Hurricane Michael Death Toll Now at 17, Expected to Rise; Search and Rescue Missions Underway; 1.1 Million Without Power
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And that's it. Thanks very much for watching. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: OUTFRONT next, breaking news, the death toll from Hurricane Michael keeps rising. It now stands at 17. Many still unaccounted for. And new details tonight about the missing "Washington Post" contributor, did he use his Apple Watch to record his own death? And President Trump's ties to Saudi Arabia running deep. How he's been doing big business with the kingdom for decades. Let's go OUTFRONT. Good evening, everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan in for Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, we have breaking news, the death toll from Hurricane Michael rising. Now, at least 17 people across 4 states and officials expect that number to go up still. You are looking at the devastated remains of Mexico Beach, Florida, the town that took Michael's first and most damaging blow. Late today, 16 people across Mexico Beach were rescued. One survivor was literally pulled out alive from underneath the rubble. One of the biggest unknowns, though, how many people are still missing tonight? Local, state, and federal officials not offering an estimate but acknowledge not everyone is accounted for. Today, some residents risking their own safety once again by trying to head back home to Mexico Beach. Before the storm, this was a little sleepy beach town. That on the left, Mexico Beach before the storm. Homes, businesses, dozens of boat slips. On the right, just after the storm, they're all gone. And look at this. On the left, the curved building is Panama City's Bay City Medical Center where some 1,500 people were sheltered from the storm. After the storm, extensive damage. National Guard and Coast Guard search and rescue teams are now fully deployed, combing the widespread wreckage. A Coast Guard helicopter crew found this survivor in Panama City. Miguel Marquez is OUTFRONT tonight in the town. Officials are calling it ground zero, Mexico Beach, and Miguel it is very clear why they are calling it that when you look anywhere, everywhere that you've been. What did you find today?</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is absolutely unbelievable to see the extent of the damage here. The search is on for survivors and possibly the dead because this is what you're looking at. Those stairs used to lead up to a house. This was once beach front property. It is now completely wiped away. The ability of searchers and rescuers right now all depends on dogs and the absolute grit of these individuals getting out there and searching.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): An entire town almost gone. Those who rode it out -- (On camera) You were up to your neck in water?</s>BOB PUGH, SURVIVED HURRICANE MICHAEL: Yeah, with a 96-year-old lady next door, and my mother. And two dogs.</s>MARQUEZ: And you made it?</s>PUGH: We're here, baby.</s>MARQUEZ: Would you do it again?</s>PUGH: Nope.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): They barely survived. Search and rescue now searching for survivors and possibly the dead. Emergency officials expect the death toll to climb.</s>MARK BOWEN, BAY COUNTY, FLORIDA EMS (via telephone): And I do expect that we're going to find that kind of bad news and, you know, there's a process that we go through for that, and then we, you know, our priority, obviously, is the living, and we're looking for people that are trapped.</s>MARQUEZ: Several people we spoke to say they haven't yet heard from neighbors and friends who rode it out. (On camera) What's happened to Mexico Beach?</s>JACK PELHAM, SURVIVED HURRICANE MICHAEL: It's a disaster. It's -- I was really shocked to see what it looked like.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): This CNN exclusive video of the moment the hurricane hit shows winds as high as 155 miles an hour, shredding this once tranquil beach town. Then, an enormous storm surge, a dozen or more feet of water bulldozed large sections of Mexico Beach from the coast to the interior. 30 miles out from Mexico Beach, some roads no longer exist, entirely covered by downed trees for miles.</s>BUTCH ALLEY, SURVIVED HURRICANE MICHAEL: Brandy, it's dad.</s>MARQUEZ: With power out, those who survived have no way to tell the world they're still here. When they do, the news, about as bad as it gets.</s>ALLEY: Do not come down here. Do not. You can't get in. It's -- everything's -- it's devastated. We had a hole in our house but that's all that's wrong with it. Grandmother's house is completely gone. It looks like a bomb landed.</s>MARQUEZ: The devastation here, jaw dropping, the main drag, highway 98, collapsed in many places, water eroding the sand beneath. Entire homes, their living rooms still intact, slammed into condos across the street. And the most popular bar here, Toucans, reduced to a pile of rubble.</s>MARQUEZ: Now, as that search continues for the living and possibly the dead, there's also a clean-up that's just begun, some heavy machinery has finally gotten into town, they are starting to clear out debris on 98 so that searchers and rescuers can get in and out and that the clean-up and the rebuilding, because everybody wants to rebuild here, the rebuilding of this town can finally begin, but it is going to be a long, long time before Mexico Beach is back to where it was, Kate.</s>BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Or anything even like it. Thanks, Miguel, I appreciate it. Our Erika Hill is also in Mexico Beach. She is joining me now. Erica, you just spoke to several people, including the mayor, about this latest death. What have you been able to find out?</s>ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Kate, that's right. And in terms of that death, he did confirm for us that one elderly man was found deceased here. He said he could not confirm whether that man's name was on the initial list of people that they had who they knew were staying behind. So, as Miguel pointed out, that's one of the things that local officials are still trying to determine, who ended up staying, who was initially on that list who said they would and can they match up all the names? They're still trying to account for them. People making their way back in because as Miguel pointed out, some of those roads have been cleared. And what they are finding in many cases, they told me, is even worse than what they imagined.</s>EDGAR LAFOUNTAIN, PASTOR, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF MEXICO BEACH: From what I've seen in pictures where bombs are dropped, that's kind of looking like what it looks like here. And -- but we're going to -- with God's help, we're going to rebuild and gain our strength again. It's just going to set us back a little bit. But we're pretty resilient people, I think, in Mexico Beach.</s>MAYOR AL CATHEY, MEXICO BEACH, FLORIDA: There's 75% of our city's not here. There's not one local business here that's operational. Not one. And we're mom and pop. This isn't, you know, Hampton Inn and Pizza Hut and Walmart.</s>HILL: I asked the mayor too, he told me that he was told today it could be two months before power is back. There's no water. There's no sewer. So I said what about people who want to stay? Whose homes may be habitable? He said, that is what we're debating right now. How do you tell someone who's OK with these crude conditions in his words, who has a home that they can't live in. How do you tell them they have to go to a motel? That's one of the things they're trying to figure out. One other woman I met, Kate, he has a summer home here. She and her husband have been coming here, married 43 years, they dated here, they fished on this gulf, their kids, their grandkids have come down. Their house is gone. They were hoping to find a table that her husband had made. They didn't find the table, but they were overjoyed that they found a bench that he made for that ding table. She said her grandkids are going to be so happy. She found some of her son's fishing rods. She said we drove to the edge of the world and it looks like Mexico Beach fell off but we will build back just like we did, Kate, after opal.</s>BOLDUAN: So resilient but two months before power is back, unbelievable. Erica, thank you so much. Now let me show you another view, what's left of a Campground in Mexico Beach. Just another view of how much this town is in ruins. This is what it looked like before Hurricane Michael. What home also looked like for my next guest, Tangie Horton. But it isn't just where she lived that was ravaged by the hurricane, also this, this is the El Governor Motel, the Beachside Motel where Tandy worked and this is what is left of the motel. The roof walls, even rooms themselves, torn apart. Tangie is with me right now. Thank you so much for being here, Tangie. It has been two days since this hurricane hit. It was also the same day of your 32nd wedding anniversary. Have you been able to make sense yet -- sense of it yet, of what's happened?</s>TANGIE HORTON, MEXICO BEACH RESIDENT: No, ma'am. It's just -- it's devastating. Everything's gone. We got married, renewed our vows on that beach two years ago, our 30th anniversary. And that part's gone. You know, our friends and family was out there. Our RV park family, you know, we loved the whole place. But there's nothing left.</s>BOLDUAN: It is -- there's -- it's just -- I'm so sorry. It is so hard to even see it behind you, to wrap our minds around it, watching it from anywhere else than where -- then being on the ground in Mexico Beach. I mean, this is where you've lived. This is -- it's not only where you lived, but it's also where you worked that has been torn apart. When you're standing there today, what's tomorrow like? I mean, what are you thinking right now, Tangie, of where you go from here?</s>HORTON: Well, we have -- my husband works for a waste management, and they have really come together and, you know, they're the ones that offered us to put our camper in shelter in Callaway and we thought it was going to be safe there. And we got inside the big building there with the roll-up doors and, you know, just very sturdy building with our camper inside it, and you know, it was lifting off the ground. And you just never think of something -- some winds that strong coming through and, you know, we saw stuff because we took shelter inside waste management's building because we didn't feel safe in the camper. And we watched as carports flew by. We watched as, you know, people's roofs coming -- flying by, and I told my husband, I said I felt like I was in the twister movie, you know, when they was saying stuff was flying by. The wind, you know, where we were at in Callaway on State Road 22, the wind was 140 miles per hour. I can't imagine what Mexico Beach dealt with as of wind coming out of the eye, and I just -- we don't know where we're going to go tomorrow. I know some of our RV folks are looking for us long-term campgrounds again. We would all love to back in Mexico Beach, but we don't know if they'll rebuild the RV Park or the hotel.</s>BOLDUAN: That's right.</s>HORTON: I have talked to the owner.</s>BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean, that's what I was wondering. I mean, do you plan to -- do you hope to, to be back in Mexico Beach? I mean, just looking at it, it's hard to imagine when that's going to be possible?</s>HORTON: I know. I know, and that's what we're just -- we're trying to deal with now, where we'll go from right now and then until they do get something built back there and we're -- there, again, we're not sure if they're going to rebuild back or what. So, you just hope they do because I worked at the front desk of the motel and you would not believe the guests we had that has been coming there for 50 and 60 years. I mean, it's -- it was just a quaint little place, not busy. We didn't have any fast food restaurants out there. It was all locally owned restaurants. They were some of the best seafood restaurants out there. And you know, you just -- you wonder if it will ever be the same, and it won't, you know? But we hope they'll build back.</s>BOLDUAN: Tangie, what's the toughest thing for you when you see just the wasteland that is now what was your home and a beautiful beach town, or it the uncertainty of what's going to come next?</s>HORTON: Just knowing that my friends that I worked with, my coworkers, you know, most of them live there. And if they didn't live on the beach or right across 98, they lived inland, and their houses are all gone. They have nothing out there. My family is coming from Alabama this weekend. They're going to try to get in with a U-Haul Truck that my family and I will have just have got together and got supplies for everybody, clothes, donations, diapers, you know, toothpaste, toothbrushes, you know, stuff that people don't have anymore out there. And they're bringing all that stuff and we're going to distribute it as soon as we can get to Mexico Beach and try to help some of our friends that stayed or if they left, they lost their house too. The campground had probably 14 trailers -- campers still in it that people didn't have a way to get them out of there, and you know, they've lost everything they had because most people was like us, they sold their home to make Mexico Beach their home, and now they don't have nowhere to go, so.</s>BOLDUAN: So many people, so many people and the very same situation, from street, to street, to street in Mexico Beach. Tangie, I'm so sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances but thank you so much for coming on.</s>HORTON: I appreciate y'all, and we appreciate everything that the EMS, the county, the city, the police department, the -- I mean, everybody's just coming together. You wouldn't believe the people that's just stepped in and started cleaning up. I know waste management's high people coming today and it was like a war zone where we were at, and now it looks completely different. They've come in and cleaned up, but we appreciate all the donations and everything that's everybody's gave, and we want to get to Mexico Beach and try to distribute them as soon as we can.</s>BOLDUAN: Well, there is hope in that that you're coming together still in the face of this real tragedy that the community is coming together. Tangie, thank you.</s>HORTON: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: What a wonderful woman. OUTFRONT next, rescues are under way across the Florida Panhandle. We're going to talk to one rescuer with the Cajun Navy who's been on the ground since Hurricane Michael hit. Plus new reports about the missing "Washington Post" contributor, did he use his Apple Watch to record what happened when he went inside a Saudi Consulate and never came out? And Melania Trump asked point-blank about her husband's alleged infidelities, what she said coming up.