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EARLY START

South Carolina Ravaged by Floods; Oregon Campus Massacre Survivor Speaks Out; Doctors Without Borders Demands Investigation on Strike; Russia Intensifies Syrian Airstrikes. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired October 5, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:03] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: People also aren't using ATMs as much as they used to. So the burden of maintaining the machines is falling to fewer users.

All right. "The Martian" opening near a box office record. Look at this, this movie brought in an estimated 55 million bucks over the U.S. -- in the U.S. over the weekend. Just short of the biggest October opening. That was "Gravity," also a space flick in 2013.

Matt Damon is the star, got a boost from some real mars news last week. Remember NASA discovered water on mars.

And you know, he's getting a lot of accolades for his acting. He's on screen almost always by himself for most of this film. So his acting is really -- people are saying Oscars, Oscars, Oscars already.

BERMAN: Interesting. Nice boxy voice.

All right. EARLY START continues right now.

Flooding of historic proportions in South Carolina. Flood levels seen every 1,000 years. Just swamping huge parts of the state. We'll have the latest on the damage and the big question of how much more of this is on the way.

ROMANS: A woman who was inside the classroom during last week's shooting massacre at a Oregon community college speaks exclusively to CNN. What she says happened and how she managed to escape with her life.

BERMAN: A huge controversy and big questions after a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan apparently hits a Doctors Without Borders hospital. More than 20 people killed including staffers and patients. We're live in Kabul with what the Pentagon is now saying happened there.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It's Monday, October 5th, it is 5:00 a.m. in the East.

Our top story this morning, deadly unprecedented flooding in South Carolina. The governor deploying 600 members of the National Guard with the state experiencing rainfall totals never seen before. She calls it -- the governor calls this a once in a 1,000 year weather event. It has killed five people so far triggering more than 200 water rescues. Roads all over the state shutdown by flooding. Cars and trucks simply washed away.

Just look at this aerial view of Huger, South Carolina, water levels there rising so fast the Coast Guard had to airlift this mother and her 15-month-old infant to safety. Look at these folks in Columbia rescued after being caught --

BERMAN: I just can't get over that water.

ROMANS: I know. Raging waist-deep waters. Holding on for dear life in a chain. Holding on to a stop sign. Rescue operations set to begin in the state capital today. The torrential rains and floods leaving some with no choice but to completely rebuild.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have lost everything. What I've got on my body is what we have. Pretty much everybody down that hill there have lost everything this morning. Our vehicles, our clothes, our everything. But the best thing is that we still have our lives. We still have our lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: More than 18 inches, 18 to 24 inches of rain in some places in that state in a day or less. You can just see how powerful the force of that water is right now. Catastrophic flash flooding. And there is more rain in the forecast.

Let's get the very latest from meteorologist Pedram Javaheri -- Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, guys. Yes, one of the more impressive rain events we've seen in a very long time. And you look at the numbers. The 24 inches that came out of Mt. Pleasant just outside of Charleston. You do that math on this, that's about 65 billion gallons of water. Roughly the amount of water you would see flow over Niagara Falls in a matter of a 10-day period. So you pick the state of South Carolina down the rainfall totals in this region about nine inches when you calculate the entire state's average rainfall amounts of course a pretty wide area where we saw upwards of 20 plus inches in some of these regions.

But again, you do the math and you're talking about 6.7 million gallons -- 6.7 million Olympic sized swimming pools. That's how much water came down on top of South Carolina. By the way that's equivalent to taking every single person in the state of Massachusetts and giving them an Olympic size swimming pool, filling it up. That's what occurred over this region in South Carolina.

And again the rainfall still in the forecast. Some areas could still see upwards of about an inch or two especially across the northern portion of South Carolina outside of, say, Myrtle Beach and work your way some models indicating not far from Columbia. It can still pick up an additional one to two inches over the next 24 hours. The vast majority of this will begin to taper off as we head into Tuesday morning. So at least some good news there. But flood watches and flood warnings in place.

And the concern with this is of course so many roads have been damaged or destroyed that if anyone tries to get outside, they make the wrong turn and see one road close, try to go down another road, they could be entering a very dangerous place. So that's why they're urging people to stay indoors at this point.

BERMAN: Yes. Please pay attention to all the advisories.

Pedram, thank you so much.

ROMANS: I know, in Columbia, they are looking at the hospitals there, thinking about whether they're going to have to evacuate some of the hospitals there because they don't have fresh water. The water has knocked out the fresh water system with all this rain and flashfloods.

BERMAN: Yes. A real problem. All the emergency management people with their hands full.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: One of the hardest hit areas, the city of Georgetown. That's half way between Myrtle Beach and Charleston. EMS workers and National Guard they've been stretched to the limit. One man who drove around a barricade had his car swept away. Had to be rescued by boat while he was clinging to a tree.

Let's get more from CNN's Boris Sanchez.

[05:05:03] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Georgetown is one of the hardest hit areas in South Carolina. As you can see all around me, part of the reason for that is because the city lies at the bottom of a geographical bowl with several bodies of water and rivers all around town. And as it continues raining, that water has nowhere else to go so this keeps happening.

There is an inlet just to my left where the water keeps rising and it's risen into these businesses more than once. One of them is getting pumped right now but it's likely not to make a huge difference because the water is expected to rise again as the rainfall continues into the day.

When we arrived in town, there was actually a police barricade, not letting anyone through. A lot of the roads are disheveled. There are emergencies all across town. We've had gas leaks as well as several structure fires here. So authorities are really rushing to emergencies left and right. We actually spoke to two ambulance workers who told us that they've been going for more than 24 hours and every ambulance in the city is out attending to emergencies.

Fortunately, it appears that most people are safe. But the mayor of Georgetown, I spoke with him, he told me that it's better for people to just stay home and be safe and to go against that natural curiosity to come out and see what's going on. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JACK SCOVILLE, GEORGETOWN: Just don't be stupid. I mean, that's the thing -- keep saying, you know, don't try to drive through flooded areas. You don't know how deep they'll be. We're supposed to get a lot more rain later today. High tide is going to be about 4:00. So it could actually be worse in two or three hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That was actually right near city hall which was also submerged under water. Fortunately most of the water there has receded. But in places like this in Georgetown it's likely going to take several weeks to clean up this mess and get things back to normal -- John, Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Boris. Thank you for that, Boris.

The U.S. Coast Guard has discovered a 225-square mile debris field in the Caribbean Sea in their search for a missing containership. The Jacksonville, Florida, based vessel Alfaro was carrying a crew of 28 Americans and five Polish nationals. It was on its way to Puerto Rico when it went missing near the Bahamas last week. Search crews finding wood, cargo, Styrofoam, life jackets, and oil sheen in this debris field. Still, though, no positive confirmation it came from the missing ship. The Air Force and the Navy are assisting the Coast Guard in this search. They have already conducted more than -- or covered, rather, more than 70,000 square nautical miles.

BERMAN: The father of the gunman who murdered nine people, wounded nine others at a community college in Oregon insists he had no idea where his son got his weapons, refuses to comment on his son's mental state. He says he was stunned to learn his son owned 13 guns and claims those guns are to blame for last week's campus massacre. He wants to know how anyone can get so many weapons so easily.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN MERCER, GUNMAN'S FATHER: It has to change. It has to change. How can it not? Even people that believe in the bear -- the right to bear arms, you know, what right do you have to take people's lives? That's what guns are, the killers. As simple as that. It's as simple as that. It's black and white. What do you want a gun for?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: A CNN exclusive now. Tracy Hue was inside the classroom where the killed gunned down his victims one by one. She suffered a bullet wound to her hand. She survived and spoke about the ordeal to CNN's Sara Sidner.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, this is the first time we're hearing a firsthand account from someone who was inside of Umpqua Community College in classroom 15 at Snyder Hall when a gunman came in and started shooting people one by one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRACY HUE, SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I was sitting in the front of the classroom facing the teacher when everything happened. He just came in and shot in towards the back of the wall and told everybody to get in the center of the room on the ground.

SIDNER (on camera): So did he hit anyone? Did he hit anyone when he first shot that first shot?

HUE: No. He just got everybody's attention and then everybody looked over there to the door and he had guns with him and he was armed. He had a bulletproof vest on. And he didn't seem like he was like anxious or anything. He just seemed like he wanted to do that. And he seemed happy about it. He didn't seem stressed. He didn't seem nervous.

But when he came in, he told everybody to get on the ground. So everybody tried to huddle to the ground. And the girl in the wheelchair tried to get -- she got off and tried to get down on the ground.

[04:10:12] SIDNER: Wait, there was a woman in the wheelchair during all this?

HUE: Yes. And she had a dog with her, but the dog was just on the ground. And she got off the chair. She went on the ground. And then he told her to get back on the chair. And then she tried to climb back on the chair and then he shot her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: She says after she witnessed that, she knew that he would have no mercy, not on anyone. She said she lived because the person next to her was shot in the head and the blood ended up covering her body. He thought she was dead and she played dead, so that she could live -- Christine, John.

[05:10:14] ROMANS: Just harrowing.

Hillary Clinton expected to release her plan to curb gun violence today. Her proposal expected to draw the most discussion using executive action to close loopholes in current gun laws. The Democratic presidential frontrunner wants to label anyone selling a high number of guns in the business of firearms dealing, give them that label and subject them to the same regulations as retailers. That would close the so-called gun show loophole. After that she said she wanted to -- she wants to lead a national, quote, "national movement to counter the NRA."

BERMAN: Outrage in Afghanistan this morning. The group Doctors Without Borders is demanding an independent investigation of a deadly bombing at a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. At least 22 people were killed by the blast. 12 staffers, 10 patients. The Pentagon acknowledges it may have accidentally hit the facility during a military operation.

We're going live to Kabul, bring in CNN's Nic Robertson.

Good morning, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John. Doctors Without Borders has come out swinging against statements by the Afghan government. The Afghan government has been saying that the Taliban were inside the Doctors Without Borders compound. Doctors Without Borders say they are disgusted and there needs to be an independent investigation and the government can imply that U.S. and Afghan forces who were fighting side by side would go into the compound knowing it was a hospital and target people inside the hospital.

They are saying they're disgusted and they say that utterly contradicts what the U.S. has previously said that this could be collateral damage. What we do know at the moment NATO here resolute support is trying to sort of accelerate the investigation process. They're going to have an international investigation, they call it a casualty assessment team, and that will have results they say potentially early assessment within a few days.

What they say is that this strike was called in when U.S. and Afghan forces -- U.S. Special Forces and Afghan forces that they were supporting came under direct fire from the Taliban and they say that happened close to the hospital -- John.

BERMAN: A lot of questions, Nic. And of course the investigation -- the integrity of the investigation very important.

Nic Robertson, for us in Kabul, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning. A disappointing jobs report means a good start to the week for world stock market. The conventional wisdom now is the setback in U.S. jobs growth reported Friday means the Fed will not raise interest rates by this year.

Ben Bernanke said more Wall Street bankers should have gone to jail. He's the former Fed chief and he still thinks the bailout in 2008 was the right call. But he wishes more people had been held accountable.

Bernanke told the "USA Today," quote, "Everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individuals, not by an abstract firm. There should have been more accountability at the individual level."

Bernanke also says he wishes Lehman Brothers which collapsed into bankruptcy could have been saved. And Ben Bernanke, basically is saying exactly what the American people have been saying for seven years. Why weren't there Wall Street bankers in handcuffs? That really -- all these people lost their houses, left their home equity, nobody in handcuffs.

All right. Russia escalating its bombardment in Syria. Now Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is speaking up for the very first time since Russia started bombing inside its borders. We are live in Moscow next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:39] BERMAN: This morning, Russia stepping up its air assault in Syria. Officials in Moscow claimed to be targeting ISIS, Al-Nusra and other terror groups. But the U.S.-backed coalition accuses Russia of attacking civilians and rebel groups just opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian president, he is now speaking out about the Russian involvement saying it must succeed or else.

CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance following developments for us live from Moscow.

Good morning, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. That's right. There's been more airstrikes over the past 24 hours carried out by the Russian military in the skies over Syria. The latest Defense Ministry statement that I've seen says that we're at least 20 missions carried out in the past 24 hours. Some of them by Russia's most advanced fighter bombers, advanced weaponry that it has deployed in that -- in that theater.

Ten targets hit including training camps, workshops, the IEDs, ammunition dumps, all of them controlled by ISIS and other terrorist groups according to the Kremlin, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. There's has been, you know, a lot of emphasis put by the Russian Defense Ministry on how much progress they're making. In fact the spokesperson for the Defense Ministry here, General LindaPollof, saying that panic and desertion has started among the ranks of ISIS fighters claiming that 600 people from ISIS have fled their positions and are trying to flee as refugees to Europe.

So the Russians really putting across this impression that they are having an impact where other countries like the U.S. have failed.

BERMAN: All right. Matthew Chance for us in Moscow. And of course now the United States suggesting it may step up its involvement in a different part of the country perhaps in response to the Russian involvement. Thanks, Matthew.

ROMANS: All right, breaking news. North Korea has just released a South Korean college student who was taken into custody back in April. 21-year-old Won Moon Joo was accused of crossing the border from China illegally. He has permanent residency in New Jersey. He was traveling abroad after taking a semester off from New York University. Now he has been turned over directly to South Korean officials. We will update you on developments throughout the morning.

All right. Sunday night football. The Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints slugging it out in overtime. Thriller.

BERMAN: Yes. An important milestone right there. Coy Wire with the highlights in the "Bleacher Report" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [05:22:38] BERMAN: All right. What a night for Drew Brees from the New Orleans Saints. He got his 400th career touchdown pass and more.

ROMANS: Wow. Coy Wire has more on the overtime thriller in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: Good morning, Christine, good morning John. Going into the last night's game, the Saints had lost six straight home games and the Cowboys had won nine straight road games. Both streets are now over.

Dallas Cowboys in the Superdome in New Orleans. Drew Brees and the Saints looking to get their first win in the season. Game tied. Saints with the shot, 16 seconds left. Is that a talker? Misses the 30 yarder. No Brees in there. But it was no good. In overtime, there was a Brees. And Drew gets the first cracks in OT. Seconds later, CJ Spiller, look at how fast this guy is, 80-yard touchdown.

Brees serves up the 400th touchdown pass of his career. An 80-yard walk-off game when you're TV for Brees and joins Manning and Favre, Marino and Brady as the only quarterbacks to make up their history. To throw for 400 or more touchdown passes in a career now.

Now the Greenbay Packers, they're off to their fresh start in four years as they move to a perfect 4-0 with their low run over the 49ers yesterday. Aaron Rodgers steps up, steps back. Take a look at that. Aaron Rodgers to Richard Rogers on a nine yard strike on the game's opening driver. It would be his only touchdown of the game. But Packers go on to win snapping a four-game losing streak to San Fran which included a pair of playoff loss has not proved four weeks of NFL action.

We have six undefeated teams. We have the packers, broncos and Bengals -- you have the panthers are -- Mike Falcons and John Berman's the Patriots, basically they know they have a bye this week. But teams who have started the season 4-0 made it to the playoffs 83 percent of the time.

All right. Now maybe the play of the day came in the Bills game. They're hosting the Giants. Giants running back Rashad Jennings. I used to hate Fran against this guy. Oh my goodness. Wait until you see this replay. A 51-yard catch and run but a stiff-arm that is just -- takes Picar and Ramos man card. I mean, this is just absurd. What a play. The Giants would go on to win 24-10, teams now at 2-2.

Finally in baseball. It took all 162 games to figure out who's going to the American League west crown. The rangers scoring back with a six-run, 7th inning against the ages to win their first division title since 2011. The victory also meant that the Astros clinched a wildcard berth. They can top the chords now to celebrate. But it's all business tomorrow night. The Astros travel to the Bronx to face the Yankees and the winner take all. American League wildcard game.

[05:25:10] Then the national league takes center stage on Wednesday when the pirates host the Cubs on our sister channel TBS. John, your Red Sox are not making the playoffs, but good news

yesterday announced that your manager John Farrell is finished with chemotherapy. Will be back in the dugout next year so that's great news to start the Monday morning -- guys.

BERMAN: It is. And we are all rooting for the Astros. I think we can agree right there. Yes?

WIRE: Good. So there we go.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: Thanks, Coy. 25 minutes past the hour. Flooding disaster gripping in South Carolina. Historic levels of rainfall. You know, cities and towns there under water, a once in a 1,000 year event. And more weather rolling through overnight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Happening right now. Catastrophic flooding in South Carolina. Portions of the state devastated. People rescued from raging waters. Waters seen only once very millennia. How bad? We look at answers ahead.

BERMAN: A witness to a killing spree speaking out to CNN a woman who was inside the classroom during at Oregon community college shares her story of fear and survival. It's an amazing tale. You won't want to miss.

ROMANS: A bad situation taking an ugly turn in Afghanistan. An airstrike, an American airstrike killed more than 20 people at a Doctors Without Borders hospital. A U.S. airstrikes apparently the cost here. What does the Pentagon have to say? We're live in Kabul.

Welcome back to EARLY START. Welcome back to EARLY start this Monday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. 30 minutes past the hour. Right now deadly unprecedented flooding in South Carolina.