Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20

CNNW The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer August 25, 2011



to see how they're doing. a lot of damage. >> interestingly, jim, one thing to we do e-mailed me this which came from the national emergency management agency hout there where you are. they basically tell us it is the islands where the problems are. a lot of power lines down, a bridge out here and there, a report from cat island that all power lines were down and no telecommunications. so it sounds like the large islands have done pretty well. the smaller islands, either we don't know or they have had some problems. >> that's right. it's probably going to be another at least into tomorrow where they're able to get a sense. people can only get to those islands -- it's hard to communicate there. you know the first thing to happen is power is out. they don't even know that they're really facing yet. trying to send out the trucks. really, until tomorrow they can get out there, maybe get some planes out there. it's going to be tough for them to know the real impact on the bahamas. joe? >> we will certainly be wait for that weather to clear to get a better idea of all that has happened in the bahamas. thanks so much, jim spelling in nassau. the national hurricane center is issuing a new irene forecast at this hour. let's go to our severe weather expert chad myers and cnn's hurricane headquarters. chad, how is it looking where you sit? >> couple of things new, joe, in this advisory. it is not going to be a category 4 any longer. the winds do not get forecast to 35. all day today the storm has not been that organized. there hasn't been a big eye. it hasn't really gotten any stronger. the forecast wasn't to be a strong 3 right now headed to a 4. it's barely that 3 at this point in time. the highest level will be 120, not 135. that's some good news. the track, though, has been shifted slightly to the left, the center of the track. the center of the cone has been shifted slightly to the left, taking it directly over morehead city. just to the south, southwest of ocracoke island where the governor is pleading people to get off, and then right smack-dab over the sound and out about virginia beach, and the water, slight strengthening as it moves very close the ocean city, maryland, and then on up into really driving it right into hudson -- the hudson river. right into new york harbor. of course, we still have the left, the right. just depends on which way to go. new hurricane warnings just issued. yellow. hurricane warnings issued from the virginia/north carolina border all of the way down to the little river inlet. and then tropical storm warnings from there all of the way down to the island. >> okay, so, just putting a finer point on it, you're talking about a possible landfall, somewhere around morehead city or as far, say, as cape hatteras? >> that's right. it still could turn to the right. although the models have been in much better agreement today, which means that we don't have one model just bearing to the left and going to north carolina and into raleigh. and another one heading out to sea. they're all kind of agreeing with each other which gives the hurricane center a little bit more confidence on what's going on. moving up ahead, too, because we do care, again, as secondary landfall very close to, that would be ocean city. that would be about kate may and then right along the beach, right and wild wood and driving right into new york harbor. as it gets over and if it stays over new jersey and the pine woods there we may lose some intensity before it gets to new york city. that would be great. the only bad news with this location is that for hours and hours and hours, the wind will pour water send push water into new york harbor, making the rivers, the hudson and the east river go up. the south areas there in the south beaches and south island there of long island, water could go up, the surge could be higher. >> so for people along the eastern seaboard, this is a no joke scenario right now. what will change it and mitigate it to make it less severe, in your view? >> there could be something called shear. shear is wind that tears a thunderstorm apart. now, you talk about shear when we talk about severe weather in the plains. severe weather shear can make tornadoes because the storm is by itself. when the hurricane wants to be all by itself, spinning around its own eye, there's no shear. when you get shear it kind of blows it apart and those storms can't rotate around each other. there will be some shear that starts to get into the storm and that's why this that number right there is only 85. that's why it doesn't get to category 4 at this point. but i will warn you, joe, this is in very warm water. we could be easily back talking about category 4 by this time tomorrow as it gets organized overnight. that's not out of the question. >> right. so just because it goes down doesn't mean it's not going to come back up. >> that's exactly right. >> great. thanks so much, chad myers. we will be watching for more information from you. here in washington, officials say sunday's dedication of the new martin luther king jr. national memorial remains on schedule, but severe weather unleashed by hurricane irene could affect many people traveling to the event. amtrak has canceled service south of washington from friday through sunday and many airline flights are likely to be delayed or canceled. so check it out before you go. u.s. navy ships are on the move in the kind of operation you might see in a war zone, but this is all about protecting the east coast fleet from hurricane irene. let's bring in our pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. and, chris, they're trying to get them out of the path of danger. >> that's right. you know, the bulk of the u.s. military's east coast based fleet all comes from this one part of virginia. touchdown we saw dozens of ships leaving, heading out to see from this one area just to get out of the way of this storm. the u.s. navy versus hurricane irene, that's one battle the military not prepared to fight. the eminent arrival of the storm has virtually cleared out the world's largest naval base. u.s. navy sent 27 ships to sea, including an aircraft carrier. >> it's important that they go early so they're able to get ahead of the storm and stay outside of the destructive lands. >> reporter: look at what ire reeb has done to the bahamas so far. it could overwhelm the navy's pier since the low-lying norfolk area is vulnerable to storm surge. if the winds could literally rip and pull a ship out to sea. >> it can get very dangerous to have loose ships from piers if they stay in port. >> reporter: the fleet is heading hundreds of miles east. so the storm will pass between the ships and the east coast of the u.s. cnn producer larry is on board one of those ships and he called us from the deck of the "uss ross." >> as the storm passes, the carolina of virginia, all the ships will start to turn inland and start heading out behind the storm. >> no one knows how bad the damage could be, which is why sailors and marines are mainly concerned for their families and homes. >> one of the sailors i spoke with said he and his wife couldn't decide whether she should go to knoxville, tennessee, where her family is from or stay with the children in norfolk about ten miles from the ocean. the concern being if she leaves, they won't know what happens to the hughes. >> the navy is already making contingency plans in case these ships are going to be needed after the storm. so that they can move to an area that would need help with the rescue or recovery mission. virginia national guard has already put several hundreds of troops on alert. and the north carolina national guard has assembled special teams with experts and things like communications, power generation, and security. all ready to help with this storm comes in. >> these would be the people untouched and ready to to dig in with assistance? >> one thing you wouldn't get with the earthquake is you get warning. you have time to position some of these people, put people on alert. and you have time to get the resources in. now to the battle for libya, moammar gadhafi's diehard shelled a plane at the tripoli airport today. the third plane destroyed in the last 24 hours. one of gadhafi's sons tells cnn he wants to negotiate a cease-fire to save tripoli from what he calls a sea of blood. he had been captured by forces but appears to be free now. his father apparently sending a message to supporters from wherever he's hiding, an audio message attributed to moammar gadhafi urging loyalists not to surrender to the rest. his word for the rebels. fresh fighting in the streets of tripoli,a rebel commander said he sent more troops to buildings near gadhafi's seized compound. the strong man may be hold up there. the libyan rebels have made claims before that have proven to be flat out wrong. could they be closing in on gadhafi though? stand by for a live report from tripoli. and, new york is preparing for a possible hit by hurricane irene. we'll look at the damage that, the chaos could be unleashed by a monster storm in america's biggest city. >> what's your biggest concern? 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go to cnn.com/caffertyfile and post a comments on my blog or to to my post on the situation's room's facebook page. nobody gave them any money i wonder what would happen to them. >> fascinating idea. and you have to take them seriously that they're genuine about it. but the question is, when are they going to stop paying their lobbyists to work capitol hill? >> there's a whole other group that are -- and the bundlers. you're right. but, you know, if you want to empty the potomac river you've got to empty it off in there. >> that's right. libyan rebels have control of 80% of tripoli, sending moammar gadhafi into hiding, but the ousted libyan leader is refusing to tell his fighters to lay down their weapons. listen to a clip from that audio message apparently from gadhafi to his supporters. >> translator: do not be afraid of bombing. you will not be hit. do not be afraid at all. they are just stun grenades to scare you. do not be afraid at all. do not surrender tripoli. >> so, let's bring in cnn international correspondent nick robertson in tripoli. and i guess, nick, the million dollar question still is, where's gadhafi and whether they've gotten any closer to locating him? >> well, i guess you can say, joe, that they've narrowed down a couple of places he is not this afternoon. rumors abound here about where he is. we were told in the middle of the afternoon that rebel commander, we were told by the commander himself he dispatched extra troops to surround a number of apartment buildings where he was held up. that's what we believed. we went to take a look. the apartment didn't seem to exist. we were told, okay, there's another rumor that he might be surrounded and another area of town. we went over there. that we were told turned out to be not gadhafi himself hold up but some people that were loyalists to him, we were told. later on this evening we saw an apartment out there on fire. we were told that was gadhafi's spies shot atlanta the apartment set on fire. so the rebels have narrowed it down by one or two places. the reality is they don't seem to have a clue. he could be about anywhere here. and the rebels are really just scratching around with rumors at the moment. of course, they may have some key information. they're not sharing it with us. and we're not seeing it acted out on the streets if they do. joe? >> so a lot of wishful thinking. what do you think, perhaps optimism that they're closing in on him but no real information. one thing that we heard just the other day was all this fighting around the airport and concerns that he might be trying to make his way there to get on to a plane. anything new? >> nothing new on that. i mean, gadhafi and his family have a farm that's close to the airport. there were concerns that he might be hold up there. that he might, as you say, be trying to get to that airfield or another airfield where he is used to keep his private jets. those may have been his plans. but he doesn't seem to have executed them. the reality is the rebels here have been high on rhetoric. we heard them tell us that they captured three of his sons. high on rhetoric but low on delivery at the moment. at least in terms of gadhafi. maybe this rhetoric is the design to get his loyalists to put down their weapons. but it's certainly not leading to his capture right now. so they're not able to deliver on that. it could be sometime, joe. >> what about these messages that come from gadhafi and presumably are broadcast? is there any way of tracking through the radio stations to try to find out where they're getting this tape or this signal from that he's putting his voice out on? you know, i guess you could say it was a little bit like trying to track where is osama bin laden, was getting his messages handed off and delivered. it's too easy these days to record something on a phone chip, pass the phone chip to somebody. they upload it somewhere else. it gets e-mailed to a broadcaster. and before you know it, it's all over the airwaves. so it's probably very, very hard to catch him by that mechanism. what amazes me about his broadcast is, this is a man who doesn't seem to still see reality staring him in the face. don't give up the fight, is what he's saying to his loyalists. yet one of his sons has been e-mailing me saying i've got a plan to negotiate a cease-fire to avoid the bloodshed in the capital. this is a very dysfunctional family at the very least right now, joe. >> and those e-mails continue. have you been responding to them? have you been saying anything back when you get these e-mails? >> you know, i try to ask questions. i try to ask questions about, you know, there were rumors that saadi gadhafi sending me the e-mails were going to be captured or the rebels were trying to capture him in the hotel downtown. when i asked him about that he said they arrived too late. there are questions that i asked that are just not being answered at all. what i was told is that his efforts are still on going to negotiate the cease-fire. that he wants to do it with the help of a couple of big explosions there just -- very big explosion, actually, over my shoulder. not clear what that was at all, joe, but that was quite a loud explosion. so the bottom line is, and i can hear people loading their rifles and weapons down there. rebel gunmen preparing their weapons. we'll try and find out what that big explosion was. sounded like an echo of an explosion and then another explosion itself. >> so it's an on going -- >> i don't know exactly what it was. >> ongoing situation. perhaps i should go ahead and let you go. just check out your own personal safety. and we'll be checking back in with you, nic robertson. thanks so much for that reporting. languished for months in solitary confinement. we'll hear the story of one american journalists who escaped from a libyan jail, and the family of a u.s. man who was kidnapped in pakistan makes an appeal to his captors. summer is here.male an] and so too is the summer event. now get an incredible offer on the powerful c300 sport sedan. but hurry before this opportunity...disappears. the mercedes-benz summer event ends august 31st. we take it on ours. this summer put your family in an exceptionally engineered mercedes-benz now for an exceptional price during the summer event. but hurry, this offer ends august 31st. wolf blitzer is off today. i'm joe johns. here are some of the stories we're working on for the next hour. as hurricane irene barrels toward the u.s., new york braces for the eye of the storm. surprise earthquake that jolted the east coast also left thousands without cell phone service. how can be this avoided next time? and as steve jobs exits the company he co-founded, we'll take a look at the man who will be the new head of apple. stand by, you're in "the situation room." fire and smoke and shelves flying. that's the scene of the tripoli international airport. one of the battlegrounds where pro-gadhafi forces are making a last stand. cnn's arwa damon is the only western journalist at the airport. >> we're up on the control tower. we have to stay a bit low because the rebels cia a sniper shooting at them. we wanted to show you this. that smoldering airplane. this airport complex has been bombarded relentlessly by gadhafi loyalists using various kinds of artillery and brad rockets. if we come over to this side, you can actually hear the sounds of explosions, gunfire. but if we move around, you can see even more of the wreckage that has been caused by the gadhafi loyalists, assault on this airport complex. now, if we come over to the other side of the air control tower, you can see the wreckage of an aircraft that was hit overnight. and the rebels say that the assault on this airport complex is so intense for a number of reasons. first of all, the senior xand commanders here believe that they are trying to keep huge land that they don't control free so they can perhaps try to sneak gadhafi himself through there. but also the rebels believe that gadhafi loyalists are employing a scorch earth policy. they want to demolish anything that they possibly can. they're still facing a fierce and intense battle a

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