0 >> there was an amazing two-minute standing ovation. it was really, really an emotional moment wrapping up the state of the union address. that's it for me and thanks for watching. newsroom continues right now with brooke baldwin. >> hey, wolf. great to be back with you. we are watching not just one, but two big stories. the weather and much of the south and georgia totally shut down after the winter storm. stranding commuters and hundreds, maybe thousands of people spent the night in their cars. still on the road. you see the other picture on the screen. we are talking cruise ship again today. this one is a royal caribbean cruise ship that arrived in new jersey moments ago. nearly 700 people on that ship affected by norovirus. they are disembarking on the cruise. we will talk to people who are sick and ready to go home and very frustrated. first this. 24 hours. we will call it what it is. gripping atlanta started around this time and it is very much a crisis as we speak. look at this. the pictures tell the story here. keep in mind the sun is going to set in atlanta in four hours. thousands and thousands of people behind the wheels are stuck in every direction. into and out of atlanta. law enforcement is struggling to clear the roads and reach these people. some with their kids. minute by minute disaster gross into a second hellish night and up to five people dead. at last word, several thousand school kids have not seen their parents. many were on school house floors and in addition, you have the untold thousands who managed to seek shelter in churches and grocery stores and gas stations. let me say it again. this is an ongoing crisis. this is just day one. >> i'm thinking about getting people out of their cars. what i know is that if compare this to 2011, we were not activated until the 30 day of this winter event. the third day the members of the community were immobilized. we have to get the interstates cleared up. >> there is a lot of blame flying around and even weather forecasters and the local level and as tofu got it wrong. and first to you, michael holmes. how is it to you. we are moving at a snail's pace. we are on i-20. it's an east-west highway below. they are rolling along here. we have interviewed the truck drivers who had been sitting on the side of the road. he's given up and he was about 70 miles from here. he gave up and has been there since 4:30 p.m. we are in the left lane and we saw a car empty in the fast lane that is being left there. a lot of people ran out of gas. it is still a very desperate situation and 2:00 p.m. eastern. this is nowhere near cleared up. still ice on the roads. we crawl for a couple hundred yards and then sit for ten minutes. we did speak to one good samaritan and there have been many around throughout this. his name is chris white. have a listen. >> i just came here and i brought some water and towels to see if anybody was stranded and if families have been here. they gave them some gas and actually kept out more people. >> you are literally looking for people who ran out of gas? >> correct. i found two couples and i will bring them back to my house and let them warm up and give them some food. >> why are you doing it? >> just to help. i look on the news and they had trouble getting to the people and i thought i might come out just to help. lend an extra hand. >> friends and family of mine have seen rude drivers, but they have also seen acts of kindness like we saw from chris white. he has taken the people back to his house to warm up because they are not going anywhere fast. >> so the headline is that traffic is moving. i suppose that's a good thing. think about all the times you get out with gas at a quarter of a tank and guilty and not thinking you would be stuck like that. i know you are not going anywhere. we will come back to you to check on the conditions on the roadways. let me bring you in. this is where the story is percolating now. this blame game. basically acknowledging there was a mistake made and the schools and the businesses being let out at the same time. you had a million people on the roads and you have the mayor and you have governor nathan deal in the same room around the time the snow started falling yesterday. me more about that. >> we have seen the news conference that happened this morning. there was another last night with the mayor of atlanta and the governor of georgia. they were together earlier in the day. the mayor caught this crisis and i think rightfully so. the people in traffic all day would agree with that. i want to go through a couple of tweets that the mayor and the governor sent out. the mayor tweeted atlanta, we are ready for the snow. for a lot of people who question that, about 90 minutes later, the mayor tweets i am honored to receive the 2014 georgian of the year award from georgia trends magazine. we have more work to do together. that was at the ritz karlton. the governor was there to present the mayor with this georgian of the year award. i was honored to get his nationals there that are indicating this was sent out by the governor himself. thousands of people were flooding into the roads. the mayor and the governor at the ritz carlton. they answer them to be struggling, but the offices say that the governor and the mayor were kept in the loop and knew what was happening. the governor cleared the schedule after that. we saw it at the news conference, that was not the first time they were in the room together while people struggled to find a way home. >> as they say in the world of politic, not great optics to have the leaders in a fancy hotel right when it was about to hit the fan. stay on that for us. trying to get reaction from the mayor and chat meyers. we see new orleans because of the ice and the cold there, but the story is here. i want you to respond specifically to what we found from the governor and the mayor. the national weather service that got it wrong and they were following the models and the weather folks didn't predict it right. >> the forecast goes from to two and it was my forecast and we got 2.6. that's not 5 or 8 or a complete bust. it's the amount that they have to get all the stuff out of the way. every bridge and overpass and every uphill grade needed to be salted before it happened. that couldn't and didn't happen. we don't have 1,000 salt trucks because we can't afford to have that. why would you? you are not going to use it but once every 1,000 days. this is a once in every three-year event. you would have 1,000 trucks parked for three years to use for one day? i get it. the fault here is that schools weren't closed before. it started around noon. why would you send kids to school and send them home in the middle of the day and in the middle of this. if rang a bell and said go home now, any hour during the day, you get a three-hour rush hour easy. if it's raping or snowing, that's what we had yesterday. people crashed and it could move and the stuck cars got abandoned. they are still there. those cars are still there. people walk home miles to get home. >> that was my next question and i will let you go. we are past that 24-hour mark. get in my ear and tell me if this is a live picture. no. this is tape. we have seen pictures where you have so many stranded cars on highways. this will go into day two. will it not? the sunsets in a couple of hours. >> certainly it will. you won't get these cars, you won't get every car off the roads for a week. it will take that long to tow every car away and get them out of the ditch. the cars that are abandoned ran out of gas. my brother-in-law spent the night in a home depot. friends that live in the apartment complex spent 22 hours on that road trying to get off that steep hill to the right. couldn't get up the hill. it was turned into a nightmare. this is atlanta all-around cnn center. the bridges and overpasses were a mess. i'm supposed to be on with a picture, but the satellite truck is iced up on the road. our generator died because of ice in the fuel line trying to rent a new generator right now. you would see me if the weather was not so bad here. >> murphy's law. >> most of the ice is northward. the ice goes from houston through alexandria and i-10, mississippi, alabama, georgia, snowing into the carolinas. i know we focus on atlanta, but many others are in similar problems. >> we will be talking to the principal out of alabama. this is not just the metro atlanta area, but my goodness, it is a mess. we have a lot more to get to including stories of people who have been stranded. beyond looking at the cruise ship that is docked full of a lot of sick people, we have to talk about the president delivering remarks on retirement at the steel plant. this is in pennsylvania. let's take a listen. >> every single person who is willing to work hard and take responsibility in this country. that's what i'm committed to doing. i want to talk about the fourth part of that agenda. making hard work pay off for every american. jobs pay good wages and affordable health care is there when you need it and after a lifetime of hard work, you can retire with dignity. today women make up about half of our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. that's wrong. in 2014 it is an embarrassment. women deserve equal pay for equal work. they deserve to be able to have a baby without sacrificing a job. moms and dads deserve to be able to take a day off for a sick kid or sick parent. we have to get rid of some of these workplace policies that belong back in the 50s. back in a mad men episode, i say. we have to give every woman the opportunity she deserves. when women succeed, america succeeds. i'm proud that there is a woman heading up this plant and doing amazing work. i was glad to see that. but women hold the majority of lower wage jobs. they are not the only ones who have been stifled by stagnant wages. the truth is wages and incomes for the average working american haven't gone up even though the economy is more productive. even though it's grown over the last two decades. the average person's salary, what they are taking home, their paycheck has not really grown. now, americans understand, we all understand, some people are going to earn more money than others. we don't envy anybody who achieves success through their hard work. that's what we want for our kids. >> similar themes echoed by the president. talking about equal pay for women and raising minimum wage and retirement. pushing forward the economy and i want to add that he will be getting the first interview with the president since the state of the union. he will be sitting with the president of the united states tomorrow. still to come, the storm that paralyzed the south. who is responsible for this and how should it have been handled? we have insane stories about being stranded without food and water for upwards of 15 or 16 hours. student for that and we are watching the cruise ship where almost 700 people got sick. back in port. we will talk to the passengers. you are watching cnn. are you ready grandma? just a second, sweetie. 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one trader said at this point the market is jonesing for a correction. he said why do you trim a rose bush? because it will come back bigger and come back stronger. in the same line of thinking, this trader said if the market corrects now, it can come back stronger by the end of the year. you see sort of looking for excuses, to have this correction and then you see this sell off accelerate for just this day. also keep in mind, we are knee deep in the middle of fourth quarter earnings season. earnings are not that great. boeing shares weighing down the dow right now. down more than 6%. you have got all of this on wall street with a lot of things going o. nothing positive. you see a sell off in the works. >> supposed to go to the analogy of watching out for the thorns. a lot of people are saying what's going on? let's move along to the other big story we are watching. live pictures of the explorer of the seas. a vacation cruise, floating paradise or mammoth petri dish? in the case of royal caribbean, more than 600 passengers know the answer too well. being victims of a possible norovirus. this has been the dubious distinction of having the most widespread outbreak on a cruise in the last 20 years. that's why this is such a big deal. according to the centers for disease control, it just docked in new jersey. 629 persons and 54 crew members went through and i'm sparing the details, let's just say they were really sick. >> i think there a lot of people who claim there were 600, but i think as many as 1,000. some people i know didn't bother going to the infirmary. they didn't feel well and went to the stateroom. they didn't report it. when they felt better, they left. >> elizabeth cohen is there in new jersey. elizabeth, did i hear you saw someone put in an ambulance? >> reporter: indeed. they actually boarded a stretcher and came out with an older gentlemen on the stretcher. they put him in an ambulance and drove away. they are being greeted by freezing cold temperatures and ambulances and ems workers. folks are really sick. i'm told they can go to the hospital and they made it easy for that to happen. also the cdc tells me they recommended to royal caribbean that they offer up hotel rooms for people who are sick. not sick enough to go to the hospital, but they want to keep to themselves for a while. >> not get on an airport and infect others. >> exactly. >> what's happening right now on the choose ship behind you? have you seen the passengers disembark? >> yes. passengers have been getting off. the whole disembarkation process takes three hours. more than 3,000 people getting off a ship and going through customs and in this situation having to go through medical personnel and asked how they are feeling. it does take a while. several passengers just walked by and he said best cruise of my life. i lot of five pounds. i asked him how and he didn't answer. he said he had a great time. >> i don't think we want to know. elizabeth cohen. >> i don't want to know. >> speaking of the passengers here, we have joseph. are you with me on the phone? >> yes, i am. >> joseph, first of all, are you one of the unfortunate soles who got sick? >> yes, my wife and i both. we were confined for three days. >> keep in mind, some people are eating lunch, can you tell us how sick you got? >> we couldn't eat anything. that was the last thing we wanted to look at. we had both ends going. it was terrible, terrible, terrible. >> where are you? are ow board the cruise? >> outside on the deck looking out at the dock and i see some of your cameras interviewing people or whatever. >> we are out there. >> we kept going and we had our lunch. we were able to eat, thank god. we are doing better. 90% better. we just want to get home. >> i can't blame you. does 90% mean you get to get off the cruise or get on a plane or train or car and get home or do you need to stay put and get better? >> i live in new jersey and we came where they are supposed to have a bus to take us back to hamilton. we are waiting for them to depart from the ship. i don't know if we are going to get off the way we are supposed to. >> i think they will let you off. it just takes a while, the whole process. take me back when the worst of the worst of it. this is apparently the worst outbreak of norovirus in a number of years. what was happening on the cruise? what were fellow passengers or members of the crew were sick. what were they saying? >> entertainers were sick and they canceled shows because they couldn't perform. i had people that i know were sick in the infirmary because they didn't want to be confined to their rooms. that happened a lot from what i'm hearing. we were confined for three days. room service was atrocious. we couldn't get anything in the room. i had to sneak out to get crackered and ginger ale and stuff for us to drink. it was atrocious. they tried to do what they could do, but once you feel like we were feeling, it wasn't worth it. i doubt if i'll be back. >> so many people i know saving up and taking these few vacation theys they have for the cruise that was. final question, will you take another cruise? >> no. at this point i am saying no. they are giving us a credit for the days that we spent in our cabin free to take another cruise. so it's half price for the next one, but i doubt i will see the inside of another ship again. >> joseph, we wish you and your wife well. thank you so much for taking the few minutes. i hope you are able to get home soon. thank you. now to this. when you head into work or school in the morning, you never think you are not going to make it home. that's exactly what happened to thousands of people last night. we will hear their stories and treacherous winter weather stories coming up next. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec®. love the air. 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