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CNN Live At Daybreak
Car Bomb Explodes in Iraq; Hurricane Frances Gains Strength Over Gulf of Mexico, Bill Clinton to Undergo Surgery, Two-Day National Mourning Begins in Russia
Aired September 06, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: One hard wind after another, a warning that still dangerous Frances heading for the Florida Panhandle now.
It is Monday, September 6, and this is DAYBREAK.
Good morning, everyone.
From the CNN Headquarters here in Atlanta, I'm Catherine Callaway.
I'm in today for Carol Costello.
Thank you for being with us.
In the news this morning, just within the last 30 minutes, word of a car bomb explosion on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Fallujah. This videotape just in to CNN. U.S. military officials say there are American casualties. It is not known if those casualties include deaths. We will, of course, keep you posted on this.
And tropical storm Frances gaining strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And Frances, believe it or not, could become a hurricane again before making its second landfall this evening on Florida's Panhandle. The storm now has top sustained winds of 65 mile an hour.
Bill Clinton, former president and best-selling author, expected to undergo heart surgery this morning. Surgeons will bypass clogged coronary arteries, as many as four of them, in fact. The surgery could be delayed to allow medicine to take effect.
And a two day national mourning period has begun in Russia. Funeral services are being held for some of the hundreds killed in a shootout between terrorist hostage takers and Russian troops. Many of those victims are children. We are looking now at live scenes of the funerals which have begun there in Russia for the victims, and we will also have a live report from Beslin, Russia coming up just minutes from now.
Tropical storm Frances chugs across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, heading now for the Florida Panhandle.
Our Chad Myers is with us in Melbourne, Florida; Rob Marciano in our Weather Center. Let's go to Rob first and get an update on Frances.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Still slow moving, Catherine. Still a tropical storm, although, as you mentioned, it could strengthen back to hurricane status before it makes landfall again across the Florida Panhandle.
Tough to pick out the eye of this thing. There really isn't an eye, that's why. But the center of circulation is right about there. North of the center of circulation there is still a threat. We're seeing small spin up tornadoes form. But the general track of this thing is going to bring it toward the Florida Panhandle as we go on throughout the day today.
West-northeasterly movement 11 miles an hour. Winds at 65. So it's just below hurricane strength criteria. And it's just over 100 miles away from the Apalachicola shoreline.
It is expected to head toward that way. And, again, we fill that circle in as it strengthens to a hurricane. Making landfall probably some time in mid to late afternoon, and then decreasing in intensity quite rapidly as it heads through Alabama and Mississippi, dumping some rain across there in through Georgia, as well.
On top of this system, we have Ivan that we're watching down there in the central Atlantic. But several days before it even comes close to the U.S. That one is a big one and we'll keep an eye on that, as well.
Meantime, Frances continues to be the main story. It's a slow mover and still having some effects on Florida, where Chad Myers is -- Catherine, back to you.
CALLAWAY: All right, thanks, Rob.
Let's get right to Chad, who's been in Melbourne all weekend with this slow moving storm. And I bet you there's a lot of residents in Melbourne that would like to give people in Panama City a call right now and tell them to stock up for a long, slow storm.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I was in Panama City for Bonnie, you know, just a few weeks ago, and that whole thing, that storm, they were ready for that storm. And it kind of fizzled out. So as that storm moved on by and up into Georgia, there was an awful lot of rain.
But eventually that whole thing kind of moved on by and then out to sea. This one is not going to be so nice. This one is actually going to move a little bit closer to Apalachicola, maybe in the Panama City area, kind of an angle there up in the panhandle. And the forecast track actually takes it all the way up and around through western Tennessee and then back even into parts of maybe even Indiana and Illinois.
A couple of days to go, though. About four miles west of here, Anderson Cooper and I spent the evening and the overnight hours and the morning hours waiting for the arrival of the eye.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": How does it feel to you, Chad?
MYERS: You know, I think the wind picked up again but we got a squall that did it. It wasn't so much that it was a sustained wind, it was like gusty wind. I just had another gust at 76 and we're on a protected side of the building. I was just talking to some storm chasers that are here actually from Tampa and they're down below a building on the other side where it's wind-tunneling. They have a machine just like this and they got a wind gust to 120. Now that's not an official gust, that's literally a building-affected gust. Like in New York, you know, you live there, the winds blow through the wind tunnel and get in the building that's what they got there but if you were living in that wind tunnel area, you would have been receiving 120-mile-an-hour gust down there.
COOPER: The fact that this storm is so slow moving. I mean, five-miles-an-hour is nothing. That's a person walking -- a fast walk. What does that mean for us here?
MYERS: You know, this is going to do way more damage than Charley did. It's just going to do a different kind of damage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MYERS: A different kind of damage, a long-term damage, actually more of a flooding damage, as well, in some spots. Charley had a very small eye. Some of the wind speeds there were 140 miles per hour. And it was devastating. It ran right through Punta Gorda, off to Arcadia, not that far from Sebring and then on up into Orlando. But a very small strike, literally less than a county wide.
This thing had winds here over 90 miles per hour. We had one gust to 101 briefly here on the beach. And that entire system stretched almost all of the way down to Miami. It would take you half a day to drive to Miami from here. And so that entire area has that big swath of heavy wind, but not 140 mile per wind, that moved across. More, obviously, more people, more land, more square footage, more miles, more square miles were affected with this storm than with Charley -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: All right, Chad, see you in just a few minutes with more on this.
MYERS: All right.
CALLAWAY: Well, Frances was a massive storm that tried to wash away and blow away the State of Florida before it headed back out to sea. Now another look at the fury of Frances, described by CNN correspondents and reporters from our affiliate stations.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most ferocious winds are happening now and estimated 100 mile an hour plus. Sustained winds are moving into this area now. It is the nightmare that these folks have been worried about.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is amazing. This is the worst so far. I can't turn my head right now. I don't know how Scott (ph) is doing it. It feels like rocks pelting your body. That's what it feels like right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's what we've found in the street and this is why you're not supposed to come out. We're not sure what this piece of metal is but it's definitely dangerous and this is another reason why they ask you, do not come outside your house. This is why you evacuate.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This is going to be a large scale. Every shingle on the roof is going to be gone. It may not lose the sheeting under the roof but you're going to start losing, and we already see it now, you're going to start losing siding just because it just keeps going and going and going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The conditions I would say are not good right now. As we've been saying the sustained winds right now are 90 miles per hour and if you're wondering if a 170-pound man could withstand 90-mile-per-hour winds the answer is yes but barely.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is powerful and let me tell you this rain feels like somebody nailing you with pins and needles and rice all at the same time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As you can hear and see this wind is ferocious. I'm going to have photojournalist Jeff Sweeney (ph) panel just a bit so that you can see where many of us slept, right here, one of our windows, and the wind was just rushing up against here howling and that's what you had to fall asleep to. Very nerve-racking but of course for us everything was safe here but there are a lot of people waking up in shelters who don't know what they're going to go home to, they don't know what's going to be left behind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLAWAY: Of course, that was some of the coverage from our affiliates and our CNN correspondents about Frances.
And if you want to find out more about the aftermath, including how you can help, and also to track the movement of Ivan, the new hurricane out there, just log on to CNN.com. We have a special link to hurricane coverage.
Hurricanes or not, the presidential campaign goes on. President Bush was in Parkersburg, West Virginia Sunday. It was his eighth visit to West Virginia this year. He told a crowd that John Kerry would hurt small business owners with tax hikes. And this afternoon, Bush attends a rally in Poplar Bluffs, Missouri, then heads on to Kansas City. Kerry spent part of this Labor Day holiday in Ohio, another so- called battleground state. He criticized Bush for his record on jobs and health care. Today, Kerry heads to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and then to Racine, West Virginia, and after that, on to Cleveland.
There's also been a change in Kerry's campaign staff. He's added John Sasso, a veteran political strategist, to his traveling campaign.
And news across America this morning, in Illinois, American Muslim leaders and wrapped up their community's biggest convention. But they still haven't decided if they'll back a presidential candidate this year. Some Muslims are biter over how President Bush has waged the war on terror. But Muslim leaders say that that doesn't mean that John Kerry can count on an endorsement.
And in North Carolina, two brothers are behind bars, accused of fatally shooting two other young men at a weekend tailgate party. Witnesses say that a fist fight broke out before the shooting, which happened outside a North Carolina State University football game. And one of the victims is a Marine officer.
People trying to get away from a spreading wildfire in northern California. In Sonoma County, fire burned several homes and has chewed up more than 10,000 acres there. Another fire in the Sierra Foothills has been contained, but 13 homes have been destroyed. Now a new fire has broken out in Amadour County. Some firefighting resources have had to be diverted to that area.
Stay with us, everyone. Former President Clinton prepares to go under the knife. His open heart surgery could take place as early as this morning. We will take you live to New York in about six minutes for what to expect.
Also, Florida police expected thieves to move in as Frances moved out, but boy were they brazen. We will show you what was hit and how in 13 minutes.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Labor Day morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Today is the first of two national days of mourning in Russia. At least 338 people, nearly half of them children, died during the siege at the school in southern Russia.
Let's go live now to Beslin, Russia and CNN's Ryan Chilcote -- Ryan.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are standing in front of the school's gymnasium right now, where most of the hostages were kept during that three day hostage crisis, which ended on Friday. You can see families pouring, streaming in and out of the gymnasium. It has become a makeshift memorial. It is not just the place where most of the hostages were kept, but it is also where many of the hostages died, first in two initial explosions on Friday that kicked off the fighting, two explosions that went off inside of the gym.
Then, if you'll recall, many people, many of the hostages tried to make a run for it after those explosions and came out this courtyard when they were opened -- when they were shot in the back, many of them, by hostage takers who had taken up positions, sniper positions, on the roof.
But today, it is, of course, a scene of tragedy, people bringing carnations here, lots of tears. And it is a place where people have come to remember those who passed away, the hundreds of people. As you said, the official death toll now stands at 338, but still hundreds more are missing. The gymnasium has become a place, a memorial where people come to pay their final respects to the dead.
Now, yesterday we spent some time with a family who, for whom the end of the siege, the beginning of the fighting, was a double tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
CHILCOTE (voice-over): The Tettov family and their neighbors gather outside their home. Their two daughters, 12-year-old Elena (ph) and 11-year-old Irena (ph), laid out for all to see. Both girls shot in the back as they tried to flee the school seized by gunmen.
The family marches to the cemetery. Tamerlain Tettov is still searching for his grandson. "Even beasts don't attack children," he tells me. "They came here, robbed our land and poisoned it."
While hundreds mourn for those lost, there's also questions about the hundreds more still missing.
(on camera): Today, the gravediggers at this cemetery were told to prepare for 600 burials. But they were warned they may need to dig more tomorrow.
(voice-over): One of those graves may be for Fatima (ph). She hasn't been seen since the fighting ended. Her grandmother brings a photo of her and her brother to the town's makeshift missing person's center. Slavic (ph) made it out alive, but no one has been able to find his 7-year-old sister, not among the living or the dead.
"We found him, but we can't find her," she tells me. "They sent some of the children to hospitals in Moscow, but we still don't know if she's there."
Back at the funeral for the Tettov girls, Rema Tettov is missing her nephew. "Last night we were told that a vehicle with corpses was going to the morgue," she says. "So we raced there, only to be told that it had been stopped on the way because there was no more room for bodies."
Five children from the Tettov family were inside the school when the massacre began. Two of them are now in the hospital, two of them are dead, one is still missing.
(END VIDEO TAPE) CHILCOTE: And the Tettov family is, of course, not the only family that is missing a relative. There are between 200 and 300 people, many of them children, still missing, many of them children between the ages of seven and 17. And we're going to show you a photo of one girl. Her name is Agunda Gasolova (ph). She would have turned 13 this November. This is basically a sign asking anyone who may have seen her in the various morgues and hospitals in this area to please call the family.
These signs have been posted up all around town. It is part of the family's desperate attempt to find their loved ones, those that went missing in the chaos that broke out after the fighting ended -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you.
That's CNN's Ryan Chilcote in Russia.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Former President Bill Clinton scheduled for heart bypass surgery this morning at New York's Presbyterian Hospital. But there's still a chance that doctors could postpone the procedure if President Clinton isn't quite ready.
And for the latest on the surgery and the president's likely road to recovery, we're joined by CNN medical correspondent Christy Feig, who's in New York -- Christy, good morning to you.
CHRISTY FEIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Catherine, the New York doctors want to make one final check to make sure that this medicine they have given him to reduce the risk of blood clots has taken effect. That's very important because blood clots are one of the most dangerous complications from this surgery. If everything checks out, the surgery should be under way this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
FEIG (voice-over): When former President Bill Clinton undergoes bypass surgery, doctors will first open his chest, then probably use a vein from his leg to bypass the clogged arteries. The surgery will take several hours, depending on how many bypasses are needed.
DR. JOHN GOTT, CARDIOTHORACIC SURGEON: There can be bleeding, very low incidence of that, necessitating a return to the operating room. And that usually has a happy ending.
FEIG: He will probably be in the hospital for the rest of the week. Normal activity can usually be resumed within six weeks. But experts say this is a wake up call for him. He must change his lifestyle. Clinton admits his passion for food and that that was certainly a contributing factor to his heart disease. Last week at a book signing, he says he'd been on the South Beach diet and exercising. BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have a wonderful man who comes in two or three times a week and we work out. You know, when you get older, you've got to really watch it. It's harder. The older I get, the harder it is.
FEIG: Now, he'll have to stick to a low fat diet, exercise and daily cholesterol medicine. He may have to even give up the cigars, since smoking can also worsen his heart disease.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
FEIG: And heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. In fact, every year more than 300,000 Americans will undergo this same surgery -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: I guess the president, the former president hoping that a lot of people will heed his advice. He's learned the hard way about what not to do.
FEIG: That's right. This absolutely is a wake up call for him.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you very much.
That's Christy Feig.
And we're going to bring you more on the effects of hurricane Frances coming up. Almost too hard to believe. The hurricane has done widespread damage in the Sunshine State. Anderson Cooper talks about the toll on one family.
Also, while some people were getting out of the way, some others were up to no good. We'll tell you what happened, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Well, the power is out, grocery stores are closed, basic supplies are scarce. That's what many Florida families are facing now in the wake of hurricane Frances, which is now a tropical storm.
Anderson Cooper talked to some Melbourne residents about what the future might hold.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cathy (ph), what do you do now? I mean you have no electricity. You don't, you really don't know when the electricity is going to be coming back. How are you eating?
CATHY: Well, we cooked the food on the grill today, when we get home, some food that we had still had in the freezer. It's been off for a couple of days. So that'll be gone by tomorrow. We're hoping that some ice will be available somewhere, at some grocery stores or something, and we'll just do what we need to do until it comes back on. COOPER: Because right now, I mean, there are no stores open.
CATHY: No.
COOPER: There's no, even getting gas is impossible.
CATHY: There's nothing. We can't get batteries. We can't get anything. There's no power. Everything's closed. It has been for days.
COOPER: Are you, does it, are you a little bit scared, still, Delaney (ph)? A bit strange, like being here with no lights on?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes, it's different.
COOPER: Yes? How is it different?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Because I'm so used to being in the light and now there's like no light.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
CALLAWAY: Frances now heading toward the Florida Panhandle. And Frances isn't the only thing causing damage in Florida. Looters are on the prowl. The thieves moved in as the storm moved out.
And reporter Gustavo Almodovar of CNN affiliate WFTV in Orlando reports on a bold break-in.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
GUSTAVO ALMODOVAR, WFTV CORRESPONDENT: We are outside Saks grocery store near 434 on Edgewater Drive, where right now three men are in custody, all accused of breaking into this store.
(voice-over): Deputies say the men used a sledgehammer to bust the glass door down. Once inside, they used a concrete chainsaw to pierce through a small metal deposit box located near several cash registers.
The owner's son told me the suspects got even more daring when they stormed into the manager's office and tried to break open an even bigger safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They must have got scared away before they could do anything with the larger safe and apparently ran out the back door.
ALMODOVAR: This is the second time today thieves have been caught in the act. And Orange County sheriff's deputies want to remind residents, if you're going to try this, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sheriff has made a commitment to deterring these looters. As you can see, we spent almost an hour and a half, two hours, trying to apprehend these guys. So we'll do whatever it takes to get these guys off the street.
ALMODOVAR (on camera): The owner's son told me that there was only $300 in that small safe. But what may be even more surprising is that one of the thieves asked the deputy if he could have his chainsaw back.
In Orange County, Gustavo Almodovar, Channel 9, Eyewitness News.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
CALLAWAY: All right, stay with us.
DAYBREAK will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired September 6, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: One hard wind after another, a warning that still dangerous Frances heading for the Florida Panhandle now.
It is Monday, September 6, and this is DAYBREAK.
Good morning, everyone.
From the CNN Headquarters here in Atlanta, I'm Catherine Callaway.
I'm in today for Carol Costello.
Thank you for being with us.
In the news this morning, just within the last 30 minutes, word of a car bomb explosion on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Fallujah. This videotape just in to CNN. U.S. military officials say there are American casualties. It is not known if those casualties include deaths. We will, of course, keep you posted on this.
And tropical storm Frances gaining strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And Frances, believe it or not, could become a hurricane again before making its second landfall this evening on Florida's Panhandle. The storm now has top sustained winds of 65 mile an hour.
Bill Clinton, former president and best-selling author, expected to undergo heart surgery this morning. Surgeons will bypass clogged coronary arteries, as many as four of them, in fact. The surgery could be delayed to allow medicine to take effect.
And a two day national mourning period has begun in Russia. Funeral services are being held for some of the hundreds killed in a shootout between terrorist hostage takers and Russian troops. Many of those victims are children. We are looking now at live scenes of the funerals which have begun there in Russia for the victims, and we will also have a live report from Beslin, Russia coming up just minutes from now.
Tropical storm Frances chugs across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, heading now for the Florida Panhandle.
Our Chad Myers is with us in Melbourne, Florida; Rob Marciano in our Weather Center. Let's go to Rob first and get an update on Frances.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Still slow moving, Catherine. Still a tropical storm, although, as you mentioned, it could strengthen back to hurricane status before it makes landfall again across the Florida Panhandle.
Tough to pick out the eye of this thing. There really isn't an eye, that's why. But the center of circulation is right about there. North of the center of circulation there is still a threat. We're seeing small spin up tornadoes form. But the general track of this thing is going to bring it toward the Florida Panhandle as we go on throughout the day today.
West-northeasterly movement 11 miles an hour. Winds at 65. So it's just below hurricane strength criteria. And it's just over 100 miles away from the Apalachicola shoreline.
It is expected to head toward that way. And, again, we fill that circle in as it strengthens to a hurricane. Making landfall probably some time in mid to late afternoon, and then decreasing in intensity quite rapidly as it heads through Alabama and Mississippi, dumping some rain across there in through Georgia, as well.
On top of this system, we have Ivan that we're watching down there in the central Atlantic. But several days before it even comes close to the U.S. That one is a big one and we'll keep an eye on that, as well.
Meantime, Frances continues to be the main story. It's a slow mover and still having some effects on Florida, where Chad Myers is -- Catherine, back to you.
CALLAWAY: All right, thanks, Rob.
Let's get right to Chad, who's been in Melbourne all weekend with this slow moving storm. And I bet you there's a lot of residents in Melbourne that would like to give people in Panama City a call right now and tell them to stock up for a long, slow storm.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I was in Panama City for Bonnie, you know, just a few weeks ago, and that whole thing, that storm, they were ready for that storm. And it kind of fizzled out. So as that storm moved on by and up into Georgia, there was an awful lot of rain.
But eventually that whole thing kind of moved on by and then out to sea. This one is not going to be so nice. This one is actually going to move a little bit closer to Apalachicola, maybe in the Panama City area, kind of an angle there up in the panhandle. And the forecast track actually takes it all the way up and around through western Tennessee and then back even into parts of maybe even Indiana and Illinois.
A couple of days to go, though. About four miles west of here, Anderson Cooper and I spent the evening and the overnight hours and the morning hours waiting for the arrival of the eye.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": How does it feel to you, Chad?
MYERS: You know, I think the wind picked up again but we got a squall that did it. It wasn't so much that it was a sustained wind, it was like gusty wind. I just had another gust at 76 and we're on a protected side of the building. I was just talking to some storm chasers that are here actually from Tampa and they're down below a building on the other side where it's wind-tunneling. They have a machine just like this and they got a wind gust to 120. Now that's not an official gust, that's literally a building-affected gust. Like in New York, you know, you live there, the winds blow through the wind tunnel and get in the building that's what they got there but if you were living in that wind tunnel area, you would have been receiving 120-mile-an-hour gust down there.
COOPER: The fact that this storm is so slow moving. I mean, five-miles-an-hour is nothing. That's a person walking -- a fast walk. What does that mean for us here?
MYERS: You know, this is going to do way more damage than Charley did. It's just going to do a different kind of damage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MYERS: A different kind of damage, a long-term damage, actually more of a flooding damage, as well, in some spots. Charley had a very small eye. Some of the wind speeds there were 140 miles per hour. And it was devastating. It ran right through Punta Gorda, off to Arcadia, not that far from Sebring and then on up into Orlando. But a very small strike, literally less than a county wide.
This thing had winds here over 90 miles per hour. We had one gust to 101 briefly here on the beach. And that entire system stretched almost all of the way down to Miami. It would take you half a day to drive to Miami from here. And so that entire area has that big swath of heavy wind, but not 140 mile per wind, that moved across. More, obviously, more people, more land, more square footage, more miles, more square miles were affected with this storm than with Charley -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: All right, Chad, see you in just a few minutes with more on this.
MYERS: All right.
CALLAWAY: Well, Frances was a massive storm that tried to wash away and blow away the State of Florida before it headed back out to sea. Now another look at the fury of Frances, described by CNN correspondents and reporters from our affiliate stations.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most ferocious winds are happening now and estimated 100 mile an hour plus. Sustained winds are moving into this area now. It is the nightmare that these folks have been worried about.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is amazing. This is the worst so far. I can't turn my head right now. I don't know how Scott (ph) is doing it. It feels like rocks pelting your body. That's what it feels like right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's what we've found in the street and this is why you're not supposed to come out. We're not sure what this piece of metal is but it's definitely dangerous and this is another reason why they ask you, do not come outside your house. This is why you evacuate.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This is going to be a large scale. Every shingle on the roof is going to be gone. It may not lose the sheeting under the roof but you're going to start losing, and we already see it now, you're going to start losing siding just because it just keeps going and going and going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The conditions I would say are not good right now. As we've been saying the sustained winds right now are 90 miles per hour and if you're wondering if a 170-pound man could withstand 90-mile-per-hour winds the answer is yes but barely.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is powerful and let me tell you this rain feels like somebody nailing you with pins and needles and rice all at the same time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As you can hear and see this wind is ferocious. I'm going to have photojournalist Jeff Sweeney (ph) panel just a bit so that you can see where many of us slept, right here, one of our windows, and the wind was just rushing up against here howling and that's what you had to fall asleep to. Very nerve-racking but of course for us everything was safe here but there are a lot of people waking up in shelters who don't know what they're going to go home to, they don't know what's going to be left behind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLAWAY: Of course, that was some of the coverage from our affiliates and our CNN correspondents about Frances.
And if you want to find out more about the aftermath, including how you can help, and also to track the movement of Ivan, the new hurricane out there, just log on to CNN.com. We have a special link to hurricane coverage.
Hurricanes or not, the presidential campaign goes on. President Bush was in Parkersburg, West Virginia Sunday. It was his eighth visit to West Virginia this year. He told a crowd that John Kerry would hurt small business owners with tax hikes. And this afternoon, Bush attends a rally in Poplar Bluffs, Missouri, then heads on to Kansas City. Kerry spent part of this Labor Day holiday in Ohio, another so- called battleground state. He criticized Bush for his record on jobs and health care. Today, Kerry heads to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and then to Racine, West Virginia, and after that, on to Cleveland.
There's also been a change in Kerry's campaign staff. He's added John Sasso, a veteran political strategist, to his traveling campaign.
And news across America this morning, in Illinois, American Muslim leaders and wrapped up their community's biggest convention. But they still haven't decided if they'll back a presidential candidate this year. Some Muslims are biter over how President Bush has waged the war on terror. But Muslim leaders say that that doesn't mean that John Kerry can count on an endorsement.
And in North Carolina, two brothers are behind bars, accused of fatally shooting two other young men at a weekend tailgate party. Witnesses say that a fist fight broke out before the shooting, which happened outside a North Carolina State University football game. And one of the victims is a Marine officer.
People trying to get away from a spreading wildfire in northern California. In Sonoma County, fire burned several homes and has chewed up more than 10,000 acres there. Another fire in the Sierra Foothills has been contained, but 13 homes have been destroyed. Now a new fire has broken out in Amadour County. Some firefighting resources have had to be diverted to that area.
Stay with us, everyone. Former President Clinton prepares to go under the knife. His open heart surgery could take place as early as this morning. We will take you live to New York in about six minutes for what to expect.
Also, Florida police expected thieves to move in as Frances moved out, but boy were they brazen. We will show you what was hit and how in 13 minutes.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Labor Day morning.
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CALLAWAY: Today is the first of two national days of mourning in Russia. At least 338 people, nearly half of them children, died during the siege at the school in southern Russia.
Let's go live now to Beslin, Russia and CNN's Ryan Chilcote -- Ryan.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are standing in front of the school's gymnasium right now, where most of the hostages were kept during that three day hostage crisis, which ended on Friday. You can see families pouring, streaming in and out of the gymnasium. It has become a makeshift memorial. It is not just the place where most of the hostages were kept, but it is also where many of the hostages died, first in two initial explosions on Friday that kicked off the fighting, two explosions that went off inside of the gym.
Then, if you'll recall, many people, many of the hostages tried to make a run for it after those explosions and came out this courtyard when they were opened -- when they were shot in the back, many of them, by hostage takers who had taken up positions, sniper positions, on the roof.
But today, it is, of course, a scene of tragedy, people bringing carnations here, lots of tears. And it is a place where people have come to remember those who passed away, the hundreds of people. As you said, the official death toll now stands at 338, but still hundreds more are missing. The gymnasium has become a place, a memorial where people come to pay their final respects to the dead.
Now, yesterday we spent some time with a family who, for whom the end of the siege, the beginning of the fighting, was a double tragedy.
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CHILCOTE (voice-over): The Tettov family and their neighbors gather outside their home. Their two daughters, 12-year-old Elena (ph) and 11-year-old Irena (ph), laid out for all to see. Both girls shot in the back as they tried to flee the school seized by gunmen.
The family marches to the cemetery. Tamerlain Tettov is still searching for his grandson. "Even beasts don't attack children," he tells me. "They came here, robbed our land and poisoned it."
While hundreds mourn for those lost, there's also questions about the hundreds more still missing.
(on camera): Today, the gravediggers at this cemetery were told to prepare for 600 burials. But they were warned they may need to dig more tomorrow.
(voice-over): One of those graves may be for Fatima (ph). She hasn't been seen since the fighting ended. Her grandmother brings a photo of her and her brother to the town's makeshift missing person's center. Slavic (ph) made it out alive, but no one has been able to find his 7-year-old sister, not among the living or the dead.
"We found him, but we can't find her," she tells me. "They sent some of the children to hospitals in Moscow, but we still don't know if she's there."
Back at the funeral for the Tettov girls, Rema Tettov is missing her nephew. "Last night we were told that a vehicle with corpses was going to the morgue," she says. "So we raced there, only to be told that it had been stopped on the way because there was no more room for bodies."
Five children from the Tettov family were inside the school when the massacre began. Two of them are now in the hospital, two of them are dead, one is still missing.
(END VIDEO TAPE) CHILCOTE: And the Tettov family is, of course, not the only family that is missing a relative. There are between 200 and 300 people, many of them children, still missing, many of them children between the ages of seven and 17. And we're going to show you a photo of one girl. Her name is Agunda Gasolova (ph). She would have turned 13 this November. This is basically a sign asking anyone who may have seen her in the various morgues and hospitals in this area to please call the family.
These signs have been posted up all around town. It is part of the family's desperate attempt to find their loved ones, those that went missing in the chaos that broke out after the fighting ended -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you.
That's CNN's Ryan Chilcote in Russia.
We'll be right back.
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CALLAWAY: Former President Bill Clinton scheduled for heart bypass surgery this morning at New York's Presbyterian Hospital. But there's still a chance that doctors could postpone the procedure if President Clinton isn't quite ready.
And for the latest on the surgery and the president's likely road to recovery, we're joined by CNN medical correspondent Christy Feig, who's in New York -- Christy, good morning to you.
CHRISTY FEIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Catherine, the New York doctors want to make one final check to make sure that this medicine they have given him to reduce the risk of blood clots has taken effect. That's very important because blood clots are one of the most dangerous complications from this surgery. If everything checks out, the surgery should be under way this morning.
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FEIG (voice-over): When former President Bill Clinton undergoes bypass surgery, doctors will first open his chest, then probably use a vein from his leg to bypass the clogged arteries. The surgery will take several hours, depending on how many bypasses are needed.
DR. JOHN GOTT, CARDIOTHORACIC SURGEON: There can be bleeding, very low incidence of that, necessitating a return to the operating room. And that usually has a happy ending.
FEIG: He will probably be in the hospital for the rest of the week. Normal activity can usually be resumed within six weeks. But experts say this is a wake up call for him. He must change his lifestyle. Clinton admits his passion for food and that that was certainly a contributing factor to his heart disease. Last week at a book signing, he says he'd been on the South Beach diet and exercising. BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have a wonderful man who comes in two or three times a week and we work out. You know, when you get older, you've got to really watch it. It's harder. The older I get, the harder it is.
FEIG: Now, he'll have to stick to a low fat diet, exercise and daily cholesterol medicine. He may have to even give up the cigars, since smoking can also worsen his heart disease.
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FEIG: And heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. In fact, every year more than 300,000 Americans will undergo this same surgery -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: I guess the president, the former president hoping that a lot of people will heed his advice. He's learned the hard way about what not to do.
FEIG: That's right. This absolutely is a wake up call for him.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you very much.
That's Christy Feig.
And we're going to bring you more on the effects of hurricane Frances coming up. Almost too hard to believe. The hurricane has done widespread damage in the Sunshine State. Anderson Cooper talks about the toll on one family.
Also, while some people were getting out of the way, some others were up to no good. We'll tell you what happened, coming up.
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CALLAWAY: Well, the power is out, grocery stores are closed, basic supplies are scarce. That's what many Florida families are facing now in the wake of hurricane Frances, which is now a tropical storm.
Anderson Cooper talked to some Melbourne residents about what the future might hold.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cathy (ph), what do you do now? I mean you have no electricity. You don't, you really don't know when the electricity is going to be coming back. How are you eating?
CATHY: Well, we cooked the food on the grill today, when we get home, some food that we had still had in the freezer. It's been off for a couple of days. So that'll be gone by tomorrow. We're hoping that some ice will be available somewhere, at some grocery stores or something, and we'll just do what we need to do until it comes back on. COOPER: Because right now, I mean, there are no stores open.
CATHY: No.
COOPER: There's no, even getting gas is impossible.
CATHY: There's nothing. We can't get batteries. We can't get anything. There's no power. Everything's closed. It has been for days.
COOPER: Are you, does it, are you a little bit scared, still, Delaney (ph)? A bit strange, like being here with no lights on?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes, it's different.
COOPER: Yes? How is it different?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Because I'm so used to being in the light and now there's like no light.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
CALLAWAY: Frances now heading toward the Florida Panhandle. And Frances isn't the only thing causing damage in Florida. Looters are on the prowl. The thieves moved in as the storm moved out.
And reporter Gustavo Almodovar of CNN affiliate WFTV in Orlando reports on a bold break-in.
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GUSTAVO ALMODOVAR, WFTV CORRESPONDENT: We are outside Saks grocery store near 434 on Edgewater Drive, where right now three men are in custody, all accused of breaking into this store.
(voice-over): Deputies say the men used a sledgehammer to bust the glass door down. Once inside, they used a concrete chainsaw to pierce through a small metal deposit box located near several cash registers.
The owner's son told me the suspects got even more daring when they stormed into the manager's office and tried to break open an even bigger safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They must have got scared away before they could do anything with the larger safe and apparently ran out the back door.
ALMODOVAR: This is the second time today thieves have been caught in the act. And Orange County sheriff's deputies want to remind residents, if you're going to try this, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sheriff has made a commitment to deterring these looters. As you can see, we spent almost an hour and a half, two hours, trying to apprehend these guys. So we'll do whatever it takes to get these guys off the street.
ALMODOVAR (on camera): The owner's son told me that there was only $300 in that small safe. But what may be even more surprising is that one of the thieves asked the deputy if he could have his chainsaw back.
In Orange County, Gustavo Almodovar, Channel 9, Eyewitness News.
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CALLAWAY: All right, stay with us.
DAYBREAK will be right back.
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