15 Million People Facing Severe Weather Threats
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Congratulations to that whole family again, and thank you so much for sharing your morning with us to make some good memories today.</s>ERROL BARNETT, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, I'll be back with Christi tomorrow. Deb Feyerick picks things up in New York.</s>DEB FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: It is so incredible to watch that mom with that little baby. It's like she's been holding -- that grandmother, it's like she's been holding that baby for her entire life. That's what was so heartwarming about the whole thing. Thanks so much, you guys. Really appreciate it. We'll take it from here. It is now 11.00 on the East Coast. I'm Deborah Feyerick, in for Fredricka Whitfield. Newsroom starts now. Fifteen million people are facing severe weather threats across the nation today. The South still reeling from tornadoes and widespread flooding. The death toll now rising to at least 15 people across three states. In Alabama, a day the epic rainfall has residents bracing for the worst as a river swells just inches away from topping a levy protecting the town of Elba. In western U.S., fire and ice with blizzard conditions bearing down on the southern Rockies and Plain states. This fresh blanket of snow that you're seeing right there covering parts of northern California. And in the southern part of the states, a raging wildfire fueled by fierce winds. That fire is forcing mandatory evacuations and scorching roughly 8,000 acres so far. Look at the intensity there. Officials shutting down parts of two major highways, the 101 and the Pacific Coast highway. More than 500 firefighters are battling the flames, and joining me now on the phone is Captain Mike Lindbery, with the Ventura County Fire Department. Look, a lot of people travel on the roads. When do you think they are going to open and how do you think this fire is going to be contained?</s>MIKE LINDBERY, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DPT CAPTAIN (via telephone): Well I think we're going to be working on this fire for at least the next few days. I think that's what it's going to take. It's grown significantly large in a very short amount of time. And that's just indicative of the conditions what we've been seeing here in California for the last several years with this drought. So it's going to be a while. We have a lot of back country area that we need to get into and assess, and make sure that we can safely get the lines in there. And then we need to bring our resources in that were ordered last night. So even if this fire ignited last night, we were ordering resources from other agencies. And they're en route and have arrived, many of them have arrived, and we're going to be getting on the site, get out there, and get as much work done as we can today.</s>FEYERICK: And Captain, as we look at those fires burning, what about people? They're having evacuations. How many homes are in that area? Who is at risk?</s>LINDBERY: Well there's some that are beach area that is the primary evacuation area. That's a mandatory evacuation, it's an area of 30-35 homes. We also have a second area called Faria beach that is under a voluntary evacuation. Now oddly enough, these homes are right along the seashore. I mean if you step out the backyard, your feet are wet. But this fire just happened to blow down right at the Solimar area, you know, it's an alignment with the wind. There was a fuel bed long enough to carry it toward those homes. We were fortunate, we recognized the threat immediately and deployed engines into that area, successfully defended those structures. But we now have to turn to the task of getting a line around this fire, and that's going to be a pretty significant task, and I -- like I said, I see it taking over the next couple of days.</s>FEYERICK: Yes, and we saw that parts of the -- certain parts of the highways are closed. Are there ways for people to make their way home without using these main highways or is that sort of equally dangerous given the nature of this fire?</s>LINDBERY: There are ways and they vary depending on how far out the traveler is once they find out about this closure on 101. I-5 is a major highway that runs north and south here in California, and so does the 101. So if they're far enough where they can catch i-5 and take that up, I would highly recommend that. If they live along the coast where they need to take highway 101, there is a two-lane, windy mountain road, highway 150, that will take them around this fire. But unfortunately, that road, I drove it early this morning, had a lot of traffic, including 18-wheeler traffic on it, and I expect it to get busier as the day goes on, and the holiday travel increases.</s>FEYERICK: And Captain, you are there on the ground. You are seeing all of this. Can you describe just physically the conditions, and what your men and women are up against in terms of trying to contain this?</s>LINDBERY: You know, our firefighters have their work cut out for them, and we've known that all season. We have known that, you know, until we get at least two to three inches of rain this year, we will not have an end or at least a lessening of our brush season. These fields that you're watching burn on your feed here are incredibly dry. The wind was 40 to 50 mile an hour gusts. You put those two things together along with some pretty steep topography, and you end up with the fire like we had had last night that grows to 1,000 acres within a few hours.</s>FEYERICK: Incredible, and just the way you described it, saying that the beach is really out the back door, it's just sort of a fluke of nature. Captain Mike Lindbery, we really thank you. We will let you get back to the job at hand. We know it is going to be a big one and we thank you.</s>LINDBERY: Thank you.</s>FEYERICK: And now -- thank you. And now to the severe weather that's refusing to let up in the South. The region there has a different problem, soaked with heavy rain, causing terrible flooding in some spots. Today 15 million people are facing new severe weather threats. More than 22 million could be facing those threats tomorrow. Overnight the death toll from this week's tornado disaster did go up, at least 15 people now sadly confirmed dead. CNN's Nick Valencia is following this latest weather system, and all the damage that it's done, and Nick, in those images, very hard to watch.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN REPORTER: They are. It looks more like something you would see during the springtime, that kind of damage from tornadoes, but this is what we are getting in December. A quick note, we have been reporting all morning long, in Alabama according to the National Weather Service, that there was double-digit inches of rain. Well now they are making a correction, they attribute that to a malfunction in their machine, in their reporting system, it's more like three inches of rain, so not as bad as we initially thought in portions of Alabama. Nevertheless that state is still under a state of emergency, and the concern across the South is that more severe weather is still to come.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Severe weather batters several southern states. Heavy rains hammer parts of Alabama. The water made some roads impassable. Rescue crews helping residents trapped in their homes. The National Weather Service said a potential tornado touched down in Birmingham, causing damage to several blocks.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The damage was done that was confined to approximately one square mile. We have three structures, three houses that collapsed. We transported one patient from the scene. There were two others that was removed from the structure, but we reported no injuries.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alabama's governor declared a state of emergency because of widespread flooding. At least 117 homes overcome by water. In Georgia, the rain damaged roads, and made driving treacherous. And in Mississippi, flood warnings and relentless rain add more misery to areas already devastated by tornadoes. They killed at least eight people in the state. Many roads are flooded and some people are dealing with rising water in their homes. In Wren, Mississippi, Victor and Tamika Hail (ph) watched as their home of 10 years was overtaken by water.</s>TAMIKA HAIL (ph): He's right (ph), the lawnmower, the trailer, it just floated away, the garbage can, everything gone.</s>VICTOR HAIL (ph): It happened so fast, we had to get up and get out of there. The rain was coming so fast.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The couple and their 9-year-old son now homeless, and staying with relatives.</s>TAMIKA HAIL (ph): It's discouraging, we lost everything, my child he didn't get nothing for Christmas, items.</s>VALENCIA: That's difficult to think about, there was children there that were waiting for gifts from Santa Claus, I'm sure had a tough Christmas. A lot of people are going to remember this Christmas most definitely for all the wrong reasons in those states affected by this severe weather system. Deb, 15 lives taken, the youngest victim just 7 years old, the 7-year- old boy in Mississippi. And worse news for the states in the south, further south, bracing for heavy snow and blizzard-like conditions. Deb?</s>FEYERICK: All right. Nick Valencia, thank you. And Mother Nature is not done yet. The central plains could see more severe weather, and there could be snow and ice causing a travel nightmare in another part of the country. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar joins us, and Allison, what are we looking at both today and tomorrow?</s>ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLGIST: Well we are going to be getting a bunch of different things. We've got blizzard warnings on one end of the scale, severe storms on the other, and massive flooding on one section. So here is an outlook of the entire map, again the eastern half of the country going to be dealing with rain and the potential for flooding. The central U.S., again, dealing with the potential for some severe weather, including tornadoes. And just behind that system, we have our blizzard watches and warnings as we prepare for heavy snow and also very heavy ice coming down as well. Here is a look at what we deal with in terms of the threat. This is the winter, so you see the winter storm watches and warnings in states like Minnesota, South Dakota, also into Nebraska. But we also have blizzard watches and warnings for Kansas, Oklahoma, also into Texas and New Mexico. Here is the system as a whole. Notice as it begins to push its way east it brings even more rain to areas that certainly don't need to see it, like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. And then we have the snow and ice out behind it, stretching from Texas all the way up towards Chicago by the time we get to Monday. But the big threat for today is going to be the severe weather. We have an enhanced threat from tornadoes in cities like Dallas, Texas. So anybody traveling to, from, or around Dallas needs to be prepared, and be a little bit patient when it comes to some travel delays. But the threat as a whole stretches from San Antonio all the way up towards Cincinnati. Tomorrow, the system pushes a little farther east, now incorporating Memphis, Little Rock, and also into New Orleans. Same threats though, isolated tornadoes, also the threat for some damaging winds. But again, the flooding is also going to be on the minds of many. Look at this, rainfall estimates about 8 to 10 inches for states like Oklahoma, and then for Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, an additional 4 to 6 inches, Deb. Again, they don't need to see it. A lot of those areas have already had 8 to 10 inches and now they are going to get even more.</s>FEYERICK: It's just amazing to see what the weather is doing this December, this winter. All right, Allison Chinchar, we thank you so much. Appreciate it. And coming up, Iraqi soldiers are trying to take back the city of Ramadi from ISIS militants. We'll hear why this site is so important and how U.S. forces are involved, coming up next.