Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Ana Cabrera 20171218

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Ana Cabrera December 18, 2017 00:00:00

Theyre telling us that theyre starting slowly to unload these places. There are five sets of those. So its very slow and were pretty far back in the line. Its going to be at least two hours. He also says he doesnt know whats going to happen to us once were deplaned, where well go in the airport and what resources will be available to us. He said it will take a number of days before things get back to normal. Were in it for the long haul. Weve totally run out of water. Theyve asked us kindly not to flush the toilets. Otherwise everyone seems to be in a relative calm. They gave us beverages about an hour ago and were just waiting. Wow. It doesnt sound good. How long have you been stuck there . We landed at 2 15. So about five hours. Wow. And the pilot is telling you it could be two hours more before you can get off. Did you hear what led to this . Reporter its unclear to us. Its a construction issue. As far as we know theres no power at the airport. Lucky for us. People are stuck in trams. Were on a plane with power. My phone is charging, we have air conditioning. We all have basic needs, we have toilets. But were sort of lucky in that sense. The problem is we dont know how much longer were going to be on this plane. Right. And you said people are in pretty good spirits still . All things considered. I dont think theres going to be a mutiny. I think everyone understands that this Isnt Something Delta has done to us. We all have to wait and hopefully well get off soon. We will be in touch with you, betsy. I hope so too. Keep up that positive energy. What else can you do. Lets get to the bottom of what happened. Thanks again. Lets bring in cnns kay ly hartung. Ana, Georgia Power saying they expect to have power restored to the airport around midnight. We received this statement. They say they believe the issue may have caused a fire which caused extennive damage in an underground facility. They say it was safely extinguished. They entered the area to assess the damages and study the damages. While the cause is not yet known, Georgia Power system responded by isolating areas where the system Wasnt Operating correctly to ensure safety. No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time they say. Ana, theyre giving them until midnight. I spoke to a pilot a little bit ago. He told me he was prepared to not be back to work for another 24 to 36 hours. Again, thats five hours. Kaylei kaylee, what are their plans . What have they been told the options are . Reporter i can tell you the numbered have dwindled since weve been here. By my observation, the quickest way, the most efficient way out of this airport is by marta, the Public Transportation rail service that exists in atlanta. That station has been open all on me now, of course, one of them being our tv light and lights like you would see as a Construction Light that have been brought in. Tower lights along this walk way as well as inside the doors to my right where the Airline Counters are as well to allow people to communicate with officials here, law enforcement, security, and whatnot, to try to find them a place to go because as one Atlanta Police officer told me, its not safe or sanitary for anyone to think its good idea to stay here overnight. Oh, my. Kaylee hartung, thank you for that report. This airport the size of atlanta will throw a Monkey Wrench into the entire countrys Flight Schedules especially at the peak of the holiday season. I want to bring tom in. Youve been look at Flight Trackers, seeing how this is going to impact the Ripple Effect so to speak. What are you finding out . I think its just the volume theyre going to have to deal with. Its not just one airline. Atlanta being a major hub, typically its 24 7 with that Cluster We Saw in the original image. This could be significant. Well have to sit and see what happens. Obviously with the thousands there, accommodations are going to be first and foremost priority for all of them. Tom sater, thank you. Of course, Atlanta Airport is a major hub for airlines all across the country. I want to bring in former faa safety inspector david sues whos joining us from denver. David, with pilots stuck on the tarmac, what kind of impact could this have on the country . As you said, its like a Ripple Effect. Its like dominos falling. You have to worry about crew rest times. I have to rest a certain amount of time every 24 hours. Now its really messed up. Thats the first thing that pilots are going to have to worry about. If they could take off, could they do that within their duty times or change the crews out. Weve talked to our betsy klein. It could be another two hours before they get off. Theyve been asked not to flush toilets. They dont have Running Water in these planes. Do airlines and airports prepare for a potential incident like this . There are protocols but it starts back with the Georgia Power protocol. There are three trunk lines that go into the airport. One is for security, doors, getting in and out. Thats number one. The second trunk line is for any, still essential, but air Traffic Control equipment, things like that that would do communications. But if im reading this right, there has not been any communications with anybody in the waiting areas, the border areas, so that tells me tear two might be down as well, which could be really catastrophic. I dont think in the history that i know of that theres been an airport thats gotten a tier 2 trunk cut. Thats a serious situation. The protocols that they do at the airport, the tearier 2, it surprises me theyre letting people stay in the airport at all. I would be having the people evacuating out of the airport if the fire isnt contained. But it sounds like its contained. Theyre hoping to have it prepared by midnight. There was a tweet by former secretary anthony foxx apparently stuck on one of the delta planes in atlanta right now. He write, there is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source, none. Does that strike you as odd too . Very much so. As i said, theres three power tiers, but each of those power tiers have three redundant sources. They have the power source itself. It comes from two different counties. The fact that it all went down, its truly inexcusable. Not only that, you have generators, backup sources, theres so many redundancies in each one of the power trunks, that i cant imagine why it would have shut down other than if it was a fire that was expected to propagate to certain areas and other areas and they may have shut them down ahead of time to make sure there Wasnt Electricity that would carry those fires to another location. I mean thats a possible. Somebodys going to have toance answer this at some point, and its not going to be pretty. 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I mean they have probably 90 of the flights in and out of hartsfield today, and they should be communicating not only with their dmers but with the public. This is going to be a nightmare for a good two to three weeks for delta. This is the most crowded time of the year. The number of people on the planes are all in the high 90s. These customers are going to have to be reaccommodated. Its going to cascade onto other carriers. Its a very tough situation. Power outages at airports seem to be fairly rare. We dont hear of it often. Your thoughts on the response so far. We dont know what caused the outage, but they do occur. Were hearing they believe it was a fire at their power station, i guess. Yeah. And the airports are supposed to have bakeup power to two levels. Theyre supposed to be able to degrade their Air Traffic System down to a lesser level and still keep operating, but apparently this fire was of such magnitude it shut down the alternate sources of power as well. This is going to have to be investigated very carefully after this event because this Shouldnt Have happened. So thousands of people are obviously stuck at that airport, no power until midnight. Were hearing they have Construction Lights set up to help people see, get where theyre going. What should airport officials be doing to help keys these passengers safe and orderly . They need to get as many of their passengers first off the plane, off the tarmac, and into the into the actual Airport Structure itself. Then they need to start transporting passengers to nearby hotels by the airport and in downtown atlanta. Sunday night, thankfully, a lot of the hotels have not a heavy bookings. They need to give people some comfort for the next 12 to 24 hours while their systems come back up. Then its going to be a very tough rescheduling challenge. When we hear from passengers who are stuck on airplanes who have been on the ground waiting to get off for in some cases five hours already and theyre being told it could be another two hours or so before they can even deplane, does that surprise you . It doesnt because of the sheer number of aircraft and sheer number of passengers. But my guess is that atlanta has not trained for this kind of disaster before. You know, you dont its hard to imagine a total shutdown during one of the busiest flight days of the year. My guess is theyve been taken a little bit by surprise. Arent we all taken by surprise by this. Peter goelz. Thank you. I want to get more perspective. Juliette, you say this situation is unacceptable. Explain why . Unacceptable across a number of areas. First of all, the communication is just completely lacking. I think people are guessing whats going on. We just got a Press Release from i think Atlanta Energy that its likely a fire. Thats a couple hours later. So just on the response side, protocols do not appear to be being followed. Look. Systems break down. People understand that. Whats not forgivable and whats somewhat inexcusable this many hours later is that the system would have gone down so massively for so long. In other words, we talk about Resilient Systems in Critical Infrastructure and part of that means you have backup plans, you have redundancies, you dont have a single point of failure. In other words, one fire doesnt cause the largest airport in the United States or Airport Traffic in the the most Business Airport in the world. Yeah. In the world. So thats how people in Homeland Security think about it. Whatever the cause, it might be fire. We didnt know that. It could have been nefarious. What we look at is how do you build systems that can handle the boom, right . That causes the disruption. Whether its a fire or attack or hurricane. I would say this is not inspiring right now. Bob, as far as reacting to a crisis, what grade do you given the airport so far roughly six hours or so far in . A failing grade, ana. Where is the onsite generator . Everybody in the world has an onsite generator. Theyre ready for it. They could keep planes up and Keep Services going. The fact is juliette is absolutely right. Our infrastructure is also getting a failing grade. This should not happen. You also have to keep in mind how vulnerable airports are to be taken out by electricity by terrorists. They could do it and were not prepared in the least. Juliette, give that its 7 30 right now, no more flights out tonight, what does the airport do to take care of thousands of people who may be stranded there . It seems to me you would have established Emergency Protocols to get people off the planes. They are stationary, atlanta is you know, its a sophisticated airport. You should be able to get people onto the tarmacs, onto the runways, and into the terminals. They shouldnt be sitting on airplanes for hours on end without bathrooms. It shouldnt be happening. Its not like theres a blizzard going on. They can get out in the rain. First of all, you want to protect Peoples Health and safety and security and once you get the generators back going youre going to have to essentially Reprocess Hundreds Of Thousands of people who are traveling during the holiday season. This is going to be a weeklong delay, i have no doubt about it. Its not just atlanta. Think of every airport in singapore. Think of all these airports connected to atlanta that are now being impacted by this. This is this is a disas disaster is a little strong to say, but this is sort of an embarrassment and most importantly, its got to be a lesson learned. We cannot have our infrastructure be so vulnerable. You say it may not be a disaster. I think the people stuck on planes with no Running Water and no bathrooms may think this is a disaster. Bob, were hearing from officials it may have been caused by a fire. For your a while it was who did this, how did this happen. It does highlight a potential vulnerability. How much of a target are our power grids and electrical facilities . Let me tell you when u joined the cia, they took us through a course where we take out an airport. Its very easy to do. You have to anticipate it. You need to red team it, green team it and so foncht its just very, very easy to do. And, again, i go back to onsight generators. You sort of expect either a fire or a Terrorist Attack and you have some sort of backup. If this had been a Terrorist Attack, it would have been a total catastrophe for all of our nation across the United States, almost clearly another 9 11. Bob baer and juliette kayyem, i really appreciate it. All right. A Star Studed Gala is a few minutes away. Were on the live carpet. You see celebrities pouring in and were going to be taking you there to the red carpet coming up next. 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