Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Flash Flood Emergency Issued for Houston, Texas; Mayweather Beats McGregor. Aired 2-2:30a ET

Aired August 27, 2017 - 02:00   ET

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


[02:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A warm welcome to our viewers around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell. And we begin with breaking news we're following out of the U.S. state of Texas. A second death is now blamed on Tropical Storm Harvey as it continues to hit that state with heavy rains.

After making landfall as a category 4 hurricane, this satellite gives you a sense of where the storm is right now on the state. There are dire warnings of potentially catastrophic flooding in the city of Houston, Texas. A flash flood emergency has been issued there.

Houston police confirm a woman was killed after being swept away by floodwaters. Up to 20 cm of rain has already fallen on the city and the storm could drop up to 10 more centimeters per hour.

Look at this and you can see the widespread damage in the city of Rockport, Texas. This is where at least one person was killed. The city's mayor reports widespread devastation has occurred there.

The governor of the state of Texas, Greg Abbott, visited a shelter in the state capital, Austin, on Saturday. And he promised that all evacuees will be taken care of. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG ABBOTT, GOVERNOR OF TEXAS: We have to realize that what these people left behind was sheer tragedy. Some of them had their homes mowed down. Some of them will not have a place to return to. They need this time and this place and this food right here.

It's our job to make sure that they're going to be taken care of. We will take care of our fellow Texans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: CNN live on the ground this hour in Victoria, Texas, our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam, following the situation there.

Derek, we do see the winds whipping up there. Tell us more about what has happened Georgia in Victoria, Texas, about 50 km from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, George, I'm in Victoria,

Texas, about 50 kilometers from the coast, the Gulf of Mexico, of course. And we are getting hit hard and this area of Texas is getting lashed with heavy rain and strong winds.

But it is really the story of the hour right now is Houston just to our east because they have had an unprecedented amount of rainfall -- get this -- they have experienced 250 mm of rainfall in 1.5 hours' time.

The storm total here in Victoria has been about 250 millimeters. That is about 18 hours. So in Houston, we go back to that. The flash flooding that is taking place there is really going to be historic and we hear so many stories at the moment, seen on social media, this swift water rescues that are ongoing across the area.

For a moment there they had a flash flood emergency and a tornado warning inside of the Houston region. So we will really keep a close eye on that particular area. But in terms of Victoria, Texas, where I am located now it is like a ghost town here.

We took a walk around the city. They had a mandatory evacuation from this particular region. Again 50 kilometers inland. And there is equivalent to what would be a category 1 hurricane damage.

We have had power lines snapped. We have had shingles taken off of roofs. Many trees taken down and the scene here is quite dire. We still get lashed by these strong outer bands from the storm system that is really rotated about the state.

It stalled out; it's only moving at 1 mile per hour and that means Harvey is here to stay for several days. And that means the rain is only going to get worse. We're going to continue to pump in more moisture for flooding -- George.

HOWELL: Right now, as you point out, Houston is the point of concern. Derek, I understand that city well. There are some parts of Houston that deal better with flooding than others. Millions of people in that city, that are in the path of all this rain. We'll stay in touch with you, Derek as you continue to cover the situation. Thank you so much.

Harvey came ashore on Friday as a category 4 hurricane, where it struck the city of Rockport, Texas. CNN's Martin Savidge has a look at some of the damage that happened there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is fairly typical where you have a major hurricane, just a debris field that is spread all over. And it is all over this town. But I want to show you something else here -- watch your footing because there's nails.

But take a look at this. This is not so typical. The entire front of this building sheared off completely. Now the interior has been knocked around a lot but much of it is still intact. You rode it out last night here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did. It was crazy. It was crazy. I went in; it was unbelievable. We first -- the wind came then we were -- went upstairs. We have a two-story home and just to peek out the window. because you really couldn't see much below -- I had everything boarded up, stuff. So I went to the upstairs window so I could reach them.

[02:05:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the fence was waving when it first started. And then it gave way. About an hour later, we heard this big thump. Well, we have a very big chimney out of brick that had fell over on the roof and collapsed part of the roof there.

And then 45 minutes later, the garage had lifted up and slammed against the house.

SAVIDGE: Rockport is right on the water. That's part of the reason it got so hit so hard. It's a very tourist town. You can see the marina did not fare well at all. There are what looks like dozens if not maybe over 100 boats here. Looks like many of them suffered varying forms of damage, from light all the way down to a total write- off.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: So Martin Savidge there. We know this to be a deadly storm. We know there's a great deal of damage that's occurred from it.

Let's bring in our meteorologist, Karen Maginnis now.

And, Karen, the force of the storm coming in, that has passed, I guess you could say. But the storm is still strong and it is dumping a lot of rain in South Texas.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And Houston and I know you're familiar with this, Houston has many bayous. And the bayous are meant to carry the water away. One of the bigger bayous, the Buffalo Bayou, by no stretch of the imagination, we're looking at maybe a 500-year flood event, meaning during any 500-year stretch, you may see about a 2 percent chance that you could see such epic flooding.

This isn't just epic flooding; it is catastrophic flooding potential. And it involves this entire basin all the way from Waco to San Antonio, toward the Gulf Coast. And now it looks like it's shifting a little bit further toward the east and northeast. But there have been a number of high-water rescues. We've been monitoring some of the TV stations around Houston. They are going wall-to-wall with coverage, saying this is epic, turn around, don't drown.

But you see some people on some of those roads and I don't know that they have gotten the message but the rainfall rates here are about 100-200 mm an hour. We've seen some reports that there have been about 400 mm in just about six hours' time so from Houston, all the way over to Lake Charles, we're continuing to trap that moisture coming up off the Gulf of Mexico.

Now this is just a tropical storm intensity. It's a tropical storm. A lot of naysayer saying, no, that's just impossible. We couldn't see that much rainfall. But indeed we will, all this area of low pressure is going to do, this deep area of low pressure with lots of tropical moisture, it's just going to rain out along the coast.

But we'll keep you updated on this. We'll have another update coming up in the next hour -- back to you, George.

HOWELL: And, Karen, just looking at the radar as well. You can see that this storm is just going to keep dumping rain for a long time. We will stay in touch with you. Thank you so much.

So many people have been displaced by the storm. If you want to help you can go to cnn.com/impact. You can click on "take action" and discover a number of ways that you can help the people there. The address again is cnn.com/impact.

So the question, if I asked this, did you watch the fight?

Millions of people around the world did so after months of trash talking and hype, boxing's money fight is finally over. Floyd Mayweather beat Conor McGregor by a technical knockout in the 10th round. The American is now the first boxer to reach 50 professional wins undefeated.

Ireland's McGregor was the clear underdog but came out strong in the first few rounds. It was the UFC champion's first pro boxing fight. And following it all, our Don Riddell, following the story live in Las Vegas

Don, so a lot of hype went into this and now we know the winner.

DON RIDDELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We sure do. I must say, George, it's been quite a weird experience here, coverage the buildup to a fight, which many people were predicting was going to be a complete dud.

And I will be honest, that I was holding my breath at the start, hoping that it wasn't going to be that, that it was going to be entertaining, that it was going to be worth all the effort that we'd all put into it.

And as you've said, it did not disappointment. I think Conor McGregor can absolutely leave Las Vegas this weekend with his head held high because he held his own. He did a lot better than people thought he was going to be. And it was a much more entertaining fight than it was going to be.

Just to give you one statistic, you remember that borefest two years ago, when Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao and it was 12 rounds, a decision for Mayweather?

Well, on this occasion, obviously the fight was shorter. But McGregor actually landed 30 more punches on Mayweather than Pacquiao did two years ago. And the fight of course was over in the 10th round. So a really good effort by McGregor --

[02:10:00]

RIDDELL: -- and it was a good night.

HOWELL: But you know, Don, there were a lot of people who were betting on McGregor to pull it off here.

RIDDELL: Yes, I think there is a number of reasons for that. I think a lot of people bought into the hype. McGregor is just very, very popular and he has a very partisan group; thousands and thousands of box events came from Aussie fans, fight fans, UFC fans came from Ireland to cheer him on.

I think one of the reasons so many people were betting on him, 90 percent of the people who were going to the bookmakers here in Vegas were betting on McGregor. It's because he was such a massive underdog. So you really didn't have to wage a very much for potentially quite a big payout.

In the end it did not work out that way. And to make any kind of money on Floyd Mayweather, you had to put an awful lot down. The average bet on Mayweather was about $8,800 because you that much on just to win a little bit back.

I can tell you that the bookmakers are breathing a huge sigh of relief though, because they said that were going to take a massive punch to the gut if McGregor won. Fortunately for them, that didn't happen.

HOWELL: And Don, at the end of the day, both of these men walk away richer men.

RIDDELL: Yes --

(LAUGHTER)

RIDDELL: -- that's putting it mildly.

(LAUGHTER)

RIDDELL: I can give you some statistics here. I think Floyd Mayweather made $3.5 million per minute that he was in the ring tonight; McGregor, $1 million per minute. And that's the minimum so, you know, it was revealed before the fight that McGregor was going to win or make at least $30 million; Mayweather was going to make at least $100 million and then if there was any more money coming in from the pay-to-view sales, they would carve that up between them. And I'm sure there will be more money coming in.

So both of them extraordinarily richer as a result of this. McGregor had been saying in the buildup that he was going to quadruple his net worth in one evening. So I mean, quote extraordinary figures around this fight. They called it the money fight because there wasn't a title on the line.

Just an amazing event all around and I think the promoters will be relieved that it did live up to the hype because there were a lot of naysayers who were saying that it wouldn't and it would be a farce.

HOWELL: Don, it was interesting, after the fight, I watched as the two got together. They were talking. They seemed quite chummy, quite happy.

And you know what, after something like that, I guess I would walk away happy, too. Don Riddell, live for us in Las Vegas. Thank you so much for being with us.

And thank you for joining us on CNN NEWSROOM. I am George Howell. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is up next after a short break.