City of Fires; Major Winter Storm
HARRIS: CNN has just confirmed Pennsylvania State Police and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms have been called to help investigate a series of fires. Have you been following this story? Coatesville, Pennsylvania, a community of about 11,000 people west of Philadelphia, living in fear amid a wave of suspected arson attacks. Fourteen this month alone. Fire victim Ron Townsend joins me live from Coatesville. And, Ron, thanks for your time. First of all, look, I just landed on the planet and I just heard the details of this story. Tell me, in your own words, what is going on particularly this month in Coatesville.</s>RON TOWNSEND, FIRE VICTIM: Well, I think that there's just been a rash of arson fires within the city. Probably actually, to be real honest with you, it probably started more like a month, month and a half ago. So far have been unable to catch who's setting the fires.</s>HARRIS: Ron, if you had to guess, who is behind these fires?</s>TOWNSEND: You know, there are so many rumors running around. And I'm not real good at guessing, to be honest with you, Mr. Harris. One speculation is, it's some kind of gang initiation, which I really find that hard to believe because all the houses that are burning up, it seems to be, in my opinion, some kind of method to the madness.</s>HARRIS: Right. Well, is it comforting at all to know that Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the state police, that these agencies have been called in to help in the investigation? Does that bring you any comfort at all?</s>TOWNSEND: Yes, sure, because the more help that the officials out here can get, the better off that they will be equipped to catch who ever is starting these fires. That's just my belief. Something has to be done because it's really out of hand. People are really afraid to go to sleep at night. It's a bad situation for a small town. It really is.</s>HARRIS: Ron, when did you lose your home?</s>TOWNSEND: January 6th I was burnt out.</s>HARRIS: Well, what are the details of -- yes, what are the details around your particular fire? What it at night? Were you away from home, maybe at work? And talk to us about what happened to you.</s>TOWNSEND: It was early morning around -- a little after 12:00. And, yes, someone took a trash can and put some kind of -- according to the fire marshal, someone took a trash can, put some kind of accelerant in it and ignited it underneath the porch. And the whole house -- and the adjoining house next door also was burnt completely down.</s>HARRIS: So at this point you're displaced, you're without a home. And how many members of your family?</s>TOWNSEND: There's four members. Me and my wife and we have custody of my two grandchildren. Two of my grandchildren.</s>HARRIS: So what are you -- where are you living? What are you doing? And how are you getting along?</s>TOWNSEND: It's very difficult right now. And I was fortunate enough to have the guys that I work with put us up in a hotel for a week. I really wanted to get that out because I have received help from different people. Actually last night was our first night in the shelter. There's not a lot of shelters around in this area that will accommodate families, but we were fortunate enough to find one. And last night was our first night in a shelter. And I'm unemployed right now. and I go back to work in March. And just trying to maintain and hold the family together until then. It's very difficult. There seems to be no kind of -- everybody that's willing to help as far as getting another home needs me to be able to show some kind of employment right now and I can't do that. So it's kind of tough. It's really tough, Mr. Harris.</s>HARRIS: All right. It sounds like a couple of things need to happen here. We need to find out -- make sure that your family is stable in a place to live. And then investigators have got to get about the job of finding who is responsible for this and stopping this in your town. Ron, we appreciate your time. Best of luck. And we'll check in with you from time to time to see how things are going.</s>TOWNSEND: Thank you. You have a good day.</s>HARRIS: Yes, you too. Ron Townsend, Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Let's turn to weather now. Drivers in Reno, Nevada, are rolling the dice by getting on the highways. Take a look. Reno yesterday morning getting about a half of an inch of snow. Meteorologists there are warning drivers of some patchy areas. And, Chad, patchy areas and, of course, always a concern, black ice.</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, and we're going to have a lot of it, Tony. This is a dangerous situation setting up from Oklahoma City through Ft. Smith and Springfield right all the way across to Cape Girardeau. I'm going to show you my maps, but you can look at the maps while I give you some forecast because they are so important. Oklahoma City, you're beginning to ice up now. Tulsa, you will begin to ice up, along with Springfield. Everywhere that's red, from Louisville and Cincinnati all the way down through Springfield, Oklahoma City, these are all winter storm warnings. And let me tell you why. Cape Girardeau, you'll get 2 inches of ice. That's going to bring down trees and power lines. Same story, Ft. Smith, nearly paralyzed. Memphis, you're going to start out as rain and then turn to ice by tomorrow, Wednesday morning. Oklahoma City, only a quarter inch of ice. You're kind of on the backside there. Louisville, 1.5 inch of ice everywhere across the city. We're talking -- Tony, this is like that -- this is a bread and milk storm. You better go get it because you may not be able to get it for a while. We have Gulf moisture that's pouring up into a very cold air mass. It doesn't like it when the air is aloft. Two thousand feet aloft. If that air up there is 35 and the air where you live is 28, that's a bad number because it rains right into your 28 and the freezing goes everywhere. This is a big-time ice storm. I'm betting hundreds of thousands of people will be without power by Wednesday. And it's starting tonight.</s>HARRIS: And it's starting tonight.</s>MYERS: Yes.</s>HARRIS: All right. We'll be watching it, Chad. Thank you.</s>MYERS: You've got it.</s>HARRIS: President Obama's face has popped up on everything from collectible plates, to nail clippers, to bottles of water. But now his two young daughters have entered the spotlight and that has the first lady saying, hold up, wait a minute.