just hearing that in that speech we heard the end of there, Prince Ali bin al- Hussein, the challenger to Sepp Blatter, has conceded. There will not be a second round of voting. Sepp Blatter will be FIFA president for a fifth time at the age of 79, which means he'll have served 21 years if he gets through to the next four-year term. Blatter, the great survivor, has done it again. The mud has not stuck to him.

And you're right, you were talking about his reputation there, Wolf, and his critics say this. If he's not corrupt, then he must be incompetent because if he's not dirty at all, how has he been in charge of an organization for 17 years that's seen scandal after scandal sully the reputation of soccer, the most popular sport on the planet, and still claims he has nothing to do with it. He said in the speech yesterday and again today reiterating, I can't keep my eye on the whole of world football. We've got more member nations than the United Nations he often boasts. But I'm not sure that excuse is going to carry on washing but it has been enough to win him re-election as FIFA president, Wolf.

BLITZER: I want to play the clip. Here's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein conceding only moments ago to Sepp Blatter. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL-HUSSEIN: And I want to thank in particular all of those of you who were brave enough to support me. But having said that, I'll be withdrawing from the race. So thank you all very much. I wish you the best of luck for the fewer. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan conceding. Sepp Blatter will now be re-elected to another term as president.

The U.S. Justice Department makes it clear, Alex, that this investigation here in the United States is really only just beginning. They're going to go on and on and on and there's widespread assumption that some of those indicted, formally charged by the United States government, with these allegations of bribery and corruption and other charges as well, might turn and may, in fact, in order to protect themselves, make accusations against Blatter that he was more knowledgeable about what's going on than he is now contending. I assume that's the big fear that Blatter has, that some of these other individuals will now turn against him?

THOMAS: It's not a big enough fear for him to have pulled out of this election race certainly, Wolf, but I think it's a very real possibility. There's no doubt about that. The U.S. Justice authorities don't muck around. They wouldn't have held such a high-profile news conference on Wednesday and listed all those allegations in what was a sensational litany of charges if they weren't very sure that they were going to get their men.

And as you say, once people are called in for questioning, who knows what's going to emerge from those discussions. You've got very, very capable and trained interrogators. And the whole point was, there was never any excuse to go into FIFA and to find out what was really going on. Separate the rumor from the facts. Now you've got two separate countries here in Switzerland and in America pursuing two separate criminal investigations and that certainly means that this is the beginning of the process and certainly not the end of the lured headlines, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Sepp Blatter is about to speak. I want to listen in.

SEPP BLATTER, PRESIDENT, FIFA: Thank you.

But first of all, I would like to give compliments and express my gratitude to his royal highness, Prince Ali.

[13:20:09] Because Prince Ali was a competitor, a challenger, and he has obtained a very good result, and he, in the certain situation, easy, he could have said, no, let's go further, perhaps I would receive more votes. On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you, I thank you that you have accepted me that for the next four years I will be in command of this boat called FIFA and we will bring it back, we will bring it back off shore and we will drag (ph) to the beach, we will bring it back, where finally football can be played, beach soccer, we can play everywhere.

But we have to work on that. We have to work on that. We have also to work on other things that we have to do for FIFA in the future. You'll remember four years ago, I had a lot of problems to solve and I gave it to you and you - I challenged you at that time. I will not going to challenge you. But we have also to make some organizational problems inside of FIFA, inside the executive committee, because we must have a better representation of the different confederations and the number of members of the confederations shall have also their repercussions in the organization of the committee. And, again, we need in this committee, women. We need ladies. We cannot just say they are only (INAUDIBLE). We have to do more. We have to do more in our competitions also and I already told you, I will not touch the World Cup because the World Cup is too important for doing that.

But for the other competitions, especially men's and the 17 and the 20, also we shall give - we shall give a second, a second part. We shall have a little bit more respect to one of the confederations that is respected by everybody. It is Oceania (ph). They have only one member in the executive committee. They have only one slot. Or the semi (ph) - 50 percent of a slot. We have to do something for that. That is not good. That is not good for the - let's say for the solidarity in FIFA. But don't touch the World Cup. I agree with you, we don't touch the World Cup.

But now, and I have said it before, I take the responsibility to bring back FIFA. We feel (ph) -- we do it. We do it. We do it. And I am convinced we can do it. I was not now in the - in the room but I was thinking, it was in meditation. I am a faithful man and I said, now, God, Allah, or whatever is the extraordinary whatever it is spirit in that world that we believe, we believe, they will help us to bring back this FIFA where we shall be. And I tell you and I promise you, in the end of my term, I will this FIFA to my successor in a very, very strong, strong position. A robust FIFA and a good FIFA. We have to work together.

You will ask me what age. It's not an age. The age is no problem, I always told you. you'll have people, they are 50, they look old. It's nothing (ph). It's no - yes, sure. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, I didn't know that we have so man 50 years old people here. No, definitely not.

But ladies and gentlemen, you know, I told you at the beginning or when we started for this election, I like you. I like my job. And I like to be with you. I am not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But we will do a good job together I'm sure. So I thank you so much. I thank you for the trust and confidence, trust and confidence together we go. Let's go FIFA. Let's go FIFA. Thank you. thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[13:25:09] BLITZER: Alex Thomas is in Zurich, our correspondent on the scene there. Alex, what a piece of work that guy is. I guess that's typical of his

behavior. Does he - does he not realize what's going on right now with all these charges of accusation among so many of his top leaders right below him at FIFA?

THOMAS: That was a vintage Sepp Blatter performance. What would he have achieved if he'd gone into politics. You could see at the beginning of that speech, he was rattled by how many votes his challenger for the FIFA presidency Prince Ali got. But at the end, he had the delegates eating out of the palm of his hand, even cracking jokes. For FIFA and for Blatter, it's business as usual. But as we were talking about earlier, Wolf, this is far from the end and maybe - maybe Blatter's fifth term in office may be even more scandal ridden than the previous four stretching back to 1998, Wolf.

BLITZER: And the U.S. Justice Department, the attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch, the FBI director, James Comey, in announcing all these charges against so many high-ranking FIFA officials this week, they're making it clear, this investigation is only just beginning, and get ready, more is on the way. We'll see if Sepp Blatter can continue as the president of FIFA. We'll, of course, stay on top of this story.

Alex Thomas is in Zurich for us. Thank you, Alex, very much.

There's more breaking news here on CNN today.

Just ahead, Cuba and the United States, they are one step closer to restoring full diplomatic ties. Cuba being removed from the U.S. State Department list of countries that support international terror.

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