Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

O'Keefe Meets Bush While Search for Debris Continues

Aired February 03, 2003 - 11:00   ET

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

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


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is meeting with NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. The meeting is going to be taking place there at the White House, and O'Keefe plans to be updating the president on the shuttle Columbia disaster, and we're getting word that that meeting actually is going on even as we speak. We hope to get an update on that for you a little bit later on.
Our White House correspondent, Dana Bash joins us now, and maybe she can tell us something right now about what's going on at that meeting President Bush and the NASA administrator -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, what we know is that we just saw him walk in the building. He is here, Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator. He is here to meet with the president. He spoke with him over the weekend, really shortly after this disaster happened on Saturday, but although the president has been getting regular updates on the information, on the investigation from the situation room here at the White House, which has really been up and running all weekend.

The president wanted to meet face to face with Sean O'Keefe to talk about a number of issues, including morale at NASA and also about the investigation. He really wants to know the details of what is going on, what the latest is that NASA knows about why this tragedy happened. I should note that Sean O'Keefe then heads down the street. He is going to Capitol Hill to meet with about 16 members of Congress, some key members, who deal with NASA, who have NASA in their portfolio. And I should also note, Leon, that Sean O'Keefe was brought on not too long ago as a money guy, as a budget guy. He is somebody who they were hoping could kind of clean up and figure out how to deal with the budget at NASA, which really over the past decade has really declined. I should also note to you that today, just so what happens that the president sent his new budget for 2004 up to Capitol Hill, and in that budget, he does have an increase of about $500 million for NASA, and he also has an increase for the space shuttle program in general.

HARRIS: All right. Well, that's good to hear. I'm sure the folks at NASA will be very happy to hear that news, although they probably would like even more, as most people do. Thanks, Dana. Dana Bash reporting live for us from the White House. Let's go now to Daryn Kagan, my partner standing by down at the Kennedy Space Center -- Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Leon, we want to go ahead now and focus on the painstaking effort to recover the remains of Columbia's seven astronauts, also the debris that rained down as the shuttle broke part.

Our Ed Lavandera is in Nacogdoches, Texas with the latest on the effort there -- Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. Well, here officials are about an hour away from holding another briefing, getting reporters updated to how the recovery efforts are going here. In Nacogdoches County, there has been intense efforts to try to collect as much debris as possible, but officials saying yesterday that they were getting to the point where there were too many calls coming in and not enough people to respond to where all the debris was being reported from.

To give you an idea of how many calls they've been getting, it has been about 25 calls an hour reporting new debris that has been found in Nacogdoches County alone. That doesn't take into consideration the surrounding counties and parts of western Louisiana. More than 1,200 pieces have been found in this county alone, so you can imagine just how vast and expansive these search efforts will be over the course of the next couple of days and weeks ahead, and officials here saying they just don't have enough people to protect the debris that is already on the ground and to respond to these calls, so they're hoping that the federal government will give them guidelines soon, exactly what they need to do to move out all of the most crucial pieces, and hoping that a lot of this could be moved along the way, so they can get to the other calls.

I've talked to several people here in the Nacogdoches area over the last couple of days who have said that debris has fallen on their businesses or in their backyards, and they've called, and they just haven't had anybody available to be able to respond to those calls at this point.

So authorities here are hoping they will be able to spread this manpower to other parts of the county that they need to. So that's happening in Nacogdoches. You can imagine what's happening throughout the other parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Ed, just some of the numbers I'm able to find this morning, 33 different Texas counties -- different counties where debris is found, 93 Texas counties that are searching their schools because there's concern that kids are going back to school today, they are going to find the stuff on the school yard.

LAVANDERA: Well, there were some schools that did shut down this morning, or closed for the day. Debris had fallen in that area. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, had been given special permission to go into some of these campuses and remove some of that debris, but it was left up to the individual school districts to determine whether or not they thought they should continue with classes, and apparently some have decided not to today.

KAGAN: But I guess the majority deciding to check things out, and go ahead with school and classes. Ed Lavandera in Nacogdoches, Texas. Thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 3, 2003 - 11:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is meeting with NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. The meeting is going to be taking place there at the White House, and O'Keefe plans to be updating the president on the shuttle Columbia disaster, and we're getting word that that meeting actually is going on even as we speak. We hope to get an update on that for you a little bit later on.
Our White House correspondent, Dana Bash joins us now, and maybe she can tell us something right now about what's going on at that meeting President Bush and the NASA administrator -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, what we know is that we just saw him walk in the building. He is here, Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator. He is here to meet with the president. He spoke with him over the weekend, really shortly after this disaster happened on Saturday, but although the president has been getting regular updates on the information, on the investigation from the situation room here at the White House, which has really been up and running all weekend.

The president wanted to meet face to face with Sean O'Keefe to talk about a number of issues, including morale at NASA and also about the investigation. He really wants to know the details of what is going on, what the latest is that NASA knows about why this tragedy happened. I should note that Sean O'Keefe then heads down the street. He is going to Capitol Hill to meet with about 16 members of Congress, some key members, who deal with NASA, who have NASA in their portfolio. And I should also note, Leon, that Sean O'Keefe was brought on not too long ago as a money guy, as a budget guy. He is somebody who they were hoping could kind of clean up and figure out how to deal with the budget at NASA, which really over the past decade has really declined. I should also note to you that today, just so what happens that the president sent his new budget for 2004 up to Capitol Hill, and in that budget, he does have an increase of about $500 million for NASA, and he also has an increase for the space shuttle program in general.

HARRIS: All right. Well, that's good to hear. I'm sure the folks at NASA will be very happy to hear that news, although they probably would like even more, as most people do. Thanks, Dana. Dana Bash reporting live for us from the White House. Let's go now to Daryn Kagan, my partner standing by down at the Kennedy Space Center -- Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Leon, we want to go ahead now and focus on the painstaking effort to recover the remains of Columbia's seven astronauts, also the debris that rained down as the shuttle broke part.

Our Ed Lavandera is in Nacogdoches, Texas with the latest on the effort there -- Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. Well, here officials are about an hour away from holding another briefing, getting reporters updated to how the recovery efforts are going here. In Nacogdoches County, there has been intense efforts to try to collect as much debris as possible, but officials saying yesterday that they were getting to the point where there were too many calls coming in and not enough people to respond to where all the debris was being reported from.

To give you an idea of how many calls they've been getting, it has been about 25 calls an hour reporting new debris that has been found in Nacogdoches County alone. That doesn't take into consideration the surrounding counties and parts of western Louisiana. More than 1,200 pieces have been found in this county alone, so you can imagine just how vast and expansive these search efforts will be over the course of the next couple of days and weeks ahead, and officials here saying they just don't have enough people to protect the debris that is already on the ground and to respond to these calls, so they're hoping that the federal government will give them guidelines soon, exactly what they need to do to move out all of the most crucial pieces, and hoping that a lot of this could be moved along the way, so they can get to the other calls.

I've talked to several people here in the Nacogdoches area over the last couple of days who have said that debris has fallen on their businesses or in their backyards, and they've called, and they just haven't had anybody available to be able to respond to those calls at this point.

So authorities here are hoping they will be able to spread this manpower to other parts of the county that they need to. So that's happening in Nacogdoches. You can imagine what's happening throughout the other parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Ed, just some of the numbers I'm able to find this morning, 33 different Texas counties -- different counties where debris is found, 93 Texas counties that are searching their schools because there's concern that kids are going back to school today, they are going to find the stuff on the school yard.

LAVANDERA: Well, there were some schools that did shut down this morning, or closed for the day. Debris had fallen in that area. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, had been given special permission to go into some of these campuses and remove some of that debris, but it was left up to the individual school districts to determine whether or not they thought they should continue with classes, and apparently some have decided not to today.

KAGAN: But I guess the majority deciding to check things out, and go ahead with school and classes. Ed Lavandera in Nacogdoches, Texas. Thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com