Search On For Missing Soldiers; Torrential Rains Cause Flooding in Southeast Texas
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll go ahead and get started. A busy Monday morning here for us. Here are some of the major stories that we're following at this hour. More information about two American soldiers missing in Iraq. We're live from Baghdad and the Pentagon with developments. Also, we'll take you live to the soldiers hometowns. A true nightmare commute. Reports that al Qaeda plotted to release poisonous gas in New York City subways. And new worries today about a secretive country's plan. The U.S. and its allies watching and waiting after reports that North Korea may be getting ready to test a long-range missile. And good morning on this Monday morning. I'm Daryn Kagan. We are tracking new developments out of Iraq this morning. A new terror group claims that it captured two American soldiers. But the Web site statement offers no proof to support that claim. The soldiers went missing after an attack on a checkpoint southwest of Baghdad. Right now a massive military search operation is underway.</s>MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, SPOKESMAN, COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ: We are using all available assets, coalition and Iraqi, to find our soldiers and we'll not stop looking until we find them.</s>KAGAN: Our Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon this morning with more details about this search. Barbara, good morning.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn. Well, this search now is, in fact, massive. The U.S. military saying that 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops are scouring the area, looking for these two soldier whose have been missing since Friday night when their checkpoint came under attack. Another soldier with them was killed. Earlier this morning the Pentagon identified the two missing men as Private First Class Kristian Menchaca of Houston and Private First Class Thomas Tucker of Oregon. Both young soldiers attached to the 101st Airborne Division. As the search goes on, the checkpoints continue to look for these two soldiers. Military sources are telling CNN that all indications now are this was a very well-coordinated, planned out attack. Iraqi farmers in the are of Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, where this happened on Friday, have told the U.S. military they say they saw eight to nine insurgents taking away the two soldiers who appeared to be alive at that point. U.S. troops in the area also interviewed are indicating perhaps there was some sort of diversionary attack launched against them that drew troops away from the checkpoint where these three men were, leaving them potentially vulnerable to attack. Another indication of how well coordinated it apparently was, Daryn. As the search goes on, the military saying already they have conducted a number of raids, captured insurgents, conducted search operations and they report that seven troops have been wounded in the search efforts since Friday night. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Barbara, what more can you tell us about this area where this took place?</s>STARR: Well, this is Yusufiya. This is an area south of Baghdad in the so-called Triangle of Death. That's what the U.S. troops call this area. It is known to be an area of heavy insurgent activity. People who are loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq, insurgents loyal to Zarqawi. This is an area of great concern. So there is a lot of worry about these two missing soldiers. A lot of effort going on to try and find them. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you. Forget cats and dogs, it's raining elephants and rhinoceros in Houston. I mean it's just getting drenched in that south Texas area. Let's check in with Chad Myers with more about the storm system that's caution all this weather.</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We've been talking about this most of the morning, Daryn, really. This was called just a mesoscale (ph) -- little storm. I just sat right over Houston. Now down to League City and Galveston. Some areas reported on Doppler radar over 10 inches of rain in 12 hours. I mean rainfall rates like they had back in the tropical storm that just sat over them just a couple of years ago. Was it Allison (ph), I think, was the name. The whole storm itself from League City now down to Galveston, putting down more and more rainfall. And some of the live shots we've been seeing out of our affiliate there. This was from KPRC out of Houston. They finally have a helicopter now in the sky. Couldn't have that for a long time. The rainfall was coming down so heavily they actually couldn't get planes or helicopters in the air. If you could just see the cars over to the right, you would actually see the freeway is completely stopped. There's nowhere for the cars on the freeway to go because all of the exit ramps go from the freeway, from the 610, and then they go down on to these little side streets over here. And there's no place to go because as you get off the freeway, which is kind of an elevated roadway, so it isn't flooded in most areas, but can't get off. There's just nowhere for those cars to go. We'll zoom in here for you just a little bit. Another heavy rain band right here where it has been so heavy. Most of the heaviest stuff, though, has been from Pasadena southward. Right over Pasadena itself. Right over the Green Bayou. Now just going up at tremendous rates. Going up like 20 feet in the past six hours and catching people off-guard. There's the heavy rain now, Texas City, Galveston. And here's the rainfall estimate on the radar picture. There's the 610. Some of the areas here in this dark purple, that's seven inches of rain just in the past three hours. Rainfall rates from Bellfort Avenue and Telephone Road, that's 10.51. That's since this time yesterday. Nevada Avenue and Houston Boulevard, 9.5 inches of rain. And this is kind of a tough view but you get the idea. This is the Green Bayou right here at the Highway 59. This storm gauge, every 15 minutes puts a dot down here, shows us what's going on. This water level has gone all the way through flood stage and now into heavy flood stage. That is 62 feet. Earlier this morning it was only in the 40s. So on up to almost 15 feet just in the past three hours. This water's going up quickly, catching a lot of people off-guard. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Any sign of when that's going to clear out of there?</s>MYERS: Well, we're getting another shower that pops up just now. This thing here. I'll kind of zoom back out for you. The storms are popping up in a line and they're training, as we call, one train car after another. Just going right on down toward League City and Galveston. Another one developing here. It will head over west Houston, down towards southeastern Houston and right through League City again. One after another. That's what's been happening all night long.</s>KAGAN: Chad, what do you say we welcome in Ed Lavandera. He is in Houston on the phone and hopefully dry but not a good chance of that. Ed, good morning.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, we lost all chances of that about two hours ago, Daryn. We were here actually on another story and, as Chad mentioned, kind of caught off-guard by all of this. And we've seen it just continue to pour down here for the last couple of hours really intensely and it has turned the morning commute here in Houston into an absolute miserable experience. Some of the interstates leading into downtown you can actually see people just getting out of their cars, walking around. They've just come to a complete standstill. Of course, many of the concerns -- much of the concern at this point too is, many of the bayou that cut through the city of Houston that dump water out into the gulf, and those are the areas that seem to be the most vulnerable at this point and forecasters here in Houston say that they expect this rain to continue throughout the rest of the day. So they will keep this a close eye on those bayous. And then the roadways in those area. And that seems to be the areas we're most vulnerable. But we have seen pictures of water starting to creep closer to homes and roadways which will complicate things here for the rest of the day.</s>KAGAN: Chad, you wanted to ask Ed a question?</s>MYERS: Well, you know, you're hearing about the Sims Bayou, the Green Bayou, some of those bayous going up at 10 to 15 feet just in the past six hours. Do we have people that are being rescued, Ed? I mean are there active rescues going on?</s>LAVANDERA: The fire department has been telling us there's been a number of high water rescues. We haven't heard of any injuries or drownings or anything like this at this point. But we have seen a lot of pictures of just, you know, stranded cars, water halfway up the door on cars and people just bailing out as quickly as they can.</s>KAGAN: I hear summer school has been canceled.</s>LAVANDERA: Absolutely. There have been some summer school classes in some areas where this -- because of the commute and just how -- what gridlock there is on the roadways here in the Houston area this morning, they've just decided to cancel those classes.</s>KAGAN: Ed Lavandera on the phone from Houston. Stay not too wet, OK?</s>LAVANDERA: All right. I appreciate that.</s>KAGAN: All right, Chad, and we'll check back with you.</s>MYERS: Yes, look at all those cars trying to get over to that one lane that was available, which was the shoulder.</s>KAGAN: Yes.</s>MYERS: Now it's no longer available at all.</s>KAGAN: They need chitty chitty bang bang that could swim and drive and do all that. Look at that one guy just walking on the freeway the wrong direction. Well, we just missed him holding an umbrella.</s>MYERS: Right. Just getting dangerous now. The water is going up in the ship channel, going up in those bayous. And if you're trying to run through those areas or your water's getting up into the doors of your car and the car just won't go any farther. Once it gets stalled out, you're done.</s>KAGAN: Chad, another guest source that we can talk to about Houston, Rusty Cornelius. He is the administrator for the Office of Emergency Management in Harris County. And Mr. Cornelius on the phone with us right now. Good morning.</s>RUSTY CORNELIUS, HARRIS COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Good morning.</s>KAGAN: A soggy morning for you there in Houston.</s>CORNELIUS: Yes, it is. Quite wet.</s>KAGAN: Tell us about some of the challenges that you're facing today.</s>CORNELIUS: Well, right now the rain is continuing to linger over us. And, of course, any time we have rain like this, our terrain is very flat so we have localized street flooding and that's essentially what we're receiving right now over a very wide area of the county is localized street flooding. We do have three of our bayous, which is a local term for a river, that have either reached capacity or, in effect, come out of their banks. And one of those is inside the city limits of Jersey Village, which is a community that has received floods before and, unfortunately, looks like they're receiving one now. And then also on the Hunting Bayou (ph) in the Cashmere Gardens region in the city of Houston, they're experiencing a flood at this point in time. And we have localized flooding throughout the entire city and county.</s>KAGAN: Do you have any options except waiting for the rain to stop and dry up?</s>CORNELIUS: That is the only option. We do advise everyone to seek high ground. Right now the city of South Houston, which is a totally separate city from the city of Houston, has declared a local state of disaster. And they are engaged in evacuations in and around the city of South Houston Elementary School. We have two open shelters. I don't have a shelter count for you at this time because we're in such an early stage of the operations.</s>KAGAN: Chad Myers, our meteorologist, has a question for you, Mr. Cornelius.</s>CORNELIUS: Yes.</s>MYERS: We also have reports that the Washburn Tunnel is flooded and closed. Impassible.</s>CORNELIUS: No, the Washburn Tunnel never flooded.</s>MYERS: OK.</s>CORNELIUS: The access roads to the tunnel were covered, were inundated at one time.</s>MYERS: Good news.</s>CORNELIUS: It has since run off and the Washburn Tunnel is reopened.</s>MYERS: Good. OK. Because that would be a major problem.</s>CORNELIUS: And you were talking about the Houston ship channel. We monitor the Houston ship channel very carefully and are in contact with the Port of Houston Authority. The ship channel is elevated but still within normal operation limits.</s>MYERS: What do you know about the Green Bayou?</s>CORNELIUS: Greens Bayou. In about three places we're within three feet of top of bank. Three feet is a critical number for us here in Harris County because that means you're very close to actually having a flood event. So we're monitoring those very, very closely. Unfortunately, three areas we're talking about are within the city limits of Houston in fairly highly populated areas.</s>MYERS: You have vivid memories of Allison five years ago. Anything like that now or are we not even close?</s>CORNELIUS: Well, if it's your home that gets impacted, of course it's a disaster.</s>MYERS: Absolutely.</s>CORNELIUS: During the Allison event we had some 57,000 homes that were impacted.</s>KAGAN: Wow.</s>CORNELIUS: We're probably looking at significantly less than this in our worst-case scenario. Right now we've had probably about a dozen homes that we actually have reports of being impacted.</s>MYERS: OK.</s>KAGAN: Did this one take you by surprise, Mr. Cornelius?</s>CORNELIUS: No. We were briefed that we could have this event yesterday. The difference being today, starting at about 2:00 in the morning, we didn't realize the training effect would be -- lasting as long. Which is what happened during Allison.</s>KAGAN: And Chad did a good job of explaining to us how the storms just kind of stack up and keep moving into your area. We wish you luck. It's going to be a busy, long and hopefully by the end a dry day.</s>CORNELIUS: I hope you're right. Thank you.</s>KAGAN: Sending you dry thoughts. Rusty Cornelius, Office of Emergency Management for Harris County, which includes Houston. And, Chad, thank you to you as well.</s>MYERS: You're welcome, Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Of course, we'll check back with you many times over the next couple of hours. We're talking ahead about a poisonous plot. Terrorists targeting the New York subway system. Looking to maximize fatalities with minimal effort. We'll have details ahead here on CNN. Also an urgent search in Iraq and now an unsubstantiated claim about two missing American soldiers. We're following the story on LIVE TODAY. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.