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CNN Live Today
Hurricane Charley; California Wildfires; Garden State Shocker
Aired August 13, 2004 - 10:59 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast and 8:00 a.m. on the West Coast. From CNN Center in Atlanta, good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.
Our top story this morning is Hurricane Charley. Right now the giant storm is at or near Category Three status. It's spinning in the Gulf, just south of Fort Myers, Florida, and heading due north toward the Tampa area. A few hours ago, the eye of Charley passed about 75 miles to the west of Key West. The Keys were raked with gusty winds and rain, but basically avoided the brunt of Charley's fury.
Evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida's west coast. Up to two million people are being urged to get out of the way of the storm, a warning many people are taking seriously. Emergency officials are reminding those who choose to say they will be on their own. Tampa's MacDill Air Base, home of the U.S. Central Command, is among those moving aircraft and personnel out of the area.
And Charley rolled across western Cuba during the night, with Havana taking a direct hit. Authorities there report wind gusts up to 125 miles an hour, tearing off some roofs and breaking windows. Overall, though, they say the damage was relatively minor. Coincidentally, Charley arrived as Cuban leader Fidel Castro marked his 78th birthday.
We have correspondents deployed along the hurricane's projected path from Key West to Tampa. We will, of course, bring you the very latest developments as they occur throughout the day and beyond.
Just a short time ago, for instance, Ted Scouten of our affiliate WFOR filed this report as Charley whipped past Key West earlier this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED SCOUTEN, WFOR (voice-over): At the southern most point, waves crashed out of the ocean, hitting anyone standing too close. It's a powerful sight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty crazy. I've never seen anything like this where. Never seen the waves come over the wall like that before.
SCOUTEN: Down the street, debris crashed out of the water, carried by angry waves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had some winds pushing 60 miles an hour. We've got a lot of breakers coming over our sea wall. We have a heliport out in the back. And the waves are breaking. They're probably seven to eight feet waves, and they're coming right over our sea wall.
SCOUTEN: On the street, flooding. In most cases, you can't really tell where the ocean ends and the road begins.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: If Charley stays on track, it will be the first hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in some 80 years. Our meteorologist, Chad Myers, is in Tampa. There's little hint right now of what is on the way -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Daryn, no hint at all. The wind is absolutely still. There's flags behind me. They're absolutely straight down.
No wind at all, but the problem here is now we are starting to see the influx of some darker clouds coming in from the south and from the southwest. In fact, we even had sunshine about two hours ago.
The big story here is storm surge. Been using that term a lot all morning long. It's when a bubble of water -- think of a hurricane as a vacuum cleaner and it sucks all the water in. You've got a little bubble of water here just under the storm.
When that storm travels over Tampa Bay, if it does, it will take that bubble and push it up the river, almost like taking water and put it down -- putting it down a canyon. The canyon is so steep that the water goes up.
Well, this isn't a canyon, but certainly the rivers go up. And we're right here, at four feet above sea level here in parts of Tampa.
Now, the problem is we don't know whether the storm has actually turn to the right a little bit, or has it stayed on course? There are about three or four radar frames that I was watching where the storm made a little bit of a wiggle toward the coast, toward Fort Myers. And that would actually make us on the backside and take us out of a lot of the storm surge here in Tampa.
And the person who knows better than that, because he's been watching the last 10 frames of this radar, is Rob Marciano. And he'll have more for you from the weather center -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Chad, we're going to get to Rob in just a minute, but I want to ask you, I think that was an interesting fact that a major storm like this has not hit the Tampa area in over 80 years.
MYERS: True, yes.
KAGAN: So, is that making it more or less difficult to get people to take this seriously?
MYERS: You know, you can't even say that old timers remember that. I mean, even if you're 85, do you remember a hurricane when you were five? Daryn, no.
But everyone is taking this seriously because this has been forecast now for over five days. The media has been on it. The emergency managers have been on it. The entire area has been -- been basically been in lockdown watching television, writing down the coordinates.
I mean, this is literally -- this is almost like an election. They're writing down every little thing, did, it go left, did it go right, did it spin bigger?
And we had 600,000 people that had to get out of the lowlands or the A, B and C areas, the areas anywhere from 12 feet or lower, they had to be evacuated. In fact, we're in one of those areas, but the police have let us stay here as long as we know that we can actually climb up higher. And we can.
All of those people got out yesterday. No incidents whatsoever. All very orderly, they moved inland.
KAGAN: All right, Chad. We'll be checking back with you. You mentioned Rob Marciano. Let's go ahead and check in with Rob. He is doing the indoor job, checking the computers and the track -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Daryn.
As Chad mentioned, that wiggle, that jog, that waggle that he was concerned about, maybe moving off to the east, that would be good news for -- for Tampa. The latest advisory out of the National Hurricane Center, is to keep it on its track for the most part.
They don't have their discussion out, so I don't really know what they're thinking. But a lot of times, as Chad knows, they'll -- they'll jog and wiggle and waggle and then get back on the forecast track. And I guess that's what the National Hurricane Center is thinking.
Right now, it's well north of Key West. It is picking up steam. It is heading to the north.
Winds are still at 110 miles an hour. So, it hasn't graduated, if you will, yet to hurricane Category Three status just yet. But they do think that's it's still a possibility.
There you see that little turn, if not a little jog off to the east. We'll keep this -- these numbers aren't totally up to date, but the track for the most part is. And the timing still does bring us somewhere around Tampa, give or take a few miles, obviously, over the next several hours, probably later on -- late this afternoon and early evening.
And then, still a hurricane probably until the early hours of the morning, eventually turning into a tropical storm. And you know, does it re-emerge out in the Atlantic Ocean, or does it stay on? Either way, it's going to bring a tremendous amount of wind and rain, first, and then just rain all the way up into the D.C. area, and in through New York as well.
Yesterday, from Bonnie, we had a little tornado that fired up. Actually, a pretty big tornado for a hurricane or a tropical storm that fired up in Jacksonville. And we have now tornado watches out for the southern half of Florida. And these will moved up the coastline as we go on through time.
One other point I want to make, Daryn, is that this band of showers, not associated with the hurricane itself, is actually a cold front. And that cold front will actually kick that storm a little bit further to the north and east, as opposed to pulling it to the west.
That's why we think that it's going pretty much -- going to rake the coastline of Florida, in effect, almost everybody, Daryn, in that state, and a lot of folks up the Atlantic seaboard as well.
We'll keep you updated, of course, throughout the afternoon.
KAGAN: All right. Rob, thank you for that.
MARCIANO: You bet.
KAGAN: Much more on Hurricane Charley still ahead. About 30 minutes from now, we'll go live to the National Hurricane Center for the very latest numbers on the storm.
Charley is coming on the heels of Tropical Storm Bonnie, which caused plenty of problems. This was the scene yesterday in Jacksonville, Florida. The storm system generated a tornado as it moved through the area. No reports of injuries. The twister did flip several vehicles.
Let's move on now to California. The 7,500-acre wildfire in the Shasta Lake area is about 50 percent contained. Winds dropped off overnight, slowing the spread of the fire. At least 67 homes have been lost to the blaze, which was started by sparks from a lawnmower.
Another fire about 100 miles away from Oroville has burned about 1,000 acres. Crews hope to have that blaze fully contained later today. Our Miguel Marquez is on the scene at some of the worst fire damage around Shasta Lake.
Miguel, good morning.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're just south of Lake Shasta there, Daryn. Good morning to you.
And the lake area, we are in a place called Ravine Road. And it's called Ravine Road because, well, it's in a Ravine. It is the worst hit area or one of the worst hit areas of this fire. I can count several homes in this one area that have been damaged by the fire.
The ravine that this thing is in, the problem is it acts as a funnel, that smoke and the flames go right up this ravine. And it causes the problem that you see here, which is homes burned out. We do have a lot of homes in this area that were saved by firefighters, as they were able to get water on those homes and -- and keep them safe.
I want to bring in somebody who has hopefully a little new information for us. Captain John Bruno with the California Department of Forestry is with us here.
You guys did a burnout operation last night. I understand it was successful.
JOHN BRUNO, CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF FORESTRY: Yes, we had crews working all night last night building bulldozer lines, control lines, and then the crews fired out from the bulldozer lines to burn out the intervening fuel.
MARQUEZ: And if that plan was successful, as you hope, do you think your containment figures are going to -- what's it going to show in your containment figures today?
BRUNO: Well, definitely improved. Last night was the turning point. We were really concerned about the wind switching like they did the night before and burning into an area that's got real (ph) residential development.
And that was going to be a very difficult turn. And last night, the dozer lines were able to make good progress. A lot of aggressive firefighting went on last night to hold this fire.
MARQUEZ: My sense is, if the weather continues to cooperate with you, you'll have a hold of this fire fairly soon.
BRUNO: Yes, we should be getting near to 100 percent containment here in the next day or two from -- from the hard work of these firefighters in here. There's a lot of dead fuel from the snow kill that the north state, especially Shasta County has had this past December.
So, there's a lot of thick, dead fuel on the ground. And it's hard for the equipment to work through that. And then when it does burn, it throws a lot of sparks up, and there's a lot of spotting that can occur.
MARQUEZ: OK.
But it sounds like much of that is behind firefighters at this point. They seem to have a pretty good handle on it. They expect full containment by Sunday evening -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Miguel Marquez in Shasta, California. Thank you for that.
Getting news into CNN that Julia Child, the grand dame of U.S. cooking television shows has passed away. She was 91 years old.
Child, of course, has had a long career, going back to the early '60s, when she wrote a book called "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Of course then there was her television series that started with "The French Chef" and then all her master chef programs, igniting the fire of the love of food and cooking for Americans. And not just Americans, but people around the world.
Julia Child, 91 years old. Her publisher making an announcement that she passed away in her sleep in her home in Santa Barbara, California. More on the life and the career of Julia Child later in the program.
Now on to politics. Threatened by a sexual harassment lawsuit, New Jersey's governor has resigned. Governor Jim McGreevey with his wife by his side also revealed that he is gay and had a homosexual affair. A legal threat apparently comes from a male former aide who resigned in 2002.
Our Alina Cho is in Trenton, New Jersey with the latest on this unprecedented political bombshell.
Alina, hello.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unprecedented and bombshell is right, Daryn. In fact, Governor McGreevey is said to be spending time with his family this weekend and is expected to return here to work on Monday. We shall see if that happens.
Meanwhile, details are emerging about the man who is said to be responsible for McGreevey's resignation. His name is Golan Cipel. He is the plaintiff in a pending sexual harassment suit against McGreevey, which we understand has not yet been filed.
He is a 35-year-old Israeli citizen who worked as a homeland security adviser to McGreevey. The two apparently met in Israel in 2000. Cipel apparently resigned abruptly in 2002 after questions were raised about his qualifications.
Now, a law enforcement source tells The Associated Press that Cipel requested $5 million to quash the suit, to keep the affair private. And sources tell CNN now it is unclear whether Cipel will move forward with legal action.
At a news conference yesterday, McGreevey did not address the pending lawsuit or name Mr. Cipel. He would only say that he had grappled with his identity throughout his life, that he had been forced into what he called an acceptable reality, and admitted he had a homosexual affair.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JIM MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man which violates my bonds of matrimony. It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable. And for this, I ask the forgiveness and the grace of my wife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: He is speaking is of his current wife, Dina (ph). McGreevey is the father of two, one daughter from a previous marriage.
We should mention, of course, that McGreevey announced that he would resign effective November 15. Important to note that the head of the Republican committee here in New Jersey will be holding a news conference within the next half-hour to say, CNN has learned, that McGreevey should step down immediately.
McGreevey, again, has said he would step down effective November 15 so that another Democrat could serve out his term which ends on January of '06.
Daryn, of course, the Republicans want him to resign effective immediately so a special election can be held this November 2.
KAGAN: And Alina, we do plan on carrying that news conference live. We expect that to begin in about 15 minutes. Alina Cho in Trenton, New Jersey. Alina, thank you.
Also ahead for us, was a radical cleric injured in what could be the final assault on his Iraqi stronghold? We'll have the latest.
And we are continuing to track the path of Hurricane Charley as it brushes past the Keys on a collision course with the western Florida coast.
CNN LIVE TODAY is back with more in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: All right. I think we have some video coming in from Iraq. Do we have that video ready to go?
James Brandon, there he -- from Basra, actually, Basra, Iraq. This is James Brandon, a correspondent from the "Sunday Telegraph."
A big smile on his face for good reason. Reports said that he was taken hostage yesterday. You can see some bruises there on his face. He has now been released. And we'll have more on what he has to say about his interesting couple days there in Iraq. But appears to be in good spirits and relatively good shape.
Back here in the U.S., we're getting word that the grand dame of U.S. cooking shows, Julia Child, has passed away at the age of 91. She basically started the big craze over cooking shows and set Americans on a passion for cooking.
Sibila Vargas has more now on the life of Julia Child.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIA CHILD, CHEF: Welcome to "The French Chef." I'm Julia Child.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was the often comedic mistress of the popular cooking show, "The French Chef." And her name, Julia Child, became synonymous with good cooking. CHILD: This is the way the French cook brazed rice. And they call it risotto. And whenever they take over a recipe, they do it in their own way and they don't care how anyone else does it.
VARGAS: Born in Pasadena, California, in 1912, the six-foot-plus Smith College history major aspired to be a novelist or a basketball player. Julia McWilliams reportedly could barely boil water when in her 30s she married Paul Child.
As a worker for the Foreign Service, Paul Child was stationed in France, where he introduced his wife to French cuisine. She enrolled in cooking school and, along with two French women, collaborated in writing the book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."
CHILD: I like good, careful cooking. And I really like French cooking the best, because I think people often think of tourist cooking. But I like the good old French home cooking.
VARGAS: When Paul Child retired, the couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And when Julia appeared on a public television show in Boston, discussing her book and making an omelet, she was discovered.
Letters poured into the station, and the TV series "The French Chef" made its debut on WGBH in Boston in 1963. Through the years she continued to teach audiences how to make the perfect omelet.
CHILD: See, I have enough eggs in here to go on and on and on. And this is really -- I think it's just such fun. You can get the whole family in on the act.
VARGAS: "The French Chef" was seen for years on more than 100 public broadcasting stations. Child's work on television earned her an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award.
She also did other cooking shows, wrote several books and hundreds of magazine articles. Many still consider Child's early book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," the definitive English language book on classic French cuisine.
CHILD: So, that's all for today on "The French Chef." This is Julia child. Bon appetite.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: U.S. and Iraqi forces scale back their offensive against fighters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr today, a day after raiding his home. Iraqi government officials are trying to talk to insurgents into ending their fight at Najaf. The talks come hours after al- Sadr's spokesman says the fiery cleric was hit in the chest by shrapnel. The injuries are not thought to be serious.
Our Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, is visiting our Atlanta headquarters this week. A good time to talk with her about what is taking place in Iraq. Good morning. Good to have you back here.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning, Daryn. Thanks so much.
KAGAN: I do have to say, for our viewers, we're standing by for a totally different story in New Jersey. We're expecting the Republican leaders to hold a news conference talking about the sudden resignation of that governor. So, when that happens we'll go live to New Jersey. But because this is CNN, we handle more than one story.
ARRAF: We can juggle.
KAGAN: We can do that. And we can talk about Iraq. I thought it was interesting that they are having these talks, or trying to have talks with Sadr's people. Wasn't it just a few days ago that the leader of the country, Ayad Allawi, was saying there will be no talks, there will be no negotiations?
ARRAF: They both put up very tough positions. I mean, we've heard Allawi before, but this is probably in a very bad situation the best possible scenario if they do start to talk.
Otherwise, you risk creating a martyr of Muqtada al-Sadr. You risk possibly doing damage to the holy places and creating just a situation that maybe would spiral out of control.
KAGAN: You talked about turning Sadr into a martyr. We're getting the word through his people that he's been injured in a minor way. But you do walk that fine line. You want him to go away, and yet if you -- if you hurt him, if you kill him, if you prop him up like that, you're going to turn him into a martyr and just make him more popular.
ARRAF: It's extremely difficult. This is probably a man who is not going to go away, no matter how much people wish him away.
If he doesn't remain a militia leader, he remains a political force. And that's one thing that people are really worried about, that even if he were gone, his spirit, and what he stands for is still there, which is something that answers to a lot of disaffected, angry young men with no hope and no jobs, then that's really got to be addressed, according to a lot of Iraqis.
KAGAN: And one of the reasons we're seeing some of the fighting spread, most recently into Kut, into that area, but wasn't this the same town that just a few months ago, when Sadr tried to spread his cause there, the locals basically ran him out of town. They didn't want that taking place. They wanted to get back to their regular lives.
ARRAF: And that happened in quite a lot of places. The problem is, the locals don't really have the power or the arms.
And I was with the U.S. Army in Kut when they went and retook it after that first uprising. And what we saw there were police and the National Guard, now Iraqi National Guard, who basically laid down their arms or took their weapons and joined the Mehdi Army. And that's been a real problem in all sorts of these cities. It's been perhaps the essential problem there.
KAGAN: We were looking at a live picture just a few minutes ago of the journalist, James Brandon, who was just recently released. He had been taken in Basra. He works for the "Sunday Telegraph."
You were telling him during the commercial you don't know him personally, but on a personal note, I just have to ask, when you're out there, doing your work, reporting for CNN, is that a concern of yours? He's not the first journalist that's been taken hostage.
ARRAF: He's not. But he is remarkably lucky, as are the others.
And I think we have to point out that, so far, journalists have not been targeted for hostage-takings. There seems to be an interesting dynamic there, where the people doing this realize that this would not have any effect whatsoever, the horrible things they're doing with the hostage-takings, if the media weren't there. And in a couple of instances, when they have determined these people are journalists and not spies, they have let them go.
KAGAN: Kind of spit you out when they realize what they have.
ARRAF: Yes.
KAGAN: All right. Well, when you do go back, you be safe.
ARRAF: Thank you.
KAGAN: All right. Jane Arraf, our Baghdad bureau chief. Always nice to visit with you in person and overseas as well.
ARRAF: Absolutely. Thanks.
KAGAN: We're going to talk about what's happening here in the U.S. Hurricane Charley bearing down on Florida's west coast. The people living there are battling down the hatches, as we like to say, with these stories getting out of the way. We're live from a Florida storm shelter coming up next.
We're also awaiting the start of a news conference from New Jersey, from Republicans there in response to yesterday's startling announcement from Governor Jim McGreevey.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired August 13, 2004 - 10:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast and 8:00 a.m. on the West Coast. From CNN Center in Atlanta, good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.
Our top story this morning is Hurricane Charley. Right now the giant storm is at or near Category Three status. It's spinning in the Gulf, just south of Fort Myers, Florida, and heading due north toward the Tampa area. A few hours ago, the eye of Charley passed about 75 miles to the west of Key West. The Keys were raked with gusty winds and rain, but basically avoided the brunt of Charley's fury.
Evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida's west coast. Up to two million people are being urged to get out of the way of the storm, a warning many people are taking seriously. Emergency officials are reminding those who choose to say they will be on their own. Tampa's MacDill Air Base, home of the U.S. Central Command, is among those moving aircraft and personnel out of the area.
And Charley rolled across western Cuba during the night, with Havana taking a direct hit. Authorities there report wind gusts up to 125 miles an hour, tearing off some roofs and breaking windows. Overall, though, they say the damage was relatively minor. Coincidentally, Charley arrived as Cuban leader Fidel Castro marked his 78th birthday.
We have correspondents deployed along the hurricane's projected path from Key West to Tampa. We will, of course, bring you the very latest developments as they occur throughout the day and beyond.
Just a short time ago, for instance, Ted Scouten of our affiliate WFOR filed this report as Charley whipped past Key West earlier this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED SCOUTEN, WFOR (voice-over): At the southern most point, waves crashed out of the ocean, hitting anyone standing too close. It's a powerful sight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty crazy. I've never seen anything like this where. Never seen the waves come over the wall like that before.
SCOUTEN: Down the street, debris crashed out of the water, carried by angry waves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had some winds pushing 60 miles an hour. We've got a lot of breakers coming over our sea wall. We have a heliport out in the back. And the waves are breaking. They're probably seven to eight feet waves, and they're coming right over our sea wall.
SCOUTEN: On the street, flooding. In most cases, you can't really tell where the ocean ends and the road begins.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: If Charley stays on track, it will be the first hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in some 80 years. Our meteorologist, Chad Myers, is in Tampa. There's little hint right now of what is on the way -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Daryn, no hint at all. The wind is absolutely still. There's flags behind me. They're absolutely straight down.
No wind at all, but the problem here is now we are starting to see the influx of some darker clouds coming in from the south and from the southwest. In fact, we even had sunshine about two hours ago.
The big story here is storm surge. Been using that term a lot all morning long. It's when a bubble of water -- think of a hurricane as a vacuum cleaner and it sucks all the water in. You've got a little bubble of water here just under the storm.
When that storm travels over Tampa Bay, if it does, it will take that bubble and push it up the river, almost like taking water and put it down -- putting it down a canyon. The canyon is so steep that the water goes up.
Well, this isn't a canyon, but certainly the rivers go up. And we're right here, at four feet above sea level here in parts of Tampa.
Now, the problem is we don't know whether the storm has actually turn to the right a little bit, or has it stayed on course? There are about three or four radar frames that I was watching where the storm made a little bit of a wiggle toward the coast, toward Fort Myers. And that would actually make us on the backside and take us out of a lot of the storm surge here in Tampa.
And the person who knows better than that, because he's been watching the last 10 frames of this radar, is Rob Marciano. And he'll have more for you from the weather center -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Chad, we're going to get to Rob in just a minute, but I want to ask you, I think that was an interesting fact that a major storm like this has not hit the Tampa area in over 80 years.
MYERS: True, yes.
KAGAN: So, is that making it more or less difficult to get people to take this seriously?
MYERS: You know, you can't even say that old timers remember that. I mean, even if you're 85, do you remember a hurricane when you were five? Daryn, no.
But everyone is taking this seriously because this has been forecast now for over five days. The media has been on it. The emergency managers have been on it. The entire area has been -- been basically been in lockdown watching television, writing down the coordinates.
I mean, this is literally -- this is almost like an election. They're writing down every little thing, did, it go left, did it go right, did it spin bigger?
And we had 600,000 people that had to get out of the lowlands or the A, B and C areas, the areas anywhere from 12 feet or lower, they had to be evacuated. In fact, we're in one of those areas, but the police have let us stay here as long as we know that we can actually climb up higher. And we can.
All of those people got out yesterday. No incidents whatsoever. All very orderly, they moved inland.
KAGAN: All right, Chad. We'll be checking back with you. You mentioned Rob Marciano. Let's go ahead and check in with Rob. He is doing the indoor job, checking the computers and the track -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Daryn.
As Chad mentioned, that wiggle, that jog, that waggle that he was concerned about, maybe moving off to the east, that would be good news for -- for Tampa. The latest advisory out of the National Hurricane Center, is to keep it on its track for the most part.
They don't have their discussion out, so I don't really know what they're thinking. But a lot of times, as Chad knows, they'll -- they'll jog and wiggle and waggle and then get back on the forecast track. And I guess that's what the National Hurricane Center is thinking.
Right now, it's well north of Key West. It is picking up steam. It is heading to the north.
Winds are still at 110 miles an hour. So, it hasn't graduated, if you will, yet to hurricane Category Three status just yet. But they do think that's it's still a possibility.
There you see that little turn, if not a little jog off to the east. We'll keep this -- these numbers aren't totally up to date, but the track for the most part is. And the timing still does bring us somewhere around Tampa, give or take a few miles, obviously, over the next several hours, probably later on -- late this afternoon and early evening.
And then, still a hurricane probably until the early hours of the morning, eventually turning into a tropical storm. And you know, does it re-emerge out in the Atlantic Ocean, or does it stay on? Either way, it's going to bring a tremendous amount of wind and rain, first, and then just rain all the way up into the D.C. area, and in through New York as well.
Yesterday, from Bonnie, we had a little tornado that fired up. Actually, a pretty big tornado for a hurricane or a tropical storm that fired up in Jacksonville. And we have now tornado watches out for the southern half of Florida. And these will moved up the coastline as we go on through time.
One other point I want to make, Daryn, is that this band of showers, not associated with the hurricane itself, is actually a cold front. And that cold front will actually kick that storm a little bit further to the north and east, as opposed to pulling it to the west.
That's why we think that it's going pretty much -- going to rake the coastline of Florida, in effect, almost everybody, Daryn, in that state, and a lot of folks up the Atlantic seaboard as well.
We'll keep you updated, of course, throughout the afternoon.
KAGAN: All right. Rob, thank you for that.
MARCIANO: You bet.
KAGAN: Much more on Hurricane Charley still ahead. About 30 minutes from now, we'll go live to the National Hurricane Center for the very latest numbers on the storm.
Charley is coming on the heels of Tropical Storm Bonnie, which caused plenty of problems. This was the scene yesterday in Jacksonville, Florida. The storm system generated a tornado as it moved through the area. No reports of injuries. The twister did flip several vehicles.
Let's move on now to California. The 7,500-acre wildfire in the Shasta Lake area is about 50 percent contained. Winds dropped off overnight, slowing the spread of the fire. At least 67 homes have been lost to the blaze, which was started by sparks from a lawnmower.
Another fire about 100 miles away from Oroville has burned about 1,000 acres. Crews hope to have that blaze fully contained later today. Our Miguel Marquez is on the scene at some of the worst fire damage around Shasta Lake.
Miguel, good morning.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're just south of Lake Shasta there, Daryn. Good morning to you.
And the lake area, we are in a place called Ravine Road. And it's called Ravine Road because, well, it's in a Ravine. It is the worst hit area or one of the worst hit areas of this fire. I can count several homes in this one area that have been damaged by the fire.
The ravine that this thing is in, the problem is it acts as a funnel, that smoke and the flames go right up this ravine. And it causes the problem that you see here, which is homes burned out. We do have a lot of homes in this area that were saved by firefighters, as they were able to get water on those homes and -- and keep them safe.
I want to bring in somebody who has hopefully a little new information for us. Captain John Bruno with the California Department of Forestry is with us here.
You guys did a burnout operation last night. I understand it was successful.
JOHN BRUNO, CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF FORESTRY: Yes, we had crews working all night last night building bulldozer lines, control lines, and then the crews fired out from the bulldozer lines to burn out the intervening fuel.
MARQUEZ: And if that plan was successful, as you hope, do you think your containment figures are going to -- what's it going to show in your containment figures today?
BRUNO: Well, definitely improved. Last night was the turning point. We were really concerned about the wind switching like they did the night before and burning into an area that's got real (ph) residential development.
And that was going to be a very difficult turn. And last night, the dozer lines were able to make good progress. A lot of aggressive firefighting went on last night to hold this fire.
MARQUEZ: My sense is, if the weather continues to cooperate with you, you'll have a hold of this fire fairly soon.
BRUNO: Yes, we should be getting near to 100 percent containment here in the next day or two from -- from the hard work of these firefighters in here. There's a lot of dead fuel from the snow kill that the north state, especially Shasta County has had this past December.
So, there's a lot of thick, dead fuel on the ground. And it's hard for the equipment to work through that. And then when it does burn, it throws a lot of sparks up, and there's a lot of spotting that can occur.
MARQUEZ: OK.
But it sounds like much of that is behind firefighters at this point. They seem to have a pretty good handle on it. They expect full containment by Sunday evening -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Miguel Marquez in Shasta, California. Thank you for that.
Getting news into CNN that Julia Child, the grand dame of U.S. cooking television shows has passed away. She was 91 years old.
Child, of course, has had a long career, going back to the early '60s, when she wrote a book called "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Of course then there was her television series that started with "The French Chef" and then all her master chef programs, igniting the fire of the love of food and cooking for Americans. And not just Americans, but people around the world.
Julia Child, 91 years old. Her publisher making an announcement that she passed away in her sleep in her home in Santa Barbara, California. More on the life and the career of Julia Child later in the program.
Now on to politics. Threatened by a sexual harassment lawsuit, New Jersey's governor has resigned. Governor Jim McGreevey with his wife by his side also revealed that he is gay and had a homosexual affair. A legal threat apparently comes from a male former aide who resigned in 2002.
Our Alina Cho is in Trenton, New Jersey with the latest on this unprecedented political bombshell.
Alina, hello.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unprecedented and bombshell is right, Daryn. In fact, Governor McGreevey is said to be spending time with his family this weekend and is expected to return here to work on Monday. We shall see if that happens.
Meanwhile, details are emerging about the man who is said to be responsible for McGreevey's resignation. His name is Golan Cipel. He is the plaintiff in a pending sexual harassment suit against McGreevey, which we understand has not yet been filed.
He is a 35-year-old Israeli citizen who worked as a homeland security adviser to McGreevey. The two apparently met in Israel in 2000. Cipel apparently resigned abruptly in 2002 after questions were raised about his qualifications.
Now, a law enforcement source tells The Associated Press that Cipel requested $5 million to quash the suit, to keep the affair private. And sources tell CNN now it is unclear whether Cipel will move forward with legal action.
At a news conference yesterday, McGreevey did not address the pending lawsuit or name Mr. Cipel. He would only say that he had grappled with his identity throughout his life, that he had been forced into what he called an acceptable reality, and admitted he had a homosexual affair.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JIM MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man which violates my bonds of matrimony. It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable. And for this, I ask the forgiveness and the grace of my wife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: He is speaking is of his current wife, Dina (ph). McGreevey is the father of two, one daughter from a previous marriage.
We should mention, of course, that McGreevey announced that he would resign effective November 15. Important to note that the head of the Republican committee here in New Jersey will be holding a news conference within the next half-hour to say, CNN has learned, that McGreevey should step down immediately.
McGreevey, again, has said he would step down effective November 15 so that another Democrat could serve out his term which ends on January of '06.
Daryn, of course, the Republicans want him to resign effective immediately so a special election can be held this November 2.
KAGAN: And Alina, we do plan on carrying that news conference live. We expect that to begin in about 15 minutes. Alina Cho in Trenton, New Jersey. Alina, thank you.
Also ahead for us, was a radical cleric injured in what could be the final assault on his Iraqi stronghold? We'll have the latest.
And we are continuing to track the path of Hurricane Charley as it brushes past the Keys on a collision course with the western Florida coast.
CNN LIVE TODAY is back with more in a moment.
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KAGAN: All right. I think we have some video coming in from Iraq. Do we have that video ready to go?
James Brandon, there he -- from Basra, actually, Basra, Iraq. This is James Brandon, a correspondent from the "Sunday Telegraph."
A big smile on his face for good reason. Reports said that he was taken hostage yesterday. You can see some bruises there on his face. He has now been released. And we'll have more on what he has to say about his interesting couple days there in Iraq. But appears to be in good spirits and relatively good shape.
Back here in the U.S., we're getting word that the grand dame of U.S. cooking shows, Julia Child, has passed away at the age of 91. She basically started the big craze over cooking shows and set Americans on a passion for cooking.
Sibila Vargas has more now on the life of Julia Child.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIA CHILD, CHEF: Welcome to "The French Chef." I'm Julia Child.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was the often comedic mistress of the popular cooking show, "The French Chef." And her name, Julia Child, became synonymous with good cooking. CHILD: This is the way the French cook brazed rice. And they call it risotto. And whenever they take over a recipe, they do it in their own way and they don't care how anyone else does it.
VARGAS: Born in Pasadena, California, in 1912, the six-foot-plus Smith College history major aspired to be a novelist or a basketball player. Julia McWilliams reportedly could barely boil water when in her 30s she married Paul Child.
As a worker for the Foreign Service, Paul Child was stationed in France, where he introduced his wife to French cuisine. She enrolled in cooking school and, along with two French women, collaborated in writing the book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."
CHILD: I like good, careful cooking. And I really like French cooking the best, because I think people often think of tourist cooking. But I like the good old French home cooking.
VARGAS: When Paul Child retired, the couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And when Julia appeared on a public television show in Boston, discussing her book and making an omelet, she was discovered.
Letters poured into the station, and the TV series "The French Chef" made its debut on WGBH in Boston in 1963. Through the years she continued to teach audiences how to make the perfect omelet.
CHILD: See, I have enough eggs in here to go on and on and on. And this is really -- I think it's just such fun. You can get the whole family in on the act.
VARGAS: "The French Chef" was seen for years on more than 100 public broadcasting stations. Child's work on television earned her an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award.
She also did other cooking shows, wrote several books and hundreds of magazine articles. Many still consider Child's early book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," the definitive English language book on classic French cuisine.
CHILD: So, that's all for today on "The French Chef." This is Julia child. Bon appetite.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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KAGAN: U.S. and Iraqi forces scale back their offensive against fighters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr today, a day after raiding his home. Iraqi government officials are trying to talk to insurgents into ending their fight at Najaf. The talks come hours after al- Sadr's spokesman says the fiery cleric was hit in the chest by shrapnel. The injuries are not thought to be serious.
Our Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, is visiting our Atlanta headquarters this week. A good time to talk with her about what is taking place in Iraq. Good morning. Good to have you back here.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning, Daryn. Thanks so much.
KAGAN: I do have to say, for our viewers, we're standing by for a totally different story in New Jersey. We're expecting the Republican leaders to hold a news conference talking about the sudden resignation of that governor. So, when that happens we'll go live to New Jersey. But because this is CNN, we handle more than one story.
ARRAF: We can juggle.
KAGAN: We can do that. And we can talk about Iraq. I thought it was interesting that they are having these talks, or trying to have talks with Sadr's people. Wasn't it just a few days ago that the leader of the country, Ayad Allawi, was saying there will be no talks, there will be no negotiations?
ARRAF: They both put up very tough positions. I mean, we've heard Allawi before, but this is probably in a very bad situation the best possible scenario if they do start to talk.
Otherwise, you risk creating a martyr of Muqtada al-Sadr. You risk possibly doing damage to the holy places and creating just a situation that maybe would spiral out of control.
KAGAN: You talked about turning Sadr into a martyr. We're getting the word through his people that he's been injured in a minor way. But you do walk that fine line. You want him to go away, and yet if you -- if you hurt him, if you kill him, if you prop him up like that, you're going to turn him into a martyr and just make him more popular.
ARRAF: It's extremely difficult. This is probably a man who is not going to go away, no matter how much people wish him away.
If he doesn't remain a militia leader, he remains a political force. And that's one thing that people are really worried about, that even if he were gone, his spirit, and what he stands for is still there, which is something that answers to a lot of disaffected, angry young men with no hope and no jobs, then that's really got to be addressed, according to a lot of Iraqis.
KAGAN: And one of the reasons we're seeing some of the fighting spread, most recently into Kut, into that area, but wasn't this the same town that just a few months ago, when Sadr tried to spread his cause there, the locals basically ran him out of town. They didn't want that taking place. They wanted to get back to their regular lives.
ARRAF: And that happened in quite a lot of places. The problem is, the locals don't really have the power or the arms.
And I was with the U.S. Army in Kut when they went and retook it after that first uprising. And what we saw there were police and the National Guard, now Iraqi National Guard, who basically laid down their arms or took their weapons and joined the Mehdi Army. And that's been a real problem in all sorts of these cities. It's been perhaps the essential problem there.
KAGAN: We were looking at a live picture just a few minutes ago of the journalist, James Brandon, who was just recently released. He had been taken in Basra. He works for the "Sunday Telegraph."
You were telling him during the commercial you don't know him personally, but on a personal note, I just have to ask, when you're out there, doing your work, reporting for CNN, is that a concern of yours? He's not the first journalist that's been taken hostage.
ARRAF: He's not. But he is remarkably lucky, as are the others.
And I think we have to point out that, so far, journalists have not been targeted for hostage-takings. There seems to be an interesting dynamic there, where the people doing this realize that this would not have any effect whatsoever, the horrible things they're doing with the hostage-takings, if the media weren't there. And in a couple of instances, when they have determined these people are journalists and not spies, they have let them go.
KAGAN: Kind of spit you out when they realize what they have.
ARRAF: Yes.
KAGAN: All right. Well, when you do go back, you be safe.
ARRAF: Thank you.
KAGAN: All right. Jane Arraf, our Baghdad bureau chief. Always nice to visit with you in person and overseas as well.
ARRAF: Absolutely. Thanks.
KAGAN: We're going to talk about what's happening here in the U.S. Hurricane Charley bearing down on Florida's west coast. The people living there are battling down the hatches, as we like to say, with these stories getting out of the way. We're live from a Florida storm shelter coming up next.
We're also awaiting the start of a news conference from New Jersey, from Republicans there in response to yesterday's startling announcement from Governor Jim McGreevey.
Stay with us.
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