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American Morning
Another Snow Storm Hits Midwest; California Storms Lead to Mud Slides, Flooding; Orphans Having Hard Times in South Asia
Aired January 10, 2005 - 09:00 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: A relentless storm out west piles snow as high as the treetops, with more on the way.
In Los Angeles, where it's been raining for days, the dramatic rescue that almost went terribly wrong.
The Palestinian people are celebrating a turning point as they choose their new president.
And the power of the wave when it hit Indonesia. Amazing new pictures that bear witness to the disaster on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
BILL HEMMER, CO-HOST: Good morning, everybody, again, 9 a.m. here in New York. Welcome to Monday here.
Those pictures from Indonesia, really the first videotape we have seen from that part where the tsunami hit, unbelievable images in the town of Banda Aceh. Video shot by a wedding photographer on a rooftop when the tsunami hit.
That city, one of the places where the death toll was the highest. And it's easy to see why in this videotape. Hard to imagine, Soledad, anyone surviving this rush of water and debris and automobiles, an entire town coming right before you, as you stand there and watch it.
We'll come back to this videotape in a few moments here and also talk with Sanjay and get his reaction about what he saw when he was in Sri Lanka. That is amazing stuff.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: It is unbelievable, isn't it?
Also, let's talk about the massive storm out west. The snow said to be 19 feet deep in some places. We're going to check in from Tahoe City.
Plus we'll hear from some members of the San Jose Springs Fire Department. They were involved in this dramatic rescue that you're seeing right there. This man, his daughter, her friend all trapped in that BMW in the water. How about that?
HEMMER: The man is lucky to be alive.
Jack Cafferty is with us, too. Good morning, Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: Tough stuff to watch. That fellow who fell back into the river, they got him out, right?
HEMMER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: They did. He missed -- he missed that cement by that much.
CAFFERTY: The concrete outcropping on the bridge support.
The independent commission report on the U.N. oil-for-food program is out. This thing reeks. The -- the corruption and the missing money and the lack of accountability and the failure to follow auditors' instructions. I mean, it's just page after page after page.
Can the U.N. recover from this, now that they're being handled additional billions of dollars to run the tsunami relief effort? AM@CNN.com if you have thoughts on how the U.N. can restore its credibility.
HEMMER: Many suggest it's a big task, too, for that body.
CAFFERTY: It is. This could be crunch time for them.
O'BRIEN: Almost seems as they can't at all. No suggestion, just can't be done.
CAFFERTY: They have a long hear of not being the most efficient machine in the shop. And this oil-for-food thing, I mean, it's just -- it's a nightmare thing. Sixty-four billion dollars was channeled through, and $20 billion of it is gone. It's missing. Nobody knows where it went.
And we've got Kofi Annan's kid working for one of the companies that had contracts. I mean, there are just a whole lot of things that just make it look awful.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack.
Kelly Wallace, the headlines with us this morning. Kelly, good morning to you.
KELLY WALLACE, ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning again, everyone.
Now in the news, less than three weeks before the Iraqi elections, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi says he is determined that Iraqis will head to the polls as scheduled on January 30. Speaking just two hours ago, Allawi said there will be no safe haven for criminals trying to disrupt peace inside Iraq.
And the announcement came as Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son were gunned down outside their home. Police are investigating that incident. A winner declared today in another part of the world, there in the Mideast in the Palestinian presidential election. The Palestinian Elections Commission announcing former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas got 62 percent of the vote in yesterday's polling. And aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon say he plans to meet with Abbas as early as this week.
And there is word that the accused ringleader in Abu Ghraib prison scandal may take the stand in his own defense. Army Reservist Charles Graner faces 10 charges. If convicted, he could serve up to 17 years in prison.
Opening statements and testimony are set to begin next hour in that court-martial. That trial is expected to last, I believe, about a week. A lot of attention on that.
HEMMER: Kelly, thanks.
WALLACE: Sure.
O'BRIEN: Another storm is expected to blast parts of California and Nevada today. A winter storm warning in effect for areas that have already been buried in 19 feet of snow.
CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano live in Tahoe City, California, with more for us.
Hey, Rob, good morning again.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning again, Soledad.
It's been an amazing weekend, just snowing and snowing and snowing. Tahoe sits at about 6,000 feet, so it's no stranger to big snowstorms. As a matter of fact, the Sierra Nevada Mountains are among the snowiest places on earth.
But this is such a big storm from flooding to snow to even the desert and through Reno, about 50 miles to our north and east. Typically doesn't get this much. Since December 28, they have received over six feet of snow, making this one of the worst snowstorms since 1916.
We are getting a little bit of a break right now. But by that I mean just flurries. But it just didn't seem to want to stop.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO (voice-over): Snow, snow and more snow. A series of storms has dumped as much as 19 feet of snow in the High Sierra Mountains. It's believed to be the most snow in the region in nearly 90 years. Avalanches and hazardous driving conditions are top concerns.
LEL TONE, AVALANCHE COORDINATOR: Visibility goes down to absolutely zero. A lot of accidents happen. The winds are absolutely screaming on the ridges. We had winds last night of 163 miles per hour.
MARCIANO: Plows and snow blowers working around the chock to keep traffic flowing. But besides their best efforts several major highways between California and Nevada shut down and, in one instance, travelers were stranded in their cars for over 12 hours.
Conditions on the slopes are even more difficult. Although some skiers decided to brave the elements, at least until resort managers shut the slopes down.
GARY MURPHY, AVALANCHE FORECASTER: Wind is the architect of avalanches. And what we're seeing here is slab avalanches developing in the upper mountain because of wind-driven snow.
MARCIANO: Ski patrols hit the most unstable areas in the mountain, setting off charges to blast away potentially deadly avalanches. And even more snow may be on the way. But the forecasters in the area have extended a winter storm warning across the Sierra and parts of northern Nevada into Tuesday.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: All weekend long, you'd hear in the distance these explosions, those cannons going off as ski patrollers try to -- try to manage these avalanches.
And they try to do it because you get so much snow, not only here at lake level, but imagine this much snow and then times it by three at the top of the mountain and then increase the slope of this thing. That snow's going to come down at some point just from gravity. So they'd rather do it on their terms than let it come down when people aren't expecting it.
They do it at the ski patrol at the ski resorts. They also do it along the highways. And for that reason, sometimes they shut down the highways.
Good news right now is that Highway 80 and a lot of the other highways that feed into Tahoe are now open. That may change come tomorrow. Two feet of snow expected here at lake level. You can double that at the mountain passes.
Live from Tahoe City, Soledad, back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, Rob. Thanks a lot for that update.
HEMMER: He's in northern California.
In southern California, the story there is rain, the fifth straight day of it today. There is severe flooding, mudslides, power outages, as well. Miguel Marquez reporting this morning. There are also some incredible rescues taking place this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on now, come on now. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's about as dramatic as a rescue gets: a man stripped of his clothing by the rush of water almost doesn't make it.
Before the man was pulled to shore, he spent about 40 minutes floating through the Los Angeles suburbs on the roof of his BMW. His kids had been rescued earlier. But his car became a boat for about two miles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab the rope! Grab it tight!
MARQUEZ: In the Hollywood hills, a house crumpled after the water-sodden hillside behind it gave way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard this woman from this house say, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God! My house fell down! (ph)"
MARQUEZ: A 33-year-old man and his two kids were plucked from the debris. Fire officials say his 10-year-old son, buried up to his neck in mud, was lucky to survive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got a baby, Michael.
MARQUEZ: In the suburbs north of Los Angeles a river rage in what was once a dry creek bed. After a wall collapsed, a trailer park flooded, residents packed up children and Chihuahuas and headed for drier ground.
REBECCA HAYES, EVACUEE: My dad wants to stay but we have no choice. We have to evacuate.
MARQUEZ: Across southern California, mud slid off rain-soaked hills, rock and mudslides blocked roads, creating hazards almost everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Mother Nature at its worst.
MARQUEZ: Mother Nature relentless. In Malibu a car, with five passengers plunged onto the rocky shore. One person was killed.
Near Dodgers Stadium a homeless man died after being buried in mud.
(on camera) I want to give you a sense of where I am. We're in the Hollywood Hills on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, where the street has literally turned into a river tonight. Many cars not even coming up the boulevard here because they're so concerned about the water.
California's Office of Emergency Management says officially two people have died in this storm but several others have been killed in traffic-related accidents. And California's due for another belt of storms Monday evening.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HEMMER: Captain Thomas McGauley and Captain Mike Yule of Santa Fe Springs Fire Department, they were involved in that first incredible rescue Miguel talked about. They described today what happened when they arrived on the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. THOMAS MCGAULEY, SANTA FE SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA, FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well, it was pretty exciting for us, even though we ended up dealing with this quite a bit. We had one vehicle that was actually in the riverbed itself. We had approximately 40 bystanders that were up on board the bridge at the railing.
They were attempting at the time to remove two of the females from the vehicle itself. We arrived on scene, assisted them. And the vehicle was actually floating down the riverbed. So it had to be pinched at that the time.
We were able to assist them, get those first two females out of the vehicle. And then the vehicle continued to float underneath the bridge out of our view.
Our initial response, we went ahead and moved units further downstream in case we had to utilize them, and it became apparent at that time we had to utilize them.
Just so our viewers know, you saved his two children first. He's still in the water, as you described to us. But what we just saw, too, was the chance of you bringing him on board that bridge, but then he slips at the last second.
He lost his pants in all of this, in addition to his car. He goes down a river for two miles. Captain Yule, how did you keep track of him during that time?
CAPT. MIKE YULE, SANTA FE SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA, FIRE DEPARTMENT: During that time, we had people that were actually running the riverbank and keeping an eye on him. Captain McGauley on Engine 81 and myself on Truck 811 went down one of the main streets and set up at the bridge, and we had visual with him the whole time and set up the rope systems to get him out of the water.
HEMMER: How are they doing today? Do you know, Captain Yule?
YULE: Last I heard, he is unhurt and in good spirits.
HEMMER: To Captain McGauley, too, as we watch this videotape again here, have you ever seen weather like this in that part of the country?
MCGAULEY: The last big weather I believe we had like this was back in 1983, with the El Nino weather.
But it's been raining quite a bit here for the last week. And all that water runs down. The way the storm system is designed is to get as much volume of the water back out to the ocean and off the streets, and that creates a lot of problems for us, especially when people get involved in the river bed itself.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Job well done. Thomas McGauley, Mike Yule, captains with the Santa Fe Springs Fire Department in California -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: There's a story out of the Associated Press that talks about a 2-year-old girl who died when apparently her mom dropped her as they -- she was being rescued, but she had driven around the barricades to try to cut through.
HEMMER: Wow.
O'BRIEN: What are people thinking about, you know?
Check in right with Chad. He's at the CNN Center for us.
Hey, Chad, good morning.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thanks a lot.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You're welcome.
O'BRIEN: Let's get to sports now.
First weekend of NFL playoffs is over. The Minnesota Vikings surprised some by knocking off the Green Bay Packers. Final score, 31-17. The Vikings were just 8-8 during the regular season.
In the AFC, Peyton Manning threw four touchdown passes to lead his Indianapolis Colts over the Denver Broncos; 49-24 was the score there.
HEMMER: Did you see Randy Moss, by the way, yesterday?
O'BRIEN: No, I did not.
HEMMER: He was playing with one leg. The Vikings...
O'BRIEN: Oh, really.
HEMMER: My gosh. A great weekend coming up, too, this weekend, too. So I know you'll be...
O'BRIEN: I'll be glued to the set.
HEMMER: Brad.
O'BRIEN: Brad will be glued to the set.
HEMMER: How about your wife?
Would you serve school detention for your children? There's a mom and dad in Houston, Texas, who did just that. They're a bit upset, too. We'll explain their story in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, a train collision and poisonous cloud drives thousands of people from their homes. How long before they can go back home? A look at that ahead.
HEMMER: Also, there is new videotape today: a stunning look at the fury of the Asian tsunamis, the first real look we have had on the island of Sumatra. Back in a moment. You'll see it here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: We are a bit more than two weeks after the tsunami disaster. The new developments as we have them today on a Monday morning.
More than 140,000 now reported dead. That total expected to keep climbing. Those recovery efforts continue. From Indonesia alone, at least 77,000 missing. The death toll there, 95,000, most of the casualties coming from the Aceh province.
A U.S. official is making slow progress determining the fates of missing Americans. Eighteen U.S. citizens now confirmed dead by the State Department. Another 18 are presumed dead. And more than 1,100 inquiries now still under investigation. That's down by half this time last week.
Relief efforts to Banda Aceh and Indonesia now resuming after a helicopter crash closed the airfield for about an hour earlier today. Investigators still trying to determine what caused the U.S. Navy chopper to plunge into a rice patty about 100 yards from the crowded airport. Ten crewmembers on board suffered minor injuries.
Dramatic videotape, too, not seen before, showing the force of the wave that took so many lives. This amateur videotape capturing what we previously only could imagine in Banda Aceh. You will see the raging river come in after the people start fleeing down the city street and the water then reaching the second floors of buildings as people scramble for safety.
This is the first time we have seen this portion of the tape, as a number of people try and race in front of that water.
And in that water, there are homes and there are minivans and there are automobiles in all of it, going with the water down the middle of this town. Extraordinary stuff here to watch when that tsunami first emerged. As the trees go along with the water, as well.
That tape taken by a wedding photographer perched on a rooftop as the flood carried off everything in his path.
O'BRIEN: Think of all of the people we just saw, that dozens of people who were walking, not -- sort of quickly, moving out of the way, but you know, now that the river's picked up, the river water there has sort of picked up steam, I mean, you know, what happened to them?
HEMMER: Once again it shows you how no one had any idea what was coming by the way that they were walking down that street.
This is what was happening during. There are a couple of satellite images, too, that can show what portion of Indonesia in the before picture and then after -- the after picture here from satellite. You can see the devastation.
O'BRIEN: It's gone.
HEMMER: Yes. The one thing that strikes me about this, Soledad, so often times we look at this videotape, and there is barely a tree standing for shade for the people who survived this. And you can see it quite clearly yet again the before and the after.
And that videotape, we saw a little bit yesterday on Sunday. But that water just keeps going and does not seem to end as it flies by that photographer.
O'BRIEN: With all the debris in there.
Let's check in with Sanjay Gupta. He's back from Sri Lanka. And of course, despite all of our extensive coverage of the tsunami, it is sort of hard to explain what it was like to be there and see it for yourself. So Sanjay's at the CNN Center.
Hey, Sanjay, nice to talk to you this morning and welcome back.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about what -- what you felt was the most important thing or what stuck out in your mind as -- when you consider all of the devastation, frankly all of the bodies, and then all of the horribly sad stories. Is there one thing that sort of stuck with you the most?
GUPTA: Well, I think that, you know, there's so many different images. Obviously, we've seen the devastation so many times over the last couple of weeks.
I think what was sort of striking was that when you think about a tsunami, most people have this preconceived notion that it's this huge tidal wave. And really, from talking to people on the ground, living on the coast, it was this very powerful wave. But they were surprised at how powerful it was. You know, there's people coming out to sort of take a look.
The stories -- some of the stories that struck me, Soledad, was that first wave came in, and a lot of people were obviously injured by that wave. But then the water went out as far as the eye could see, according to some of the people I talked to. The water was just gone. The ocean sort of disappeared for a time.
And remember, the ocean sort of brought in all these -- all these deep sea fish so that the sea bed, the now-dry sea bed, was covered with all these -- all these weird-looking fish that a lot of the fishermen had never seen. So they all ran out there to basically take a look. And that's when the second wave came. And it was sort of stories like that that really stuck out at me, Soledad.
Obviously, the dead, the people who died, 140,000, I think the number now, but the survivors, as well. To sort of think it in a binary sort of way, either you lived or died I think is not the way to think about it. And that's something that we learned, as well, there.
This was a very deprived community, at least some of the communities we visited in Sri Lanka. The major industries are fishing and tourism, both of which have been completely devastated by the tsunami. So what is it going to look like a few months from now? That was what we were really trying to figure out.
There's these blasts of aid that come in, and there's lots of aid available in terms of water and food, hopefully starting to get to the right places. But six months from now -- I had this picture that I took with my camera, basically showed this house that had no longer had a roof or walls and this child standing inside the house. And outside that were two crates of bottles of water.
And the message of that, the reason I took that picture was there's plenty of water right now, but the child has no house. And these are the sorts of things I think a lot of people are going to be thinking about, hopefully, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Those children who were so affected. I mean, No. 1, just the huge percentage of them who died because they couldn't get out of the way or they got run over by all the debris and stuff that was in the water.
And then just, you know, two, they -- they lost a parent or they lost both parents or they lost all their siblings.
Give me a sense of how you think the children are doing, both from a health front and then maybe a psychological health front, as well.
GUPTA: Yes, you know, those were some of the most difficult stories for sure. The orphanages -- we had a couple of good things to report, if there could be good things.
There was one orphanage called the Saravodia (ph) Trust. We spent some time with this orphanage quite a bit. All around the country they have centers. And they basically said, listen, any child who has lost their parents to the tsunami has a home with us.
We're going to look after them. We're going to look after their future. That was a promise they made. And obviously it's going to take a lot of money to do that.
But we went back and checked back with them at the end of the two weeks, and certainly a lot of orphans have started to come into this particular orphanage.
The flip side, of course, is there are a lot of orphans out there, a lot of children that lost one parent, but still aren't getting enough food, getting enough water. And they're not getting simple medicines that could turn what's otherwise a simple disease into a deadly disease. So that's -- that's heartbreaking, Soledad. It really is.
O'BRIEN: I think that word sort of sums it all up. Some of these kids, you look in their eyes, and they're just -- they're 90 years old, you know? They're just so sad.
All right, Sanjay, thanks a lot.
GUPTA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. The U.N. is the focus of Jack's question of the day.
CAFFERTY: Thanks, Soledad.
An independent commission investigating the U.N. oil-for-food program reports that the agency failed to monitor the $64 billion program and often ignored the recommendations of its own auditors.
The financial audits show numerous incidents, for example, of contractors hired to aid the Iraqi people under Saddam being overcharged for their work.
The U.N. is under a lot of scrutiny now as it leads the tsunami relief effort. Once again, billions of dollars involved here. But is it too late for the U.N.?
The question is, what does the United Nations have to do to restore its credibility?
Peter writes from Houston, Texas, "The U.N. can never be trusted with large sums ever again. The core of the U.N. is so dysfunctional that a new structure for world peace must be conceived with safeguards, checks and balances."
Libby in Burnsville, Minnesota, "Give me a break, Jack. The only problem with the United Nations is they didn't support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This is just another successful P.R. campaign by the Bush administration to discredit and marginalize anyone who does not support their position."
Dale in Solado, Texas: "The findings sound like they could fit the Army's deal with Halliburton."
And Don writes, "The U.N. has become a useless, expensive and corrupt organization, and I have lost all respect for them. My feelings may change if the ones responsible for the corruption are prosecuted and jailed, but I'm not holding my breath."
We'll do one more batch of these in about 20 minutes or so.
HEMMER: All right.
O'BRIEN: Jack, thank you.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the west is caught in the clutches of some nasty winter weather. Is it going to get worse before it gets better? A look at that is just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired January 10, 2005 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: A relentless storm out west piles snow as high as the treetops, with more on the way.
In Los Angeles, where it's been raining for days, the dramatic rescue that almost went terribly wrong.
The Palestinian people are celebrating a turning point as they choose their new president.
And the power of the wave when it hit Indonesia. Amazing new pictures that bear witness to the disaster on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
BILL HEMMER, CO-HOST: Good morning, everybody, again, 9 a.m. here in New York. Welcome to Monday here.
Those pictures from Indonesia, really the first videotape we have seen from that part where the tsunami hit, unbelievable images in the town of Banda Aceh. Video shot by a wedding photographer on a rooftop when the tsunami hit.
That city, one of the places where the death toll was the highest. And it's easy to see why in this videotape. Hard to imagine, Soledad, anyone surviving this rush of water and debris and automobiles, an entire town coming right before you, as you stand there and watch it.
We'll come back to this videotape in a few moments here and also talk with Sanjay and get his reaction about what he saw when he was in Sri Lanka. That is amazing stuff.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: It is unbelievable, isn't it?
Also, let's talk about the massive storm out west. The snow said to be 19 feet deep in some places. We're going to check in from Tahoe City.
Plus we'll hear from some members of the San Jose Springs Fire Department. They were involved in this dramatic rescue that you're seeing right there. This man, his daughter, her friend all trapped in that BMW in the water. How about that?
HEMMER: The man is lucky to be alive.
Jack Cafferty is with us, too. Good morning, Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: Tough stuff to watch. That fellow who fell back into the river, they got him out, right?
HEMMER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: They did. He missed -- he missed that cement by that much.
CAFFERTY: The concrete outcropping on the bridge support.
The independent commission report on the U.N. oil-for-food program is out. This thing reeks. The -- the corruption and the missing money and the lack of accountability and the failure to follow auditors' instructions. I mean, it's just page after page after page.
Can the U.N. recover from this, now that they're being handled additional billions of dollars to run the tsunami relief effort? AM@CNN.com if you have thoughts on how the U.N. can restore its credibility.
HEMMER: Many suggest it's a big task, too, for that body.
CAFFERTY: It is. This could be crunch time for them.
O'BRIEN: Almost seems as they can't at all. No suggestion, just can't be done.
CAFFERTY: They have a long hear of not being the most efficient machine in the shop. And this oil-for-food thing, I mean, it's just -- it's a nightmare thing. Sixty-four billion dollars was channeled through, and $20 billion of it is gone. It's missing. Nobody knows where it went.
And we've got Kofi Annan's kid working for one of the companies that had contracts. I mean, there are just a whole lot of things that just make it look awful.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack.
Kelly Wallace, the headlines with us this morning. Kelly, good morning to you.
KELLY WALLACE, ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning again, everyone.
Now in the news, less than three weeks before the Iraqi elections, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi says he is determined that Iraqis will head to the polls as scheduled on January 30. Speaking just two hours ago, Allawi said there will be no safe haven for criminals trying to disrupt peace inside Iraq.
And the announcement came as Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son were gunned down outside their home. Police are investigating that incident. A winner declared today in another part of the world, there in the Mideast in the Palestinian presidential election. The Palestinian Elections Commission announcing former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas got 62 percent of the vote in yesterday's polling. And aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon say he plans to meet with Abbas as early as this week.
And there is word that the accused ringleader in Abu Ghraib prison scandal may take the stand in his own defense. Army Reservist Charles Graner faces 10 charges. If convicted, he could serve up to 17 years in prison.
Opening statements and testimony are set to begin next hour in that court-martial. That trial is expected to last, I believe, about a week. A lot of attention on that.
HEMMER: Kelly, thanks.
WALLACE: Sure.
O'BRIEN: Another storm is expected to blast parts of California and Nevada today. A winter storm warning in effect for areas that have already been buried in 19 feet of snow.
CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano live in Tahoe City, California, with more for us.
Hey, Rob, good morning again.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning again, Soledad.
It's been an amazing weekend, just snowing and snowing and snowing. Tahoe sits at about 6,000 feet, so it's no stranger to big snowstorms. As a matter of fact, the Sierra Nevada Mountains are among the snowiest places on earth.
But this is such a big storm from flooding to snow to even the desert and through Reno, about 50 miles to our north and east. Typically doesn't get this much. Since December 28, they have received over six feet of snow, making this one of the worst snowstorms since 1916.
We are getting a little bit of a break right now. But by that I mean just flurries. But it just didn't seem to want to stop.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO (voice-over): Snow, snow and more snow. A series of storms has dumped as much as 19 feet of snow in the High Sierra Mountains. It's believed to be the most snow in the region in nearly 90 years. Avalanches and hazardous driving conditions are top concerns.
LEL TONE, AVALANCHE COORDINATOR: Visibility goes down to absolutely zero. A lot of accidents happen. The winds are absolutely screaming on the ridges. We had winds last night of 163 miles per hour.
MARCIANO: Plows and snow blowers working around the chock to keep traffic flowing. But besides their best efforts several major highways between California and Nevada shut down and, in one instance, travelers were stranded in their cars for over 12 hours.
Conditions on the slopes are even more difficult. Although some skiers decided to brave the elements, at least until resort managers shut the slopes down.
GARY MURPHY, AVALANCHE FORECASTER: Wind is the architect of avalanches. And what we're seeing here is slab avalanches developing in the upper mountain because of wind-driven snow.
MARCIANO: Ski patrols hit the most unstable areas in the mountain, setting off charges to blast away potentially deadly avalanches. And even more snow may be on the way. But the forecasters in the area have extended a winter storm warning across the Sierra and parts of northern Nevada into Tuesday.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: All weekend long, you'd hear in the distance these explosions, those cannons going off as ski patrollers try to -- try to manage these avalanches.
And they try to do it because you get so much snow, not only here at lake level, but imagine this much snow and then times it by three at the top of the mountain and then increase the slope of this thing. That snow's going to come down at some point just from gravity. So they'd rather do it on their terms than let it come down when people aren't expecting it.
They do it at the ski patrol at the ski resorts. They also do it along the highways. And for that reason, sometimes they shut down the highways.
Good news right now is that Highway 80 and a lot of the other highways that feed into Tahoe are now open. That may change come tomorrow. Two feet of snow expected here at lake level. You can double that at the mountain passes.
Live from Tahoe City, Soledad, back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, Rob. Thanks a lot for that update.
HEMMER: He's in northern California.
In southern California, the story there is rain, the fifth straight day of it today. There is severe flooding, mudslides, power outages, as well. Miguel Marquez reporting this morning. There are also some incredible rescues taking place this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on now, come on now. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's about as dramatic as a rescue gets: a man stripped of his clothing by the rush of water almost doesn't make it.
Before the man was pulled to shore, he spent about 40 minutes floating through the Los Angeles suburbs on the roof of his BMW. His kids had been rescued earlier. But his car became a boat for about two miles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab the rope! Grab it tight!
MARQUEZ: In the Hollywood hills, a house crumpled after the water-sodden hillside behind it gave way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard this woman from this house say, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God! My house fell down! (ph)"
MARQUEZ: A 33-year-old man and his two kids were plucked from the debris. Fire officials say his 10-year-old son, buried up to his neck in mud, was lucky to survive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got a baby, Michael.
MARQUEZ: In the suburbs north of Los Angeles a river rage in what was once a dry creek bed. After a wall collapsed, a trailer park flooded, residents packed up children and Chihuahuas and headed for drier ground.
REBECCA HAYES, EVACUEE: My dad wants to stay but we have no choice. We have to evacuate.
MARQUEZ: Across southern California, mud slid off rain-soaked hills, rock and mudslides blocked roads, creating hazards almost everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Mother Nature at its worst.
MARQUEZ: Mother Nature relentless. In Malibu a car, with five passengers plunged onto the rocky shore. One person was killed.
Near Dodgers Stadium a homeless man died after being buried in mud.
(on camera) I want to give you a sense of where I am. We're in the Hollywood Hills on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, where the street has literally turned into a river tonight. Many cars not even coming up the boulevard here because they're so concerned about the water.
California's Office of Emergency Management says officially two people have died in this storm but several others have been killed in traffic-related accidents. And California's due for another belt of storms Monday evening.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HEMMER: Captain Thomas McGauley and Captain Mike Yule of Santa Fe Springs Fire Department, they were involved in that first incredible rescue Miguel talked about. They described today what happened when they arrived on the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. THOMAS MCGAULEY, SANTA FE SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA, FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well, it was pretty exciting for us, even though we ended up dealing with this quite a bit. We had one vehicle that was actually in the riverbed itself. We had approximately 40 bystanders that were up on board the bridge at the railing.
They were attempting at the time to remove two of the females from the vehicle itself. We arrived on scene, assisted them. And the vehicle was actually floating down the riverbed. So it had to be pinched at that the time.
We were able to assist them, get those first two females out of the vehicle. And then the vehicle continued to float underneath the bridge out of our view.
Our initial response, we went ahead and moved units further downstream in case we had to utilize them, and it became apparent at that time we had to utilize them.
Just so our viewers know, you saved his two children first. He's still in the water, as you described to us. But what we just saw, too, was the chance of you bringing him on board that bridge, but then he slips at the last second.
He lost his pants in all of this, in addition to his car. He goes down a river for two miles. Captain Yule, how did you keep track of him during that time?
CAPT. MIKE YULE, SANTA FE SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA, FIRE DEPARTMENT: During that time, we had people that were actually running the riverbank and keeping an eye on him. Captain McGauley on Engine 81 and myself on Truck 811 went down one of the main streets and set up at the bridge, and we had visual with him the whole time and set up the rope systems to get him out of the water.
HEMMER: How are they doing today? Do you know, Captain Yule?
YULE: Last I heard, he is unhurt and in good spirits.
HEMMER: To Captain McGauley, too, as we watch this videotape again here, have you ever seen weather like this in that part of the country?
MCGAULEY: The last big weather I believe we had like this was back in 1983, with the El Nino weather.
But it's been raining quite a bit here for the last week. And all that water runs down. The way the storm system is designed is to get as much volume of the water back out to the ocean and off the streets, and that creates a lot of problems for us, especially when people get involved in the river bed itself.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Job well done. Thomas McGauley, Mike Yule, captains with the Santa Fe Springs Fire Department in California -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: There's a story out of the Associated Press that talks about a 2-year-old girl who died when apparently her mom dropped her as they -- she was being rescued, but she had driven around the barricades to try to cut through.
HEMMER: Wow.
O'BRIEN: What are people thinking about, you know?
Check in right with Chad. He's at the CNN Center for us.
Hey, Chad, good morning.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thanks a lot.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You're welcome.
O'BRIEN: Let's get to sports now.
First weekend of NFL playoffs is over. The Minnesota Vikings surprised some by knocking off the Green Bay Packers. Final score, 31-17. The Vikings were just 8-8 during the regular season.
In the AFC, Peyton Manning threw four touchdown passes to lead his Indianapolis Colts over the Denver Broncos; 49-24 was the score there.
HEMMER: Did you see Randy Moss, by the way, yesterday?
O'BRIEN: No, I did not.
HEMMER: He was playing with one leg. The Vikings...
O'BRIEN: Oh, really.
HEMMER: My gosh. A great weekend coming up, too, this weekend, too. So I know you'll be...
O'BRIEN: I'll be glued to the set.
HEMMER: Brad.
O'BRIEN: Brad will be glued to the set.
HEMMER: How about your wife?
Would you serve school detention for your children? There's a mom and dad in Houston, Texas, who did just that. They're a bit upset, too. We'll explain their story in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, a train collision and poisonous cloud drives thousands of people from their homes. How long before they can go back home? A look at that ahead.
HEMMER: Also, there is new videotape today: a stunning look at the fury of the Asian tsunamis, the first real look we have had on the island of Sumatra. Back in a moment. You'll see it here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: We are a bit more than two weeks after the tsunami disaster. The new developments as we have them today on a Monday morning.
More than 140,000 now reported dead. That total expected to keep climbing. Those recovery efforts continue. From Indonesia alone, at least 77,000 missing. The death toll there, 95,000, most of the casualties coming from the Aceh province.
A U.S. official is making slow progress determining the fates of missing Americans. Eighteen U.S. citizens now confirmed dead by the State Department. Another 18 are presumed dead. And more than 1,100 inquiries now still under investigation. That's down by half this time last week.
Relief efforts to Banda Aceh and Indonesia now resuming after a helicopter crash closed the airfield for about an hour earlier today. Investigators still trying to determine what caused the U.S. Navy chopper to plunge into a rice patty about 100 yards from the crowded airport. Ten crewmembers on board suffered minor injuries.
Dramatic videotape, too, not seen before, showing the force of the wave that took so many lives. This amateur videotape capturing what we previously only could imagine in Banda Aceh. You will see the raging river come in after the people start fleeing down the city street and the water then reaching the second floors of buildings as people scramble for safety.
This is the first time we have seen this portion of the tape, as a number of people try and race in front of that water.
And in that water, there are homes and there are minivans and there are automobiles in all of it, going with the water down the middle of this town. Extraordinary stuff here to watch when that tsunami first emerged. As the trees go along with the water, as well.
That tape taken by a wedding photographer perched on a rooftop as the flood carried off everything in his path.
O'BRIEN: Think of all of the people we just saw, that dozens of people who were walking, not -- sort of quickly, moving out of the way, but you know, now that the river's picked up, the river water there has sort of picked up steam, I mean, you know, what happened to them?
HEMMER: Once again it shows you how no one had any idea what was coming by the way that they were walking down that street.
This is what was happening during. There are a couple of satellite images, too, that can show what portion of Indonesia in the before picture and then after -- the after picture here from satellite. You can see the devastation.
O'BRIEN: It's gone.
HEMMER: Yes. The one thing that strikes me about this, Soledad, so often times we look at this videotape, and there is barely a tree standing for shade for the people who survived this. And you can see it quite clearly yet again the before and the after.
And that videotape, we saw a little bit yesterday on Sunday. But that water just keeps going and does not seem to end as it flies by that photographer.
O'BRIEN: With all the debris in there.
Let's check in with Sanjay Gupta. He's back from Sri Lanka. And of course, despite all of our extensive coverage of the tsunami, it is sort of hard to explain what it was like to be there and see it for yourself. So Sanjay's at the CNN Center.
Hey, Sanjay, nice to talk to you this morning and welcome back.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about what -- what you felt was the most important thing or what stuck out in your mind as -- when you consider all of the devastation, frankly all of the bodies, and then all of the horribly sad stories. Is there one thing that sort of stuck with you the most?
GUPTA: Well, I think that, you know, there's so many different images. Obviously, we've seen the devastation so many times over the last couple of weeks.
I think what was sort of striking was that when you think about a tsunami, most people have this preconceived notion that it's this huge tidal wave. And really, from talking to people on the ground, living on the coast, it was this very powerful wave. But they were surprised at how powerful it was. You know, there's people coming out to sort of take a look.
The stories -- some of the stories that struck me, Soledad, was that first wave came in, and a lot of people were obviously injured by that wave. But then the water went out as far as the eye could see, according to some of the people I talked to. The water was just gone. The ocean sort of disappeared for a time.
And remember, the ocean sort of brought in all these -- all these deep sea fish so that the sea bed, the now-dry sea bed, was covered with all these -- all these weird-looking fish that a lot of the fishermen had never seen. So they all ran out there to basically take a look. And that's when the second wave came. And it was sort of stories like that that really stuck out at me, Soledad.
Obviously, the dead, the people who died, 140,000, I think the number now, but the survivors, as well. To sort of think it in a binary sort of way, either you lived or died I think is not the way to think about it. And that's something that we learned, as well, there.
This was a very deprived community, at least some of the communities we visited in Sri Lanka. The major industries are fishing and tourism, both of which have been completely devastated by the tsunami. So what is it going to look like a few months from now? That was what we were really trying to figure out.
There's these blasts of aid that come in, and there's lots of aid available in terms of water and food, hopefully starting to get to the right places. But six months from now -- I had this picture that I took with my camera, basically showed this house that had no longer had a roof or walls and this child standing inside the house. And outside that were two crates of bottles of water.
And the message of that, the reason I took that picture was there's plenty of water right now, but the child has no house. And these are the sorts of things I think a lot of people are going to be thinking about, hopefully, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Those children who were so affected. I mean, No. 1, just the huge percentage of them who died because they couldn't get out of the way or they got run over by all the debris and stuff that was in the water.
And then just, you know, two, they -- they lost a parent or they lost both parents or they lost all their siblings.
Give me a sense of how you think the children are doing, both from a health front and then maybe a psychological health front, as well.
GUPTA: Yes, you know, those were some of the most difficult stories for sure. The orphanages -- we had a couple of good things to report, if there could be good things.
There was one orphanage called the Saravodia (ph) Trust. We spent some time with this orphanage quite a bit. All around the country they have centers. And they basically said, listen, any child who has lost their parents to the tsunami has a home with us.
We're going to look after them. We're going to look after their future. That was a promise they made. And obviously it's going to take a lot of money to do that.
But we went back and checked back with them at the end of the two weeks, and certainly a lot of orphans have started to come into this particular orphanage.
The flip side, of course, is there are a lot of orphans out there, a lot of children that lost one parent, but still aren't getting enough food, getting enough water. And they're not getting simple medicines that could turn what's otherwise a simple disease into a deadly disease. So that's -- that's heartbreaking, Soledad. It really is.
O'BRIEN: I think that word sort of sums it all up. Some of these kids, you look in their eyes, and they're just -- they're 90 years old, you know? They're just so sad.
All right, Sanjay, thanks a lot.
GUPTA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. The U.N. is the focus of Jack's question of the day.
CAFFERTY: Thanks, Soledad.
An independent commission investigating the U.N. oil-for-food program reports that the agency failed to monitor the $64 billion program and often ignored the recommendations of its own auditors.
The financial audits show numerous incidents, for example, of contractors hired to aid the Iraqi people under Saddam being overcharged for their work.
The U.N. is under a lot of scrutiny now as it leads the tsunami relief effort. Once again, billions of dollars involved here. But is it too late for the U.N.?
The question is, what does the United Nations have to do to restore its credibility?
Peter writes from Houston, Texas, "The U.N. can never be trusted with large sums ever again. The core of the U.N. is so dysfunctional that a new structure for world peace must be conceived with safeguards, checks and balances."
Libby in Burnsville, Minnesota, "Give me a break, Jack. The only problem with the United Nations is they didn't support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This is just another successful P.R. campaign by the Bush administration to discredit and marginalize anyone who does not support their position."
Dale in Solado, Texas: "The findings sound like they could fit the Army's deal with Halliburton."
And Don writes, "The U.N. has become a useless, expensive and corrupt organization, and I have lost all respect for them. My feelings may change if the ones responsible for the corruption are prosecuted and jailed, but I'm not holding my breath."
We'll do one more batch of these in about 20 minutes or so.
HEMMER: All right.
O'BRIEN: Jack, thank you.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the west is caught in the clutches of some nasty winter weather. Is it going to get worse before it gets better? A look at that is just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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