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Evacuee Bus Engulfed In Flames Near Dallas; Texas Phone, Power Services Prepare For Rita; Texas Medical Center State Of The Art Disaster Preparedness Includes Flood Gates; Exodus Continues From Houston Area

Aired September 23, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The bus, they were trying to evacuate people off of that bus. Eyewitness at the scene describes how he helped break windows to try to pull some of the people out. One person is confirmed dead in this fire.
No details about exactly what happened here, although we're being told the bus was full of evacuees. As the shot pulls out, you can see as the shot pulls out that clearly traffic has been impacted, already slowed traffic as people try to get out of Houston -- is being made even slower today.

We're going to bring you more information on this as we get it. Again, you're looking at pictures from our affiliate KDFW showing us some of these live pictures of the aftermath of this bus explosion on I-45, just south of Dallas.

It looks, Miles, as if, in fact, there are injured people that emergency crews are working on right on the side of the highway there. Wow. You know, this is adding insult to injury for these folks who are not only trying to get out of town, but meeting, as you have seen, all morning, these massive traffic problems, then to have this happen, not only slowing traffic but what a terrible, horrible accident to have to talk about.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, it really is horrifying, Soledad. You know, without a single shred of factual support this is linked to this accident, it does give me a moment, give us the opportunity to remind people that on these occasions, many people are traveling with extra gasoline.

That might have been a diesel bus, I don't know, whatever the case may be. People are carrying extra gas with them in containers and it's very important that those containers are not inside your vehicle, inside a trunk, strap them to your roof! I don't know that that's in any way linked to this, but it does remind me of that danger. If people are considering traveling, concerned about having enough gas, and they are using those jerry can, those gas containers, you really, really have to be careful about that.

That's on top of everything else is just going to add more misery to the traffic situation here. I'm on I-45, about 30 miles north of Houston, about 200 miles south of where you see right now. Traffic is moving OK, now, but down the road there, all morning long, we've been seeing a buildup of traffic. It's actually moved north, so that bottleneck is kind of moving, that 100-mile long bottleneck of traffic is slowly inching its way up toward Dallas.

Meanwhile, Rita, of course, inching its way toward the Gulf Coast. The question is where will Rita hit? How strong will it be when it does? Chad Myers with those answers from the Weather Center, he is our extreme weather expert.

Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Good morning, Miles.

Other than a little wobble overnight this storm has been on a west-northwest track right between Houston and Lake Charles and that's kind of a wide area there. But we still have to use the cone even at this hour.

If you remember, about 48 hours, we told you that we were going to lose radar contact with the storm because it was too far out into the ocean to really see it. Now we are seeing the eye wall itself, the center of the storm. That center of the storm at its current track at 9 miles an hour is 27 hours from making landfall.

So somewhere around 11:00 tomorrow morning. It could speed up, could slow down. Don't focus on that 27 hours, because the outer part where the actual hurricane winds actually start, that's only 13 hours away.

See this big band of all wind above hurricane strength. Even tropical storm force winds are almost 200 miles on either side of this storm and that would include New Orleans, that's why New Orleans is under a tropical storm warning.

Right now, there are wind showers coming through here, windy conditions. The winds are picking up into the 30, 40-m.p.h. range even as far up to Galveston, and right over to Port Arthur, wind speeds there in the 25, 26, 27. Cameron, Louisiana at 32 miles per hour right now.

The storm takes itself to the south of Port Arthur, right between Beaumont, Port Arthur here, right smack dab up, a very vulnerable area here in southwestern Louisiana that floods at a moment's notice even without a hurricane. It's a swampy, bayou area. Tell you what, Port Arthur right up through Lake Charles will be inundated with that storm surge like we saw in Katrina in Bay St. Louis, in Gulfport, and places like that. Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: Chad Myers in the Weather Center, thank you very much.

Of course, the first couple of things to go in a situation like this are the telephones and the power, generally, when you get a storm like this. It's impossible to avoid those outages. The question is how are those utilities, how are those companies prepared to handle what seems to be inevitable right now for this part of the world? Joining me now to talk a little bit about that are two people who know a lot about it. Patrick Kimball who is with Verizon, can talk to us about the wireless network, how it is doing. David McClanahan who is president of Centerpoint Energy, who is responsible for the power grid here.

Let's begin with power, David, because that is usually the first thing that goes. I assume you pre-positioned a lot of trucks. You often see them from, you know, very distant states in storms like this ready to go in. Do you have enough of that capability right now, especially when you consider all of the focus on everything that happened in the wake of Katrina?

DAVID MCCLANAHAN, PRESIDENT, CENTERPOINT ENERGY: Well, Katrina has taken a lot of crews in Louisiana, and earlier than that, in Mississippi and Florida. But we have arranged for enough crews to come in on Sunday and Monday to where we're really prepared for this hurricane, especially if it hits a little bit to our east. We've been working all week arranging crews from outside our service territory, getting our vendors to make sure we have materials staged in the right place. We feel good about our preparation at this point.

M. O'BRIEN: So the idea is to stage the trucks, the telephone poles, the people sort of on the outskirts in a safe zone and do they move in almost immediately after the storm passes through?

McCLANAHAN: That's correct. We have about -- we'll have about 200 of our own crews at our service centers ready to go immediately when the storm passes. On Sunday, we'll have 300 or 400 line crews that are staged outside our service area coming in and we'll have about 400 tree trimming crews come in. We'll have an extra 3,000, 4,000 men coming in to help us on restoration beginning on Sunday.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's turn it over to Patrick for a moment.

Patrick, the cell phone network I know last night was taxed heavily. I had a hard time getting a phone call out on Verizon, as a matter of fact, at the airport. Of course, the airports are always difficult anyway, because a lot of cell phone use in those spots.

What I did find was that the text messages worked pretty well. Is that good advice to people, use text if you can?

PATRICK KIMBALL, VERIZON: Absolutely. There are a couple of good reasons why you should be using text messaging in a situation like this. Often, text messaging will be able to go through when voice calls are having problems. It is a lot more efficient use of the network. It does not clog up the networks as much.

If you have a text message that you send that is unable to go through at that point it can be cued up, and go through as soon as the network resources are available. We saw many instances in the aftermath of Katrina where people were able to send text messages to let their loved ones know they were OK.

M. O'BRIEN: The thing about cell phones, it's a lot like the power grid in the sense you have all of those cell towers that you have to watch out for, they can get knocked over, they -- I guess they have battery backup, but eventually, they go down. How do you get ready to handle something as overwhelming as this?

KIMBALL: Sure. Our network is prepared for a situation like this. We have a lot of preparation that's been put in place in the last few weeks. We've brought in a number of portable generators, we've brought in a number of portable cell sites that can be deployed in the aftermath of the storm.

Bear in mind, the cell sites themselves, the towers are pretty resilient to situations like this. They all have battery backup and in the coastal areas particularly, the vast majority of our cell sites have permanent generators there on-site with them in case there's a disruption to service from the power.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's hope everything stays on and you guys don't have much to do. Patrick Kimball is with Verizon Wireless, and David McClanahan, Centerpoint Energy, got some busy hours and days ahead, clearly. Thanks for your time.

Let's check some other headlines now, outside the world of hurricanes and Rita. Kelly Wallace joining us now from New York with that.

Good morning, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NEWS ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: Good morning, Miles. Thanks so much.

Actually, we will stick with hurricane Rita right now, Miles, because we have some breaking news coming out of Texas.

Dozens of ambulance and first emergency crews at the site of a bus explosion on a main route for Rita evacuees. WFAA, a television station in Dallas, is reporting at least 20 dead, but that number has not been confirmed.

An eyewitness says he saw people trying to break windows to get out of the burning bus. The incident taking place outside Dallas and you're looking at pictures from earlier this morning there. All that seems to be left from the bus now is the burned out flame. The group of evacuees was leaving Houston.

According to the associated press, this bus was carrying elderly evacuees and a Dallas County sheriff spokesperson saying it's possible that oxygen used elderly evacuees could have had a role in that fire.

Obviously, a breaking news story. Local station in Dallas reporting at least 20 dead in that bus explosion. And we will continue to follow the story. CNN has not confirmed that number.

Turning to other news: President Bush is taking a short trip to Texas ahead of Hurricane Rita. The president will get a firsthand look at the preparations in San Antonio and meet with officials there. He will then head to Colorado to wait out Rita at a base which oversees homeland defense.

There is word that the Vatican is planning to ban gay men from becoming priests even if they are celibate. The new directive is seen as shift away from earlier church policy of condemning homosexual acts, but not homosexual orientation. The proposed edict is supposed expected to be signed by Pope Benedict XVI.

An apology coming from Kate Moss, days after a London newspaper published photos it says shows the super model using cocaine. Moss says she takes full responsibility and is taking difficult steps to address her personal issues, but she never admits to having used hard drugs. Several companies have dropped Moss as their spokeswoman because of the claims. British police are now investigating.

Bill Gates is still the wealthiest American. The cofounder and chairman of Microsoft has a reported net worth of just -- get this -- $51 billion! It's his 11th straight year at the top of "Forbes" magazine of the list of the richest Americans.

A side note, the top 10 on the list have a collective net worth of $125 billion. The poorest on the list, a $400 each, had about $900 million. Hard to use the word "poorest." when you're talking about $900 million.

S. O'BRIEN: It doesn't work, does it?

WALLACE: Doesn't quite fit.

S. O'BRIEN: Kelly, thanks.

WALLACE: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING. Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to doctors who are planning to ride out the storm in Houston. Asks them why they're not evacuating the patients.

It's been less than four weeks since Katrina hit. We have another Rita, now, another Category 4 hurricane, barreling down on the coast. What is fueling these massive storms? We'll talk to a hurricane expert about that, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back. I'll Miles O'Brien live about 30 miles north of Houston, I-45, northbound direction. Thousands of evacuees headed out of town.

We've talked a lot about what happens to those with special needs. Nursing homes, what happens in hospitals. You recall, of course, in the wake of Katrina, those horrific stories which came out of places like Charity Hospital in New Orleans, where the staff, in a heroic way, did all they could for patients under incredibly difficult situations. No power, no water. Conditions really nowhere near what you would expect for a U.S. medical center.

Here in Houston, the hospitals tell us that they are better prepared for something like this and they're going to keep their patients and their staff in place and they have the provisions to ride out the storm. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has investigated this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. JEFF KALINA, TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER: Beyond that, the smaller circles on what we call special needs hubs.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the wake of Hurricane Katrina four weeks ago and Tropical Storm Allison four years ago, Texas Medical Center is taking no chances with Rita.

(on camera): Where did the water get to? Did it get all around here?

KALINA: It got around three feet up.

GUPTA (voice over): Dr. Jeff Kalina who is on the Texas Medical Center's Disaster Preparedness Committee says they've learned a lot and are confident they can continue to safely treat patients here.

KALINA: We are not below sea level like New Orleans is.

GUPTA (on camera): Why not move the patients out? If this place hit by a Category 5 hurricane, why not just move them out?

KALINA: You know, evacuating a hospital is not an easy task. We're a pretty safe haven for patients.

GUPTA: Houston falls into a very interesting position. You see, they won't accept any patients once the hurricane starts, because they may get hit themselves but they aren't quite worried enough to evacuate the thousands of patients here now.

I'm standing on top of Methodist hospital. All around me, 70 acres, and about 40 hospitals. It is the largest hospital complex in the world. Today, all of these hospitals are talking to one another. They are preparing for a hurricane. Loss of electricity, loss of water, loss of plumbing, and possible flooding. This will be their first true test since Tropical Storm Allison.

If you lose power, what happens?

KALINA: We have generators and Centerpoint has backup trucks in case the generators go out.

GUPTA: You lose communication. Can't call anybody on the phones.

KALINA: We have walkie-talkies and satellite phones.

GUPTA: Water goes out.

KALINA: We have our own self-contained water supply.

GUPTA: There is violence. Looting breaks out around the hospital.

KALINA: We have security and we have in-house police that are off duty, with an agreement from the police department that those police officers are allowed to stay on duty here.

GUPTA: Flooding? Lots of flooding.

KALINA: We have flood gates.

GUPTA: Your ventilators stop working in the ICU.

KALINA: We have backup generator power.

GUPTA: Really, you thought of everything?

KALINA: Yeah.

GUPTA: How comfortable are you right now with, you know, preparedness of Texas Medical Center?

KALINA: I'm very confident we can ride this thing out.

GUPTA (voice over): For now, they are a 100 percent confident. Some of this helps. Sure, there is the obvious, like boarded up windows. But consider this, unlike at Charity Hospital in Louisiana, where generators were in the basement and quickly shorted out, these generators are several feet above sea level. And there are 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel to power them all throughout the hospital.

There are also wireless devices if communication goes down. Places to sleep, plenty of food and water. A stockpile for eight days. And these remarkable doors. Flood gates, really just like a submarine. First to keep the water from getting in. Second, to contain it if it does seep through.

The Doctor Jeff Kalina will be on duty here through the hurricane. This time, they say they're ready. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Texas Medical Center, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: And Sanjay Gupta tells us that the Texas Medical Center will not evacuate, will not evacuate any of their essential medical personnel. They will stay there. Only the nonessential personnel at those facilities are, in fact, evacuated this morning.

Take a look at this live picture. Just down below me on this overpass, I-45. The gas station that had gas when we arrived here, ran out. And that is the grim situation for that particular group of people as they try to make their way out of Houston.

Coming up, we'll talk to Andy Serwer and we'll give you a sense of just how expensive it can be to get out of town. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) S. O'BRIEN: If you're trying to get out of Houston you could be shelling out some big bucks for a last-minute flight. Airlines are shutting down their service in a couple of hours. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business".

Really there is a deadline looming. The lines we've seen at the airport are huge, as bad as the lines frankly on the highways.

ANDY SERWER, CNN ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: Yeah. It's a tough situation, Soledad.

Miles was just talking to a local airport official who said the situation is under control, but basically warning people not to just show up at one of Houston's two airports thinking you can get a seat on a plane at this point.

Obviously, large crowds there. The two airports have been jammed with evacuees trying to flee the city. The fares that people are looking at as they are trying to get out are all over the map. As you might imagine, I mean, this is airline pricing getting one-day ticket.

Southwest has a nice fare there, but you go to Continental and they've got some that are higher. "The Washington Post" reporting this morning they found a flight for almost $2,000 from Houston to Dallas. That's the bad news, the ugly.

The good news is that American Airlines is sending some larger planes down this morning to Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental, so at least 360 extra seats. They will be offering those seats at a discount.

But, again, if you're down in that area and think you can just drive up to the airport, I think that's probably a bad idea.

S. O'BRIEN: So are there seats? Outside of these 360 extra ones, can you buy --

SERWER: I would say no. I would say no seats. We haven't hard confirmed, hard confirmed that, but given that the airports are closing in a few hours and given those crowds, I would anticipate there are no seats left.

S. O'BRIEN: That is going to be a tough scene there in a couple of hours from now,

SERWER: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: Andy, thanks a lot.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: We are tracking the path of Hurricane Rita, still a powerful Category 4 storm. We will check in with Chad Myers at the Weather Center. He is our severe weather expert. And we'll check in again with Miles, he live in Houston. You can see the traffic there is the problem today. Some 2 million motorists in Texas and Louisiana are trying to get out of Rita's path. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

This developing story as a massive evacuation from coastal Texas turns tragic. A bus carrying elderly evacuees were trying to escape Hurricane Rita explodes on a highway near Dallas this morning; 20 people are reported dead. We have much more on this story what has become a difficult evacuation all around.

Hurricane Rita is closing in on Texas and Louisiana coasts. It is still a massive Category 4 storm. A complete forecast is ahead.

President Bush heads to Texas today, he is getting an up close look at whether the disaster plan is working. Those stories are ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Welcome back, everybody. As we follow our top story. Hurricane Rita getting closer; people in its projected path getting out. It is one of the biggest evacuations in U.S. history. Miles is in Houston. We will get back to him in a few moments.

First an update on the story of that bus full of evacuees that exploded on I-45, just south of Dallas there morning; 45 people reported to be on board. At least one now confirmed dead. More than a dozen injured. Some reports have it as 20 people may be dead in this bus explosion.

The bus burst into flame on the major route that evacuees are taking right out of Houston. Passengers described it as elderly and infirm, and that might hold a clue as to what led to the explosion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. DON PERITZ, DALLAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT. : We believe the explosions were related to a series of oxygen canisters that were on board. We believe this bus is an evacuee bus from south Texas. There were elderly and infirm persons on board, who were on oxygen. They are unfortunately still persons remaining on board this bus. About 14 or 15 persons were evacuated off the bus before it became fully involved and the investigation, at this point, continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Terribly tragic story this morning. The sheriff says that that bus might have had some sort of a break problem, pulled off to the side of the road, and the explosion occurred as people were trying to get off the bus. We'll have more on that story, of course, as we get more information.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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