Blizzard Clobbering New England; Coastal Flooding Residents Evacuated; major Seawall Fails, Home Damaged; 24- Hour Deadline for 2 ISIS Hostage; First Lady Shares Handshake With the New King
ANDERSON COOPER, AC360 HOST: Good evening. 9:00 p.m. here in New York. The storm that gave us a left jab is dealing Eastern New England a viscous right hook, not over there yet, not from people on the Peru (ph) islands and the Atlantic. Thousands now have got power or people in Coastal Maine, or everyone I'm sure in Massachusetts we saw the ocean rise up and take their homes. Storm surge in Southern Massachusetts, the tide five feet above normal, blizzard conditions causing flooding in the coastal cities like Scituate, which has been partially evacuated. Some seawalls collapsing in the surge before high tide.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here it is, this water coming up right over the seawall right now.</s>COOPER: Strong winds have cause flooding all along the Atlantic coast from southern New Jersey all the way up to Maine. This video shows waves hitting New York Harbor. Winds on Plum Island, Massachusetts reaching 45 miles per hour. Points during the day causing huge waves to crash over their seawalls.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a look at the oceans, it is churning, it is bubbling, it is boiling. It has been like this all night long.</s>COOPER: More than 12,000 people on (inaudible) remain without power or phone service. The power is slowly being restored. The Island is virtually cut off from the rest of the state with fairy service suspended and flight is impossible because of whiteout conditions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It hasn't stopped snowing about 24 hours now.</s>COOPER: Massachusetts has already been hit with as much 32 inches of snow in some places. In the Eastern part of the state you could see another 10 inches by Wednesday morning. New Hampshire was hit with more than 20 inches. Residents in Portsmouth taking advantage of blizzard with a huge snowball flight.</s>BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR, NEW YORK: Obviously, missed the worst of this storm which is a blessing for New York City. And we have an old saying that we live by around here, "Prepare for the worst and the hope for the best."</s>COOPER: New York and New Jersey missed the worst of the storm. The Long Island remains buried in snow. This time-lapse video of the statue of liberty shows the 24 hours of the storm from 8:00 a.m. Monday to 8:00 a.m. Tuesday. Both states lifting the travel ban that was put in place Monday night. Seven states declared a state of emergency for the blizzard that is so far claimed two lives. There's a lot happening at this hour which why we have correspondents out all across the air to give you an idea of exactly what things look like for millions of people. I want to go first to that spot about half hour South of Boston, where the tide came in and just did not stop. Alexandra Field is there in Scituate Massachusetts. She joins us now. I know there's a lot of flooding there earlier. How is that now?</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Anderson, really the wind is just relentless right now. The big worry through the day here has been in water because they have high tide in the morning, high tide again later this afternoon and that's when these seawalls can be breach, which is exactly what we saw happened. It's just down the road from where I'm standing. That's the beach if you go out there which is exactly what we did, these houses are covered in ice and they're just being slammed by the salt water. We saw it come crushing up over those walls. It was enough to actually flood out most of this neighborhood next to me. People here saying they had four and five beach of salt water in their basements running under their houses which are up on (inaudible) coming across the road, powerful enough to pick up these mess and just sort of leaving here. Buoys outside of the person's fence and sign post that have been lifted up and toss down here, big pieces of woods. So really a dangerous situation if you were out here. A lot of times what they see here in Scituate is these amounts of rocks that come up over the seawall along with that sea spray and that salt water. At this point the high tide has gone out, so we're not seeing that same flooding. This road has now pretty much dried up an iced over as the snow continuous to come down. But when we got out here earlier today Anderson, this road it was completely impossible. In fact the people in this house here they to have to call for the National Guard to come and help them to evacuate. We spoke to the Fire Department here in Scituate and they say they're getting a lot of calls from people who needed help getting out of their houses. Police were also coming through there in this high axle vehicles to see who was in need of help and who needed to get out. But certainly a lot of people on this street, Anderson, who said they decided they were just going to stick out. They have seen some flooding here before but this was a lot more than what they expected to see it to day.</s>COOPER: I also understand the officials, they actually cut power to a lot of neighborhoods to prevent fires, right?</s>FIELD: Yeah, that goes back to the history of a problem here in this community. Back in 2012, March of 2012, they had a big storm, high winds carried flames through four houses right on the beach. Those houses burned to the ground because of the storm. Fire fighters were not able to get there to really salvage those places. So the step was taken yesterday. The town decided preemptively, "Let's just cut the power to a number of the communities here to minimize the risk of no electrical fire and to minimize the risk of people needing help and fire fighters being unable to reach them because of the flood water." And when we are walking around up here earlier in the day you can just say these entire backyards just swapped with water, and that water covering a lot of streets. So you can see the problem that they were so concerned about.</s>COOPER: Right, well listen, I appreciate you're staying out there for us tonight. Alexandra Field, thank you very much. Brain Todd, he is just a couple miles south in the town Marshfield which is also have been taking a pounding. Brian, when we checked in with you an hour ago, you got a heavy winds and snows. Is it still snowing there?</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Still snowing Anderson. The winds are still an issue. A lot drift here. This is how much it's accumulated. This is a natural snow drift here, comes down, let's see, to my knees right here in this lawn but it's deeper in some places. And again the wind is a huge issue here, whiteout condition still hampering the efforts by first responders and utility workers to get out and try to see how people are doing in the town of Marshfield tonight. We know how some people are doing by that seawall in Marshfield, we got there just as high tide was hitting for the second time today and captured a very violent scene with the storm surge just pounding that seawall for the second time. A 50 plus foot section of that seawall collapsed during the morning high tide, Anderson. That flooded several homes. We have talked to people in that street -- on that street who had to leave their homes, had to be evacuated. Couple of people have lost their homes at least 11 homes suffered very significant flood damage. Several people had to be evacuated. Thankfully, no injuries to report tonight, but we did talked to people who say it was one of the most frightening things that they had ever experienced. Water just surrounding their home, they felt like their house was basically in the ocean for certain moments today. And it was just a very, very difficult situation. I heard you and Alexandra talking about the issue of fires. They did the same thing in this neighborhood of Marshfield. They did have to cut power there and that's because they're afraid of the storm surge of the flooding getting in and short circuiting some homes. They have the same problem you're talking about in Scituate where some homes here have burned when they got short circuited, when some wiring got short circuited by the flooding some years ago.</s>COOPER: Yeah.</s>TODD: So that's still a huge danger. We're still getting high tide here, Anderson. So that's a problem. And Chad, inconvenient for people to better be safe than sorry.</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brian, give us a feel, did people just go and stay with friends or did they open warming shelters? Did they open schools where people -- what kind of numbers were talking about?</s>TODD: I think we're talking numbers, Chad, may be between a dozen and maybe 20, 25 people had to evacuate, so not a huge number. Some of them took refuge and the shelters around here in a middle school that we visited. There are people taking refuge there. One lady we just spoke to, is staying with her daughter here in this neighborhood. So some people are just, right now, accessing whether they can go back to their homes any time soon. We know that at least one lady -- some homes actually have been condemned. So those people cannot go back anytime soon on this.</s>COOPER: Brian, I appreciate you've been out there for us for this later hour. Timothy Mannix, he's a fisherman nearby. At times in his job he goes out, does battle with the sea. Well last night the sea came to him at home, nearly killed them. He joins me now. Timothy, can you just take us through what happened last night, because I understand you walked up at 10 to wait for the tide to come in.</s>TIMOTHY MANNIX, INJURED IN STORM: Yes sir. I worked yesterday. I got home early afternoon and crash for few hours. I got up at 9:00 or 10:00 and made a cup of coffee and turn around, waiting for the high tide. Yes sir.</s>COOPER: And at some point you blocked out. Was there anyone there to help you?</s>MANNIX: No, I didn't blocked up or I got blocked once the storm started to really hit. I took the animals and put them on the other room where they'll be safe because, you know, it was getting worse and worse and worse. And the bed room slider let go, and I went (inaudible) to the living room part of the house. And I was pushing the dining room table up against to the slider and (inaudible) just like a lighting bolt. And I think the center partition on the slider what hit me. Hit me right on my face here, where I got whole bunch of stitches and my nose is broken and, you know, (inaudible) those in places. So I might have got knocked out for a couple of seconds but I was on my hands and knees and saw the amount of blood I have. I said, "Oh boy I'm trouble here."</s>COOPER: And I understand you tried to drive yourself to the hospital but got stuck?</s>MANNIX: Yes, at the end of my drive, it was all cobble. We had a lot of cobble here. And yeah, the truck got stuck so I got to, you know, 911.</s>COOPER: I mean, you were so lucky. I understand, you actually heard about yourself on the news while you were still in the emergency room, almost being kind of (inaudible).</s>MANNIX: Yes sir. That was right yeah. It happened around 4:30 and it took another hour or so before (inaudible) have finally came and put in the bucket and took me over to the fire truck in the Humvee. The town has a Humvee down here. And they had to bring me up to the other end of town and put me on an ambulance.</s>COOPER: Wow.</s>MANNIX: And then, you know, I was waiting in the emergency room and yeah it came on the T.V. that, you know, they got me and evacuated me.</s>COOPER: And your dog and cat, I mean, you said you put them in a safe place. They're OK?</s>MANNIX: Yeah. As a matter of fact they called my buddy, (inaudible) and said go get the animals, you know. So him and his little girl in town get the dog and the cat then the (inaudible) went out and, you know, save them.</s>COOPER: Yeah. Well, it's scary night. I appreciate you're talking to us. I'm glad you're doing OK Timothy. Thank you.</s>MANNIX: Yes, well thank you for time also.</s>COOPER: Wow. You're very luck indeed. As always, quick reminder, make sure you set your DVR. You can watch 360 whenever you want. Coming up next, the scene in Boston where they could break a snow record.