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Some Louisianans Ask Themselves Whether To Stay Or Go After Hurricane Ida; Chip Shortage Hurts Carmakers; A Dinosaur Discovery In Australia
Aired September 08, 2021 - 04:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Thank you for catching up on world events with CNN 10. Your objective explanation of news. My name is Carl Azuz. U.S.
President Joe Biden traveled to New Jersey on Tuesday to have a look at the damage caused by Hurricane Ida.
The president had visited Louisiana late last week. The storm made landfall in Louisiana on August 29th. It was a powerful Category 4 hurricane at the
time, and Hurricane Ida has been blamed for at least 22 deaths in that state and neighboring Mississippi along with extensive damage and
widespread power outages in the region.
In the days that followed its landfall, what was left of the storm carried tremendous amounts of rain inland, eventually reaching the U.S. northeast.
In states from Virginia to Connecticut, Ida has been cited as a factor in at least 50 deaths.
Many of those lives were lost when homes flooded, or when people's cars got trapped in flood waters. In New Jersey, President Biden pushed for Congress
to pass new legislation in response to the storm.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For decades, scientists have warned of extreme weather and it would be more extreme and climate change
was here, and we're living through it now. We don't have any more time.
AZUZ: But critics have said the president and his supporters are trying to take advantage of severe weather to promote policies that would harm the
country. Hurricane Ida is not the strongest storm ever to strike the U.S., but it is one of the three strongest to hit Louisiana and as people there
assess the damage to their homes, some are grappling with a tough decision about whether to stay and rebuild, or look to live somewhere else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON SARLIN, CNN PRODUCER: The piles lining the road of Summerset Street in LaPlace, Louisiana are growing higher. Without power, in sweltering heat,
Louisianans are clearing their homes from Hurricane Ida.
The Smith family are going through the house of their mother, Cheryl Rogers Smith (ph) who died during Hurricane Ida. Down the block, the Bolden family
is mopping up the remnants of the home they've lived in for 21 years.
ELDORA BOLDEN, LOUISIANA RESIDENT: I might leave some of this stuff. I'm going to let it dry.
WILLIE BOLDEN, LOUISIANA RESIDENT: Still water in there. You know. We still got water in there.
SARLIN: This is the second time they're gutting their home after a hurricane. Nine years ago, Hurricane Issac also ravaged this neighborhood.
W. BOLDEN: Well, we just trying to get -- get everything out before the mold sets in, because once the mold sets in it's -- it's a total loss. This
is my son's room.
SARLIN: Eldora and Willie Bolden are now hoping to fix and sell this house.
W. BOLDEN: OK, and this is -- this is our master bedroom.
SARLIN: Their plan is to build another, more storm proof home nearby, but for their daughter another home in Louisiana isn't the answer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want my parents to leave Louisiana. Being a younger -- my sister as well, is like, when people ask us do you want to have
children and leave them where? Leave them to what? Like this? I want to leave my children to this?
MICHELLE SMITH, LOUISIANA RESIDENT: And like all the current pictures were lost in Issac. I don't know if they're going to make it through this one.
We may have to take pictures of what we can, and then we may have to just - - because if they're that, like, I don't know which one of us would really want that.
SARLIN: Despite all they've lost, the Smith family aren't considering leaving Louisiana.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyplace has something. You're not going to be tragedy, disaster free. You're going to have earthquakes and wildfires and
tornado season, and it's just -- it's what it is. You just have to pick where you love, where you feel loved and where you feel like family and
then that's it. It's home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. Which of these car companies was founded first? Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, or Fiat. Italian car maker Fiat was formed in
1899, making it the oldest company on this list.
For carmakers, this is not how things were supposed to happen. Toyota, the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, just reduced its production by 40
percent in Japan. General Motors says it's stopping production at most of its plants in North America. Volkswagen is considering shutdowns.
All this is related to a global shortage in semi-conductors, computer chips that run different car systems from touch screens to automatic
transmissions to airbags. If manufacturers can't get these chips, and there are supply problems around the world.
They either have to sell cars with fewer features or stop production entirely until they can get more chips. A recent international increase in
COVID cases has only made things more complicated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's so easy to take them for granted. The tiny silicon based semi-conductors that fuel our modern lives, our
smartphones, our laptops, and our cars. Now the average car has between 50 to 150 chips that are used to monitor important engine and safety systems,
along with GPS navigation or driver systems when you try to parallel park.
But when the pandemic hammered auto sales last year, top chip makers shifted capacity away from carmakers to gadget makers, resulting in a
critical shortage of car chips that's been called "Chipageden".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One million cars could actually be lost in the coming months. So that's quite a lot. (Inaudible) average value of the car, which
might be, say what, $20,000, $30,000 maybe dollars. It would actually lead to about $20 to $30 billion in lost revenue.
STOUT: There is a growing list of automakers cutting production because of the chip crunch. In Japan, you have Subaru, Toyota, Honda and Nissan and in
the U.S., Ford and GM. Now in a statement GM says quote, "Despite our mitigation efforts, the semi-conductor shortage will impact GM production
in 2021.
We're currently assessing the overall impact, but our focus is to keep producing our most in demand products." As the chip crunch disrupts
productions, analysts say it may delay a global recovery in the auto sector. U.S. Senators are urging the White House to take action.
In a letter sent earlier this month, 15 U.S. Senators from auto producing states warned that the shortage threatens their post-pandemic economic
recovery. It's also a diplomatic issue, to resolve the shortage the U.S. is working with Taiwan. Home of TSMC, the world's largest contract chip maker,
the Taiwan chip giant says the auto chip shortage is its top priority saying this.
Quote, "TSMC is currently expediting these critical automotive products through our wafer fabs. While our capacity is fully utilized, the demand
for every sector TSMC is reallocating our wafer capacity to support the worldwide automotive industry." As Taiwan pledges help, a warning from the
other chip making giant in Asia. Samsung Electronics says the auto chip shortage could hit smartphones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT HOCKNULL, CURATOR OF THE QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA MUSEUM: Australotitan was as long as a basketball court, and as tall as a (inaudible). This is an
enormous animal. It's Australia's largest dinosaur species. Australotitan means (inaudible) and cooperensis means from the Cooper Creek of
Queensland, in southwest Queensland and this is where this gigantic dinosaur was discovered.
The study took a long time to actually come together because each dinosaur bone can weigh hundreds of kilos, but we used digital scanning technology
to actually create 3 dimensional models of each of these bones.
So I could take thousands of kilos of dinosaur bones in my (inaudible) laptop. Our study looked at dinosaurs from not just Australia but across
the world. We compared Australotitan's bones to all of these gigantic sauropods and it's in the top 10 to 15 largest in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: On the list of stunts that have little margin for error, flying a plane through a tunnel is probably near the top. The pilot who recently did
this in Turkey it had never been done before. We can't verify that, but Guinness Book of World Records did issue the award of longest tunnel flown
through with an airplane. The distance being more than a mile.
This would normally carry a don't try this at home disclaimer, but most people have a race plane, a pilot's license, a tunnel, a film crew and a
year to make preparations.
So many copycats would be "grounded". Oh sure, they make a "flap" about that, but it's "plane" to see that the "props" you'd need exceed what's
free to take off at speed, and land a record for flying "so low" through a "tube" that is "so low". Orono is where we go, to say hello where they use
our show.
Orono High School is in Orono, Maine. Thank you for your request on our You Tube channel. That is the only place we look for the schools we mention.
I'm Carl Azuz for CNN.
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