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CNN Live Today

Inside Look at Department of Homeland Security

Aired January 11, 2005 - 10:30   ET

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

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


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to continue our CNN security watch. We have an inside look at the Department of Homeland Security. It comes from the man, who until just a few weeks ago, was the agency's top watchdog.
Paula Zahn speaks with Clark Kent Urban.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission, securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): With that announcement, 22 different agencies came together under the Department of Homeland Security with one mission, to fight terrorism in the United States.

Secretary Tom Ridge's new homeland security team included Clark Kent Ervin as inspector general.

CLARK KENT ERVIN, FMR. INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Inspector general is the only person whose job, whose statutory obligation, whose moral responsibility is to call them as he or she sees them. And I did that.

ZAHN: And that outspokenness may have gotten Ervin into trouble. During his two-year tenure, Ervin released more than 200 reports, many of which were highly critical of the new department.

(on camera) How unpopular, Clark, did you become with the Bush administration after you unleashed a number of stinging reports about the operation of the homeland security?

ERVIN: Well, I guess the short answer and the honest answer is I really don't know. No one told me that I was unpopular. No one told me that I wasn't well liked. But I'm a big boy, and I understand certainly that there were people in the department who took offense at the reports that I issued.

ZAHN (voice-over): He alleged department mismanagement, mishandling of millions of dollars and out and out failure of security programs.

(on camera) What is it you saw that makes you believe we're more vulnerable today than we were on September 11, 2001, for another attack? ERVIN: For example, in 2003, two years after 9/11, my auditors went on an undercover basis to 15 airports around the country of varying sizes to see whether guns, knives and explosive devices could still be sneaked past baggage and passenger screeners after DHS assumed responsibility for the screener force.

ZAHN: What did you find?

ERVIN: Unfortunately, we found that two years after 9/1, it was still far easier than it should have been to get these deadly weapons past the screener work force.

ZAHN (voice-over): Besides aviation security, another investigation revealed huge gaps in screening for nuclear materials at U.S. ports.

And then there was the money. One of Ervin's investigations concluded there was $49 million in excessive profit paid to the Boeing company by the Transportation Security Administration for the installation and maintenance of equipment that detects explosives.

And his investigation into immigration and customs enforcement concluded the agency couldn't keep track of its money, spending at least $150 million more than it had, which he says didn't leave the agency with enough money to perform its counterterrorism role.

ERVIN: To be fair, there was outrage on the part of the relevant congressional committees that, even after pointing out weaknesses and problems and shortcomings like this, we continued to find a pattern of spending abuses and a pattern of inattention on the department's part to correcting these kinds of problems.

ZAHN (on camera): Whose fault is that?

ERVIN: Well, it's a combination of things. First of all, and most importantly, I think it's a failure of leadership in management attention.

ZAHN: Are you saying that Tom Ridge was a failure when he ran the Homeland Security Department?

ERVIN: Failure is a very, very incendiary term, of course. And...

ZAHN: What would be a more accurate word to describe how you felt about his performance?

ERVIN: Well, I think the department as a whole, the whole leadership of the department, starting with the secretary, I think that the department did not live up to its promise.

And I think we have a ways to go, a considerable distance to go before we're as safe as we need to be in this post-9/11 environment with a determined enemy like the one that we have.

ZAHN: At any point during your two years of service as inspector general, did anybody try to silence you or mute your criticism?

ERVIN: Happened all the time, and I resisted it very, very fiercely.

ZAHN: Clark, can you explain to me how pressure was put on you to mute your criticism along the way?

ERVIN: There were times I was urged not to release reports.

ZAHN: By whom? Would these be members of Congress?

ERVIN: Not by members of Congress but by senior members of the department. It happened on a number of occasions. And I resisted each time. The good news is that the law gave me the authority to do just that.

ZAHN: So you say you felt pressure from high-ranking members of the Department of Homeland Security?

ERVIN: Yes.

ZAHN: Did Tom Ridge ever come to you personally and say, "You can't do this, Clark. This is making us look bad"?

ERVIN: To his credit, the secretary never did that. He did not. There's no question that on a number of occasions, there were hard- hitting reports about very, very sensitive topics that the senior leadership in the department -- I don't want to personalize this or name names -- would just as soon had not been released publicly or to the Congress.

ZAHN (voice-over): The White House decided in December not to reappoint Ervin as inspector general.

ERVIN: I'm not bitter. I'm disappointed. It was an -- it, being able to continue this job, was an opportunity for me to continue to shine the spotlight of not just public attention. This is public attention. But public official attention to the shortcomings of the department and the recommendations that we made for improvement.

ZAHN: What is your chief concern about our continuing vulnerability here in America as a terrorist target?

ERVIN: Well, my chief concern is that security gaps remain in every sector, in terms of aviation security, in port security, in terms of mass transit security.

The good news is we know what the answer is to these problems. We can solve these problems. We can make America safer. And I'm confident, with the kind of attention that my office and others were able to bring to bear with appropriate congressional oversight and media scrutiny and the participation and activism of the American people, which we saw, for example, on the 9/11 Commission, that we can, indeed, collectively together make America safer.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAGAN: OK, so the guy's name is Clark Kent Ervin. You got to wonder how does he get Superman's name? Well, he tells us that when he was born, his parents let his 11-year-old brother name him.

Also remember here on CNN, we're always on the lookout for stories about safety and your security, especially today as we have our developing story, President Bush nominating his second choice for homeland security secretary, and that is federal Judge Michael Chertoff. More on that just ahead.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The 'S' on his chest got him a little bit of trouble.

KAGAN: That was it.

HARRIS: Now an update on the South Carolina train wreck that released a lethal cloud of chlorine gas. It also caused the evacuations of 5,000 people who are in shelters and limbo. Five days later, CNN's Heidi Collins filed this report minutes ago from nearby Aiken, South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Norfolk Southern Railroad is trying to reach out to the people of Graniteville and the surrounding areas.

Now as you can see behind me, out in front of this church, these people have been in line since early this morning, trying to get assistance from the railroad, which the railroad is offering. They're giving checks to people for anything from food, medicine shelter, clothing, anything that they may need after being displaced from their homes. They say they've given about 2,500 checks and they're going to stay here indefinitely.

These people have been out of their homes for going on six days now after the crash happened. On Thursday, early morning Thursday, when the one train car smashed into another that was parked in the siding of the railway and started leaking chlorine. Nine people were killed, 33 people still in the hospital, including the train conductor, and it is because of that, Norfolk Southern Railroad, says that they too, are feeling the loss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to continue to have a presence here in the Graniteville and Aiken area until all of the people have been returned to their homes and that we have been able to satisfy the needs of those individuals. We're not going to leave the area.

COLLINS: To update you now on the latest in the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board says they have completed their on-site investigation. They will now head back to Washington D.C. And try to wrap things up from there. As far as the train cars are concerned, the chlorine is still being offloaded from the two cars that still had chlorine in them. They will be offloaded into two clean cars, and then taken down the railway and out of Graniteville, South Carolina. Heidi Collins, CNN, Aiken, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And when we come back, we'll get an update from Rob Marciano on the situation out West. It is still a mess. Mudslides. It is taking a heavy toll on people out West. Also in the next hour, we will hear from outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. He'll brief us on the plans, all the preparations for next week's presidential inaugural.

More CNN LIVE TODAY right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Well, take a look at these pictures. Absolutely incredible. They are from the coastal town of La Conchita, along the 101, as you drive from Los Angeles up towards Santa Barbara. A massive wall of mud unleashed by days of rain rolling down a hill.

Then there's Antelope Valley, that portion of Los Angeles County. Swift water rescue teams were called in to save motorists. Flood waters turned a dry roadway into a raging river. And then in the mountains in the Sierra Nevada, frontloaders are used to haul away several feet of snow. An avalanche warning was posted after a sheriff vehicle was swallowed up by a slide. Two deputies did make it out alive.

Northern California is where we want to start. The problem is snow of legendary proportions. 19 feet of snow over the last two weeks. That's in some areas. More expected today. Can you believe it? Rob Marciano is in Squaw Valley. Great skiing, if you can get there.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: If you can get there.

KAGAN: Yes.

MARCIANO: There's always a catch-22, Daryn, when it comes to weather. They've been in kind of a drought the last couple of seasons. And so the snow is good, but it's all coming at once, so that's kind of bad. Snow with wind leads to some bad visibility both for driving and for skiing. And the snow coming down all at once makes for a pain in the neck as far as clearing the roads go.

We are at Squaw Valley. You can kind of hear at times the explosions going off in the background. They are working extremely hard to relieve the avalanche threat, which has been here all week long. This is normally a patio or a veranda where people might hang out and have a lunch on sunny day. That's not going to happen today. It's an eerie sight. This amount of snow was not here last night. This has all come in the last 12 hours. Almost two feet of snow.

And the density of it has changed. It was really compactable last night, it was really wet. But look at it now. And it's light, fluffy powder. That says that the cold part of this system, the last part, is now coming onshore. So even though it's going to dump probably another foot of snow throughout the day today, the last part is coming through and we expect drier weather to come through tomorrow and the rest of the week, not only here but Southern California, where they've had even more problems., as you know, in the way of rain and mud.

Here the problems are getting rid of this snow. They don't just plow it. They literally have to pile it up, get frontloaders out, put it in dump trucks and haul it away somewhere. You see signs in town that don't say no parking, they say no snow dumping. So that's an issue that they're dealing with. But all in all, the snow for the most part is welcome. We're hoping that doesn't melt too quickly. That would cause some problems. We don't think that's going to happen.

Right now, Daryn, the roads, as far as the last information that I have, are open. Chains are required along I-80, but it seems like they got a handle on -- they've had plenty of practice at clearing the roads the past couple of weeks. So they've got it down to a science.

Back to you. Live from Squaw Valley.

KAGAN: So are the slopes open?

MARCIANO: Oh, the slopes are open. You know, they have a hard time opening the very top of the mountain because they have high winds up there, Daryn. Last -- over the weekend they had a 160-mile an hour wind here at Squaw Peak. So unlikely to open the top part of it. But Apocalypse KT (ph), which goes to some really nice expert runs, will likely be open. And by the end of the day, three feet of fresh, light powder. You might have bad visibility, but you'll be cutting treks and it will be some sweet skiing. They'll be out here, no doubt.

KAGAN: And as you said, fresh pow. Yesterday.

MARCIANO: Fresh pow. They'll be scralping (ph), they'll be hucking carcass. Right on.

KAGAN: Oh, jeez. All right, thank you, Rob. You try to stay warm out there.

Hey, we want to take you south. Let's go to San Juan Capistrano. This is between Los Angeles and San Diego. Evacuations have been ordered here. Look at this, as the water just rushes way. And now, we say San Juan Capistrano, you're racking your brain, now why do you know that?

HARRIS: The birds, right?

KAGAN: That's right. That's where the mission is and the swallows return there every May. A famous area between Los Angeles and San Diego. But you know, just way, way too much rain for Southern California. You can see a big chunk of the road has been washed away.

HARRIS: So you've got erosion, you've got the mudslides, and it just continues and no real relief in sight. Well, emergency crews are searching for people still believed trapped under a 30-foot mound of mud and debris. CNN's Ted Rowlands is in Ventura County, California, with the update. Ted, what can you tell us?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tony, we're in La Conchita. and there is a desperate search still going on here. Workers have been working throughout the night. They had to take about an hour or two off because of heavy rains overnight. And geologists said the hillside was just simply too unsafe to continue their searching.

They're back at it now. The sun is out. But four hours ago they detected a noise inside with their listening devices, some sort of movement and noise inside this pile of rubble. There's optimism that there could be someone still alive in some sort of an air pocket. They're now trying to vet that out and determine what they have exactly and try to come out and hopefully bring someone out alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): More than 160 rescue workers searching and listening for survivors in a massive 30-foot pile of mud and rubble. At least nine people have been pulled from the rubble. At least three of those were kept alive by pockets of air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were in voids like corners of the home, under a doorway, under some furniture and stuff. And so what it was is the mud and the debris that collapsed the house, and they had just this little cubicle that they were in. And so the crews were able to go in there, get that off of them.

ROWLANDS: In an instant, a rain-soaked hillside gave away, sending an avalanche of mud and debris into more than a dozen homes below.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just popped and came rushing down like a freight train and just plowed through probably over a dozen houses.

ROWLANDS: Crews were in the area at the time of the slide. As the residents ran for cover, firefighters tried frantically to rescue survivors. They plan to keep searching, but there is concern about the possibility that there may be another slide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The geologists are concerned that that mud flow may start pushing more of the hill down and as it released part of that hill, the other parts of the hill that are unstable may then also start sliding down.

ROWLANDS: Homeowners were in the process of being evacuated when the hillside gave way. La Conchita, a seaside community between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, has a history of mudslides. The most significant one until now was in 1995, when nine homes were destroyed.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ROWLANDS: Sheriff deputies now believe there are in excess of 20 people still missing. The grim reality that the bulk of those people have perished and are in that rubble is starting to take hold. However firefighters say they still are in a search mode, hoping desperately to try to find some sign of life.

There is also on this hillside a desperate father, according to firefighters. A man who went out to get ice cream for his family. He saw the hillside come down. He says his wife and three children are in there. He is desperately trying to get firefighters to focus on his house. They say that actually that's where they heard this noise and they're hoping that one of those children or his wife may be alive -- Tony.

HARRIS: That's a terrible story. All right, Ted, thank you. We appreciate it.

The weather also is wicked in place used to long visits from Old Man Winter. This wintry scene comes from Alaska. A National Guard plane will try to reach the village of Kaktovik this morning to deliver emergency supplies to 300 people there who are without power since the town's power plant quit working on Sunday, as the wind chill plunged to 60 below zero.

Now just another update, Tom Ridge expected next hour to talk about preparations for the inaugural next week. And we will continue to do some reporting on the president's new nominee to replace Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff.

KAGAN: Chertoff. You might not have heard of him, but we will tell you more about him straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: A busy morning for President Bush. No sooner does he nominate his new choice for homeland security secretary than he has convened a public meeting on his plan to reform Social Security. Let's listen in.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: More and more retirees are taking out money relative to the number of people putting money in. In the '50s, there were 16 workers for every beneficiary. So the system was in pretty good shape. Today there's three workers for every beneficiary. Relatively quickly, there's going to be two workers for every beneficiary, and that's a problem, and that's a problem because in the year 2018, in order to take care of Baby Boomers like me and -- I don't -- and some others I see out there -- the money going out is going to exceed the money coming in. That's not a good thing. It means that you're either going to have to raise the taxes of people or reduce the benefits.

And the longer you wait, the more severe the pain's going to be to fulfill the promise for a younger generation of workers coming up. As a matter of fact, by the time today's workers who are in their mid- 20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now.

And that's what we're here to talk about, a system that will be bankrupt.

And I readily concede some would say, well, it's not bankrupt yet, why don't we wait till it's bankrupt? The problem with is notion is that the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to fix. You realize that this system of ours is going to be short. The difference between obligations and money coming in, by about $11 trillion unless we act. That's an issue. That's trillion with a 't.' That's a lot of money, even for this town. And so I'm looking forward to working with Congress to act.

We've got an expert from the Social Security system that will talk about the problem, and I'm going to talk about the problem. The -- you know, the problem...

KAGAN: We've been listening to President Bush just for a bit. He's holding a public meeting talking about the changes he wants to make to Social Security, including allowing younger Americans to set up some private accounts to save for their own Social Security. Some critics of that plan saying that it would potentially bankrupt the system and would end up in being benefit cuts for all Americans. That discussion will go on well into this new year.

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

KAGAN: A lot more coming up in this next hour. We're going to update the top stories. Also we expect to hear from current homeland security secretary Tom Ridge about the plans to protect the nation's capital during the inauguration.

HARRIS: And he is the outgoing secretary of homeland security. We'll hear more about the man who is set to replace him, Michael Chertoff. We'll do some more reporting on that and we'll get an update on the South Carolina train wreck, in the second hour of CNN's LIVE TODAY.

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


Aired January 11, 2005 - 10:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to continue our CNN security watch. We have an inside look at the Department of Homeland Security. It comes from the man, who until just a few weeks ago, was the agency's top watchdog.
Paula Zahn speaks with Clark Kent Urban.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission, securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): With that announcement, 22 different agencies came together under the Department of Homeland Security with one mission, to fight terrorism in the United States.

Secretary Tom Ridge's new homeland security team included Clark Kent Ervin as inspector general.

CLARK KENT ERVIN, FMR. INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Inspector general is the only person whose job, whose statutory obligation, whose moral responsibility is to call them as he or she sees them. And I did that.

ZAHN: And that outspokenness may have gotten Ervin into trouble. During his two-year tenure, Ervin released more than 200 reports, many of which were highly critical of the new department.

(on camera) How unpopular, Clark, did you become with the Bush administration after you unleashed a number of stinging reports about the operation of the homeland security?

ERVIN: Well, I guess the short answer and the honest answer is I really don't know. No one told me that I was unpopular. No one told me that I wasn't well liked. But I'm a big boy, and I understand certainly that there were people in the department who took offense at the reports that I issued.

ZAHN (voice-over): He alleged department mismanagement, mishandling of millions of dollars and out and out failure of security programs.

(on camera) What is it you saw that makes you believe we're more vulnerable today than we were on September 11, 2001, for another attack? ERVIN: For example, in 2003, two years after 9/11, my auditors went on an undercover basis to 15 airports around the country of varying sizes to see whether guns, knives and explosive devices could still be sneaked past baggage and passenger screeners after DHS assumed responsibility for the screener force.

ZAHN: What did you find?

ERVIN: Unfortunately, we found that two years after 9/1, it was still far easier than it should have been to get these deadly weapons past the screener work force.

ZAHN (voice-over): Besides aviation security, another investigation revealed huge gaps in screening for nuclear materials at U.S. ports.

And then there was the money. One of Ervin's investigations concluded there was $49 million in excessive profit paid to the Boeing company by the Transportation Security Administration for the installation and maintenance of equipment that detects explosives.

And his investigation into immigration and customs enforcement concluded the agency couldn't keep track of its money, spending at least $150 million more than it had, which he says didn't leave the agency with enough money to perform its counterterrorism role.

ERVIN: To be fair, there was outrage on the part of the relevant congressional committees that, even after pointing out weaknesses and problems and shortcomings like this, we continued to find a pattern of spending abuses and a pattern of inattention on the department's part to correcting these kinds of problems.

ZAHN (on camera): Whose fault is that?

ERVIN: Well, it's a combination of things. First of all, and most importantly, I think it's a failure of leadership in management attention.

ZAHN: Are you saying that Tom Ridge was a failure when he ran the Homeland Security Department?

ERVIN: Failure is a very, very incendiary term, of course. And...

ZAHN: What would be a more accurate word to describe how you felt about his performance?

ERVIN: Well, I think the department as a whole, the whole leadership of the department, starting with the secretary, I think that the department did not live up to its promise.

And I think we have a ways to go, a considerable distance to go before we're as safe as we need to be in this post-9/11 environment with a determined enemy like the one that we have.

ZAHN: At any point during your two years of service as inspector general, did anybody try to silence you or mute your criticism?

ERVIN: Happened all the time, and I resisted it very, very fiercely.

ZAHN: Clark, can you explain to me how pressure was put on you to mute your criticism along the way?

ERVIN: There were times I was urged not to release reports.

ZAHN: By whom? Would these be members of Congress?

ERVIN: Not by members of Congress but by senior members of the department. It happened on a number of occasions. And I resisted each time. The good news is that the law gave me the authority to do just that.

ZAHN: So you say you felt pressure from high-ranking members of the Department of Homeland Security?

ERVIN: Yes.

ZAHN: Did Tom Ridge ever come to you personally and say, "You can't do this, Clark. This is making us look bad"?

ERVIN: To his credit, the secretary never did that. He did not. There's no question that on a number of occasions, there were hard- hitting reports about very, very sensitive topics that the senior leadership in the department -- I don't want to personalize this or name names -- would just as soon had not been released publicly or to the Congress.

ZAHN (voice-over): The White House decided in December not to reappoint Ervin as inspector general.

ERVIN: I'm not bitter. I'm disappointed. It was an -- it, being able to continue this job, was an opportunity for me to continue to shine the spotlight of not just public attention. This is public attention. But public official attention to the shortcomings of the department and the recommendations that we made for improvement.

ZAHN: What is your chief concern about our continuing vulnerability here in America as a terrorist target?

ERVIN: Well, my chief concern is that security gaps remain in every sector, in terms of aviation security, in port security, in terms of mass transit security.

The good news is we know what the answer is to these problems. We can solve these problems. We can make America safer. And I'm confident, with the kind of attention that my office and others were able to bring to bear with appropriate congressional oversight and media scrutiny and the participation and activism of the American people, which we saw, for example, on the 9/11 Commission, that we can, indeed, collectively together make America safer.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAGAN: OK, so the guy's name is Clark Kent Ervin. You got to wonder how does he get Superman's name? Well, he tells us that when he was born, his parents let his 11-year-old brother name him.

Also remember here on CNN, we're always on the lookout for stories about safety and your security, especially today as we have our developing story, President Bush nominating his second choice for homeland security secretary, and that is federal Judge Michael Chertoff. More on that just ahead.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The 'S' on his chest got him a little bit of trouble.

KAGAN: That was it.

HARRIS: Now an update on the South Carolina train wreck that released a lethal cloud of chlorine gas. It also caused the evacuations of 5,000 people who are in shelters and limbo. Five days later, CNN's Heidi Collins filed this report minutes ago from nearby Aiken, South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Norfolk Southern Railroad is trying to reach out to the people of Graniteville and the surrounding areas.

Now as you can see behind me, out in front of this church, these people have been in line since early this morning, trying to get assistance from the railroad, which the railroad is offering. They're giving checks to people for anything from food, medicine shelter, clothing, anything that they may need after being displaced from their homes. They say they've given about 2,500 checks and they're going to stay here indefinitely.

These people have been out of their homes for going on six days now after the crash happened. On Thursday, early morning Thursday, when the one train car smashed into another that was parked in the siding of the railway and started leaking chlorine. Nine people were killed, 33 people still in the hospital, including the train conductor, and it is because of that, Norfolk Southern Railroad, says that they too, are feeling the loss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to continue to have a presence here in the Graniteville and Aiken area until all of the people have been returned to their homes and that we have been able to satisfy the needs of those individuals. We're not going to leave the area.

COLLINS: To update you now on the latest in the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board says they have completed their on-site investigation. They will now head back to Washington D.C. And try to wrap things up from there. As far as the train cars are concerned, the chlorine is still being offloaded from the two cars that still had chlorine in them. They will be offloaded into two clean cars, and then taken down the railway and out of Graniteville, South Carolina. Heidi Collins, CNN, Aiken, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And when we come back, we'll get an update from Rob Marciano on the situation out West. It is still a mess. Mudslides. It is taking a heavy toll on people out West. Also in the next hour, we will hear from outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. He'll brief us on the plans, all the preparations for next week's presidential inaugural.

More CNN LIVE TODAY right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Well, take a look at these pictures. Absolutely incredible. They are from the coastal town of La Conchita, along the 101, as you drive from Los Angeles up towards Santa Barbara. A massive wall of mud unleashed by days of rain rolling down a hill.

Then there's Antelope Valley, that portion of Los Angeles County. Swift water rescue teams were called in to save motorists. Flood waters turned a dry roadway into a raging river. And then in the mountains in the Sierra Nevada, frontloaders are used to haul away several feet of snow. An avalanche warning was posted after a sheriff vehicle was swallowed up by a slide. Two deputies did make it out alive.

Northern California is where we want to start. The problem is snow of legendary proportions. 19 feet of snow over the last two weeks. That's in some areas. More expected today. Can you believe it? Rob Marciano is in Squaw Valley. Great skiing, if you can get there.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: If you can get there.

KAGAN: Yes.

MARCIANO: There's always a catch-22, Daryn, when it comes to weather. They've been in kind of a drought the last couple of seasons. And so the snow is good, but it's all coming at once, so that's kind of bad. Snow with wind leads to some bad visibility both for driving and for skiing. And the snow coming down all at once makes for a pain in the neck as far as clearing the roads go.

We are at Squaw Valley. You can kind of hear at times the explosions going off in the background. They are working extremely hard to relieve the avalanche threat, which has been here all week long. This is normally a patio or a veranda where people might hang out and have a lunch on sunny day. That's not going to happen today. It's an eerie sight. This amount of snow was not here last night. This has all come in the last 12 hours. Almost two feet of snow.

And the density of it has changed. It was really compactable last night, it was really wet. But look at it now. And it's light, fluffy powder. That says that the cold part of this system, the last part, is now coming onshore. So even though it's going to dump probably another foot of snow throughout the day today, the last part is coming through and we expect drier weather to come through tomorrow and the rest of the week, not only here but Southern California, where they've had even more problems., as you know, in the way of rain and mud.

Here the problems are getting rid of this snow. They don't just plow it. They literally have to pile it up, get frontloaders out, put it in dump trucks and haul it away somewhere. You see signs in town that don't say no parking, they say no snow dumping. So that's an issue that they're dealing with. But all in all, the snow for the most part is welcome. We're hoping that doesn't melt too quickly. That would cause some problems. We don't think that's going to happen.

Right now, Daryn, the roads, as far as the last information that I have, are open. Chains are required along I-80, but it seems like they got a handle on -- they've had plenty of practice at clearing the roads the past couple of weeks. So they've got it down to a science.

Back to you. Live from Squaw Valley.

KAGAN: So are the slopes open?

MARCIANO: Oh, the slopes are open. You know, they have a hard time opening the very top of the mountain because they have high winds up there, Daryn. Last -- over the weekend they had a 160-mile an hour wind here at Squaw Peak. So unlikely to open the top part of it. But Apocalypse KT (ph), which goes to some really nice expert runs, will likely be open. And by the end of the day, three feet of fresh, light powder. You might have bad visibility, but you'll be cutting treks and it will be some sweet skiing. They'll be out here, no doubt.

KAGAN: And as you said, fresh pow. Yesterday.

MARCIANO: Fresh pow. They'll be scralping (ph), they'll be hucking carcass. Right on.

KAGAN: Oh, jeez. All right, thank you, Rob. You try to stay warm out there.

Hey, we want to take you south. Let's go to San Juan Capistrano. This is between Los Angeles and San Diego. Evacuations have been ordered here. Look at this, as the water just rushes way. And now, we say San Juan Capistrano, you're racking your brain, now why do you know that?

HARRIS: The birds, right?

KAGAN: That's right. That's where the mission is and the swallows return there every May. A famous area between Los Angeles and San Diego. But you know, just way, way too much rain for Southern California. You can see a big chunk of the road has been washed away.

HARRIS: So you've got erosion, you've got the mudslides, and it just continues and no real relief in sight. Well, emergency crews are searching for people still believed trapped under a 30-foot mound of mud and debris. CNN's Ted Rowlands is in Ventura County, California, with the update. Ted, what can you tell us?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tony, we're in La Conchita. and there is a desperate search still going on here. Workers have been working throughout the night. They had to take about an hour or two off because of heavy rains overnight. And geologists said the hillside was just simply too unsafe to continue their searching.

They're back at it now. The sun is out. But four hours ago they detected a noise inside with their listening devices, some sort of movement and noise inside this pile of rubble. There's optimism that there could be someone still alive in some sort of an air pocket. They're now trying to vet that out and determine what they have exactly and try to come out and hopefully bring someone out alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): More than 160 rescue workers searching and listening for survivors in a massive 30-foot pile of mud and rubble. At least nine people have been pulled from the rubble. At least three of those were kept alive by pockets of air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were in voids like corners of the home, under a doorway, under some furniture and stuff. And so what it was is the mud and the debris that collapsed the house, and they had just this little cubicle that they were in. And so the crews were able to go in there, get that off of them.

ROWLANDS: In an instant, a rain-soaked hillside gave away, sending an avalanche of mud and debris into more than a dozen homes below.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just popped and came rushing down like a freight train and just plowed through probably over a dozen houses.

ROWLANDS: Crews were in the area at the time of the slide. As the residents ran for cover, firefighters tried frantically to rescue survivors. They plan to keep searching, but there is concern about the possibility that there may be another slide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The geologists are concerned that that mud flow may start pushing more of the hill down and as it released part of that hill, the other parts of the hill that are unstable may then also start sliding down.

ROWLANDS: Homeowners were in the process of being evacuated when the hillside gave way. La Conchita, a seaside community between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, has a history of mudslides. The most significant one until now was in 1995, when nine homes were destroyed.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ROWLANDS: Sheriff deputies now believe there are in excess of 20 people still missing. The grim reality that the bulk of those people have perished and are in that rubble is starting to take hold. However firefighters say they still are in a search mode, hoping desperately to try to find some sign of life.

There is also on this hillside a desperate father, according to firefighters. A man who went out to get ice cream for his family. He saw the hillside come down. He says his wife and three children are in there. He is desperately trying to get firefighters to focus on his house. They say that actually that's where they heard this noise and they're hoping that one of those children or his wife may be alive -- Tony.

HARRIS: That's a terrible story. All right, Ted, thank you. We appreciate it.

The weather also is wicked in place used to long visits from Old Man Winter. This wintry scene comes from Alaska. A National Guard plane will try to reach the village of Kaktovik this morning to deliver emergency supplies to 300 people there who are without power since the town's power plant quit working on Sunday, as the wind chill plunged to 60 below zero.

Now just another update, Tom Ridge expected next hour to talk about preparations for the inaugural next week. And we will continue to do some reporting on the president's new nominee to replace Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff.

KAGAN: Chertoff. You might not have heard of him, but we will tell you more about him straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: A busy morning for President Bush. No sooner does he nominate his new choice for homeland security secretary than he has convened a public meeting on his plan to reform Social Security. Let's listen in.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: More and more retirees are taking out money relative to the number of people putting money in. In the '50s, there were 16 workers for every beneficiary. So the system was in pretty good shape. Today there's three workers for every beneficiary. Relatively quickly, there's going to be two workers for every beneficiary, and that's a problem, and that's a problem because in the year 2018, in order to take care of Baby Boomers like me and -- I don't -- and some others I see out there -- the money going out is going to exceed the money coming in. That's not a good thing. It means that you're either going to have to raise the taxes of people or reduce the benefits.

And the longer you wait, the more severe the pain's going to be to fulfill the promise for a younger generation of workers coming up. As a matter of fact, by the time today's workers who are in their mid- 20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now.

And that's what we're here to talk about, a system that will be bankrupt.

And I readily concede some would say, well, it's not bankrupt yet, why don't we wait till it's bankrupt? The problem with is notion is that the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to fix. You realize that this system of ours is going to be short. The difference between obligations and money coming in, by about $11 trillion unless we act. That's an issue. That's trillion with a 't.' That's a lot of money, even for this town. And so I'm looking forward to working with Congress to act.

We've got an expert from the Social Security system that will talk about the problem, and I'm going to talk about the problem. The -- you know, the problem...

KAGAN: We've been listening to President Bush just for a bit. He's holding a public meeting talking about the changes he wants to make to Social Security, including allowing younger Americans to set up some private accounts to save for their own Social Security. Some critics of that plan saying that it would potentially bankrupt the system and would end up in being benefit cuts for all Americans. That discussion will go on well into this new year.

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

KAGAN: A lot more coming up in this next hour. We're going to update the top stories. Also we expect to hear from current homeland security secretary Tom Ridge about the plans to protect the nation's capital during the inauguration.

HARRIS: And he is the outgoing secretary of homeland security. We'll hear more about the man who is set to replace him, Michael Chertoff. We'll do some more reporting on that and we'll get an update on the South Carolina train wreck, in the second hour of CNN's LIVE TODAY.

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