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American Morning

What Exactly Went Wrong With Levees?; Is Avian Flu Pandemic Inevitable?

Aired October 17, 2005 - 09:34   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We've been telling you about how New Orleans is reopening its businesses, and also how even a school in the French Quarter has reopened. Well,let's take a look back. What exactly went wrong with the levees? Robert Bea is an engineer and professor at U.C. Berkeley. He's in San Francisco this morning. He's a member of the National Science Foundation, a team that's just inspected the levee system and has a new report.
Thanks for talking with us. Good morning to you.

You were looking specifically, I know, at the 17th Street Canal. You've identified the weak point. What is it?

ROBERT BEA, U.C. BERKELEY ENGINEERING PROFESSOR: Well, we found a number of weak points that center primarily in the soils that were below the base of the levee and the sheet piles.

S. O'BRIEN: So the soil below. So the levee itself then didn't fail, or the water per se didn't flow over the top of the levee. At the 17th Street Canal, the ground itself gave way?

BEA: It was the ground that gave way. We're almost certain that there was an overtopping there, and visual reports made by people that lived in the area are confirming the fact that it was an overtop. It looks like it slid on a soft layer of peat there was, unfortunately, below the tips of the sheet piling that are driven through the center of the levee. So it moved toward the homes and almost a block-like movement.

S. O'BRIEN: So basically just slid out on this peat layer, as you say.

Now I know engineers talk about safety factors. Give me a sense of the safety factor of the levees, and what safety factor it should have been built to.

BEA: Well, the safety factor that we have knowledge of that was used for the design of the levees was 1.3. This is confirmed by the design calculations that we've been able to review, as well by the design guidelines that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has used for these levees.

S. O'BRIEN: Is 1.3 sufficient? I mean, is 1.3 horribly low for what they're trying to protect against, which is obviously Lake Pontchartrain flowing over the banks? BEA: Well, I think the way to cut to the chase of that one is 1.3 is very low. Based on the uncertainties associated with the surge and the performance of the wall, we would expect to see factors of safety of two or perhaps even greater.

S. O'BRIEN: So it's way below what the safety factor should have been. Is this essentially the design flaw, they didn't do the math appropriately. They made it wrong, do you think?

BEA: Well, it's not that the math is done inappropriately. It's the history behind the factor safety has perhaps gone through the explanation for us. It was derived essentially through experience and over a long period of time, and was incorporated back in the 1960s and '70s into the design of these walls, but today we've got much better techniques to reflect on what the safety factor should be, and they should be greater.

S. O'BRIEN: I know also the pilings, which basically would secure the floodwalls to the -- into the soil also a big problem there, too. What was that?

BEA: Well, the piling had a minimum penetration of 17 1/2 feet, and we now recognize that the peat layer -- that was the very soft layer that overlies the sand; it's deeper than the peat -- it was a primary weakness, and hence the sheet piling did not penetrate through the soft layer and down into those competent sands.

S. O'BRIEN: So basically, the pilings were stuck in land that wouldn't hold them. So you had the sand layer and then you had this squishy peat layer. They're trying to rebuild the levee to the same stability that they were before Hurricane Katrina, but if the base is a problem, are they even going about it just completely the wrong way?

BEA: Well, it does appear so. We've gotten information as of last night from the Corps that indicates that they're driving now the sheet piling to the elevation, penetration of minus-45 feet below sea level, whereas before we were at 17 1/2 feet. So I think the Corps is taking some dramatic steps to ensure at this time levees are stable in these areas that we had breaching.

S. O'BRIEN: Can they one day actually build a levee system that will withstand Hurricane category-5 coming through?

BEA: Well, I think the answer to that is clearly yes. There's a lot of experience around the world in areas like this, for example in Holland. After their 1953 very severe North Sea storm that flooded the entire country, they went back in and re-engineered the flood protection system for the Netherlands. Today it's a marvel of engineering. That country has never been flooded again. So the technology exists. The primary thing that is needed is the mobilization of will, and that's will on the part of the people and the governments to do it right this time and to prevent the flooding.

S. O'BRIEN: And to pay for it.

Robert Bea is an engineering professor at U.C. Berkeley. Thanks for being with us this morning.

BEA: Thank you very much, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: We've been talking an awful lot about the avian flu, the bird flu of late. So far in this world, about 120 people have been affected. The mortality rate, about half those people have died. But the concern among researchers is that it's all but inevitable that this particular form of flu, or perhaps some derivative of it, will lead to what's called a pandemic with perhaps many millions of people dying.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, joins us from Minneapolis to sort some things out here about the myths and realities of the bird flu. Dr. Osterholm, good to have you with us.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: Good morning. Thank you.

Let's try to separate, if we can, the differences between the avian flu and what -- the dime store variety, if you will, flu that we get every year. Is the avian flu, for example, much more contagious?

OSTERHOLM: Well, first of all, there's actually several terms floating around out there regarding influenza that really confuse people. Normal influenza, that disease which we get every winter in the northern hemisphere - our winter now, the southern hemisphere, their winter during our summer -- is that largely a respiratory illness that is hardly dime and nickel or whatever you referred to there, because about 35,000 Americans die each year just from that flu itself. Now, that flu, however, is one that is a remnant of the 1968 pandemic. It's the one that hung around after that.

The avian influenza, which is the one that we're concerned about now in Asia, is an influenza that is largely in the domestic bird population, with some wild bird populations also having it. I must also add just one other caveat, because there's a lot of confusion here -- that all influenza viruses originate in wild birds.

And there are other strains of it out there right now. But the one we're talking about is H5N1 and that one is not yet contagious, in the sense from human to human. It's very contagious in birds. Occasionally, humans catch this particular influenza virus. But what we're really concerned about is this virus mutating and becoming very contagious among humans.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Is it a fact that it will mutate and will find a way to spread human to human?

OSTERHOLM: Well, pandemics are just like hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis. They occur. We've had 10 of them in the last 300 years. They date back to antiquity. There is nothing in our public health or medical toolbox that says we can stop them. So, yes, we will have another pandemic. The real question is, when will it occur, what are the virus strains or strain that will be responsible for it, and is H5N1 that one?

And many of us believe that what's happened with this virus over the past several years does suggest that it, in fact, it is moving towards being that one that will suddenly have the final genetic change, making it transmissible easily between humans. And should that occur, there are many features about this virus that are very similar to the virus that killed 50 to 100 million people in 1918 and 19 around the world.

M. O'BRIEN: So you're talking about a pandemic of the scale of 1918. Fifty to 100 million people, maybe more this time. And the truth is, even though many years later, almost 100 years later, we really don't have that much more capability to fight against it. Why not?

OSTERHOLM: Well, that's -- you're exactly right. And I think the point to make is in 1918, the world only had 1.8 billion people in the face of the earth. Today we have 6.5 million. The way that people die from influenza currently in southeast Asia and the way they died in 1918 is in large part due to an immune response of the host, an overvigorous immune response of humans. And that's why most of the people who die or at least half of them were between the 20 and 40 years of age in 1918. Today, we don't have better care procedures now than we did back then to care for these people. So you can't even say that we have much better medical care delivery.

The real question, though, which I think you're driving at, is why don't we have the vaccines and the drugs that would be available worldwide to stop this? And part of it is that we're still largely using 1950s technology for the vaccine development influenza, where you've grown it in chicken eggs. We've not invested in this area and now is a real hard time to try to play catch-up. So that if we have a pandemic in the next couple of years, we will not have the vaccine or drugs worldwide that we're going to need to really stop this.

M. O'BRIEN: So we really just have to sit back and watch this unfold? There's not -- we're powerless?

OSTERHOLM: No. Yes, that's not the case either. The difference is instead of fighting this with drugs and vaccines on a worldwide basis, we're going, in every community, figure out how we're going to assure we have a food supply. How we going to assure we have other medical supplies, like other pharmaceutical products? We live in a global just-in-time economy today, where if we shut down borders, like we did even just in a very isolated way with SARS, we will bring the world economy to a screeching halt.

We've got to figure out today how are we going to maintain those supplies. How are we going to respectfully handle the dead? How are we going ensure security in our communities when there is this 12 to 18 month period where we will find many people who will be very fearful? That's what we have to start working on, and that's not a glamorous -- that's not an easy area. But it's just as important today as vaccine and drugs. All of them are important.

M. O'BRIEN: Dr. Michael Osterholm. Those are sobering words. Thank you for your time. He is with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Scary stuff. Still to come this morning, General Motors and the UAW reach a tentative deal to help the automaker save some money. Andy's got details. He's "Minding Your Business," just ahead.

M. O'BRIEN: And Kevin Bacon's controversial new mystery "Where the Truth Lies." Will the film's NC-17 -- that's the same as X, right? -- it used to be X, they call it NC-17, is that right?

S. O'BRIEN: Either way, it's death at the box office.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go. So you asked him about that, right?

S. O'BRIEN: we'll talk about that just ahead.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll get right on that one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: General Motors. What's good for GM is good for the country, right, Andy Serwer? Does that mean Chapter 11 is good for the country?

ANDY SEWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: No. Well, there's a whole lot of moving parts here, Miles. We'll -- let's get started. Let's talk about the markets, though, first of all. Stocks trading up this morning, up 14 on the Dow Jones Industrials at the big board. Some skittish trading to start the week. We're looking at Tropical Storm Wilma. Also this big news from GM. In fact, the Dow's being boosted by GM right now. That stock is up 12 percent, up $3.30 to $31.35.

And here's a case where what's good news for Wall Street may not be good news for GM workers, although there's a whole lot going on there this morning. CEO Rick Wagner of General Motors announcing a major deal with the UAW whereby healthcare costs would be cut. This is just from a half an hour ago. Would be cut by $1 billion. GM's healthcare tab for the autoworkers, $6 billion. He's cutting $1 billion out of that.

Meanwhile, the company announcing a 1.6 billion quarterly loss. But apparently, this is seen by Wall Street as progress and perhaps averting Chapter 11, which is yet stock is moving up. But obviously, a very difficult situation there -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: GM executives losing any health benefits? Doubtful.

SERWER: Not at this particular point in time, as they say.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy Serwer.

SERWER: You're welcome.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still ahead this morning, actor Kevin Bacon sizzles on the big screen in his latest movie, "Where the Truth Lies," and he's fuming about the film's NC-17 rating. We'll talk to him up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: He's one of Hollywood's most accomplished actors. Kevin Bacon has a famously diverse resume of movie roles to his credit. His latest film was called "Where the Truth Lies," and it's received an NC-17 rating, and he's not happy about that. Kevin Bacon joins us to talk about the movie.

Good morning.

KEVIN BACON, ACTOR: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Before we get to the rating, let's talk a little bit about the movie. It's really kind of a murder mystery.

BACON: Yes, I'm so happy to talk about the movie.

S. O'BRIEN: I know, well, because the rating has kind of been distracting from the movie. The movie is a murder mystery.

BACON: It's a murder mystery, and it's -- the backdrop is a '50s a musical comedy duo. And one of the reasons I really wanted to do the moves was to actually play a performer, something that you don't really get to do that often as an actor. You know, you're so often...

S. O'BRIEN: And you sing; you're singing in the movie.

BACON: I sing in the movie, and I play a little tiny guitar called the tipple. And Colin Firth is the other half of this musical comedy duo, and you meet these guys, and we walk into a hotel room, and there's a girl, a dead girl, in the bathtub, and it cuts to the '70s and the act is broken up, and as a young journalist that's played by Alison Lohman, and she's kind of...

S. O'BRIEN: She's really the investigator.

BACON: Yes, she's...

S. O'BRIEN: Because she's putting all of the pieces together and figuring out how the dead girl got in the hotel room and what was the role that the two of you played in that.

BACON: Yes, exactly.

S. O'BRIEN: Why the NC-17 rating? It doesn't sound, when we have this discussion, like it's particularly dirty, sexy. BACON: I don't know. I don't know. It's a drag, because I don't think it makes any sense. I don't really understand it. I've seen plenty of movies that have way more violence, and also more kind of disturbing kind of sexuality. To me, the sexuality in the movie is very, very appropriate. The filmmaker is a -- you know, he's an auteur; he's an artistic filmmaker. The movie is, you know, it's a murder mystery. I just don't get it.

S. O'BRIEN: Can you appeal the NC-17? Because you and I both know that that's a big problem when the movie gets that kind of rating. It's hard to get people to see it.

BACON: Yes, well, the NC-17, the MPAA told the director it was going to get an NC-17. So they're not 100 percent clear about what you need to take out in order to change it.

S. O'BRIEN: So they haven't said, this scene is a problem.

BACON: Right. They have sort of implied certain things about maybe there's too much thrusting and things like that.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm so embarrassed.

BACON: It is embarrassing, I know. It is, it's embarrassing. So he goes back and does a couple of different cuts and tried to alter the film, then went in front of an appeals board and, you know, he went himself and tried to talk about his vision for the movie, and they, you know, rejected the appeal.

S. O'BRIEN: I wonder if there will ever be sort of a similar thing with violence, because you know, parents are often perplexed why violence is allowed, but naked women or sex scenes kind of always stop.

BACON: I don't know. I'm not sure I understand that. You know, people will say to me, my wife is an actress and she's done...

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we know. A famous one.

BACON: Yes, a famous one. She's done love scenes in movies, and people say, isn't that so difficult, so difficult, so difficult for you to watch your wife (INAUDIBLE). I'll tell you what's difficult is for me to see her beat up on screen. To me, that's a lot more disturbing than two people making love.

S. O'BRIEN: And it's all acting anyway. Kevin Bacon, good luck with the movie, however it ends up turning out.

BACON: I enjoyed it.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, we're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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