Tennessee Wildfires; Burglars Caught on Video; Mom Charged with Overdosing While Shopping with Toddler
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST: Raging inferno in Tennessee, wildfires come roaring into this town, scorching entire buildings, forcing thousands of people to literally to run for their lives and leaving behind a landscape that honestly looks more like a war zone. `And now this breaking news. Three people are dead because of it. `</s>BANFIELD: Hi, everybody. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. We have breaking news. Tennessee is burning and hurting, and now Tennessee`s wildfires are killing. Three people are now reported dead from the fires are raging across that state. The pictures tell this story, folks. The inferno is destroying homes and hotels and entire buildings and is forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes and run for safety. `</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was trees on fire in front of our -- where we were at. So we tried to get to our car, and the smoke was so bad, we couldn`t. We covered our faces with wet towels. And then we finally got in the car, and we drove down the mountain a little ways and we ran into a tree that was over the road, and we just watched a building go down in flames to the right of us. Then we pulled in front of another building that wasn`t on fire yet. `</s>BANFIELD: Gatlinburg, hardest hit by the rolling inferno, is almost unrecognizable today. The ferocious winds and the severe drought have just added fuel to these fires. `Our CNN correspondent Brian Todd was able to make his way there. He is live on the scene tonight. I think it`s a lot of first responders I`m seeing behind you there. But I just need you to tell me what the scene is like, Brian. `BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT Ashleigh, it`s still a very dangerous situation here. We just got an update a short time ago from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, which says that there are still several fires burning in this area. `As of now, about 14,000 people have been evacuated, and the firefighters can`t get to every area yet to assess the damage and to try to help some others out if they need it. It`s still a very dangerous situation. `They`re going to get a little bit of help from the weather overnight, Ashleigh, but they also may be hurt by the weather because there is a storm system coming through that may dump an inch, maybe an inch-and-a-half of rainfall. That will really help firefighters. `But there could also be some winds. There`s going to be a wind event here overnight and into tomorrow, maybe winds gusting up to 60 miles an hour. So those winds will fan the flames even further. Those winds got up to hurricane force winds at the height of this storm. They`ve also got tornadoes to watch out for. There`s a tornado watch in effect for this area, so still very, very dangerous around here, Ashleigh. `A tourist who was in this area, Barrett McLaughlin, spoke about what he and his family went through a short time ago. Take a listen. `</s>BARRETT MCLAUGHLIN, TOURIST: As we were coming back from the grocery store, the smoke was just oppressive. And as we got closer to where we knew sort of the area of our cabin was, we realized that the mountain was on fire. Not even just that orange glow, but watching it burn and trees coming down across the road and volunteer firemen out there that couldn`t do anything because the winds were gusting so fast and so strong that it was too dangerous for them to be up there and just having them tell us that we -- you know, here`s where the shelter is. Go there. They`ll have more information. We`re sorry. `</s>BANFIELD: Brian, you know, other people have described what is going on in your area as apocalyptic. Seeing the fire pictures, we understand that. Seeing the aftermath, we really understand that. All of the people who were in these structures that are now just rubble, it`s somewhere upwards of about 14,000, 15,000. `How much time did they have to get out of there? How fast did this fire come in? `</s>TODD: Well, Ashleigh, this fire came on very quickly to so many people. You know, we talked about the winds. They got up to hurricane force strength, 88 miles an hour in some cases. Those winds took fire embers and carried them for miles at a time and then dumped them on trees that were set afire because the trees were like match sticks. This drought here has been going on since April, so the trees here very, very dry. `All of it combined to create a wildfire situation where the flames were moving incredibly fast. It came upon people almost before they knew it. We spoke to someone earlier, a man who was getting his family out of town, out of Gatlinburg earlier today, I believe, and the man said that the smoke -- it was yesterday I believe he was getting his family out. He said the smoke and the flames were so intense that they -- he was caravanning with his wife, and he was right behind her car in his car, and he couldn`t even see her car. `</s>BANFIELD: Oh, my! `</s>TODD: And the smoke was that bad. And he said his 1-year-old daughter was choking in the back seat. It was a harrowing situation for people, Ashleigh, as they tried to get out of here. `</s>BANFIELD: As you`re talking -- Brian, as you`re talking, there are pictures to the right-hand side of our screen, honestly, what I can only say looks like Aleppo. It looks like something in the middle of Syria. It is just decimated. It looks like a bomb went off. You can`t recognize what some of these structures were. They`re still smoldering. And it also does look somewhat tornadic. It looks like what happens after a tornado goes through with a fire. `Shannon Patter is one of the people who was in this and is the owner of Old Dad`s General Store in Gatlinburg. Shannon decided not to leave. Shannon stayed because Shannon wanted to be able to feed the first responders. `Shannon, are you with me? `</s>SHANNON PATTERSON, STORE OWNER (via telephone): I am. `</s>BANFIELD: How are you? Are you OK? `</s>PATTERSON: Exhausted, but everyone up here is exhausted. It`s -- it`s been a tragic day up here. `</s>BANFIELD: It just -- it`s hard to believe you could survive this, staying where you were. And I have seen the pictures. But I don`t live where you live. I`m not looking at it first hand. Is it as bad as the pictures I`m seeing? It truly looks like a war zone. `</s>PATTERSON: I think it`s worse than the pictures that I`ve seen. Now, let me say this. The first responders, the emergency responders, did a great job for saving downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The infrastructure looks great. But once you get on a back street outside the strip here, it looks like a war zone on every angle. `</s>BANFIELD: Were you OK? Like, were you -- was it a smart decision for to you stay? I understand you wanted to help those people who were helping you, but was your life in danger at any time? `</s>PATTERSON: No, and it wasn`t. I did not stay the whole night here. I was at my house. I was hearing all the rumors. You know how social media just blows up. About 2:30 or 3:00, I decided to come up here because I heard the whole block where one of my businesses was on fire. And I`ve got a -- my father-in-law`s restaurant`s across the street on both sides of me. We had heard those was burning. Came up here, and this block was safe, but everything around it was burned. And the least I could do... `</s>BANFIELD: Well, I can`t imagine that you are still where you are, given what we`re seeing on our screen. Shannon, stand by for a minute, if you will. `Robert Rowe is a fire investigator. He`s the president of Pyrocop, Incorporated. Robert, they`re saying now -- the authorities are saying that they believe that this fire was, quote, "human caused." And I don`t know that they`re saying intentional, unintentional. I don`t know that they even know at this point. How do they even know that it would be human caused? `</s>ROBERT ROWE, FIRE INVESTIGATOR: Well, they have to rule out -- an investigation, you`re required to rule out all potential accidental causes. And once do that, then you can start focusing on the human factor. You`re absolutely correct by saying that -- you know, by calling it human factor, it`s not necessarily arson. It`s just that there is a human factor involved. It could be accidental, could be a camp fire, could be carelessly discarded cigarettes, that type of thing. `</s>BANFIELD: And then other question I have for you is they talked about this being a perfect storm, that literally, all of these things had to come into confluence, the hurricane-force winds, this remarkable drought that has gone on and on for years, low humidity and downed power lines, which by the way, the winds and the falling trees were taking power lines down, and those sparking lines were causing yet even more fires. Is this sort of the 100-year scenario, or is this the kind of thing that actually can happen a lot? `</s>ROWE: Well, you know, in California, we always have problems with brushfires. This is unique in the fact that the trees are much -- the leaves and the branches are much higher. The fire travels much quicker across the treetops, and the risk below is much greater than in the lowlands of California, but nonetheless, equally as dangerous. `</s>BANFIELD: I just want to go back to Shannon Patterson, if I can. He`s in the middle of all of this, so he`s joining us by telephone, understandably. Shannon are you -- you know, I hate to use the expression, are you out of the woods yet, because I believe that there is truly not much left around you. But are you safe, and is the worst behind you? Are you going to have to evacuate? `</s>PATTERSON: I hope so, the worst is behind us. But there is an eerie feeling up here. There`s fire trucks everywhere. They are waiting on the embers to be blown down the hill, I have been told, just whenever the winds start. `We have fed about 400 service workers up here today. There`s many more up here, and I`ve just been hearing stories, from there`s a thousand houses burned down to 1,500 to -- and they`re saying that there`s embers all filling those house, and if the winds shift, they could just come right over the mountain top and land right on Gatlinburg. And that`s what they`re worried about. `</s>BANFIELD: Shannon, please -- you know, be careful, please. And you are magnanimous beyond words to have helped your fellow rescuers and first responders. But please be careful for yourself and your family. And God bless you and your neighbors as you try put the pieces back together. I mean, Tennessee really is hurting. `To all my guests, thank you. We`ll continue to watch the story there in Tennessee. `And then I also have this story for you. The defense has decided now to rest in the case of that former South Carolina police officer who was charged with killing an unarmed black man, but not before the defendant himself took stand, Michael Slager speaking on his own behalf. `He is the man who`s accused of gunning down Walter Scott after pulling him over for a broken taillight. And then he`s accused of lying about why he shot Walter Scott. Last April`s shooting, you`ll remember -- oh! This harrowing, harrowing scene caught on cell phone video. `Slager`s dashcam also was rolling at a different area. The bystander, though, saw this. Prosecutors say what Slager told investigators, that Scott had grabbed his taser, does not match, however, the video evidence. `</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you agree that even if Mr. Scott the had that taser, it could not have been used against you at the distance depicted on that video? `</s>MICHAEL SLAGER, CHARGED WITH MURDER: At that time, I didn`t have that information. So I can`t answer that question. `</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve seen the video. `</s>SLAGER: I have. `</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you`ve heard that he was 18 feet away. Would you agree that he was not a threat to you with that taser, without a cartridge, from that distance? `</s>SLAGER: No. `</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So you`re going to stick to that. `</s>SLAGER: Yes. And the reason is, from 18 feet, he could have turned around and attacked me again. `</s>BANFIELD: Michael Slager is also facing separate federal civil rights charges over Walter Scott`s death. The city of North Charleston has already approved a $6.5 million civil settlement with Walter Scott`s family. `Also breaking tonight, six people have been pulled alive from this, imagine it, alive, the wreckage of a crash of a charter flight carrying a soccer team from Brazil. There were 71 passengers on board this plane that did not make it. Crash happened late last night. That team was flying to Colombia to prepare for a match on Wednesday in that country. `Authorities say at least three players, two members of the crew and a reporter covering the team are among those who somehow were able to survive this wreckage. Investigators have now recovered the jet`s black boxes, and they hope that that will help them to figure out what on earth brought that plane down. `Sherri Papini and the story of the brutal violence that was exacted against her while she was missing for three weeks. Now her husband is talking and he is telling us about what she endured, giving us excruciating details about what happened to her in those three weeks. `