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CNN Live At Daybreak

Eye on Frances; Aftermath; Clinton's Bypass; The Fury of Frances

Aired September 06, 2004 - 05:29   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.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Battered and bruised, Florida's fight with Frances moves into a second round today.
It's Monday, September 6, and this is DAYBREAK.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the second half hour of DAYBREAK from CNN's headquarters here in Atlanta.

I'm Catherine Callaway.

Thanks for being with us this morning.

In the news this half hour, tropical storm Frances has its sights set on the Florida Panhandle as its eye churns over the Gulf of Mexico this morning. Frances has been battering southern Florida after coming ashore as a hurricane over the weekend. It's expected to hit the panhandle tonight. It could become a hurricane again before then.

More details on former President Bill Clinton's upcoming heart bypass surgery. Sources say it's scheduled for this morning in New York, but it could be put off if blood thinning medicine he has received hasn't taken full effect.

Turning overseas to the first of many, the first funerals have been held in the Russian town where terrorists seized a school. The siege left more than 300 people dead, many of them children.

Back home, Jerry Lewis is paying tribute to a friend. His Labor Day telethon this year is dedicated to Mattie Stepanek who died at the age of 13. Stepanek was the Good Will Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Now let's get the latest this morning on Frances, and we have Rob Marciano keeping track up in the Weather Center here in Atlanta. We also have Chad Myers continuing his watch in Melbourne, Florida.

But, Rob, let's get an update first with Frances heading now to the Panhandle.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Winds of 65 miles an hour, so that's good news. It's not the category four that it was several days ago, nor is it the category two storm that made landfall just a day and a half ago on the eastern side of Florida. Here is Tampa and here is pretty much the center of Tropical Storm Frances. To the north of that we've got this red box out, and it seems it's pretty much ongoing with this thing. Northern quadrant of these storms typically will have small tornadoes that will pop up from time to time.

But now Panama City, Apalachicola, those seem to be the areas that will be the target for the second landfall of what could be again Hurricane Frances, but right now it's a tropical storm with winds of 65 miles an hour. Its movement is to the west-northwest at 10. But we do think it will probably strengthen to hurricane status because the waters over the Gulf of Mexico are 80, 85 degrees or better. So that is some good fuel for the fire.

Mentioned Ivan, this is our next hurricane. It is a major hurricane but it is way out there. It will be heading into the Caribbean over the next couple of days and then we'll watch it further after that. It's much smaller than Frances. Frances, as you know, Catherine, the main story with this one was not so much its sheer strength but its size and the fact that it moved so slowly. And the fact that Chad Myers has been putting in the overtime down there in Florida with the rest of our CNN crew, so.

CALLAWAY: Yes, thank you, Rob. I think Chad knows all too well about how slow moving that storm was and he was with us all night long...

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

CALLAWAY: ... on Saturday night as it just took forever to come ashore and then still. You still feeling the effects there? Has it stopped raining yet -- Chad?

MYERS: Finally stopped raining, although there is still lightning offshore here. It will take a little bit of daylight before we actually see how much damage is up and down the shore. But for a time the moon was out this morning and it was so nice. The wind is nice. It's kind of a breeze, not that strong, just blowing constant.

You know no one loves the sea more than I do, but at this point I'm tired of it. I'm just tired of the wind. I'm tired of the salt spray, the wind. It's just everything just gets everywhere. All of the palm fronds are blowing around. Really nothing has even settled down yet this morning.

As we were driving, things were still blowing across the roadways. And you know I guess that's why people love the tropics, because it is tropical climate, but sometimes you just have to deal with things like this because everybody -- I mean California has earthquakes, the midwest has tornadoes and everybody has something to deal with once in a while -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Yes, but we've got, what, five million people out of power there, people aren't even home yet?

MYERS: Yes. CALLAWAY: I mean this is far from over -- Chad.

MYERS: I'll tell you what, you can't fathom what power means to you until you are out of it for three days. And your brain doesn't get it. Because even though you know you're out of power and you just checked the switch in your bedroom, you walk over to the bathroom and you think it's going to go on. You flip that one, not because you're checking it, just because it's a normal response to turn the light on.

And then I turned the water on last night, when we still had water, and I let it run hoping I'd get hot water. And I'm thinking, well, of course it's an electric water heater, there's no hot water. And your brain doesn't get it until maybe days and days and days later, but you're just so used to having power it's so ironic to not have it and it's so weird to not have it.

CALLAWAY: Yes, all right. We'll be back with you in just a little bit later, Chad, thanks.

MYERS: All right.

CALLAWAY: And cleaning up after Frances is going to take a long time. As we said, central Florida's east coast felt that full force of the storm. The area was battered for 30 straight hours with heavy wind and rain.

And now CNN's Sean Callebs takes a look at some of the communities that were in the path of Frances.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was supposed to have been even worse but don't tell that to some resident of eastern Florida. Fires in Tampa, homes destroyed all along the coast. By mid afternoon, power out for a million and a half customers across the state. And five counties reeling from what President Bush officially labeled major disaster areas.

CRAIG FUGATE, DIR., FLORIDA EMERGENCY MGT.: Do we have reports of damages? The answer is yes, we do have damages. If you want to know the extent and magnitude all I can tell you is the storm is still making landfall or has made landfall but we still have hurricane-force winds impacting many areas so initials reports are very spotty. We're now starting to get, again, the areas of major impact, we're starting to see reports come in and that will develop throughout the day.

CALLEBS: In Vero Beach, some residents tried to return despite warnings from state officials not to do so only to find streets flooded and homes destroyed.

IN Melbourne, mobile homes flattened, many left homeless but no one seriously injured.

MAYOR JOHN BUCKLEY, MELBOURNE, FLORIDA: They're much more prepared this time because of Hurricane Charley. That made believers out of just about everybody, I think. CALLEBS: In Fort Pierce, boats at this marina crushed, local storefronts ruined and families still in hotels not yet able to go home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Surviving, getting by, waiting for the storm to go away.

CALLEBS: Police and firefighters were out in full force across the state helping to keep the peace, enforce curfews, and crack down on the few looters trying to take advantage of the disaster.

Not all areas were hit as hard. In West Palm Beach, despite 30 hours of continuous rain, no major injuries and relatively little serious damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're very fortunate. I hope the ones -- the people who live north of us are as fortunate as we. have no structural damage. We lost a few shingles.

CALLEBS: Palm Beach County emergency officials are crediting their relative good fortune in part to luck. The full fury of Frances barely skirted this county and moved north. But these same officials also credit good planning and the fact that so many Floridians heeded the mandatory evacuation warnings.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: We have some breaking news to report this morning, but we have reports from the U.S. military that a car bomb has exploded in Fallujah. This from the military saying that there have been several U.S. casualties. Not immediately clear if the casualties included deaths, however.

Of course Fallujah is just west of Baghdad. That is a militant stronghold there in Iraq. Once again, a car bomb explosion in the Fallujah area has caused several U.S. casualties. CNN is on top of this story and we will bring you the details as they become available.

Stay with us everyone. Still to come this morning, we will get some perspective on the war on terror halfway around the globe in southern Russia. It is not always easy getting the story, but our senior international editor David Clinch will talk about the difficulties in covering last week's tragic hostage situation.

Also coming up, as former President Clinton prepares for heart bypass surgery, are you aware of what's involved? Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will bring up a crash course for us.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this September 6 morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: A breaking story we are reporting to you this morning about a car bomb in Fallujah. We have our senior international editor David Clinch with us.

What's the latest on that?

DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes, good morning.

Very early reports at this point of a car bomb in the Fallujah area. We've been paying a lot of attention over the last few weeks to Najaf and the Shiite insurgency over there. Calm at the moment in some of those areas.

But in Fallujah, the Sunni town report at this point of a car bomb with U.S. casualties. There are some unconfirmed reports of U.S. deaths. U.S. Marines, for the most part, in that area. We're working to confirm that.

And watching very closely just on the death toll. We were at the beginning of the day at 986 U.S. dead in this war since the very beginning. So that toll getting very close to that figure of 1,000. So watching very closely in Fallujah today working to confirm that.

CALLAWAY: Other story I know you guys are really watching is this story in Russia.

CLINCH: Yes.

CALLAWAY: Difficult to cover that story, wasn't it?

CLINCH: Well difficult logistically getting down there from Moscow, bringing satellite dishes, all of those things. But really, at this point, as I think with everybody, with the audience and for us of course as well, the emotion related to this story is a factor. It's a factor for us here in Atlanta, is it's certainly a factor for our reporters on the ground, the horrific scenes of the children dead and those who survived. The mourning in that city today continuing, hundreds more are being buried.

CALLAWAY: And Russian and Israeli officials meeting to discuss this now.

CLINCH: Well this is the thing, I mean we're watching children being buried, we're reporting on the emotional effect in Beslan itself, but there are other aspects of the story which we have to pull ourselves back and report on, the pressure on President Putin.

But as you say, also an interesting, but also awkward, offer of help from Israel. Israel saying to the Russians, the foreign minister is visiting Jerusalem today, saying we're the experts in fighting terror, we'll help you. We've even trained in hostage taking situations at schools. We can help you.

CALLAWAY: And President Putin has said, you know, they could use some help in fighting terror.

CLINCH: They have said they could need some help. And in some ways that's very straightforward. But of course in getting help from Israel, you play into that image that the fundamentalist Muslim who are doing these attacks have that Russia and the U.S. are all hand-in- glove with Israel. So it's a kind of an awkward situation. We'll look at that story in Jerusalem today.

And in Moscow looking at the difficulty that Russians faced, not dissimilar from the problem Americans faced after September the 11th.

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Who is the enemy?

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: And how do you fight them? These small radical groups, who are prepared to do things like this, it's very, very difficult to understand them and even more difficult to fight them.

CALLAWAY: And I think we all know it can all happen anywhere.

And quickly, let's talk about Ivan. We've got another storm out there.

CLINCH: Well, yes, we had decisions to make a week or more ago about getting troops out into, our own reporters out into the Caribbean to cover Frances. Now we're trying to make a decision about where to base ourselves to cover Ivan. We may try and put some people out on these outer islands to cover them as it might perhaps reach category five. Or we might just wait in the Bahamas where we are.

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Because it's going to end up there. That's what the map says at the moment.

CALLAWAY: We'll get more from Rob on them. And I asked him earlier, have you ever seen a storm this strong, you know, dissipate to become really nothing? And he said no.

CLINCH: Doesn't look that way.

CALLAWAY: Doesn't look good.

All right. Thank you, David, see you a little bit later.

CLINCH: OK.

CALLAWAY: This is David Clinch.

Your news, money, weather and sports now. It's about 43 minutes after the hour now and here's what's happening this morning.

Frances now over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is not finished yet, though. It appears headed for that state's Panhandle now.

And then, as we said, Hurricane Ivan could follow the path of Frances. Ivan right now a category four hurricane. It is churning in the Atlantic.

It's not a hurricane in China, but the weather is deadly there. Days of torrential rains have killed 76 people. Flashfloods and landslides have swamped entire villages. They have ruined some farmland there and caved in roads. Look at that, amazing.

In money, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Investors will be listening for some clues on future interest rate hikes. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by another quarter point later this month.

In culture, the Burning Man Festival attracted a record crowd this year. Over 35,000 people headed to the Nevada desert for the 19th Annual Counter Cultural Festival of Art and Flame.

And in sports, the Packers decided to move the Couch. Green Bay made quarterback Tim Couch one of the final cuts before the regular season begins this week. He was the first overall pick in 1999 by the Cleveland Browns.

In weather, let's turn to Rob for the latest on that.

MARCIANO: Hey, Catherine, here you go.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CALLAWAY: All right, Rob, thanks.

President Clinton's heart surgery scheduled to begin in just a few hours. CNN has learned that it could be a quadruple bypass, but doctors may delay the surgery if they don't think that the former president is ready.

And for more on President Clinton's condition and the operation itself, we turn to our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta who is in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We're here outside New York Presbyterian Hospital. In just a couple of hours, President Bill Clinton, former president, is scheduled to undergo surgery to bypass diseased vessels in his heart. He's been in the hospital since Friday on the McKean (ph) Suite, the McKean Pavilion, a special wing of the hospital where he and his family have been residing since Friday.

Now the operation that he is scheduled to undergo is actually called CABG, which stands for coronary artery bypass grafting. Take a look at this animation. What you're seeing here is blood going through a blood vessel. What happens is sometimes these blood vessels get clogged up from fatty plaque, which accumulates over the years. The operation actually involves opening the chest and taking some blood vessel from the leg, some artery from inside the chest wall and actually performing the bypass procedures.

The traditional operation does involve first stopping the heart and then restarting the heart at the end of the operation. He may have something known as a keyhole operation where they actually do the same operation using endoscopes.

Either way, the odds are very much in President Clinton's favor. The complication rate for a young, relatively young man, like the president, with no previous history of diabetes or stroke, probably going to be less than 1 percent. The operation should take about four to five hours, and we'll certainly keep you posted throughout the day.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, outside New York Presbyterian Hospital.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: And there is even more on the president's procedure just a click away. CNN.com has an in-depth look at bypass surgery and the tests that President Clinton says saved his life. So just log on to CNN.com and get educated on it.

Other "Health Headlines" this morning.

Thinking about that second cup of coffee? I know I am. You may want to think twice about that, though. Research suggests that people with a history of kidney stones should limit caffeine intake. A dose of caffeine equal to just two cups of coffee could up the risk of stones forming. Yikes!

There might be some new hope for some Parkinson's patients. Italian researchers say that an experimental drug seems to improve movement in people with early stages of that disease. The drug is called Sophinimide (ph). It's designed to protect the nerves.

Finally, it's been used to treat millions of dogs and now the heart worm drug ProHeart 6 has been recalled. The government says that thousands of dogs who took the drug suffered health problems. It was the only drug approved to be given twice a year to treat heart worms in dogs.

Stay with us, everyone. When we come back, covering Frances. It is risky business, as you can see. We'll hear that from our reporters in the midst of that storm. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: We wrap up this hour with a look at the fury of Frances as seen through the eyes of CNN affiliates posted all along the battered Florida coast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL MCGINTY, TV REPORTER: We're roughly 30 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center. When we first came over the causeway, we couldn't help but notice some of the boats, sailboats sunk up against the causeway. When we finally got out onto the island, we saw lots of damage, broken windows in condominiums, carports that were torn up, twisted and torn away, traffic lights that were dangling, some at windshield level. Police are out here patrolling on the island, trying to prevent people from coming out here. Most of what they are trying to prevent is injuries to people, but also looting. This morning, very early this morning, a lot of traffic lights down. Once again, gas stations taking the brunt of this storm, the overhangs being completely torn away. And if these winds continue to gust and blow like this, some at tropical storm or even hurricane strength, it may be Monday, possibly even Tuesday, before people get out here to really survey the damage of Hurricane Frances.

DEREK HAYWOOD, TV REPORTER: Here just a little way away in Palm Beach Gardens you've got lots of debris like that blocking some of the roads. There's a huge sign down across the street there. The top of that office building looks like it took a little bit of a wallop. And then there's an awful lot of this. Traffic lights in total disarray. The traffic lights all out. And then in addition to that, you've got these cables dangling. Some downed traffic lights in the street.

This is the worst, the most dangerous part of it is trees down as well as I mentioned. I think you can see that one over there. Before daybreak, this was incredibly dangerous for anybody trying to move around here. But with the light of day, it looks like they'll be able to get on with this and get some of this cleared up. And people here may find out they were pretty lucky after all.

LOUIS BOLDEN, TV REPORTER: Take a look at what we have here, a huge tree down in the middle of the street, totally blocking the northbound lane. But this gentleman in this pickup truck here is really going to work. He has actually hooked up a chain to the back of his truck. Burning rubber there. He has pulled it already a little bit out of the street here, but still has that chain hooked up to his pickup truck. He's trying to pull it out of the way. And remember a police officer actually came by here a minute ago, saw him doing this, gave him the thumbs up to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're ducking in and out of neighborhoods in the Conway area of Orange County. And this particular cul de sac doesn't look too bad, a lot of debris all over the place, but I'm not seeing any trees down. You remember that when Charley raced through this area three weeks ago, power poles were knocked down, transformers were smashed, so Conway was in the dark for over a week in some spots. And with Frances, here we go again.

We don't know if this line is hot, so we're going to stay away from it, but this power line knocked down and homes on this block are all out right now. It appears though there's far less serious damage of the transformers and power poles, at least in these neighborhoods over here.

And Progress Energy is telling me that they are going to have people in the field tomorrow to do a complete assessment. They can't say how long the power might be out, but of course they say they are going to do their best to get it on as quickly as possible. But at least for last night and tonight again folks in this neighborhood are in the dark. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're still getting these gusts of wind. I would estimate maybe about 60 miles an hour back and forth, back and forth. We're getting these pounding rains. And we haven't seen any traffic on the road at all, and that's a good thing. We've seen a few police officers in the last hour.

But you can see the standing water here on the ground right next to me. And why it's not a good idea to actually go and put your foot or anything else in this water right here is because we don't know if any power lines may be down along the way. And of course that could mean that if someone should touch that water, they could get electrocuted. That's just one of the many dangers we have here.

We can show you one more thing, that motel, that roof is still in the middle of the road. They don't dare come clean it out now. And the reason is because with these heavy winds, pieces actually swirl around and can hit you. We had one blow around our way, but it missed us. And we can tell you this is what we've been dealing with all day for more than nine hours. And just imagine getting pelted by this rain and this wind for nine hours. It's a wonder that a lot of these things are still standing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: That is just a little bit of the coverage of Hurricane Frances from some of our affiliates in Florida. And coming up in the next hour, we'll show you a bit of our coverage from CNN correspondents.

Stay with us, everyone. Here is what's also coming up new at 6:00.

Another huge hurricane churning in the Atlantic. Is Hurricane Ivan going to be Ivan the Terrible? We'll track both Frances and Ivan for you.

Also, mourning those massacred in Russia. We're going to take you to the home of one family who lost two daughters in the tragedy, grief that no parent can image or should have to endure. You're looking now at live pictures of the funerals that have begun there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired September 6, 2004 - 05:29   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Battered and bruised, Florida's fight with Frances moves into a second round today.
It's Monday, September 6, and this is DAYBREAK.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the second half hour of DAYBREAK from CNN's headquarters here in Atlanta.

I'm Catherine Callaway.

Thanks for being with us this morning.

In the news this half hour, tropical storm Frances has its sights set on the Florida Panhandle as its eye churns over the Gulf of Mexico this morning. Frances has been battering southern Florida after coming ashore as a hurricane over the weekend. It's expected to hit the panhandle tonight. It could become a hurricane again before then.

More details on former President Bill Clinton's upcoming heart bypass surgery. Sources say it's scheduled for this morning in New York, but it could be put off if blood thinning medicine he has received hasn't taken full effect.

Turning overseas to the first of many, the first funerals have been held in the Russian town where terrorists seized a school. The siege left more than 300 people dead, many of them children.

Back home, Jerry Lewis is paying tribute to a friend. His Labor Day telethon this year is dedicated to Mattie Stepanek who died at the age of 13. Stepanek was the Good Will Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Now let's get the latest this morning on Frances, and we have Rob Marciano keeping track up in the Weather Center here in Atlanta. We also have Chad Myers continuing his watch in Melbourne, Florida.

But, Rob, let's get an update first with Frances heading now to the Panhandle.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Winds of 65 miles an hour, so that's good news. It's not the category four that it was several days ago, nor is it the category two storm that made landfall just a day and a half ago on the eastern side of Florida. Here is Tampa and here is pretty much the center of Tropical Storm Frances. To the north of that we've got this red box out, and it seems it's pretty much ongoing with this thing. Northern quadrant of these storms typically will have small tornadoes that will pop up from time to time.

But now Panama City, Apalachicola, those seem to be the areas that will be the target for the second landfall of what could be again Hurricane Frances, but right now it's a tropical storm with winds of 65 miles an hour. Its movement is to the west-northwest at 10. But we do think it will probably strengthen to hurricane status because the waters over the Gulf of Mexico are 80, 85 degrees or better. So that is some good fuel for the fire.

Mentioned Ivan, this is our next hurricane. It is a major hurricane but it is way out there. It will be heading into the Caribbean over the next couple of days and then we'll watch it further after that. It's much smaller than Frances. Frances, as you know, Catherine, the main story with this one was not so much its sheer strength but its size and the fact that it moved so slowly. And the fact that Chad Myers has been putting in the overtime down there in Florida with the rest of our CNN crew, so.

CALLAWAY: Yes, thank you, Rob. I think Chad knows all too well about how slow moving that storm was and he was with us all night long...

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

CALLAWAY: ... on Saturday night as it just took forever to come ashore and then still. You still feeling the effects there? Has it stopped raining yet -- Chad?

MYERS: Finally stopped raining, although there is still lightning offshore here. It will take a little bit of daylight before we actually see how much damage is up and down the shore. But for a time the moon was out this morning and it was so nice. The wind is nice. It's kind of a breeze, not that strong, just blowing constant.

You know no one loves the sea more than I do, but at this point I'm tired of it. I'm just tired of the wind. I'm tired of the salt spray, the wind. It's just everything just gets everywhere. All of the palm fronds are blowing around. Really nothing has even settled down yet this morning.

As we were driving, things were still blowing across the roadways. And you know I guess that's why people love the tropics, because it is tropical climate, but sometimes you just have to deal with things like this because everybody -- I mean California has earthquakes, the midwest has tornadoes and everybody has something to deal with once in a while -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Yes, but we've got, what, five million people out of power there, people aren't even home yet?

MYERS: Yes. CALLAWAY: I mean this is far from over -- Chad.

MYERS: I'll tell you what, you can't fathom what power means to you until you are out of it for three days. And your brain doesn't get it. Because even though you know you're out of power and you just checked the switch in your bedroom, you walk over to the bathroom and you think it's going to go on. You flip that one, not because you're checking it, just because it's a normal response to turn the light on.

And then I turned the water on last night, when we still had water, and I let it run hoping I'd get hot water. And I'm thinking, well, of course it's an electric water heater, there's no hot water. And your brain doesn't get it until maybe days and days and days later, but you're just so used to having power it's so ironic to not have it and it's so weird to not have it.

CALLAWAY: Yes, all right. We'll be back with you in just a little bit later, Chad, thanks.

MYERS: All right.

CALLAWAY: And cleaning up after Frances is going to take a long time. As we said, central Florida's east coast felt that full force of the storm. The area was battered for 30 straight hours with heavy wind and rain.

And now CNN's Sean Callebs takes a look at some of the communities that were in the path of Frances.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was supposed to have been even worse but don't tell that to some resident of eastern Florida. Fires in Tampa, homes destroyed all along the coast. By mid afternoon, power out for a million and a half customers across the state. And five counties reeling from what President Bush officially labeled major disaster areas.

CRAIG FUGATE, DIR., FLORIDA EMERGENCY MGT.: Do we have reports of damages? The answer is yes, we do have damages. If you want to know the extent and magnitude all I can tell you is the storm is still making landfall or has made landfall but we still have hurricane-force winds impacting many areas so initials reports are very spotty. We're now starting to get, again, the areas of major impact, we're starting to see reports come in and that will develop throughout the day.

CALLEBS: In Vero Beach, some residents tried to return despite warnings from state officials not to do so only to find streets flooded and homes destroyed.

IN Melbourne, mobile homes flattened, many left homeless but no one seriously injured.

MAYOR JOHN BUCKLEY, MELBOURNE, FLORIDA: They're much more prepared this time because of Hurricane Charley. That made believers out of just about everybody, I think. CALLEBS: In Fort Pierce, boats at this marina crushed, local storefronts ruined and families still in hotels not yet able to go home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Surviving, getting by, waiting for the storm to go away.

CALLEBS: Police and firefighters were out in full force across the state helping to keep the peace, enforce curfews, and crack down on the few looters trying to take advantage of the disaster.

Not all areas were hit as hard. In West Palm Beach, despite 30 hours of continuous rain, no major injuries and relatively little serious damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're very fortunate. I hope the ones -- the people who live north of us are as fortunate as we. have no structural damage. We lost a few shingles.

CALLEBS: Palm Beach County emergency officials are crediting their relative good fortune in part to luck. The full fury of Frances barely skirted this county and moved north. But these same officials also credit good planning and the fact that so many Floridians heeded the mandatory evacuation warnings.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: We have some breaking news to report this morning, but we have reports from the U.S. military that a car bomb has exploded in Fallujah. This from the military saying that there have been several U.S. casualties. Not immediately clear if the casualties included deaths, however.

Of course Fallujah is just west of Baghdad. That is a militant stronghold there in Iraq. Once again, a car bomb explosion in the Fallujah area has caused several U.S. casualties. CNN is on top of this story and we will bring you the details as they become available.

Stay with us everyone. Still to come this morning, we will get some perspective on the war on terror halfway around the globe in southern Russia. It is not always easy getting the story, but our senior international editor David Clinch will talk about the difficulties in covering last week's tragic hostage situation.

Also coming up, as former President Clinton prepares for heart bypass surgery, are you aware of what's involved? Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will bring up a crash course for us.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this September 6 morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: A breaking story we are reporting to you this morning about a car bomb in Fallujah. We have our senior international editor David Clinch with us.

What's the latest on that?

DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes, good morning.

Very early reports at this point of a car bomb in the Fallujah area. We've been paying a lot of attention over the last few weeks to Najaf and the Shiite insurgency over there. Calm at the moment in some of those areas.

But in Fallujah, the Sunni town report at this point of a car bomb with U.S. casualties. There are some unconfirmed reports of U.S. deaths. U.S. Marines, for the most part, in that area. We're working to confirm that.

And watching very closely just on the death toll. We were at the beginning of the day at 986 U.S. dead in this war since the very beginning. So that toll getting very close to that figure of 1,000. So watching very closely in Fallujah today working to confirm that.

CALLAWAY: Other story I know you guys are really watching is this story in Russia.

CLINCH: Yes.

CALLAWAY: Difficult to cover that story, wasn't it?

CLINCH: Well difficult logistically getting down there from Moscow, bringing satellite dishes, all of those things. But really, at this point, as I think with everybody, with the audience and for us of course as well, the emotion related to this story is a factor. It's a factor for us here in Atlanta, is it's certainly a factor for our reporters on the ground, the horrific scenes of the children dead and those who survived. The mourning in that city today continuing, hundreds more are being buried.

CALLAWAY: And Russian and Israeli officials meeting to discuss this now.

CLINCH: Well this is the thing, I mean we're watching children being buried, we're reporting on the emotional effect in Beslan itself, but there are other aspects of the story which we have to pull ourselves back and report on, the pressure on President Putin.

But as you say, also an interesting, but also awkward, offer of help from Israel. Israel saying to the Russians, the foreign minister is visiting Jerusalem today, saying we're the experts in fighting terror, we'll help you. We've even trained in hostage taking situations at schools. We can help you.

CALLAWAY: And President Putin has said, you know, they could use some help in fighting terror.

CLINCH: They have said they could need some help. And in some ways that's very straightforward. But of course in getting help from Israel, you play into that image that the fundamentalist Muslim who are doing these attacks have that Russia and the U.S. are all hand-in- glove with Israel. So it's a kind of an awkward situation. We'll look at that story in Jerusalem today.

And in Moscow looking at the difficulty that Russians faced, not dissimilar from the problem Americans faced after September the 11th.

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Who is the enemy?

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: And how do you fight them? These small radical groups, who are prepared to do things like this, it's very, very difficult to understand them and even more difficult to fight them.

CALLAWAY: And I think we all know it can all happen anywhere.

And quickly, let's talk about Ivan. We've got another storm out there.

CLINCH: Well, yes, we had decisions to make a week or more ago about getting troops out into, our own reporters out into the Caribbean to cover Frances. Now we're trying to make a decision about where to base ourselves to cover Ivan. We may try and put some people out on these outer islands to cover them as it might perhaps reach category five. Or we might just wait in the Bahamas where we are.

CALLAWAY: Right.

CLINCH: Because it's going to end up there. That's what the map says at the moment.

CALLAWAY: We'll get more from Rob on them. And I asked him earlier, have you ever seen a storm this strong, you know, dissipate to become really nothing? And he said no.

CLINCH: Doesn't look that way.

CALLAWAY: Doesn't look good.

All right. Thank you, David, see you a little bit later.

CLINCH: OK.

CALLAWAY: This is David Clinch.

Your news, money, weather and sports now. It's about 43 minutes after the hour now and here's what's happening this morning.

Frances now over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is not finished yet, though. It appears headed for that state's Panhandle now.

And then, as we said, Hurricane Ivan could follow the path of Frances. Ivan right now a category four hurricane. It is churning in the Atlantic.

It's not a hurricane in China, but the weather is deadly there. Days of torrential rains have killed 76 people. Flashfloods and landslides have swamped entire villages. They have ruined some farmland there and caved in roads. Look at that, amazing.

In money, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Investors will be listening for some clues on future interest rate hikes. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by another quarter point later this month.

In culture, the Burning Man Festival attracted a record crowd this year. Over 35,000 people headed to the Nevada desert for the 19th Annual Counter Cultural Festival of Art and Flame.

And in sports, the Packers decided to move the Couch. Green Bay made quarterback Tim Couch one of the final cuts before the regular season begins this week. He was the first overall pick in 1999 by the Cleveland Browns.

In weather, let's turn to Rob for the latest on that.

MARCIANO: Hey, Catherine, here you go.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CALLAWAY: All right, Rob, thanks.

President Clinton's heart surgery scheduled to begin in just a few hours. CNN has learned that it could be a quadruple bypass, but doctors may delay the surgery if they don't think that the former president is ready.

And for more on President Clinton's condition and the operation itself, we turn to our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta who is in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We're here outside New York Presbyterian Hospital. In just a couple of hours, President Bill Clinton, former president, is scheduled to undergo surgery to bypass diseased vessels in his heart. He's been in the hospital since Friday on the McKean (ph) Suite, the McKean Pavilion, a special wing of the hospital where he and his family have been residing since Friday.

Now the operation that he is scheduled to undergo is actually called CABG, which stands for coronary artery bypass grafting. Take a look at this animation. What you're seeing here is blood going through a blood vessel. What happens is sometimes these blood vessels get clogged up from fatty plaque, which accumulates over the years. The operation actually involves opening the chest and taking some blood vessel from the leg, some artery from inside the chest wall and actually performing the bypass procedures.

The traditional operation does involve first stopping the heart and then restarting the heart at the end of the operation. He may have something known as a keyhole operation where they actually do the same operation using endoscopes.

Either way, the odds are very much in President Clinton's favor. The complication rate for a young, relatively young man, like the president, with no previous history of diabetes or stroke, probably going to be less than 1 percent. The operation should take about four to five hours, and we'll certainly keep you posted throughout the day.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, outside New York Presbyterian Hospital.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: And there is even more on the president's procedure just a click away. CNN.com has an in-depth look at bypass surgery and the tests that President Clinton says saved his life. So just log on to CNN.com and get educated on it.

Other "Health Headlines" this morning.

Thinking about that second cup of coffee? I know I am. You may want to think twice about that, though. Research suggests that people with a history of kidney stones should limit caffeine intake. A dose of caffeine equal to just two cups of coffee could up the risk of stones forming. Yikes!

There might be some new hope for some Parkinson's patients. Italian researchers say that an experimental drug seems to improve movement in people with early stages of that disease. The drug is called Sophinimide (ph). It's designed to protect the nerves.

Finally, it's been used to treat millions of dogs and now the heart worm drug ProHeart 6 has been recalled. The government says that thousands of dogs who took the drug suffered health problems. It was the only drug approved to be given twice a year to treat heart worms in dogs.

Stay with us, everyone. When we come back, covering Frances. It is risky business, as you can see. We'll hear that from our reporters in the midst of that storm. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: We wrap up this hour with a look at the fury of Frances as seen through the eyes of CNN affiliates posted all along the battered Florida coast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL MCGINTY, TV REPORTER: We're roughly 30 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center. When we first came over the causeway, we couldn't help but notice some of the boats, sailboats sunk up against the causeway. When we finally got out onto the island, we saw lots of damage, broken windows in condominiums, carports that were torn up, twisted and torn away, traffic lights that were dangling, some at windshield level. Police are out here patrolling on the island, trying to prevent people from coming out here. Most of what they are trying to prevent is injuries to people, but also looting. This morning, very early this morning, a lot of traffic lights down. Once again, gas stations taking the brunt of this storm, the overhangs being completely torn away. And if these winds continue to gust and blow like this, some at tropical storm or even hurricane strength, it may be Monday, possibly even Tuesday, before people get out here to really survey the damage of Hurricane Frances.

DEREK HAYWOOD, TV REPORTER: Here just a little way away in Palm Beach Gardens you've got lots of debris like that blocking some of the roads. There's a huge sign down across the street there. The top of that office building looks like it took a little bit of a wallop. And then there's an awful lot of this. Traffic lights in total disarray. The traffic lights all out. And then in addition to that, you've got these cables dangling. Some downed traffic lights in the street.

This is the worst, the most dangerous part of it is trees down as well as I mentioned. I think you can see that one over there. Before daybreak, this was incredibly dangerous for anybody trying to move around here. But with the light of day, it looks like they'll be able to get on with this and get some of this cleared up. And people here may find out they were pretty lucky after all.

LOUIS BOLDEN, TV REPORTER: Take a look at what we have here, a huge tree down in the middle of the street, totally blocking the northbound lane. But this gentleman in this pickup truck here is really going to work. He has actually hooked up a chain to the back of his truck. Burning rubber there. He has pulled it already a little bit out of the street here, but still has that chain hooked up to his pickup truck. He's trying to pull it out of the way. And remember a police officer actually came by here a minute ago, saw him doing this, gave him the thumbs up to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're ducking in and out of neighborhoods in the Conway area of Orange County. And this particular cul de sac doesn't look too bad, a lot of debris all over the place, but I'm not seeing any trees down. You remember that when Charley raced through this area three weeks ago, power poles were knocked down, transformers were smashed, so Conway was in the dark for over a week in some spots. And with Frances, here we go again.

We don't know if this line is hot, so we're going to stay away from it, but this power line knocked down and homes on this block are all out right now. It appears though there's far less serious damage of the transformers and power poles, at least in these neighborhoods over here.

And Progress Energy is telling me that they are going to have people in the field tomorrow to do a complete assessment. They can't say how long the power might be out, but of course they say they are going to do their best to get it on as quickly as possible. But at least for last night and tonight again folks in this neighborhood are in the dark. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're still getting these gusts of wind. I would estimate maybe about 60 miles an hour back and forth, back and forth. We're getting these pounding rains. And we haven't seen any traffic on the road at all, and that's a good thing. We've seen a few police officers in the last hour.

But you can see the standing water here on the ground right next to me. And why it's not a good idea to actually go and put your foot or anything else in this water right here is because we don't know if any power lines may be down along the way. And of course that could mean that if someone should touch that water, they could get electrocuted. That's just one of the many dangers we have here.

We can show you one more thing, that motel, that roof is still in the middle of the road. They don't dare come clean it out now. And the reason is because with these heavy winds, pieces actually swirl around and can hit you. We had one blow around our way, but it missed us. And we can tell you this is what we've been dealing with all day for more than nine hours. And just imagine getting pelted by this rain and this wind for nine hours. It's a wonder that a lot of these things are still standing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: That is just a little bit of the coverage of Hurricane Frances from some of our affiliates in Florida. And coming up in the next hour, we'll show you a bit of our coverage from CNN correspondents.

Stay with us, everyone. Here is what's also coming up new at 6:00.

Another huge hurricane churning in the Atlantic. Is Hurricane Ivan going to be Ivan the Terrible? We'll track both Frances and Ivan for you.

Also, mourning those massacred in Russia. We're going to take you to the home of one family who lost two daughters in the tragedy, grief that no parent can image or should have to endure. You're looking now at live pictures of the funerals that have begun there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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