(dramatic music)

- Welcome to "The 700 Club."

Wind chills below zeroin San Antonio, Texas

and snow at the Alamo.

Record-breaking cold is gripping

and crippling ice zapping the South

as a mammoth snow storm wreckshavoc from coast to coast.

What will the massivedemand do to power grids?

And is the worst yet to come?

Dale Hurd has that.

- States of emergenciesare in effect from Texas

to Virginia after an historic ice storm

and crippling cold weatherturned roads into skating rinks.

Big rigs littered thishighway near El Paso.

This highway near Tulsa wasshutdown for several hours

after three semiscollided in a fiery crash.

In Oregon, hundreds of thousandsof customers lost power

after heavy ice toppled trees.

Seattle saw the most snow in 52 years.

Wind chills were belowzero in San Antonio, Texas.

It was even snowing at the Alamo.

And it's so cold inHouston that city could see

its coldest February in 122 years.

- The freezing temperatureshave already reached.

And so it's very, very important

that folks stay off the roads so

that we don't cause adisaster on top of a disaster.

- [Dale] Power companies in Texas are now

considering rolling blackouts because

of the massive demand on the power grid.

Airlines have canceledthousands of flights

over the weekend and into today.

More than 120 million Americans are under

winter weather alertswith snow and ice expected

from Dallas all the way to New York.

Temperatures could be 50 degrees

below average in some areas.

Beginning today, New York is expected

to see six to 12 inches of snow.

In Connecticut where road crews are trying

to prepare for the coming storm,

they're facing a shortage of road salt.

- Timeline for eight hours,nine hours and we got one load.

I mean, I could use 20 loads.

- [Dale] The governors of Oklahoma

and Arkansas have activatedNational Guard units

to help rescue stranded drivers.

- We're doing the best we can

and we're not going tostop until it's done.

- And to make matters worse,

another storm systemis expected to take aim

at the Northeast on Thursday.

Dale Hurd, CBN News.

- Joel Bastardi is chiefmeteorologist for weatherbill.com.

And Joe's joining us now.

Joe, what is going on?

- Last week I was supposed to be

on with you to prepare people for this.

And of course, theimpeachment got in the way.

And that was really a shamebecause as a meteorologist,

I was looking at the winter equivalent

of a Cat 5 hurricanecoming at these people,

and yet we were occupied with whatever

we were occupied with last week.

I do know that the Texasgovernor got very proactive

and right on top of it Friday night

and really took steps toget their state ready.

But this has been something where

and it's something I seemore and more today, Pastor,

in that people ignore whatis real for what isn't real,

especially when it comes to nature.

And then what'll happenedafter this is people

start blaming climate change,they're very same people

who didn't have any idea this was coming.

Now, I work for a companythat supplies forecasts

for electric companies, hedge funds, salt,

we have huge salt clients.

So they were preparedfor this early last week

and they knew what wascoming down in there.

And this is all been evolving.

Folks, the weather is not a snapshot.

Too often people show up at the one scene

of the movie and say,"Where did this come from?"

This has been evolvingsince early January.

You can see it, you see it go on.

And so we're reaching the peak this week.

As far as it's New York City,

they're not gettinganything from this storm

that's down in Texas now.

They're going to get it on Thursday night

or Friday, I think some.

But the problem with this storm in Texas,

and Texas is the heart of things,

even though the Midwestis going to be very bad,

they know how to plow snow in the Midwest

and they know about coldweather in the Midwest.

It's not going to melt offand another storm is coming.

And this one ispredominantly freezing rain

between I-10 and I-20 inTexas and to the east of I-35.

That's coming Wednesdayand Wednesday night.

So you've got snow withfreezing rain on top of it.

In addition, power outages.

Over two million peoplewithout power in Texas now.

Two million customers.

These rotating power outagesare going to continue.

Now, when you look atthe situation in Texas,

where if you've everdriven, and I love Texas,

I've been down there manytimes, I grew up at A&M,

you drive those back roads,

those ranches out there aren't South Fork.

And those people going without power

with wind chills near or below zero,

it becomes a life-threatening situation.

The citrus industry is getting hit.

The marine industry is getting hit.

Electric grid.

People have to stay off the roads.

The good news is this is notthe atmospheric apocalypse.

The reason we knew this wascoming was we had maps of 1899,

and lo and behold, thecomputer model was predicting

what the map looked like in 1899.

I said, "Hey Joe, guess what?

The same things gonna happen."

And you brought that up.

What was it, a 121 years,122 years in Houston?

That was the 1899 outbreak.

This is all going tobreak this weekend, folks.

And next week is going toget nice and warm Texas.

But the next four orfive days, the country

from Texas to the lakes to the Northeast

and even into Virginia, interior Virginia

where there's going to be a lot of ice,

is definitely the highlightof this winter season

as bad as we've seen awinter week in many years.

- Is this the most active inhistory or in a hundred years?

- For Texas, the combination what

I call a winter misery index is the worst.

Where 1899 did not have the amount of snow

across much of Texas although it did snow

very hard along the Gulf Coast.

The 1899 storm came up the East Coast.

This one is going upthrough the Ohio Valley.

That's the people who go toget hammered six to 12 locally,

18 inches of snow after this.

So there's a little bit of adifference in the end game.

What I didn't see happen in1899 was two or three days later

another big snow andice storm across Texas.

And if you look at the'83 and '89 outbreaks,

so you see what I do is I go back

and look at all this stuff and study it,

I have no life except God,my family, and this stuff.

So what happens is itwas a tremendous amount

of ecological damage.

It's down to 23 in thecitrus growing areas

and it's going to stay therefor four or five hours.

So chances are the agricultural,

in the lower Rio Grande valleys,

just nothing but agriculture,

that's going to take abig hit in there too.

When you total this up,when you start looking

at ice bringing down trees and power lines

later in the week, this fiveday period, relative to winter,

relative to winter isgoing to be as extreme

as a category five hurricaneis to a hurricane season.

See the magnitude, right?

Different kind of thing.

It's not a bulldozer comingin off the Gulf of Mexico

and leveling a certain area.

But it's interesting when you go back

and look at Texas weatherhistory, real quick,

1899 they had that freeze,1900 Galveston hurricane.

What was going on back then?

But I got confessed though,

my great, great, great, great grandfather,

Ebeneezer Bastardi, Ithink was forecasting

weather back then.(Pat laughing)

- Joe, one last question.

How do you relate all this fear

about global warming and all this stuff?

- Well, that's what I was going to say.

First of all, it's happened before.

That's how come we picked itup at my company so quick.

What I do is, see I got this pretty face

and I'm on TV with you, Pastor,

but that's not what I really do.

I forecast the long range for companies.

So if you know what happened yesterday,

you know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Only God knows tomorrow,but you have an idea.

But no, it's a matter ofwhat weather could do.

See, that's the problem I havetoday with a lot of people.

They do not respect what nature

and nature's God has created.

So they just think, "Oh my goodness,

this is the end of the world."

And not paying attention before.

And yet you can seethese things setting up

from a long way off,

Now, I can't nail the absolute detail.

I couldn't tell you back Monday,

"Oh it's going to go 15 in Houston

instead of 14 or whatever."

What we told people was it be the teens

with wind chills near zero,it's going to snow and ice.

But it's happened before.

And if you understand that,it gives you perspective,

which I think is lost ina lot of things today.

But that's the 65 year old guy

probably looking back at his past.

- Okay, Joe, thank youso much for that insight.

We appreciate you.

Come back for the next time.

(Pat laughing)

- All right.

If I warn you about stuff, pick up,

let's get out in front of it.

God bless you.

- We'll take it to the bank.

God bless you.

Well, in other news, formerPresident Trump was found quote,

"not guilty" in hissecond impeachment trial.

So after the acquittal,

why did Mitch McConnell condemn Trump?

And will the Republicans who voted

to convict him feel the backlash?

Efrem Graham has morefrom our CBN News room.

- Pat, seven Republicans votedagainst the former president,

but still far short ofthe two thirds needed

to convict which begs the question,

what will happen to them

and what will happen tothe former president next?

CBN News Capitol Hill correspondent

Abigail Robertson brings us more.

- While the impeachmenttrial might be over,

the former president couldstill face criminal charges

for his role in the January 6th attack.

- He did not do his job.

He didn't take steps so federal law

could be faithfullyexecuted and order restored.

No.

Instead, according to public reports,

he watched television happily, happily

as the chaos unfolded.

- [Abigail] Immediately after the vote,

Minority Leader Mitch McConnelltook to the Senate floor

to condemn President Trump'sactions while still insisting

that impeaching a formerpresident is unconstitutional.

- If President Trump were still in office,

I would have carefully considered

whether the House managersproved their specific charge.

- [Abigail] Democrats, however,argued it was McConnell's

decision not to start thetrial until Trump left office.

- It was a very disingenuous speech.

And I say that regretfully

because I always want to be able to work

with the leadership of the other party.

- [Abigail] Seven GOP senatorsvoted with 48 Democrats

and two Independentsin favor of conviction.

Following the vote, theLouisiana statute GOP

unanimously voted to censure

Senator Bill Cassidy for his vote.

- Our Constitution in ourcountry is more important

than any one person.

I voted to convict PresidentTrump because he is guilty.

- [Abigail] In a statement Saturday,

President Biden said that violence

and extremism have no place in America

and that we must all defendthe truth and defeat the lies.

Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News

he spoke with former PresidentTrump after the trial.

- He's ready to move on andrebuild the Republican Party.

He's excited about 2022.

He's mad at some folks,but I understand that.

- Following the acquittal,

Trump released a statementsaying the movement

to make America greatagain has only just begun.

There was nothing aboutwhat he might do next

or whether he'll seek office again.

Reporting from Washington,Abigail Robertson, CBN News.

- Many, of course,wondering what the former

president will do next, Pat.

- Well, what do we do?

If you'd like a prediction,

my prediction is that theDemocrats are overreaching.

The Americans are not too keen

on having a Socialist society.

And I think some of these executive

orders are overreaching again.

But what will we do?

My prediction, I'm going toget our fearless prognosticator

John Waage next week tosee what he has to say.

But I do believe that the House is going

to swing from Democrat to Republican.

And I think it won't bebut a few seats left to go

to switch over and we'llhave a new majority leader,

new speaker of the House.

I think that's coming

because the American peoplejust don't want socialism.

And this is what it's heading for.

We'll have to see what's going to happen.

And we're also taking a look at Virginia

where a guy named McAuliffe is trying

to make an unprecedented run

for a second term asgovernor of the state.

They can't do it in successive times,

but they can come backand take a time off.

And I think that we keep oureyes on the state of Virginia,

which has flipped so dramaticallyinto the Democrat orbit,

which used to be so firmly conservative.

We'll see what happens.

And we'll have somereports on that coming up.

Efrem, what do you got next?

- Pat, more progress in thefight against the coronavirus.

New cases continue to dropacross the United States.

Yesterday, nearly 72,000new cases were reported.

That's down from a high of225,000 daily cases last month.

And more States are beginningto ease restrictions.

In New York, indoor diningat restaurants is resuming

at 25% capacity.

In Washington state, gyms andmovie theaters are now open.

However, the head ofthe CDC warns Americans

still need to take precautions.

- We are no where out of the woods.

And as you know, if we relaxthese mitigation strategies

with increasing transmissiblevariants out there,

we could be in a much more difficult spot.

- As to schools reopening,critics say the CDC's

recently released guidelines to resume

in-school learning are too strict.

Turning overseas to Japan,where people are cleaning up

after a strong 7.1 magnitude earthquake

hit the island this weekend.

The powerful quake shookthe area near Fukushima

for about 30 seconds leavingabout one million homes

without power and atleast 48 people injured.

The National MeteorologicalAgency says the earthquake

was an aftershock of the 9.0 quake

that hit in the samearea nearly a decade ago.

That quake triggered atsunami that led to a meltdown

at a nuclear plant and thedeaths of nearly 16,000 people.

That plant has been evacuated

and is being inspected for damage, Pat.

- Well, you know, what'shappening is a lot

of these building aroundTokyo is based on fill

and when you have an earthquake,

there's a lithificationof that sub surface

and those buildings just collapse.

And it's really a serious matter.

The so-called Ring of Fire.

But we have this kind of earthquake,

a 9.0 is a huge earthquake.

7.1 is a big one.

But they have nuclear and it's going

to be amazing what they're going to do.

- Think we'll see some further activity

because of what's happened there?

- Well, it just keeps on going.

But this stuff is under the sea.

And you remember thatterrible thing that happened

when they had that tsunami,

it was under the ocean where it breaks.

But the tectonic plates,

the Pacific and the Atlanticand the North American plates,

they all collide andwe'll see what happens.

But there it is, theso-called Ring of Fire.

It goes all the way around.

You see Tokyo is one of the epicenters.

You see Manila, it's Indonesia.

And it's down in New Zealand.

So it's a big problem we have

in America is San Francisco,Los Angeles, and Seattle.

So the reason that is theRing of Fire is because

those plates are not stable.

They collide back andforth and you have these

terrible earthquakes andwe have these tsunamis

and they will be there.

We don't know what's goingto have on the West Coast

but there are many people who've forecast

that something bad could happenin the Pacific Northwest.