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CNN Live At Daybreak

Wilma Bearing Down; Europe Bracing for Bird Flu

Aired October 20, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Thursday, October 20th, and evacuations will begin soon as Wilma bears down. And so the boarding up begins again for many homeowners in the Florida Peninsula.
Europe bracing for the bird flu. How does an entire continent coordinate the fight to stop the spread of the disease?

And the dangers of slimming down with surgery. It may not be the best option for everyone.

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you.

We'll have more on those stories in just a minute.

But first, let's get right to CNN's hurricane headquarters and CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras.

OK, tell us about Wilma -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Wilma has weakened a little bit, but there have been a lot of changes. If you didn't watch CNN last night, you need to pay attention here, because things are changing very rapidly with Wilma.

It's weakened a little bit. It's down to a category four hurricane, maximum winds now 150 miles per hour. But even though it's weakening right now, we are expecting this to ramp up again later on this afternoon, and it could become a category five again.

Where is this storm system going? Well, it has been wobbling all over the place in the northwestern Caribbean and expecting more wobble to take place.

This is our in-house computer model forecast. And did you see what that thing just did? It makes landfall just to the south of Cozumel and sits here for a number of hours. It kind of stalls the system out. That would be worst case scenario for the Yucatan Peninsula, bringing in very damaging winds and very heavy rainfall. But it would actually be a very good scenario for the U.S. because this would really, really bring the strength of this storm down significantly.

The water temperatures and the wind field much less favorable into the Gulf of Mexico, so it would be a weaker storm if it would then continue toward the United States, which is the predicted path at this time.

The time of the arrival for Florida has also been pushed back pretty significantly. Yesterday if you were watching, we were telling you probably Saturday, maybe Saturday night, and now it looks like our best estimate is going to be some time on Sunday, because of the slow movement we're anticipating here as it heads toward the Gulf of Mexico -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So it's still a category five out there, right?

JERAS: No, a category four right now.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry. OK. I just wanted to clarify.

JERAS: OK.

COSTELLO: I must have missed that.

Thank you, Jacqui Jeras.

JERAS: Sure.

COSTELLO: We'll get back to you.

Mandatory evacuations could start as early as this afternoon for residents in the Florida Keys. All across the Caribbean and into Florida people are preparing for the worst. Also on standing by, the federal government.

CNN's J.J. Ramberg joins us now from Washington with more on that -- good morning, J.J.

J.J. RAMBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, yesterday Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the simple words, "We are going to be prepared for Wilma." Basically what he is trying to do is assure the nation, and he other officials trying to assure the nation, whose memory of Katrina is very fresh, that this time things are going to be different.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

RAMBERG (voice-over): As hurricane Wilma heads toward a potential Florida landfall this weekend, the strong winds, heavy rains and possible storm surge of up to 20 feet offer a test not only to those in Wilma's path, but also to officials in Washington, still reeling from heavy criticism of FEMA's response to hurricane Katrina.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The president will continue to receive updates and continue to make sure that we're acting in all the different areas to prepare for this storm.

RAMBERG: The U.S. Navy has three ships on standing by ready to provide aid should Wilma cause massive destruction. And the Homestead Air Reserve Base south of Miami is set to be a mobilization center. These preparations began while a House panel in Washington continued to investigate the federal response to Katrina. In a written statement Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged, "We are not where we need to be as a nation in the area of preparedness."

Testifying in front of another panel, Florida Governor Jeb Bush described his state's efforts ahead of Wilma.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: We have pre-staged ice and water in trucks that we control, that we contract with in our own warehouses so that we can -- and we've created, actually, because of lessons learned, we now have points of distribution that we have designed to format maximum throughput.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

RAMBERG: The Air Force is also setting up plans. It's preparing to go into any regions that are hard hit so that it can help with communications and transportation logistics for emergency teams -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK, we want to talk a little bit about, you know, specifics about how Florida is preparing, how Governor Bush is preparing for this hurricane.

RAMBERG: Governor Bush, I mean Florida is used to hurricanes, so Governor Bush is doing a lot. He's ordering evacuations. He's setting up mobilization sites. He's getting supplies prepared.

But what's interesting about this is how the relationship between the federal government and the local government is this time versus what happened in Louisiana with Katrina and Mississippi with Katrina. Now, some people are saying that because of the familial relationship between the president and the governor of Florida, things will be different.

But we also have to know that all eyes are on these officials. And those officials know that people are watching them. So, of course, things are going to be different.

COSTELLO: Oh, and we're going to talk some more about that.

J.J. Ramberg live for us this morning.

The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, was supposed to be in New Mexico today, but he canceled that trip to make preparations for Wilma. But it was the government's response to hurricane Katrina that was the focus of a House hearing. J.J. just mentioned that. You heard her.

Chertoff faced a tough crowd, with lawmakers angry over his role in the aftermath. Chertoff said he relied on them FEMA Director Mike Brown to be his commander in the field.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: My judgment was that we had a battlefield commander. For me to go down to Baton Rouge, I would be doing Michael Brown's job at that point, but there wouldn't be a secretary of homeland security to do the things that needed to be done in Washington. So I felt my role was one that, at least in the initial days, required me to not go down and try to sit on -- sit down as the battlefield commander myself which, as I say, I'm not a hurricane expert, but to rather do my job as secretary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So he's blaming it on the guy he fired, Michael Brown.

Let's talk more about this.

CNN Radio's Dick Uliano is in Washington this morning.

There are a lot of interesting things that came of this hearing. It got quite nasty at times.

DICK ULIANO, CNN RADIO CORRESPONDENT: I thought it was an interesting hearing, Carol, indeed. And this House Select Committee On Katrina three weeks ago heard Michael Brown blame Louisiana officials, saying that his biggest mistake was he didn't know Louisiana was dysfunctional.

And now the homeland security secretary, Brown's boss during the hurricane, Michael Chertoff, says he doesn't go along with Brown on blaming Louisiana officials, but he also defended himself against some tough questions from Republicans and a couple of the Democrats who showed up.

Remember, Carol, the Democrat leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, has refused to appoint any Democrats to this committee because she says it's a whitewash. But the questioning has been tough.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding tough. The harshest criticism came from Representative Cynthia McKinley. She's a Democrat from Georgia. She asked Chertoff why he shouldn't be charged with negligent homicide for failing to rescue flood victims who died in the nursing homes. I mean if nursing home operators were going to be charged, she said, why shouldn't he?

That's pretty harsh.

ULIANO: Exactly. And Republican Rogers of Kentucky said to Chertoff, look, I don't think there was a sense of urgency at FEMA preparing for this hurricane. No, he said, I knew it was going to be a humongous storm and we worked hard.

Well, then why weren't you at work on Saturday? Why did you stay home?

Well, Chertoff said look, I was participating by telephone and doing the things that I wanted to do. But the bottom line here, Carol, that people who are paying attention to this committee are beginning to learn things. For example, he had a communications problem with his so-called battlefield commander, Brown, down in Louisiana, and wasn't able to talk to him once the storm hit until Tuesday evening.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, the other question that remained unanswered for me is remember, he didn't know the levees had broken until the day after. And he was being interviewed by, I guess, Paula Zahn, and she was astounded that he didn't know.

Did he ever fully explain that?

ULIANO: Well, yes, in a way. Not specifically that incident. But what he did say, Carol, was that one of -- some of the lessons learned here are that the communications systems of FEMA are not good. The logistics of FEMA are not good. He said they're 20th century and need to be 21st century. He said private industry and the military are moving materials much better than FEMA. They need a new system of moving materials into hard hit areas and he says they also need a new communications system and they're going to borrow from the military here, and, he says, send in reconnaissance teams so they understand immediately the scope of the damage and the nature of the damage in any future disasters.

COSTELLO: I notice, it was interesting, he used all these military terms, calling Michael Brown his battlefield commander.

ULIANO: Yes.

COSTELLO: Dick Uliano reporting live for us from Washington this morning.

Other stories now in the news, a body believed to be that of a child was pulled from the San Francisco Bay overnight. Authorities say there may be two more young children in the water. The children's mother now in custody.

City workers in Taunton, Massachusetts will begin pumping out some of the water behind this wooden dam today. Recent rains have put a lot of pressure on the 173-year-old structure. Downtown Taunton could flood if it breaks. Schools remain closed this morning.

Top presidential adviser Karl Rove reportedly told a grand jury that he and vice presidential aid "Scooter" Libby discussed conversation they had with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame before she was outed. That's according to the Associated Press and the "Washington Post." They cite people familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony.

Let's take you overseas now to a sight many Iraqis thought they'd never see -- Saddam Hussein in court being called to account for crimes against his people.

Our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, has more for you. (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Saddam Hussein shuffled slowly as he was escorted into the court, the last defendant to appear. Among his seven co-defendants was his half- brother, Barsan al-Tikriti, the feared former head of Iraqi secret intelligence. There was also former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, almost unrecognizable out of his regime regalia.

The co-defendants all wore informal Arab dress and plastic sandals. Not so Saddam Hussein. In a suit, he likes to present a more presidential figure, which he believes he still is.

SADDAM HUSSEIN, DEPOSED IRAQI PRESIDENT (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Excuse me. I have -- I did not say former. No. I said I'm the president of the Republic of Iraq.

AMANPOUR: Defiance, some might say delusions, aside, to this reporter, who witnessed his first court hearing 15 months ago, today's Saddam seems more demoralized, more tired, weaker. Still, Saddam will not go meekly. He refused to recognize the court's jurisdiction. He sat when all others stood as the judge entered the court. And he stayed seated when the judge asked him to enter his plea.

HUSSEIN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I said what I said and I'm not guilty.

AMANPOUR: Innocent, Saddam said, of ordering 143 Shiite men from the village of Dujail executed after a botched assassination attempt 23 years ago.

Innocent, said co-defendant Awad Hamad al-Bander, who was chief of the Revolutionary Court that sentenced them to death.

Innocent, said each of the eight men in the dock.

(on camera): One of the rare moments of color came during the recess when the cameras were off. Saddam Hussein turned to his co- defendants and started to smile and chat with them. He hadn't seen any of his former colleagues since he was captured nearly two years ago.

When he tried to leave the courtroom briefly during that recess, immediately four guards came and tried to assist him out, holding onto his arms. He refused to have them touch him. He basically stared them down and waited until they left him alone. Eventually, he walked out unassisted.

(voice-over): Defendants, the chief prosecutor and defense lawyers kept getting up to be heard and there was a sense that legal procedure in this first Iraqi trial of its kind still needs to be ironed out.

RICHARD DICKER, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: It seemed as if there were no ground rules that anybody had agreed on. And it was almost as if anything goes. It's essential that this tribunal get it right. AMANPOUR: But just seeing Saddam facing trial for all the agony he inflicted on his people, for many, made up for the procedural pitfalls.

His next date with justice? November 28, when the trial resumes.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COSTELLO: And still to come this hour on DAYBREAK, Europe's health ministers converge to address avian flu. Can anything be done to keep the deadly disease at bay?

And sick workers -- stay home. That's what some businesses are saying to their employees.

Plus, the congressman must face the judge. Actually, he's going to get fingerprinted and he's going to get his mug shot taken. We'll tell you what's next for Tom DeLay.

And then, you heard the success stories. What else do you need to know about those extreme weight loss surgeries?

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTER UPDEGRAVE, SENIOR EDITOR, "MONEY": A very important thing is to re-balance your portfolio. If you were investing, say, 80 percent of that money in stock funds and 20 percent in bond funds, at the end of every year, bring it back to those proportions. Your stocks may have done better than bonds and become a larger percentage of your portfolio.

What you do then is you sell some of your stock and put that money into bonds, and bring it back to that 80-20 mix. And what this does is it allows you to put some money into a sector that's lagging but that may do well the next year. So it also brings back the risk- reward proportions to the right level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports.

It's 6:16 Eastern.

Here's what's all new this morning.

Sunny skies in South Florida are expected to turn dark this weekend. Slow moving hurricane Wilma could hit the region Sunday, not Saturday, as previously forecast. In money news, the third quarter proves good for eBay. The company showed a 40 percent increase in profits. Most of that growth came from sales in Asia and Europe. International sales rose 43 percent.

In pop culture, the Parents Television Council issues its list of the worst programs for family audiences. On the list, two of the biggest hits, "CSI" and "Desperate Housewives."

In sports, the Astros headed to their first World Series. Houston beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-1 to capture the National League pennant. Game one of the World Series between the Astros and the Chicago White Sox set for Saturday in Chicago -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Hey, Carol, we're keeping our eye on Wilma right now. It's in a weakening phase, but it is expected to ramp back up later on today and become a stronger hurricane. Right now, a category four, with winds of 150 miles per hour. It could possibly make landfall over the Yucatan Peninsula and then take a sharp right-hand turn when it moves into the Gulf of Mexico, maybe making landfall in Florida late in the weekend.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: More new cases of the bird flu have been discovered. Taiwan and Russia both say they've found their first cases. And another human fatality has been reported on Thailand.

The growing concern throughout the world has led Europe's health ministers to hold an important meeting today on ways to handle a possible pandemic.

CNN's Mallika Kapur is in Hertfordshire, England for more on those meetings -- good morning.

MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, European health ministers have begun arriving here at this hotel behind me, where they will be holding a two day summit. Today their talks will focus on bird flu.

Now, as we know, bird flu has been confirmed in Europe. We have confirmed that the deadly strain, the H5N1, has been confirmed in Turkey and Romania, and in the western part of Russia.

But at the moment, bird flu is restricted to poultry only. It has not been reported in humans anywhere in Europe. But just in case it does -- and many scientists and experts are warning that there is every chance that this bird flu virus could mutate into a form that can easily be passed between humans, triggering a global pandemic.

And just in case that pandemic does break out, European health ministers want to be prepared. And today they're here to discuss how exactly the various governments can be prepared.

Some of the measures they've taken already include banning poultry from certain affected areas. The 25-nation bloc has banned imports of feathers and of live birds from Turkey and Romania. They've also been urging governments to stockpile anti-viral drugs. We're talking about the drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza, which won't prevent a person from getting bird flu, but can minimize the symptoms of suffering if you do manage to get bird flu. And they're also urging pharmaceutical companies to speed up their process of manufacturing of vaccine -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Mallika Kapur reporting for us live this morning.

Still to come on DAYBREAK, see what some companies in the United States are doing to ward off sick workers.

And are combo meals making you fat? Some people don't want you to put the blame on burger makers.

But first, it's time to say good morning -- oh, well, we were going to say good morning, Charlotte, but we'll say good morning to all of you now.

DAYBREAK will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Time now for a little "Business Buzz."

Insurance giant Allstate has sustained its biggest quarterly loss ever. Hurricane Katrina and other storms that hit the Gulf Coast pummeled Allstate to a third quarter loss of $1.5 billion.

And it's a bleak picture at Eastman Kodak. The film maker posted a third quarter loss of just over a billion dollars. Kodak also missed revenue focuses as film sales fell and its shares tumbled to a two year low.

A question -- have you ever had your boss tell you to go home early? I laugh because it's only happened once to me, and that's right after I had been fired. But we're not talking about that.

Jennifer Westhoven is here to tell us that some bosses are telling employees to go home sick more often because?

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they're worried. They're worried about -- they're seeing these pictures about bird flu, they're concerned. We're seeing, though, that employers are getting more worried about workers coming in sick this year compared to last year. A big jump here.

Now, still, right, half of the companies in this poll that we were looking at say that workers coming in sick is not really a problem. They don't mind at all. They want to work you.

But nearly half of them do think that it's a problem. That's up sharply.

Now, this is because there's been lots of fears about possible bird flu. Last year, remember we had that shortage of flu vaccine shots? There was a lot of concern about that.

So now they're worried about their bottom line, right? If you come in sick, the whole office could get sick. So that's going to cut into their productivity. And companies can usually afford for one worker to be out, especially now with they've got technology. You can work at home a lot of the times. They like that. They still want you to work.

But two out of five people say that they got the flu from someone at work. Have you ever?

COSTELLO: You know, usually people at work get it from their kids and then they come to work not knowing they have it and pass it along.

WESTHOVEN: Yes, well, I don't have kids, but I get, you know, sick from people at work all the time. So it happens, you know?

COSTELLO: Well, we always blame Soledad's children.

WESTHOVEN: OK, so if 40 percent of people say that they got sick from someone at work, 40 percent of people also say they feel pressure to come in when they're sick. So if you're someone who right now, maybe this morning, you're agonizing are you going to call in, are you going to call in sick, or maybe you've done that, you should actually keep in mind that we're pretty lucky to be able to call in sick because half of workers don't get unpaid sick days.

COSTELLO: Really?

WESTHOVEN: Yes, that's from the Labor Department so, you know, what they're saying?

COSTELLO: Well, no wonder people don't call in sick.

And then the other factor is usually people call in sick when they're not really sick, for a mental health day.

WESTHOVEN: Well, that's a luxury that I haven't pulled on my boss.

COSTELLO: We never do that.

Thank you very much, Jennifer Westhoven.

And it is a good idea to call in when you're sick, because you don't want to spread it around.

In other "News Across America" now, a California man is under arrest in the deaths of a brother and sister who died near their elementary school. Police say the suspect's vehicle hit a parked car and then careened into a group of children. Ten other kids were injured in the crash near Sacramento.

You may remember those long traffic lines in Baltimore earlier this week. Two federal officials confirmed to CNN that the informant who told authorities about a purported plan to set off explosives in a tunnel is a prisoner in the Netherlands. U.S. authorities say they have not confirmed there was, in fact, a bombing plot.

The so-called "Cheeseburger Bill" has made it through the House of Representatives. The bill bans civil lawsuits against food manufacturers by people who say their health problems are caused by the companies' food. In other words, Congress says you cannot blame your obesity on McDonald's and other such companies.

A lot of people opt to fight obesity by going under the knife, or under the band, in some cases. Still to come on DAYBREAK, what you need to know about weight loss surgeries, from side effects to price tags.

And the new twist in those white collar crime charges against Senator Tom DeLay. He's going to be fingerprinted and a mug shot taken. We'll tell you why after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you.

Thank you for waking up with us.

Jacqui will be along in a moment with your forecast.

And coming up this half hour, people throughout Florida are preparing for the impending arrival of hurricane Wilma. We'll have a live report from Punta Gorda. It has already seen the worst.

And we'll tell you why some senators want Harriet Miers to try again on her Supreme Court questionnaire.

But first, now in the news, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he's concerned about China's nuclear strike capability and its military buildup. Rumsfeld wrapped up a three day visit to China this morning. He's now heading to South Korea.

There may be new hope today in the fight against breast cancer. Three limited studies found the drug Perceptin to be very effective against an early form of breast cancer. The drug has previously proven effective in treating other advanced forms of cancer.

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