this is cnn breaking news. welcome to viewers in the united states and around the world and a good day to you. i'm richard quest in new york. >> and i'm george howell at cnn world headquarters in atlanta. as we continue following the breaking news this hour that deadly shooting that took place at the airport in fort lauderdale, florida. >> the fort lauderdale hollywood airport is expected to fully reopen over the next few hours following a gun olympian which killed at least five people on friday and wounded eight others. the attack taking place inside the baggage claim. now, some cargo and private general aviation flights have resumed flying within the past

hour. the suspected gunman is in custody. and so far, the fbi is not ruling out terrorism. the suspect is believed to be esteban santiago. and he flew from to florida from alaska on friday. santiago is a former national guardsman and was in the army reserves. he was not on any government watch lists. he did voluntarily visit fbi offices in alaska just a few months ago when he said he was hearing voices and they wanted him to join isis. >> the individual did walk into our anchorage office in november. he came in and spoke with fbi agents at that time. he clearly stated that he did not intend to harm anyone. however, his erratic behavior concerned fbi agents that were interviewing him. and they contacted local police and turned him over to the local

police. he was taken into custody by the local police and transported to a medical facility for a mental health evaluation. we looked at his contacts. we looked at -- we did our interagency checks and everything. at that point, we closed our assess the. >> important to point out that the fbi saying they have not ruled out terrorism at this point. the governor of florida, rick scott, says his state will not tolerate senseless acts of evil. he also vows full prosecution of the gunman while investigators search for a motive. >> i've been talking to law enforcement, fbi, local sheriff's department. i've been kept apprised all day. it's an ongoing investigation. you know, but i'll tell you what, everybody is working well together. i saw that after pulse. state local and federal law enforcement worked together. we're blessed in our state, a 45-year low in our crime rate.

this investigation will take time. and you know, you know, expectation all of us have is that as law enforcement come across information, we'll find out why this happened. >> police say they have no reason to believe santiago would be a threat. everything he did on his way to florida was perfectly legal. our boris sanchez now takes us through this attack. >> reporter: just before 1:00 p.m., a gunman opens fire at fort lauderdale international airport. chaos inside terminal 2. at least 13 people shot with multiple casualties. this video shows people lying on the floor in the baggage claim area. the panic inside the terminal then spills outside as hundreds run from the gunshots, flooding onto the tarmac and out onto the runways. the injured quickly evacuated to

a nearby hospital. >> everybody started running out of terminal 1 out of the rental car place. some lady was yelling for help down in the garage. i just ran. >> reporter: cnn has learned the suspected shooter left alaska earlier today bound for fort lauderdale. he declared a firearm when boarding. that weapon packed inside his luggage. sources say the suspect may have gotten into an altercation during the flight. and on arrival after retrieving his bag, one source tells cnn he went into a bathroom and came out firing. long after the shooting, hundreds continued to run through open areas around the airport. some driven by false reports of additional shootings. >> this shooter in custody. he's unharmed. no law enforcement fired any shots. the subject is being interviewed by a team of fbi agents and broward sheriff's office homicide detectives. at this point, it looks like he

acted alone. >> reporter: multiple sources identify the alleged shooter as esteban santiago. he's said to have been a member of the alaskan national guard leaving the guard last july. >> cnn boris sanchez who is in fort lauderdale reporting for us tonight. cnn law enforcement analyst and retired fbi agent steve moore joins me now from los angeles. thank you, sir, for being with us this evening. look, fundamentally, we don't know any motive for what happened yet, do we? >> no, we don't. but you get kind of a clue richard when he starts saying the cia is beaming things into my mind telling me to do things. i think that while he may eventually have said some things that were related to isis, i think we're going to have to go back to mental health issues on this one. >> right. but even if it's mental health issues, which, of course is an

illness as opposed to necessarily criminality in that sense, even if it's mental health issues, the fact that he has linked it to isis or to cia does sort of take the story towards if not terrorism but at least those issues. >> it does, richard, but i think we have to go down to the ultimate motivation and you know, it's a gray area. i see what you're saying. but i would tend to lean towards the root cause being mental illness because he didn't go into the isis ideology talk until he was already diagnosed as mentally ill. >> now, in terms of the way in which this all transpired, he boards the plane in alaska. and entirely properly and entirely legally, collection the gun in because obviously he

can't fly with that in the cabin. but we don't know that he intended to use the gun when he got off the plane. >> no, we don't. i think though that the fact that he checked nothing else but that, i mean, he's coming from alaska all the way to florida and he doesn't bring a bag except a gun leads me to believe that that may have been his goal. but again, i'm not sitting in the interview room. >> no, but it's interesting because by bringing the gun as checked baggage, he manages to get the gun exactly where he would want it to be in an entirely legal way without the risk of being detected if he brought it through even though there would be no security there, at least the potential for detection. >> yes, yes. but you know, at the same time, i mean, i've checked guns

several times on flights. if a person wanted to, they could come to the airport, get out of a cab with a rifle case, walk to a restroom, open it up and do the same thing. so i don't think he needed to do that even in florida. >> okay. ultimately, there is no way and this is the depressing part of what i'm about to say. there is no way law enforcement can protect the number of public arenas, airports, train stations, shopping malls, that they would have to against this sort of attack. >> you're right. you're right. and you're right, it's depressing. i think right now, you know, if i thought banning guns completely would stop the problem, i'd say let's do that. but we've learned with the war on drugs, we've learned with chicago that banning guns isn't going to keep guns can away.

i think we have to do a holistic approach that involves gun control and we have to work on mental health. this guy went into a mental health center and somehow, the fact that he was potentially violent didn't come out. >> important point to make. steve moore in los angeles, thank you. >> thank you. so we have been hearing from witnesses all day. earlier my colleague anderson cooper spoke to a man who saw the attack firsthand and here's what he had to say. >> they're just getting ready to leave and we heard a burst. which i first thought was fire kraerks. ar a quick pause, the shooting started again. we all realized along with everyone else in the terminal realized it was not firecrackers but someone shooting. > how far away were you. >> >> at that point it, i was probably about 100 yards. >> wow. >> so beak at that point, people started screaming, yelling,

running frantically to those exits to try and get out you have there. the people by the baggage carousel were more locked down there. there were basically people hiding under the chairs close to the baggage claim area to try to block themselves to get as much protection as he can. he continued to walk up and down the aisle around the carousels doing a point and shoot and randomly shooting people no, rhyme, no reason. was not yelling anything. he was quiet as a mouse. did not say anything. >> you could actually see the shooter while he was. >> yeah. >> firing. > i watched him. yeah, i watched every bit of it. basically he walked up and down there. after the first three rounds went off, i got my wife out and another couple ladies trying to get out of there. i ran back in and helping out the other people trying to get out there. continued watching where he's shooting to try to stay out of the line of fire to try and keep

people safe. once he finished shooting, you hear him reload a couple times. he was shooting a 9 millimeter with about an eight round mag in it. >> he was taking time to reload. >> he had two extra mags with him. he didn't have time to load. the magazines were already loaded. >> okay. >> and just to reiterate, he didn't say anything? he seemed calm? >> nothing. he was calm as can be. he was walking like nothing going on. >> wow. >> so no emotion. didn't say any words. no yelling, no screaming, didn't matter whether you were male, female, white, black, child, he just pointed and shot. >> how close was he shooting at people from? was it point blank. >> some were point blank to five, ten feet away to maybe 20 feet away max. >> he was looking directly at the people he was trying to kill. >> yeah, point and shoot. he didn't care. he was not diskrim nat in any way, shape, or form. >> that witness describing the

gunman's demeanor as calm. methodical as people ran for their lives. of course, we'll continue to follow this investigation. more news to come here on "cnn newsroom." u.s. intelligence is certain that russia tried to influence the u.s. election, but the president-elect, donald trump, his reaction to that conclusion, well, it leaves many u.s. officials scratching their heads. >> now, the u.s. vice president elect mike pence has a warning for anyone who carries out cyber attacks against the united states. we'll talk about that after the break. this is cnn. (man) my dad and i have the same eyes.

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declassified version of a report on the russian hacking says there's little doubt the kremlin orchestrated a campaign to hurt hillary clinton if not to outright help donald trump win election in 2016. the unanimous conclusion from u.s. intelligence is that russian president vlad pleuroputin ordered a multi-pronged campaign to influence the election and that included the cyber attacks. the report says putin and the russian government develop aid clear preference for trump and set out to help him win by

discredititying secretary clinton. both the cia and fbi have high confidence in these conclusions. the national security agency rated its confidence as moderate. the reports also warning that russia's efforts to undermine western democracies will not end and in fact, it says moscow will apply lessons learned from its putin campaign in the u.s. presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide. it includes u.s. allies and their election processes. donald trump's reaction to the revelations in the intelligence report was lukewarm at best. for that part of the story, cnn's jim sciutto. >> reporter: tonight, a declassified version of the intelligence community's report on russian hacking concluded that "putin and the russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect trump." russian president validity pleuroputin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the

u.s. presidential election. russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the u.s. democratic process denigrate secretary clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. the russians' assault on the u.s. election used several different techniques blending "covert intelligence operations such as cyber activity with overt efforts by russian government agencies, state funded media, third party intermediaries and paid social media users or trolls. it also says "when it appeared that secretary clinton was likely to win the election, the russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency." following the briefing, the president-elect said in a statement "i had a constructive meeting and conversation with the leaders of the intelligence community this afternoon. i have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation." however, trump made clear he believes the hacks do not taken

the his election victory. "there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines." the intelligence assessment confirmed that hacking was "not involved in vote tallying." however, in his statement, trump never specifically acknowledged that russia was behind the hacks. despite the clear intelligence assessment and overwhelming bipartisan agreement on russia's involvement. >> i think that's the one thing in a statement that he should have acknowledged that whether you're a republican or a democrat, we are not going to tolerate a country like russia trying to interfere in our election process. >> donald trump and some of his surrogates have made the point that only the democrats were hacked here and that's why only democratic material was released but in fact, this report contradicts that and says the cyberops targeted both major u.s. political parties but because material stolen from the

democrats only that material was released in the days and weeks leading up to the election, it is in large part because of that that the community concluded that the intention here was to weaken hillary clinton and help donald trump. jim sciutto, cnn, washington. >> jim, thank you. the vice president elect mike pence attended that intelligence briefing with donald trump and he says the trump administration will take swift and decisive action against cyber attacks. listen. >> we did this afternoon complete an extensive briefing from the leaders of our intelligence community. it was as the president-elect said, it was a constructive and respectful dialogue. and the president-elect has made it very clear we're going to take aggressive action in the early days of our new administration to combat cyber attacks and protect the security of the american people from this

type of intrusion in the future. but i know the president-elect appreciated the presentation made by the leaders of our intelligence community and i know the president-elect and i both appreciate the sacrifices that the men and women who be in our intelligence services around the country and around the world provide in contributing to the safety and security of the american people. >> let's talk more about this with rod beck strom, the former director of the national cybersecurity center at the u.s. department of homeland security, also a former senior advisor to the u.s. director of national intelligence. rod joining us live this hour from santa cruz, california. good to have you with us. let's talk first about this declassified report. the president-elect meeting he got -- he had a much more detailed version of this particular report. that report essentially stating

that russia was behind a campaign to influence the election. it was targeting hillary clinton to hurt her chances of winning. but still, his statement afterward trump never acknowledged that russia was behind it. your thoughts on that. >> look, president-elect trump is a tough new york street fighter. and he fights to win. he's not someone who is going to easily change his position on this issue. clearly he feels that it relates to the credibility of his election potentially. so he's taking a strong position. i think any president that was elected would do exactly the same thing. we shouldn't be surprised by that. i think this report, it's a good report. community's done some good work here and started to connect some dots and so certainly it's not a final decisive document in terms of hard-core proof. that's attested as richard quest just said by the fact the nsa rated the even putin's intentionality and the russian government's as moderately a

problem. that's a couch term here. so i think anyway, i don't think we should be surprised by the president-elect's position. >> looking back in the weeks before this particular report and this meeting that donald trump had, trump did describe this meeting as constructive. he seemed to walk back some of the harsh rhetoric where he was directly criticizing the intelligence community. is that enough to mend fences? >> you know, i think it will be. he's appointed someone extremely respected, senator dan coats, to be the next director of national intelligence. who has a great reputation for bipartisan collaboration by the way. and so i think things will be calming down from here and coming back together. i certainly hope so. there's some important lessons from this experience. one is that we're living in a hyper connected, hyper transparent world. everything is becoming more exposed and transparent including presidential elections, others, leaks are occurring whether it's by

government insiders like an edward snowden or hacktyiests or foreign nation states or other parties. this is part of the new world we're moving into. we need to improve our election systems and processes in this country. and you know, for example, only in rofly half the states will there be audits after the election. and in addition in many states, you've got electronic voting machines that have no paper audit. the russians could have hacked some of those devices. they have the capability. i believe they chose not to strategically and actually, it would have been nice in this report, useful to hear why the russians chose not to actually hack the devices. i mean, i think there's some good reasons why, but it would have been interesting to get the intelligence assessment on that. >> you suggest that fences will be mended but the big story here, the trump administration, the incoming administration is suggesting hey, this is a partisan situation that you know, the hacking may have

happened but at the same time, you know, that it's not undermining his legitimacy as the president. the big story though here is that a foreign power may have acted to the u.s. election. that's the big story. do you think that's going to be swept under the rug here? >> this is not entirely a partisan issue. even the hearing that mccain and armed forces committee of the senate had earlier this week was clearly a well orchestrated bipartisan affair with the buy in from the leaders that they all had concern that russia was involved here. this is not a shocking new story. as the report itself says, the russians have been doing this for years all around the world and in previous american elections sought to have an impact. the change is that move towards hyper transparency, that move towards disclosure of information is a shift and something we want to protect from, but the most important thing is that we prepare for the future and learn from the

lessons here because this is the new reality we're going to live in. >> trump over twitter suggested that gross negligence by the democratic national committee allowed hacking to take place. the republican national committee had strong defense he said. the truth is though that both groups were hacked but only damaging information from the democrats was leaked and released so the question here is, are we at a point even before the inauguration that we can no longer expect to have an honest conversation, ron, about facts with the incoming president. >> look, the report said there was hacking of both parties. it did not say that the trump campaign's servers were hacked and the campaign has maintained and their spokespeople maintained that it was not hack and that they shared their information with the fbi as well as there's been -- it's been maintained that the dnc did not share their servers with the fbi. i don't have the precise data but i've not had data that the

rnc was directly hacked. it said there was hacking on both sides. it would be useful of course, george, to hear which parties were hacked. it's relevant and the american people can hopefully learn this through time. regarding facts and nonfacts, you know, the fact is that there's very good evidence that the russians did hack into the dnc servers. it's very clear that wikileaks did a major leak of e-mails that could have come from podesta's account to gmail as well as information from the dnc. what has not been absolutely proven is the connection between the two although this report and the good research done by the intelligence community suggested it's actually quite likely and that the smell is clearly there in terms of the trace in connecting the dots. so i think this transparent world will move us toward more fact based analysis. i'm hoping, george, ha we learn to improve the system here. also i want to mention, when i had the discussion with john voss on cnn on october 14th, i mentioned that election

tampering could be construed as an act of war. that discussion came up in senator mccain's hearing this week. what i would say based on this report in this case, we're not to the level of an act of war. but had there been tampering with the voting machines or tallying systems, we could get there. we want to make sure we figure out what are those red lines in the future, what does constitute an act of war and we need to do self-reflection on what role does our government play in other elections around the world and do we want to have an international treat at this time created on this or a united nations policy. these are really important questions we all have to confront. >> again, the president-elect not saying directly that russia was behind this hack. rod beck strom, thank you so much for your insight on this. appreciate you joining us. >> thank you, george. as we continue tonight on cnn, president obama is reacting to the shooting at the fort lauderdale airport. and the president's weighing in

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this is cnn breaking news. welcome back to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm george howell at cnn world headquarters in atlanta. >> i'm richard quest in new york as we continue to follow closely the events taking place in florida where a gunman is in custody after he opened fire at the fort lauderdale airport. five people were killed. eight more were wounded. the suspect has been identified as esteban santiago. president barack obama says he's heart broken over the attack and

thinking of the victims' families. >> that shooting down in fort lauderdale this afternoon, do we know enough now to know whether it was an act of terror? >> as a general rule, until i've got all the information, george, i don't want to comment on it other than just to say how heart broken we are for the families who have been affected. these kinds of tragedies have happened too often during the eight years i've been president, the pain, grief, the shock they must be going through is enormous. i've asked my staff to reach out to the mayor down there and make sure that coordination between state and local officials is what it should be. but i think we'll find out over the next 24 hours exactly how this happened and what motivate this had individual. >> that the reaction from the president of the united states. cnn's brian todd now has more details on the shooting and how it all unfolded at that airport. >> reporter: witnesses say the gunman entered the baggage claim

area of terminal 2 and began shooting randomly. one law enforcement source tells cnn moments earlier had he gone to a bathroom to get the gun out of luggage and emerged firing. video captures people cowering, chaos inside the terminal. air traffic control got word early of the shooting. >> going off in the terminal. >> one witness told msnbc after firing multiple rounds, the shooter dropped his gun and law enforcement officers quickly converged on him. >> we have this shooter in custody. he's unharmed. no law enforcement fired any shots. the subject is being interviewed by a team of fbi agents and broward sheriff's office homicide detectives. >> reporter: witnesses told of absolute panic. >> we can see hundreds of people lined up on the tarmac, just a few minutes ago, flashing lights with an ambulance leaving.

>> reporter: multiple law enforcement sources tell cnn the shooter is identified as esteban santiago. senator bill nelson from florida said he had a military i.d. on him but it's not clear if it's a current i.d. law enforcement sources tell cnn the suspect flew to florida from alaska, had a gun in his baggage and declareded the firearm. when he arrived in fort lauderdale he retrieved his bag at claim and went into the bathroom and got his gun out of his luggage. senator nelson said he had easy access to his targets. >> anytime you get a bunch of people bunking up like at baggage claim or like outside of tsa where you're going through security or like lines at the ticket counter, it's a soft target. >> reporter: one passenger who had just gotten off a flight told cnn he might have been saved when a bullet hit his laptop. more than an hour after the shooting, people were still scrambling for cover.

panic and confusion on the tarmac and airport roads by the terminals. >> my family was in terminal 2. i was taking the rental car back and waiting. everybody started running out of terminal 1 out of the rental car place. some lady was yelling for help. >> reporter: brian todd reporting. as we continue our coverage tonight, donald trump's action plan to counter cyber attacks. we were talking to a senior advisor to the u.s. president-elect. because the news never stops. neither do we around the world. this is cnn. the microsoft cloud helps us

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welcome back to cnn. following the breaking news. while never acknowledging specifically that russia was behind the cyber attacks against the u.s. which the intelligence community has suggested, the u.s. president-elect donald trump says that he will set up a team within 90 days of taking office. a team to find ways to aggressively combat and stop cyber attacks. but the recurring theme win the trump transition team is even if russia did what it is accused of doing, it did not change the outcome of the election. here's what senior advisor jack kingston told wolf blitzer on friday. >> what was clear that there was no effect of the results because of this. no tampering of machines. and no motive that was found and so forth. so i think that the good part about this report in today's action and the hearings this week is maybe we can get beyond

the politics and say okay, what do we do about this? because we know russia isn't alone. there's lone actors, china, other nations trying to hack into our computer systems. what can we do about that. one other question if we're going to continue and we as a community of maybe critics in washington, d.c., where was the president? if this was going on in 2015, 2016, why did the president wait till this fall to talk to putin about it and even when he did talk to him about it, he said you guys need to cut that out. those were his words. it seems like it would have been a much bigger deal for the president of the united states and would have merited him sitting down with putin and saying what the heck are you guys doing and if you're going to continue doing this, we're going to get very involved. >> that is a fair criticism. even some democrats like adam chef, dianne feinstein have leveled against the president that he waited too long to go

ahead and launch these sanctions and to punish russia for these cyber attacks. i want to get your personal understanding. do you agree with this line from this report. we further assess that putin and the russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect trump. we have high confidence in these judgments. do you agree with that? >> well, i would accept that, but you know, again, now that we have this report, can we get beyond the political side of it and say you know what, are we going to do about it from this point forward and in that respect, donald trump called for a 90-day action plan. he's going to put dan coats and pompeo, general flynn everybody to task immediately to come back with how do we prevent it in the future from other nations and again, so actors out there. i think that the president has acted in a very responsible, the president-elect has acted in a very responsible manner.

he also, by the way, as you know, complimented the intelligence community. so i think he wants to get the kind of the public debate over with and let's move to constructive solution how do you learn from this and what can we do going forward. let's continue with u.s. politics. donald trump says mexico will pay for his border wall. and the former mexican president again begs to differ in some rather fruity language. vicente fox took to twitter on friday for a series of jabs at mr. trump. wrote "trump, whether heal you understand that i am not paying for that expleattive, he used a particular word we're not going to talk about on television, wall. be clear with u.s. taxpayers. they will pay for it." in tv interviews last year, fox also used that particular explative to insist he wouldn't pay for the wall.

and building it and getting mexico to pay for it were some of the core campaign promises of donald trump. now his transition team is sending signals it wants to fund a wall through the u.s. congress. it's a move even drawing criticism from some republicans. phil mattingly on funding the wall. >> we are going to build a wall. don't worry about it. and wait a minute. and who's going to pay for the wall? >> mexico. >> reporter: it's the call and response that defined a winning campaign. >> who's going to pay for the wall. >> mexico. >> who's going to pay for the wall? >> measurement co. >> reporter: despite clear-cut promises like this -- >> we're going to build the wall and mexico is going to pay for the wall. believe me. 100%. believe me. and that will be very easy.

that will be very, very easy. politicians think we're joking. we don't joke. we don't joke. >> reporter: president-elect trump now acknowledging that u.s. taxpayers will at least initially foot the estimated $10 billion price tag for a mexican border wall. money trump tweeted that will "be paid back by mexico later." >> i'm certainly open to congress appropriating funds for border security. that includes walls and all sorts of things. >> reporter: with mexican officials from current president enrake nay pena to former president fox. >> i declare i'm not going to pay for that [ bleeped ] wall. he should pay for it. he's got the money. >> reporter: making clear they have no intention of going along with trump's proposal, trump's team and gop lawmakers are strategizing around an idea to use a 2006 law enacted under george w. bush that already authorizes the construction of a "physical barrier on the

border." all the lawmakers have to do authorize the billions of dollars, billions of taxpayer dollars to pay for it for deficit conscious republicans there are already signals it may be a tough sell. >> i can't speak as to how voters generally will react if american taxpayers are forced to pay for that wall but i can tell you how i would react. i would be disappointed. >> reporter: and democrats are casting doubt whether it's a reality at all. >> republicans would put what, $14 billion in a continuing resolution to build the wall? i don't know. i think that's a heavy sell. i think that's a tough sell. >> reporter: but trump's position started to shift late in his campaign. >> remember i said mexico's paying for the wall. with the full understanding that the country of mexico will be reimbursing the united states for the full cost of such a wall. okay? >> a shift that underscores one

clear fact. recovering billions of dollars from a foreign country isn't exactly easy. >> how is mexico going to pay for that wall. >> he's going to continue to talk whether it's through higher tariffs, he will talk to them about that. that's something he's been very clear about. >> phil mattingly, cnn, washington. >> up next here on "cnn newsroom," a look at severe weather across the united states including a winter storm that is challenging people who aren't all that used to it. stay with us. sorry, just getting a quote on motorcycle insurance from progressive. yeah? yeah, they have safe rider discounts, and with total loss coverage, i get a new bike if mine's totaled. but how's their customer service?

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tantalizing and teasing. that's what happened on wall street as the dow came to about as close to 20,000 as you can get. all through the market it went up through the session and at one particular point it was less than half a point away. you're looking there at the closing number, the s&p, you look at the closing number on the dow, which was up 64 points, but it got to 19,999 and change, which is frankly, as i say, the most tantalizing and teasing it

can get. now to talk weather. the west coast is preparing for more flooding. and in this part of the country, a frigid mix of snow, sleet and rain, it is making for a miserable mess across the southeastern part of the united states this weekend. our meteorologist derek van dam is here to talk more about the weather. and derek, atlanta doesn't do snow so well. >> no, not so well. i stepped out of the office about 20 minutes ago, and this has the potential of debilitating the city once again. we all remember snowpocalypse, but this is the scene that we have just outside of atlanta right now. this is in ken saw, a familiar area to george and i, but you can see people taking to the streets, well, i wouldn't exactly recommend this, so we'll get right to the images behind me. so you can see the picture that i snapped on my own iphone to show you what the individuals around atlanta, this is the downtown area of atlanta have to

deal with, and that, friends is a thick layer of ice starting to coat the roadways and some of the robots or light fixtures that are placed across the city. by the way, robots, that's the terms used for light signals in south africa, i lived there for a period of my life. excuse that terminology there. we have had ice accumulations from a quarter to a half an inch already in atlanta. and i'm concerned not just about the ice accumulation but that we are going to usher in strong winds. when that starts freezing to tree limbs, we have concerns that that could weight down those tree limbs and bring them down, causing power outages and all kinds of problems. we have impulses coming off the gulf of mexico, and that has sent a significant amount of moisture across the southeast, in an area that doesn't brace for winter storms all that well.

and we don't like to see that shading of pink in and around the atlanta metro area, but it's not only northern georgia that's seen the significant weather. let's travel to interstates into charlotte and raleigh and norfolk, they're into a full-fledged winter storm. blizzard warnings for norfolk as we speak. from alabama to northern georgia, into the carolinas and virginia. it doesn't stop. it goes into the new england coastline into boston. it will exit the southeast but bring a wide swath of snowfall. it will impact travel conditions on saturday for i-95. and it's not only the southeastern and eastern united states, it's the west coast. the pacific moisture streaming in from hawaii. we call this the pineapple express, and it's got the potential to produce the greatest flood threat that this area has seen within 10-15 years.

we have a well-advertised drought taking place across the western united states, including california. this will definitely help with the situation, but maybe a little bit too much too soon. we've got up to 10 inches of water equivalent with this storm, and that is going to cause the potential for flooding. we'll take you to the other side of the world, this is istanbul turkey, a friend of mine took a picture of this as he walked to work this morning. that is the ataturk airport. >> a lot of snow there. >> that is the worldwide weather forecast. thank you for being with us for this hour. >> those pictures from turkey put your miserable little ice into perspective. >> they do. we don't do snow well. >> if you're not used to it, it can be rather dangerous. but try living in new york.

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-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com and a very good day to you wherever you're joining us. i'm richard quest in new york. >> and i'm george howell in atlanta. we continue following the breaking news, the deadly shooting at the airport in ft. lauderdale, florida. >> investigators are learning more about the gunman. he killed five people and wounded eight. sources say he entered a bathroom and started shooting when he came out, sending crowds running. the police have now identified the suspect as 26-year-old esteban santiago. he's now being questioned in custody. the fbi says santiago visited their office in alaska, saying he was hearing voices telling him to watch isis videos. he underwent a mental