Three Dead in Kentucky; Winter Storm Creates Havoc For Travelers In Northeast
ROSA FLORES, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosa Flores. Thank you so much for joining me. We're following developments in Hawaii, where the president is vacationing. He's been briefed on the emergency evacuation of Americans in Sudan. We'll go live to Hawaii for the president' statement in just a moment. But we turn to this: be it snow, ice, or rain, bizarre and deadly storms are creating havoc for millions of holiday travelers and shoppers. The situation is especially urgent in the northeast. Roughly 350,000 people are without power in New York, New England and Toronto. That could spell disaster with temperatures set to plummet tonight. In the upper Midwest, the trouble is snow. This is Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, that city and others in Wisconsin, Iowa, and the northwest parts of Michigan are getting slammed by heavy snowfall. Illinois and much of the deep south is in the deep water right now. Torrential rain and flooding have covered a major swath of the country. Severe storms are blamed on at least seven deaths this weekend alone. Damage from that massive ice storm in Toronto is set to be catastrophic, one of the worst in the city's history. A quarter of a million people are without electricity and could remain in the dark until Wednesday. That's Christmas Day. The dangers from the falling ice became all too real for CTV network's Katie Simpson. Take a look.</s>KATIE SIMPSON, CTV CORRESPONDENT: So we have been seeing this all- morning long. This is very typical of what we've been seeing in these midtown neighborhoods. With that, I'm going to send it back inside. Oh, there it goes. That just landed on a Toronto hydro-truck. That just landed on a Toronto hydro-vehicle. And then the wires are down. And you can hear the crackling. Just be quiet for a second. Listen to this cracking. We were told by hydro crews to move. So we are sending it back inside, and we are not going to stand here anymore. Okay, sending it back in. Oh, we've got to go back.</s>FLORES: Now, four of those killed were in storm-related accidents in Kentucky. Three died when a car went off a bridge. It happened overnight in a town of Newhope, south of Louisville. On the phone with me now Joe Prewitt and he's with the Nelson County emergency management. And Joe, thank you so much for being here with us. Two other people in the car survived. Tell us how this all started and how those survivors got out.</s>JOE PREWITT, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, NELSON COUNTY KENTUCKY: Well, Rosa, in Nelson County, like a lot of other areas, we have hilly terrain and low areas. We have lots of streams that catch runoff from our agricultural land that is now bare because most of the agriculture has been harvested for this year. In this particular situation we've had in Kentucky about 4-5 inches of rain over the last 72 hours. The bulk of that rain coming last night. Most of the streams in low-lying areas are outer banks (ph), for a brief period. In this particular case, these folks were traveling south of Nelson County, Kentucky. And ran into an area I just described. Water was out of the banks, considerably up onto the roadway area. They ran their vehicle into the water. Two of the folks were exiting the vehicle as the swift water started pushing the vehicle downstream. And the other three occupants of the vehicle were unable to exit.</s>FLORES: Talk to us about the survivors. How are they? Do you know their conditions at this point?</s>PREWITT: They were transported by ambulance to a local hospital here in Nelson County. They were treated for hypothermia and distress, and admitted to that hospital. I have not got a current condition on them or whether they are still there or not.</s>FLORES: Now, were there warnings before all of this happened, and did people heed those warnings?</s>PREWITT: Well, in this particular area, there really was no warnings other than we had posted signs on the road on Friday because this is a problematic area for flash flooding. With the gust of the squall line that came through early Saturday night, those signs had been blown over. So the direction of travel these folks were coming from, they may or may not have known there's a hazard in front of them.</s>FLORES: All right, Joe Prewitt with the Nelson County Emergency Management, thank you so much for giving us that update. Now, what kind of weather is in store here for the U.S. for the start of Christmas week? Meteorologist Jennifer Gray breaks it down for us.</s>JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It has been a mess of a storm across much of the country. We have seen very warm air filtering in across the southeast. Combine that with this cold air from the north, this cold front, and it sparked up severe weather across the deep south on Saturday. A lot of rain for the east coast today, but it should be pushing out getting better and better as we get into Monday. But, as far as travel delays go, later this evening, we could continue to see slow downs in places like Chicago, D.C. and New York. D.C. and New York, you could see thunder storm delays. It could slow you down up to two hours is what we're thinking in those areas. If you are traveling for the holidays, keep in mind this rain along, say, interstate 95 could slow you down throughout the day on Monday, but it is going to be pushing out by Monday afternoon and then pleasant weather across much of the south, the southeast, even up in the north. We're going to see pretty nice weather. A couple of snow showers possible about the great lakes. If you are making plans for Christmas Day, though, looking good across most of the country. The south, the east coast clearing out, could see some snow showers up in the great lakes. But otherwise, looking good. Temperatures a little closer to seasonal for a lot of you for Christmas Day. We have seen very warm temperatures across the east coast. Temperatures in the 60s, but you will be feeling like the holidays by Tuesday and Wednesday, New York City, D.C., you will be back in the 30s by Tuesday and Wednesday.</s>FLORES: All right, Jennifer, thank you so much. We switch gears with just a new days to buy those precious holiday gifts. Target says it's moving quickly after the hacking of 40 million credit card and debit card accounts. The company is offering free credit monitoring to its customers affected by this breech. Lawsuits have already been filed in California, and in Rhode Island. New York senator Charles Schumer said today that he wants a federal investigation.</s>SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-NY: If there's one silver lining in this mess, it's perhaps that we could use this troubling news as a lesson for the future. We can get to the bottom of how Target's in-store payment security was compromised in order to make sure that Target in the future and all other stores adequately protect consumers from this kind of devastating theft.</s>FLORES: The hack affected customers who shopped at Target between November 27, and December 15. There are reports that some of the stolen credit and debit card numbers are already for sale on the black market. And coming up, later in hour, a look at what hackers can do once they steal your credit card information. And what countries outside the U.S. are doing to make credit cards more secure. And NASA is delaying its next space walk because of a wardrobe malfunction. The space agency says there is a minor issue with one of the spacesuits. The two American Astronauts completed some of the repair work on the International Space Station yesterday. The next walk will now be on Christmas Eve, giving the drew time to resize that spare spacesuit. And former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman is wrapping up his controversial trip to North Korea, but he's planning on going back in a few weeks. And you won't believe who's going to accompany hi, Also, just ahead, do you know what this is? Take a close look. These guys are popping up in kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms, all across the country. Are they nice or are the naughty? Do they kind of freak you out? That's just ahead.