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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Year's Worth of Snow Hits NY in One Day; Israeli Authorities ID Police Officer Killed in Synagogue Attack; Who's in Charge of Police Response in Ferguson?; Model Janice Dickinson's Allegations Against Bill Cosby

Aired November 19, 2014 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Snowed in. This is what the folks in Buffalo, New York, area woke up to this morning and guess what? More snow is expected.

Plus, how about this? Freezing temperatures for all 50 states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANICE DICKINSON, FORMER MODEL: The last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe dropping his robe and getting on top of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Former model Janice Dickinson, the latest Cosby accuser to step forward, why she and other alleged victims waited to tell their stories.

The exploding air bag recall may get bigger. It could impact 20 million vehicles. We're going to tell you what you need to know.

Good morning to you, those stories and more ahead @THISHOUR. Hi there. I'm Michaela Pereira. John Berman has fled the cold weather. He is off today.

And we are talking about the cold weather. In fact, we're waiting for a press conference from the mayor of Buffalo, New York, where they are barely getting any time to recover from an epic, six-foot blitz of snow before the next one hits.

So we are going to wait for this press conference, find out what the emergency response coordinators are doing in that area. We know at this point that five people have died as Buffalo and the surrounding communities deal with this paralyzing blast of lake-effect snow.

One of the biggest problems is driving. It's almost impossible for most people. That means getting the sick and the injured to the hospital or stranded people out of their vehicles can take heroic efforts.

And doctors and nurses, well, they can't get to work. That means some of them who were working during the storm they're still there working 36-hour shifts. The mayor says this is heavier than anything Buffalo has seen in more than 40 years, which says a whole lot for a city that's accustomed to this lake-effect snow.

And to make matters worse, to add insult to injury, another three feet could fall on the area tomorrow.

Chad Myers is here to explain what's going on and what the forecast holds. But I want to get first to Jennifer Gray.

You have been in the thick of it in Buffalo. I'm not sure. You must have felt like you were in a time-lapse video. Watching that snow fall on you this morning, I was worried you were going to get buried.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I've never seen anything like it. Being from Louisiana and moving to Atlanta from Miami, that was a long way from home, but, yeah, folks here in Buffalo, you think they're used to stuff like this, a lot of snow.

We've talked to locals the past 24, 36 hours, and they say even for them this is unprecedented. This is so early and so much of it. This is going to be breaking records, Michaela. We could be talking about an additional two to three feet.

That was the first wave. And we've seen 60, 63 inches, and then we could see an additional two feet. Unbelievable. There's nowhere for it to go because this next wave is going to come so quickly.

I want to show you what they're doing with this. They're taking bulldozers and basically shoving it up against sides of streets in the corners and you can see just making these huge mounds. They're bringing dump trucks and taking all of this, hauling it off to a field and just putting it there until the next wave comes.

So people are just trying to manage what they have, the sidewalks. They're starting to shovel. All you can see are the tops of people's heads because they're literally buried in this.

Cars just look like little humps. We have cars over here that are pretty much buried. Right at the fire station you can see this other pile that's as high as the street sign. And so folks here will be digging out, Michaela.

Look at those pictures. The cars, you can't even see the top of them. Temperatures, though, are expected to get around 60 degrees by Saturday, so this is going to melt very, very quickly by the end of the week, Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yeah. And that's going cause a whole other set of issues. We'll talk about that in a moment.

Jennifer, thanks so much for bearing the elements for us. You really have done a great job.

I want to turn to Chad Myers now, because I think the big question is she's talking about 60 degrees in a few days. But we also know there's going to be another shot of this before that happens.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Correct. It's over for today. It's snowing up Niagara Falls, in that area, Niagara, on the lake, even toward the fort area, but the big difference here is that it cools back down tonight. The wind shifts direction and that's when the snow starts.

So the question is when does it get better? You kind of have to watch what you ask for. Think about this snow on the roof, how much it weighs. On Saturday, it's going to rain on that snow, not melt it, just get it wetter and heavier, and roofs are going to collapse.

I've already heard about a couple of warehouses that have strained roofs and collapsed roofs. On Monday, it gets to 57, and all of those drains down there that would take the melting snow are clogged be snow so the water can't go anywhere. So this is a real problem for the people right now. It warms up, it cools down, it warms up again but this is what they've been dealing with. That's 36 hours worth of radar, and that's Buffalo, and that's Jennifer.

Finally the snow has moved to the north but for so many hours it snowed in the exact same place and didn't move.

So (inaudible) where I grew up, (inaudible), 65 inches of snow. If you would take Jennifer, pick her up in a helicopter because they can't drive, pick her up in a helicopter move four miles south, you would see three times more snow than what you saw in that picture -- three times. Lancaster at 63 and then Buffalo airport, 6.2.

Now Wolf Blitzer grew up right there under that word (inaudible). I grew up right there on that road right there. Buffalo airport had six inches and three miles away had 63 inches of snow.

And then some place you have to put it all. You love it when you've got your driveway plowed and then all of a sudden the plow comes in and pushes it right back up, and you get another pile about that high. So they have a lot to deal with.

The big problem today is probably carbon monoxide. You have to be very careful that your carbon-monoxide detectors are working, for sure today.

PEREIRA: That's a real concern, for sure. And that's the concern here. We talk about the records, and we talk about the levels, and wow, we can't see street signs for snow.

But the fact is we are concerned about the infirm, the elderly, the people that are homebound that can't get out. We want to make sure they're taken care of. We'll look into that in a moment.

Our thanks to our Chad Myers.

I want to bring in somebody right now who is getting a firsthand view from the inside what it's like to be in a city in a community that gets two years worth of snow in just -- a year's worth of snow in just two days. We have Buffalo resident Dave Ryan on the phone. I'm going to ask you to hold on, Dave, because I do want to hear your comments, but I think you also want to hear from the mayor. He's about to make a press conference and make some comments publicly.

Let's listen.

MAYOR BYRON BROWN, BUFFALO, NEW YORK: Buffalo was disproportionately hard hit. Today the lake-effect moves into the other parts of the city people, but it is clear from looking at the actions of the residents of the city of Buffalo, so many people doing heroic things, special things that to help neighbors, people looking out for people that we are the city of good neighbors, that we are the city of good neighbors. Particularly at times like this, it is clear that we are one Buffalo.

In south Buffalo it continues to be a slow haul. We have made progress. Crews have worked continuously overnight and continue to work.

Some of our commissioners and drivers and others have been working non-stop without any sleep. I want to thank them for the work they have been doing around the clock to make sure that we can have mains that are passable for emergency vehicles in south Buffalo.

As I indicated, it is slow going still in south Buffalo. We are making progress but there's a long way to go. The driving ban is still in effect in south Buffalo. We want people to continue to observe the driving ban. We've had situations where because it is bright and sunny, people have driven in from other municipalities and gotten stuck.

Please do not be fooled by the beautiful sunshine. There is still tremendous amounts of snow on the ground in south Buffalo. The limited state of emergency in south Buffalo is still in effect.

We have 18 snowmobiles that operational now in south Buffalo that are responding to EMS calls, responding to stranded motorists. Those vehicles are being managed by our fire department. I want to thank them for the tremendous work they are doing under very difficult circumstances in responding to people that have emergency situations, particularly health emergencies.

Our division of citizen services has four crews helping to shovel out seniors in other parts of the city, not south Buffalo. We still do not the ability to send crews into south Buffalo to help with that kind of work.

Just a correction on the amount of vehicles that have been towed, regular tows to dart street, mini-tows, it's approximately 100 vehicles that have been towed.

We talked about the fact that it's very difficult to plow snow in south Buffalo, very few places to put it at this point, so it's not a plowing operation. It's a hauling and removal operation. Last night there were about 130 truckloads that were removed. Now we have more than doubled that. More than 230 truckloads of snow removed from south Buffalo, over 5,000 tons of snow that have been removed from south Buffalo.

I want to just notify you, as you are well aware, Governor Cuomo will be in this afternoon. The governor has offered assistance to the city of Buffalo through the various departments of the state, through the national guard.

We are accepting whatever assistance we can get. Many of the snowplows that we are utilizing are coming from the state. We've received one high-lift from the state and we have requested more high-lifts and dump trucks to help with the snow removal operation.

We have also received calls from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who will help us with our FEMA application, with respect to the state of emergency that has been declared. We have heard from Congressman Brian Higgins and many other elected officials who have offered assistance.

Now to give you more specific detail on the snow removal --

PEREIRA: You're listening to the mayor of hard-hit Buffalo. That's Mayor Byron Brown, who is sort of briefing the press about the latest information on this storm that has dumped an incredible amount of snow, over six feet of snow in the last two days.

To give you an idea, he is describing the effort there is as not such as a plower situation but they are considering this a snow hauling and removal operation. So far they have loaded 5,000 tons of snow out of the area. Why is that significant? That tells you how much snow has fallen in such a short amount of time.

We're told three more feet are expected, and soon after that a warm will you please come. That's the concern is after that warm-up comes that snow will melt causing flooding concerns and the potential for roofs to cave in.

I want to bring in somebody who's in this particularly hard-hit area of south Buffalo. Dave Ryan is with me on the phone. Dave, can you hear me OK?

DAVE RYAN, BUFFALO, NEW YORK, RESIDENT (via telephone): Yes, good morning.

PEREIRA: Good morning to you, although I'm sure this is not the morning you were hoping for.

My friend, you have not been out of your house. You can't essentially really get out of your house, can you?

RYAN (via telephone): Actually this morning my wife and I took to the task of trying to create a path, and we were easily defeated. We had no place to begin. We didn't know where to start, and we had to just give up. And I'm sure there's many residents in south Buffalo who failed the same way. PEREIRA: Because, again, there's snow up against your door. So even

getting the door open, I imagine, was a challenge?

RYAN (via telephone): Yup. That was a challenge. We have a dog in the house and he needed to use the bathroom so we had to get him out. We had to create a path for him.

So that was our goal this morning was to do that. I stand over six feet tall and the snow is up to my armpits.

PEREIRA: You're kidding.

RYAN (via telephone): So you can't even walk. You can't do anything And Buffalonians are used to this weather. We're all strong-willed, and we like to get out and do things. Today is just not one of those days.

PEREIRA: Let me ask you about that. We know that, Buffalo, you get your share of snow.

Have you seen anything quite like this? We're hearing rumors that it likens back to the blizzard of '77.

RYAN (via telephone): Yeah. I was a child in the blizzard of '77. All I can recall was playing in the big mounds of snow and having fun.

Now that I'm an adult, it's not that much fun.

PEREIRA: Not so fun.

RYAN (via telephone): No, not so fun. You look out your front window and you see six feet of snow straight across the street.

Not a lot of people in the neighborhood are out shoveling or snow plowing because there's really no place to go. There's no place to put it, and they don't have the equipment to remove it.

So everybody, I think, is just staying inside and probably Christmas decorating and doing other things.

PEREIRA: Doing those "have-to" projects, the honey-do list might get chipped away at.

In all seriousness, though, are you guys set up for this? I mean, do you have supplies? Do you have power -- you obviously have power because you're talking to us on a phone, I don't know if it's a cellphone or if it's landline. Electricity, you haven't had concerns about electricity going out? Power to the house? Water, pipes freezing? Give me an update on your utility situation there.

RYAN: As far as utilities, we are fine. The carbon monoxide has been probably the biggest concern with a lot of people getting outside and removing it from the vents on the sides of the house. Our neighbors to our right and left have those concerns and as a good neighbor, like Mayor Byron Brown said, everybody's out helping one another. As far as food, fortunately, my wife went grocery shopping on Monday so we are pretty lucky by that.

But like I said, the carbon monoxide has probably been the biggest thing. And you know, trying to get the fresh air into the house and if that is the case, but as far as electricity, everything is fine. I am on a cellphone, I'm not using a landline. So yeah, I think that we are very fortunate. I'm hoping that other people in the neighborhood are able to get assistance with food. I know that there's been people out in our neighborhood going to the neighbors of the elderly and seeing if they need anything. Like Byron Brown said, we are a city of good neighbors and that's what we kind of do, we're always looking out for one another.

PEREIRA: "One Buffalo" is what your mayor had to say. Well, we appreciate you making time to join us on the phone. Although, I guess the other thing was staring that large mound of snow outside your house. You take care of yourself, take care of your better half, and that dog and update us on how things go there, okay, Dave?

RYAN: We sure will. And Jimmy Griffin, the old mayor, used to say, "grab a six pack and enjoy the weather" So that's what probably everybody's doing.

PEREIRA: You're my kind of fellow, Dave Ryan.

RYAN: Thank you very much.

PEREIRA: My pleasure, in South Buffalo, there. An area that is seeing snow the likes of which they haven't seen in some 40 years. Now away from the snow and cold, here's some other stories that we're watching @THISHOUR.

Security has been ramped up in Jerusalem a day after a synagogue -- a rampage at a synagogue that left five people dead. Authorities have now identified a police officer who was fatally shot in the attack. The 30-year-old, Zidan Saif, was shot while pulling a woman to safety. Three American rabbis, all with dual Israeli citizenship, also were killed in addition to a British-Israeli rabbi. A friend of Rabbi Kalman Levine had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RABBI SHIMON KRAFT, FRIEND OF RABBI KILLED IN JERUSALEM: He was a great, great man. He lived in the study hall and he died in the study hall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: We'll have much more on this story ahead @THISHOUR, including the U.S. response to that gruesome attack.

Back in the U.S., the Missouri National Guard has been activated as the state waits for the grand jury to make its decision in the Michael Brown case. One key question, apparently, has not been answered. If violence erupts, who's in charge of the police response? Governor Jay Nixon was asked during a conference call this week, where the buck stops when it comes to policing protesters, and he didn't exactly have a clear response.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

GOV. JAY NIXON (D), MISSOURI: You know -- our goal here is to, you know, keep the peace.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PEREIRA: The grand jury could decide any day now whether or not Officer Darren Wilson should be charged in Michael Brown's death.

We'll take a short break here @THISHOUR, but ahead, the Feds are so concerned about cars with airbags that have the potential to explode. They want the recall expanded to as many as 20 million cars or more. And Bill Cosby standing accused of rape by yet another woman. We'll tell you the details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Another woman is now accusing comedian Bill Cosby of rape. This time, it's TV host and former supermodel Janice Dickinson. She tells Entertainment Tonight that Cosby assaulted her back in 1982, after they met for dinner in Lake Tahoe to discuss a possible role for her on "The Cosby Show." Listen to her account.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANICE DICKINSON, FORMER MODEL: In my room he had given me wine and a pill and the next morning I woke up and I wasn't wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man. The last thing I remember was Bill Cosby -- in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: I'm joined @THISHOUR by Leslie Morgan Steiner. She, herself, is a survivor of abuse. She's also an author and a public speaker on violence against women. Thank you so much for joining me, Leslie.

LESLIE MORGAN STEINER, AUTHOR, "CRAZY LOVE": Thank you.

PEREIRA: I'm curious what your reaction is to the fact that we're now hearing Janice Dickinson, the third woman in just this week, to publicly accuse Bill Cosby. We have seen some 13 women make these accusations over the years. The accusations they come and they sort of go away, but there's been a resurgence right now. I'm curious what your thoughts are on it all.

STEINER: Well, you know, Bill Cosby is an African-American icon and his work is beloved by millions of Americans, including myself. But I think that there are three really good reasons to believe these accusers.

PEREIRA: Okay.

STEINER: First of all, as you said, the accusations have dogged him for years. Second of all, over a dozen women have come forward with remarkably similar stories of being drugged and raped. The M.O. is the same every time. And third, it is actually incredibly difficult to falsely accuse somebody of rape with any credibility. The stories fall apart very quickly when they are not credible.

So I believe that we really need to listen to these victims and to understand, more thoroughly, that it is completely normal for a rape victim to deny what has happened, even to herself, and to wait years and sometimes decades before coming forward, especially when her rapist is a powerful famous celebrity.

PEREIRA: So if these false accusations could fall apart so easily, and yet these ones seem to -- and I think a lot of people are saying look, there's something to this, there's got to be something to this when there's such a consistent kind of, as you say, thread throughout all of these accusations. What is it that keeps it from sticking? Does he have some sort of Hollywood immunity?

STEINER: Well, not necessarily the Hollywood immunity. I think that, in general, what we need to understand is that it is normal for all of us to disbelieve accusations of rape, because it's excruciating to hear about this. Whether the rapist is Bill Cosby, your next door neighbor, your daughter's teacher. It doesn't matter. We don't like to believe about rape accusations because it's horrible to hear about it. And also, we have a very strong bias in our country to believe somebody is innocent until proven guilty.

But that must be weighed against how it destroys a rape victim to not be believed. There's a lot of evidence that shows that believing -- that if the first person you tell, if they believe you, it allows you to heal and get better. So these women are actually -- they've been raped a second time by a society that doesn't give them any credibility.

PEREIRA: Yeah it's interesting, we spoke to one of the accusers recently, very credible testimony and account, and she said what she simply wanted all of this is for people to believe her. I want to let you know about this letter that one of his attorneys has responded to Dickinson's claims. He calls her claims an outrageous defamatory lie. We know that another part of his legal team dismissed previous rape claims as decades old and discredited. However, this morning on "NEW DAY," a former prosecutor told us that he actually wanted Cosby arrested for assault back in 2005, but the alleged victim had waited too long to report the attack, and that's what he believed doomed the case. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE CASTOR, FORMER MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA. DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I thought that she was telling the truth. I didn't think that there was enough evidence based on her statements alone to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. So, you know, I hate to parse words, but we lawyers do that, as you know. And did I think he probably did something inappropriate? Yes. Did I think that I could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt based on available credible and admissible evidence? No, I didn't. I thought he was lying. I thought that he was evasive and I thought that those things would be of value if I had another piece to go forward with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: So interesting to hear him say that. We should point out that that woman eventually settled a civil case out of court, but this is kind of the issue, isn't it, that this woman and many people are too afraid to speak up and then, of course, the statute of limitations kicks in. People are not as likely to believe them if they come back and say it happened years ago.

STEINER: And I think this is something that really needs to change in our society and in our criminal justice system. It is completely normal for a rape victim to not want to believe that it happened. And you have the sense that if you deny it and you don't tell anybody, you're going to control the damage. And sometimes it takes years and decades for you to admit it to yourself and to begin the long process of coming out and going public. And especially when the figure is somebody famous and you know you're going to be grilled about incredibly intimate salacious horrible details that you'd rather forget.

I think we can all understand why it takes victims so long to come forward. And the reality of our criminal justice system right now is that there is a statute of limitations. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't believe these victims, and also that we shouldn't understand that it's very powerful for somebody to come out with the truth, even if it's something that happened 30 years ago. I talked to a lot of victims who say after their rape they were never able to enjoy sex again. That they were never able to be alone with a man again, or even alone in their bed without being afraid.

And I think we really need to shift the focus from accusing victims of coming forward for financial or other reasons to having a much more nuanced understanding of what the experience of being a rape victim really is all about.

PEREIRA: I'm so glad that they have you speak out and speak about this topic and to confront some of those stereotypes and the misinformation that's out there. It's a horrible thing to not be believed, I think that's something that we all can understand, one way or another. Leslie Morgan Steiner, thank you so very much for joining me.

STEINER: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Ahead @THISHOUR, millions, that's roughly how many the federal government wants recalled -- how many vehicles they want recalled because of potentially exploding airbags, but there are not enough good airbags to replace them. So how are we supposed to keep our families safe? We'll discuss.

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