New York Governor Declares Emergency; Interview with Rhode Island Governor
BLITZER: This just coming into</s>THE SITUATION ROOM: New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo has just declared a state of emergency in New York state as this historic snowstorm continues -- continues to hammer the Northeast. Twenty-five to 30 inches of snow are possible tonight from Hartford, Connecticut, to Boston. New York City is expecting five to 10 inches. Basically, the farther east you live, the more snow you'll get. The incoming head of the National Weather Service tells us there could be whiteout conditions over a large area. The Boston line, this is a very dangerous storm and the worst of it will hit tonight. We're watching all of this unfold. The governor of Massachusetts earlier ordered everyone, except emergency vehicles, off the road. The ban just went into effect right at the top of the hour. Boston could get, once again, more than two feet, more than 24 inches of snow. CNN producer Julian Cummings is joining us on the phone right now. He's in Boston. What are you seeing, Julian?</s>JULIAN CUMMINGS, CNN PRODUCER (via telephone): Hi, Wolf. The roads are getting less and less packed of people in cars. Before, it was a steady stream, looking up for snow, looking around. But roads are getting very, very slick and it's slowly turning into that ghost town feel. In our shot right now, you see plows coming up, a steady flow of plows, which is good when keeping road busy. Not</s>BLITZER: So there's nobody except for emergency vehicles are allowed to be on the road. You're on the road right now. I assume they've given you special permission for the news media?</s>CUMMINGS: Yes, news media is exempt from that. We're going as slow as possible and staying out of the way of vehicles as well.</s>BLITZER: And these are live pictures that you're showing us. Is that Fenway Park over there? What am I seeing?</s>CUMMINGS: That is Fenway Park on your right. They are making sure that it is plowed. Lots of Boston sports fan -- even though it's the off season, want to make sure fans can get to Fenway.</s>BLITZER: So what are the folks in Boston saying? They lived through a blizzard back in 1978, more than 100 people died as a result of that. Are they taking this seriously? What's the mood there?</s>CUMMINGS: People that we have spoken to, you know, they are saying it's February and it's snowing. You know, they treat today as a normal day, but they are also aware that the city is going to close down early and I think people are respecting that, for the most part.</s>BLITZER: Are they worried about outages, how we are outages as a result, not only of the snow, but of the wind which is going to be intense as Chad Myers was telling us?</s>CUMMINGS: Yes. The people that we spoke to, they are getting supplies ready. I think everyone has Hurricane Sandy in their memory, what happened there. But people definitely were looking at it as a snowstorm and looking forward as well to what happens when it stops snowing and the wind really has not picked up yet, from what I can feel. We're driving and we're slipping a little bit, but we're not being blown around as of yet.</s>BLITZER: We're going to check back in with you, Julian. Julian is showing live pictures from his vehicle that we're seeing in Boston. Just be careful driving there. It's going to get icy, slippery very, very, very soon. Let's go to Poppy Harlow. She is in Rhode Island for us. Poppy, you got the governor, Lincoln Chafee with you. I know he has already declared a state of emergency in Rhode Island.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: He absolutely has a state of emergency here. The governor is joining us. Thank you for being here. We know it's a very busy day. You have some news about I-95, the road that we just took to get up here. So apparently, we got here just in time, right?</s>GOVERNOR LINCOLN CHAFEE, RHODE ISLAND: Yes. Those roads are fairly empty right now, but we have imposed a travel restriction on our limited access highway on 95 that you mentioned, 195 and 295. We also added 146 and 24. So those roads have travel advisories on them.</s>HARLOW: So you are basically shutting them down along to Massachusetts and Connecticut doing the same thing. I saw firsthand how tough the driving was. We saw jack knifed tractor-trailers and semis falling off the side of the road. It's no joke here. What can you tell us about how prepared Rhode Island is right now? How many plows do you have out there on the roads?</s>CHAFEE: We couldn't be more prepared because we had so much advanced warning and that's good. Our big fear is power outages. You can see this wet snow. It's about 33 degrees and with that heavy, wet snow, if the wind kicks up and brings down trees and power lines, that's our fear. We're going to clear the streets, but if people get out of power with low temperature, that's what we fear.</s>HARLOW: That begs the question, we experienced it first hand, after Sandy in New York City, in terms of power being out for weeks on end and that wasn't even the winter. So how prepared is National Grid right now, your main power provider?</s>CHAFEE: They are well prepared. I saw a big crew this morning at the hotel that I was visiting. A big crew, they were here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the men I talked to. And we're ready but you have to clear the roads and then wait for the wind to subside and then get the electricity back on. So with the low temperatures, be as you mentioned, that are forecast, that's our big fear. Let's hope we don't have those high winds and this heavy snow and bring down power lines.</s>HARLOW: There have been some early predictions of wind gusts that could hit 60 miles per hour. We're very close to the water. We'll see what happens. Shelters, any availability there if people do lose power?</s>CHAFEE: It seems we've been through a number of drills here. We've had Hurricane Sandy. We had Hurricane Irene. Before that, we had a number of snowstorms. So we're working with our Red Cross. We're well prepared with our shelters, but it doesn't minimize the challenge we'll have if we have power outages and low temperatures.</s>HARLOW: Wolf, if you want to jump in here, any questions for the governor?</s>BLITZER: Yes. Governor, first of all, do you need any federal assistance or do you envision needing any federal assistance and part two of the question, National Guard. I know in Massachusetts, a few thousand National Guards troops have already been activated to help out this weekend. What's going on with those two fronts?</s>CHAFEE: Our federal delegation, our two congressmen and two senators, we've been on a conference call with them. We've pledged to work with the federal government if we need it. Our national guardsmen are ready if we need it similar to Connecticut. We're all mobilized up. There's been a lot of hype here, which is good. So we couldn't be better prepared.</s>BLITZER: Are the people --</s>HARLOW: Governor, appreciate --</s>BLITZER: I was going to say, Governor, are the people in Connecticut appreciative of how potentially dangerous this blizzard could be, given the fact that in '78 you lived through that period, so did I, more than 100 people died.</s>CHAFEE: Yes, that was different because it came so fast. We had so much warning on this one I think it's different. There's a lot of preparation here. I think the roads just came up at 95 to do this interview. They were practically empty. I think people are using commonsense, making good decisions. Let's hope that continues.</s>HARLOW: Governor, thank you. Appreciate it. Wolf, mass transit has been closed here for hours. Downtown is literally empty, barely any cars on the road. I think that's what we're going to see throughout the night as the storm picks up. We'll be here for you live throughout it all. Governor, thank you. Wolf, I'll throw it back to you.</s>BLITZER: Poppy, just ask him quickly if all traffic has been barred except for emergency vehicles as is the case right now in Boston and Massachusetts?</s>HARLOW: Right. This is what we're seeing in Boston and Connecticut, that as of 4:00 p.m. all of the traffic was banned and literally you could go to jail and face a pretty severe fine if you are on the road. I see a few cars here. That's not the case here?</s>CHAFEE: Yes. Ours is going to take place at 5:00. That's coming up soon. We have a lot of exceptions. Media, official duties, health care workers reporting for work at hospitals and the like. We have a number of broad exceptions. So I advise people to look at that online and see what we have.</s>HARLOW: Is there a penalty of jail time if people are on the road?</s>CHAFEE: Well, I think we'll use our common sense.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>CHAFEE: We'll be sensitive to the emergency in place here. If somebody is going to be a repeat infractions offender, yes, they could get heavy fines.</s>HARLOW: All right, stay off the roads, bottom line. Governor, thank you -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Good time to stay home. Governor, thanks very much. Poppy will be getting back to you. Airport and state officials all take their cue from the National Weather Service. Coming up, I'll be speaking with the incoming director of the National Weather Service, Louis Uccellini. We're going to find out what goes into coordinating a massive response for such a massive storm.