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NEW DAY

Camp Fire Kills 79; Family Talks About Losing their Home; Northeast Braces for Cold; Hateful Graffiti in Boston School. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 20, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:55] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A new threat emerging in California from the devastating wildfires there. A new heavy rain could cause flash floods and mudslides. Seventy-nine people have been killed from the fires. Hundreds more remain unaccounted for.

Our Paul Vercammen is live in Paradise, California, with the very latest.

Paul.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John, overnight that death toll jumped. They found two more bodies inside the Paradise area.

Also, you were talking about that number of accounted for, it dropped dramatically to 699. The sheriff readily conceding that this is raw data, that there are names on that list that could be misspelled, duplicate names, even people who are on the list and they don't even know about it.

As for the fire fight, 151,000 acres burned. Good news, 70 percent contained.

You are talking about that weather. Well, they are fearing for first responders it could get very dangerous as they try to navigate these twisty roads which could become ashy and muddy. This after it rains. This is also not just a humanitarian crisis, but an animal crisis. An increasing number of animals being rescued and showing up at shelters.

Back to you now, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Paul, thank you very much for the status report there.

So, you all may remember a young boy that we interviewed you to last week whose home was destroyed by the Camp Fire. Eli Kingery talked to our Scott McLean about what he missed the most.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You just miss your bed? It's warm.

ELI KINGERY, CAMP FIRE VICTIM: Being under a ceiling and actually having a real bathroom. It's just hard.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now, are Eli Kingery and his mother, Haley Kingery.

Guys, it's so great to meet you officially.

Eli, we were all so struck. John and I were so touched by what you said last week, as were our viewers. You just said that you just wanted a bed and a ceiling and a bathroom. And I think that every single person can relate to that. And so tell us what this past week has been like for you.

ELI KINGERY, LOST HOME IN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE: Well --

HALEY KINGERY, LOST HOME IN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE: You've got to say what's going on, honey.

E. KINGERY: It's going well. We're staying at my aunt's with our two dogs and her many animals. And, yes.

CAMEROTA: You know what's funny, Hayley, is there's so much -- when Eli speaks, there's so much that's not said, but somehow he conveys it. And, you know, I mean, you tell me, but he has such a positive outlook. He doesn't whine. He doesn't complain. But of course staying with your sister and many animals and your family all in a home is not easy. And, so, your house burned to the ground. What's the plan?

H. KINGERY: Well, I don't -- you know, I think the plan is day-to-day at the moment for a lot of us that, you know, left our homes, our homes were destroyed. We -- you know, there's a lot to be done. There's a lot more than just our home involved. You know, we -- it's all of our town, our schools, our pharmacies. And so I think, you know, we try to just make progress on what's going on. So, you know, it's not an easy situation for anybody, and we are fortunate to -- to have a place to sleep that's indoors. You know, a lot of -- you know, a lot of people don't. And I think that everybody's just going day-to- day right now.

[08:35:13] CAMEROTA: Yes.

Eli, are you going to school?

E. KINGERY: Well, we haven't found one yet.

H. KINGERY: I think -- I think everybody's kind of waiting to see where they're going to be. So we -- his school, you know, they're trying to see if they can do some sort of mobile classrooms and then a lot of people are enrolling in other schools. But we're not quite sure where we'll be in any semi-permanent basis. And so we're kind of -- it's hard to decide where to enroll.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

H. KINGERY: But we're going to get him back into school as soon as possible.

CAMEROTA: I mean it's -- look, it's all so disruptive. You know, Eli, you're eight years old. I understand you have a birthday coming up on Saturday. And you'll be nine. And have you thought about what this birthday will be like for you?

E. KINGERY: I think I'll be -- I don't know.

CAMEROTA: I mean I know that this is --

H. KINGERY: We're going to try to make it as normal as possible.

CAMEROTA: Right. And there is no normalcy right now in your lives.

H. KINGERY: No. No.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Eli, when we met you, you were living in like a makeshift tent, a camp of tents, with your grandma Laura (ph). How is your grandmother?

E. KINGERY: Well, she's doing well. She's with someone right now. And she's doing well.

H. KINGERY: Yes, my mom is doing a little bit -- quite a bit better. A lot of the tents and things have had to disperse. And she is -- she is staying a bit far away from us, unfortunately, at the moment. But she is staying in kind of a camper type situation, at least for the next few weeks, that somebody had available for her because, of course, we do have a rain coming. And it's -- we're told it's not a safe rain. So we're -- you know, everybody's trying to find somewhere indoors, somewhere to go that is going to be safe through that as well.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

So, Eli, what are you wishing for, for your birthday?

E. KINGERY: A new set of Pokemon cards. Some PS3, Nintendo and Wii games.

H. KINGERY: For your -- for your aunt's house?

E. KINGERY: Yes.

H. KINGERY: Any -- what do you want to do?

E. KINGERY: I don't know yet.

H. KINGERY: It's hard to know what to do, I think. You know, everything is so up in the air at the moment. And there are so many people, you know, displaced like us who are just trying to, again, make it day-to-day. And so, you know, we're aiming for maybe some activities for Eli's birthday, the movie, something that we can, you know, get out of the craziness of what's going on right now.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, you pointed out that there are thousands of you in that situation -- H. KINGERY: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Right now who have had some sort of loss and are displaced in some way. Everyone is just trying to survive day-to-day. No one has a plan. And so that is a really tough ambiguity to live with. But, Eli and Haley, thank you for sharing your story.

We will keep in touch with you guys because we really know when Eli has a warm bed and a ceiling over his head again.

Thank you both very much.

H. KINGERY: OK. Thank you.

BERMAN: Happy birthday, Eli!

E. KINGERY: Thank you.

BERMAN: You know, I hope he gets the Pokemon cards. But, more importantly, I hope he gets a school. I hope he gets a bed. I hope he gets a roof. These are all things that he needs and his spirit, I think, and the resolve just bursts through.

CAMEROTA: I think so too. But, I mean, the answers to all those things, they just -- we just don't know them yet. I mean these are folks who are going to be displaced for a long time.

BERMAN: All right, an elevator free falls 84 floors with six people inside.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

BERMAN: Exactly.

The complicated rescue effort after the frightening plunge. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:43:50] BERMAN: Thanksgiving could be one of the coldest in a century for parts of the Northeast, including New York City's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Chad Myers has the frigid forecast.

Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I can't do much with this one. If you're going to be outside on Thanksgiving morning, it is going to be cold. The windchill will be somewhere around six degrees. The rest -- the rest, it gets better from here, but it's that one day, and especially Black Friday, that we truly want to get at least a little bit warmer than that. It doesn't look like it.

Syracuse, Black Friday, your windchill's going to be like eight below zero. So, here we go, highs today, not bad. Get out there and buy the last

minute things. Don't forget the celery and the butter. And 41 in Cincinnati, 53 in Nashville. For tomorrow, things warm up again down to the south. But it's the cold air that's up in Marquette tomorrow that does get down to the Northeast. All of the big cities. All of upstate New York. All the way down even into Pennsylvania and all of New England getting arctic air.

Now, that said, there will be record highs out west. So what goes up must come down. It's the jet stream. Unfortunately, we have the east side of the jet stream. That's the cold side. And temperatures will be very, very close to record breaking lows.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: We're cold already.

Chad, thank you, I guess, for that.

[08:45:00] All right, wait until you hear this story.

BERMAN: This is crazy.

CAMEROTA: Six people are lucky to be alive after an elevator went into a free fall at the former Hancock Building in Chicago. The group boarded the elevator on the 96th floor and then proceeded to drop some 84 floors. It took firefighters three hours to free them. Cables were apparently still attached to the car the whole time. Fire crews had to breakthrough a wall to bring the group that was stuck between the 11th and 12th floor to safety. No one was injured. Oh, my God.

BERMAN: How are you supposed to react to that other than to say, oh, my God.

CAMEROTA: I -- I don't know. I don't know how terrified they must be, but I think we will try to get them on the show later this week.

BERMAN: I think I will take the stairs for the rest of the day.

CAMEROTA: Good ideas (ph).

BERMAN: All right, hateful graffiti found 33 times in 18 months in one Boston area school district. What's causing these despicable actions and what's being done to stop it? We're going to talk to the superintendent, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:06] CAMEROTA: A Boston area school district facing a very disturbing trend. In the last two months, Reading Schools have dealt with ten incidents involving hateful graffiti in school bathrooms, in hallways, in classrooms. The graffiti has targeted various groups, including Jews, the LBGTQ community and others. For more on how the school and the community is dealing with this spike in hate, I am joined by John Doherty. He is the superintendent of Reading Schools.

Mr. Doherty, thank you very much for being here.

There are two high schools, two middle schools that this has effected, as I understand it. Maybe even an elementary school. What is going on in this school district?

JOHN F. DOHERTY, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, READING PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Thank you for inviting me to discuss this important topic.

So the graffiti have been happening since May of 2017. We've had 33 incidents spanning over those months. Unfortunately, since October 13th, we've had ten incidents which have impacted our LBGTQ community, African-American community and our Jewish community. It's happened primarily in our high school, but also in our two middle schools during that time span as well.

And, honestly, we're disheartened that this is happening. Reading is a community north of Boston. We're a very family friendly community where the students and families come -- move for the schools. And so we're trying to figure this out and how we can address it.

CAMEROTA: You have been an educator in the Reading district for 31 years. Have you ever seen anything like this?

DOHERTY: No, I have not. It's -- I think we're in uncharted waters right now. Unfortunately we're seeing things that are a microcosm of what's going on throughout our state and throughout our country. And this is something I've never seen before.

CAMEROTA: Surely there must be video cameras, closed circuit cameras, in some of these schools that can catch some of these people doing it. Do you have any leads?

DOHERTY: So we -- we do have security cameras in our public spaces. The graffiti has primarily been found in bathrooms and in classrooms. Some in stairwells. But bathrooms and classrooms do not have camera access. The areas that do have camera access, we're closely monitoring. Our police and administrators have been working very closely together to try to see if we can get some leads. But so far we've not been too successful.

CAMEROTA: Do police think that this is like one bad seed doing all of this, or are there groups of kids or people defacing school property?

DOHERTY: I don't think it's one person. We think that it's more than one person based on the fact that there are several groups that have been impacted. It's unclear why students do this. This is probably the biggest mystery that we're trying to figure out. I think sometimes students just don't understand exactly what they're doing, which is an education issue. And so we are trying to figure out exactly who is doing it, but I think it's more than one person.

CAMEROTA: And so since this is an education issue, Mr. Doherty, what is the answer here? What are you, as a school district, doing to try to stamp this out?

DOHERTY: That's a -- that's a great question. Over the last several years, we have been putting curriculum in place

prior to these incidents even happening, our social and emotional learning curriculum at all levels. And it really needs to start at elementary all the way middle and high school.

In the last two years, we've actually enhanced it even more. And at our middle schools we've put in a curriculum called Facing History in Ourselves, which looks at the lessons of history and how we can learn from them. We've brought in Holocaust survivors to come and speak to our students and work with our students. We've worked very closely with the Anti-Defamation League and have what are called World of Difference Clubs at our two middle schools and high school. Last year at our high school, our World of Difference Club passed a human rights resolution for both the staff and the faculty, which was fully supported.

Most recently, under the leadership of our high school principal, Kate Boiton (ph), we have had a candle light vigil where over 300 people from the community and students came and spoke, that they want this to stop. And we've also had what are called "Courageous Conversations," small groups with teachers and students, trying to figure out what is going on and how we can address it.

CAMEROTA: Well, it was nice to see that video of the candle light vigil. Let's hope that the fabric of the community stays stitched together and can try to stamp all of this out.

[08:55:05] John Doherty, thank you very much for telling us what's happening there. Obviously, we'll keep an eye on it as well.

DOHERTY: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: NEW DAY will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: It is time now for "The Good Stuff."

Members of a New Jersey fire department help save a puppy's life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a good baby!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Old Khaleesi strayed away from her owner and crawled into a drainage pipe. The Ramos family tried to coax the puppy out, but couldn't, so they called for help. Firefighters worked around the clock to free the dog.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTIE ANN RAMOS, OWNER OF RESCUED DOG: Very thankful to the people today. You know, it's a time of giving. It's that season. And if I didn't have her for Thanksgiving, if I didn't have her for today, I really would be hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Oh, I'm so glad the dog is back.

Khaleesi -- bend a knee to Khaleesi and the fire department that helped saved her. It's a "Game of Thrones" reference. The dog is named after a "Game of Thrones" star.

CAMEROTA: All I hear is New Jersey. OK, New Jersey's great.

BERMAN: Yes, it had to be in New Jersey. (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: You had me at Jersey. Fantastic.

[09:00:01] OK, a legal setback for the Trump administration.

"NEWSROOM" starts right now.