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Fires Start Up Again in Oklahoma; West Coast Readies for Long Weekend of Relentless Rain

Aired December 30, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
I'm Miles O'Brien.

A developing story from Oklahoma. Tinderbox conditions persist there. Fires have started up yet again this morning. These are some new pictures for you. A full report on the destruction is ahead.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Costello in for Soledad today.

The West Coast gets ready for a long weekend of relentless rain. They're watching for landslides and floods. We'll have a live report for you.

M. O'BRIEN: And do you know where your kids are as we speak? You might want to lock the doors. The 16-year-old boy who decided to go to Iraq for his Christmas vacation. He didn't tell his parents. They know now and we'll talk to his mom on this AMERICAN MORNING.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you and thank you for waking up with us.

M. O'BRIEN: We're glad you're with us this morning.

It's going to be interesting to see what the mom says, of the 16- year-old. She is, among other things, a psychologist. So she could perhaps let us get into the mind of a 16-year-old and specifically her son.

COSTELLO: We're just glad he's OK.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: A crazy thing to do. I can't wait to hear what the mother has to say.

On to the weather situation, though, now. A dangerous situation for people in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Another messy, severe storm rolling their way and another one possibly with just as much soaking rain is coming on Sunday. River levels are at a seven year high already. It's shaping up to be a potentially difficult weekend.

Let's head north of San Francisco, to Napa, California.

Jen Rogers is along the Napa River -- OK, Jen, bring us up to date.

JEN ROGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, I can tell you that it just started raining here again. Yes, indeed, it is raining. The big deal here is that we are watching this river.

You can take a look behind me, earlier this week, if you look on the footing of the bridge, we reached a higher level. We've receded from there. But, again, with all of these storms coming on, people are concerned that the river will be rising again.

The real recipe for disaster here is that as the river rises, obviously it can flood its banks. And the ground is already so saturated, with all these storms predicted into next week, then the issue becomes if high wind comes along, we could have trees go down, poles go down. Then, of course, the lights go off. And then the other problem, mud slides and landslides, which, of course, can be deadly -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Is there anything you can do to prepare?

ROGERS: Well, you know, for the most part here, people are not novices at getting prepared. And what we've seen people doing is getting sandbags. The City of Napa actually gives them out for free. The one thing that they don't give out for free, however, is the labor to do it. So we saw people shoveling their own bags.

But these people know exactly how many sandbags they need, where they need to go. They have definitely been through this before.

COSTELLO: Jen Rogers reporting live from Napa, California this morning.

Thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, what a difference a half a continent will make. The weather in Texas and Oklahoma is dry, much too dry, and that has led to deadly and destructive wildfires, as you know. In fact, a new fire started up just this morning near Oklahoma City. Firefighters there already taxed to the limit.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is like a firestorm. I've never seen anything like this.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): New fires galloped across Oklahoma Thursday and firefighters were hard pressed to reign them in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have fires working in four different Oklahoma counties and we are sending Black Hawk helicopters and Chinook helicopters equipped with buckets to provide aerial suppressions in those locations.

M. O'BRIEN: The main ingredients are still here -- strong winds and dry brush. The tally so far? Five dead, 200 homes destroyed, amid more than 30,000 acres of scorched grassland in Oklahoma and Texas since Tuesday.

Texas Governor Rick Perry got a firsthand look at the hardest hit area, Cross Plains, Texas, a town of 1,000. A hundred and fifty-nine homes up in smoke.

GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: The are a lot of families in this community that are without, without a home.

M. O'BRIEN: It comes during the worst drought in decades. And with the new year looming this weekend, there is another fear -- that celebrations could spark even more fires. Authorities are asking people to skip the fireworks.

MICHELANN OOTEN, OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: We just need to be very careful in our outdoor activities. The slightest cigarette butt can create such a small spark, but it can create such a large fire and a major tragedy for someone.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: In fact, private use of fireworks is banned in Oklahoma. And in Texas, the restrictions are different from county to county.

We'll hear live comments from Oklahoma's Department of Emergency Management in just a few moments.

In the meantime, let's check in with Jacqui Jeras, who's got her hands full in the Weather Center there watching all of this -- Jacqui, good morning.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Miles.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: President Bush is heading into the new year more unpopular than ever. Just a year ago, he was fresh off a reelection victory. Now, our latest poll shows less than half the people have a favorable opinion of him.

Elaine Quijano live at the White House this morning -- and, you know, Elaine, people aren't so thrilled with the president, but, boy, they love Laura Bush.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, and, Carol, that's not at all surprising. We've known first time that, in fact, First Lady Laura Bush is well liked. And she's well liked across the board, not just by Republicans, but even Democrats and independents, as well. And that really just confirmed by this latest poll.

Taking a look at the numbers, first of all, the president's favorable rating, as you mentioned, that now, according to our new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, at 46 percent. But when you take a look at the number for the first lady, her favorable rating is at 73 percent. Again, not surprising. During the '04 campaign, in fact, Mrs. Bush played a big role in helping reach out to women and independents, particularly because the campaign knew that the first lady has such broad appeal -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So how concerned is the White House -- the White House has to be concerned by these numbers.

QUIJANO: Well, certainly. One thing we should point out is that a favorable rating differs from an approval rating. A favorable rating, particularly in this poll, is where people are asked whether or not they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of a person, as opposed to an approval rating. The president's, as we know, depending on which poll you look at, has sort of hovered around 40 percent or so. The latest polls showing that to be a little bit higher.

But approval ratings deal more with how a person is handling a particular job, a particular issue. And so it's important to make that distinction.

But the White House has been trying to turn around the president's approval ratings, hoping that they have been able to do that in recent weeks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes.

There's that noise behind you.

What is going on, Elaine?

QUIJANO: You know, besides the leaf blowers that seem to always come out right at the very moment when we start live, there actually is now the official sort of tearing down of all of the holiday decorations. The president had his 26 holiday receptions here at the White House over the holiday season and now, while the president is back in Crawford getting ready to return here on Monday, the crews are busy.

You can see they've got the wood chippers out. They're taking all those Christmas trees. We've been watching them take down all the decorations. And they're basically cleaning up, getting ready for when the boss returns on Sunday -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, it's beautiful already.

Elaine Quijano, thanks so much.

Elaine Quijano live from the White House this morning.

To the headlines now.

Most 16-year-olds are enjoying their Christmas breaks, maybe getting a driver's license or seeing a movie. Meet one teenager who went off by himself to Iraq.

Farris Hassan of Fort Lauderdale wanted to see what life was like there. It's part of what he calls "immersion journalism." He used $900 of his savings to pay his way. He wound up with the 101st Airborne Division and is expected to come back home this weekend. We're going to talk to his mom, coming up. Baby Nora, the three-month-old Iraqi baby with spina bifida, has left Baghdad. Checking the clock, she is due to arrive just about now in Kuwait. Later, she, her grandmother and father leave for the United States, where she will undergo surgery.

This is baby Nora -- you see her -- as she left Baghdad just about three hours ago. She's expected in Atlanta, Georgia tomorrow.

Human rights groups up in arms about a violent confrontation between Egyptian police and refugees from Sudan. Forces turned water cannons on the refugees and beat them with sticks. Nearly 2,000 people have been living in the area the size of a tennis court. They wanted to be resettled. The protests ended after about five hours, with refugees shoved onto buses. It is not clear where they were taken.

A former CIA operative outed by her own son. Former diplomat Joe Wilson and his wife, retired CIA operative Valerie Plame, were trying to sneak away on vacation Thursday. But in the middle of the airport, their 5-year-old twins announced, "My daddy's famous and my mommy's a secret spy."

M. O'BRIEN: Kids say the darndest things, don't they?

COSTELLO: Yes.

The prosecutors now investigating.

Anyway, the couple, of course, is at the center of that CIA leak scandal. Plame recently retired to spend more time with the twins. And she couldn't exactly be an effective agent any longer when her cover was blown.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, yes. The secret spy thing is kind of -- was ancient history. But, you know, he's five. You know?

COSTELLO: That's cute.

M. O'BRIEN: Cute.

COSTELLO: Two stars from ABC's hit TV show "Lost" in trouble with the law. Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Ana-Lucia, and Cynthia Watros, who plays Libby, were arraigned Thursday in Hawaii on drunk driving charges. Rodriguez is pleading not guilty. She's set to go on trial in March. An attorney for Watros says she will plead guilty. Both were arrested on December 1st within 15 minutes of each other. They were in separate cars.

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, we'll update efforts to contain those wildfires raging in Oklahoma. New fires breaking out this morning as we speak. How much worse can it get there?

COSTELLO: Also, a teenager's mysterious disappearance in New Jersey. Police say he fled the scene of an accident, but his parents didn't believe him. Days later, the family makes a shocking discovery. M. O'BRIEN: And those brutal, they call them honor killings, if there is such a thing. Anyway, such an odd way to describe them. But that's what they call them, honor killings, in Pakistan. Are legal loopholes to blame for that terrible massacre we told you about earlier this week taken by a father to his own daughters and stepdaughter?

We'll take a closer look ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Check out these pictures. These are new pictures of a new fire that broke out near Oklahoma City this morning. The weather conditions are just right, unfortunately, to continue the spread of flames across that state. Firefighters just about tapped out from days of front line duty. Winds are shifting and they're off to another hot spot.

Albert Ashwood is with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

He joins us from Oklahoma City.

Mr. Ashwood, good to have you with us.

You've got your hands full this morning.

We appreciate you taking a little time with us.

Give us the big picture here.

How big are the fires this morning and how concerned are you about what lies ahead today?

ALBERT ASHWOOD, OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT- OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Well, right now the fires aren't too bad this morning. Hopefully, we will get a bit of a break today. I believe temperatures will be a little cooler today and humidities will be up a little bit. But we're very concerned about especially this Sunday, with 50 mile per hour gusts. And it could be extremely, extremely hazardous.

M. O'BRIEN: So 50 mile an hour gusts in the forecast for Sunday. And the likelihood that all these fires will be doused by then is pretty slim, isn't it?

ASHWOOD: Absolutely. We've had really no measurable precipitation since October. And at that time we were probably close to a foot below normal for the year. So it's extremely dry here in the state.

M. O'BRIEN: So what do you do? You know, you've got a situation where you may have, perhaps, a little bit of a respite today. You've got real trouble lying ahead on Sunday.

What can you do to prepare for that? ASHWOOD: Well, I think the best thing we can do is get the word out that individuals need to be prepared, make sure they be extremely cautious. We do have a burn ban that is issued for the State of Oklahoma by the governor. All fireworks, of course, and outside burning like campfires and that thing are all banned.

We do have -- we want to make sure that individuals be as careful as possible into the holiday weekend so we don't accidentally start some of these fires.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. And you mentioned the holiday weekend. We've been talking about it this morning. Of course, a lot of individuals, a lot of municipalities, a lot of organizations mark the passing of an old year into a new year with fireworks. I know that private fireworks are not going to be allowed.

What about those, you know, officially sanctioned public displays? Are you going to allow those?

ASHWOOD: Well, it's going to be up to the local community. We're allowing that -- if the cities allow that, then they have the fire departments that are out there that are monitoring the situation. Of course, we will be on standby ready to attack anything that might get out of hand.

M. O'BRIEN: Boy, wouldn't that be a terrible thing, though, if a fireworks display just caused a huge fire and a lot of problems? I'm sure people would feel real bad about that.

ASHWOOD: Well, absolutely. But most of those large displays like that are usually done by the local fire departments anyway.

M. O'BRIEN: Right.

ASHWOOD: So we're working with them. We'll provide any state resources necessary to help suppress any kind of fire. But we're very concerned about just the natural causes that we'll have this weekend with those high winds, high temperatures and very low humidity.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's not a good recipe at all.

Give us a sense -- I was talking to the Oklahoma City fire chief just a little while ago, a man you know well. He says he's doing OK as far as manpower right now.

Do you think that by Sunday, though, you're going to need some additional assistance from outside?

ASHWOOD: Well, Oklahoma City has a very large fire department and they do an outstanding job. They're working behind us on hot spots here from yesterday's fire.

But we have over 900 volunteer fire departments across the state that have been working fires for the last week or so. And manpower is getting slim. They've been working around the clock and we really don't have a state fire department. We're working with federal authorities. We're working with the Department of Forestry to possibly bring in some fire jumpers from the western United States to come in here and help out. But we're trying to find everything we can to help out the manpower shortage in the future.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you mentioned the fire jumpers or the smoke jumpers or whatever you want to call them.

Why not deploy them now just protectively?

ASHWOOD: Well, we are working through Forestry. That's who coordinates the fire suppression here in the State of Oklahoma, is our Department of Forestry. So they have been in contact with their compact partners, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which have smoke jumpers that do an outstanding job.

So they've been working, as well. But we're talking about bringing in some others from other states.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

Well, good luck with it.

I hope it all just goes away for you before those 50 mile winds kick up.

But we'll be watching it very closely. Albert Ashwood is the with Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

He's got his hands full this morning. Thanks again -- Carol.

ASHWOOD: Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: Coming up, one family's desperate search for the truth after their son goes missing. Police said he fled the scene of an accident, but his parents don't believe them. Their shocking discovery just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Talk about grounded for life! Sixteen-year-old Farris Hassan, not Bueller -- even though, in this case, that moniker fits -- Farris apparently decided he needed a little more excitement in his high school life and in the midst of taking a journalism course, decided to do some firsthand reporting of his own -- in Iraq.

Yikes!

Well, his parents have finally tracked him down, with the help of the U.S. military. They're breathing a little easier, right mom?

SATHA ATIYA, MOM OF U.S. TEEN IN IRAQ: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Meet Farris's mother, Satha Atiya.

Good to see you.

ATIYA: Thank you.

Good to see you.

M. O'BRIEN: Your son -- first of all, let's get it straight right now. He is in a Baghdad hotel room and the military is watching him.

So you're feeling a little bit better now, right?

ATIYA: Yes. Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. That's the good...

ATIYA: I'll feel much better once he's here.

M. O'BRIEN: I bet. I bet.

How soon do you think it'll be before he's back in the United States?

ATIYA: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

M. O'BRIEN: How soon before you think he'll be back in the U.S.?

ATIYA: He was supposed to -- he's supposed to be here on Sunday, this Sunday.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

And I bet that'll be a great moment for you.

Let's back up now. He decided -- in the midst of taking a journalism course -- you are, of course, of Iraqi descent -- that he really wanted to see what was going on in Baghdad and he just took off without you or his father knowing.

How did that happen?

ATIYA: Right.

I have no idea how -- well, he asked me, we discussed it. In the past four or five months, he was telling me that he has an interest to go there and to see it firsthand how are things transpiring in Iraq. And he wanted to see the people feeling about democracy and the war in Iraq.

And I told him fine, you know, this is not a bad idea, but wait a few months. Hopefully this summer, if things are stabilized, I would be happy to accompany him.

So when he heard my negative response, he decided to take things into his own hands, I guess.

So I was just shocked, as anyone to... M. O'BRIEN: OK, so...

ATIYA: ... find out that.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, shocked would be -- is the word that comes to mind as a parent.

So he had a little bit of money, which he had saved up.

ATIYA: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Obviously he had a passport.

What about things like -- well, first of all, where did he get his hands on the money?

ATIYA: How did he -- I'm sorry?

M. O'BRIEN: Where did he get the money?

ATIYA: Oh, well, Farris has an interest in the stock market and investments. So his father and I gave him some money and he was trading and he decided to cash that money out and use it for this adventure. So...

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, jeez. So he really is kind of a Ferris Bueller character.

ATIYA: Oh, he's...

M. O'BRIEN: Tell us about the passport and visa issue. You just can't, you know, walk into Baghdad.

How did he manage that whole thing?

ATIYA: Well, the passport, I did help him get the passport, but I had no idea that he was going to do that, as anyone can imagine. Nobody would think that a 16-year-old would just decide to travel on his own. The visa, I have no idea how he was able to get the visa, you know, for a 16-year-old, to Kuwait or to Baghdad. I was even shocked to see that he was able to purchase a ticket, being a 16-year- old, traveling alone internationally.

So these questions he has to answer. I'm still puzzled by that.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, he certainly is an intrepid young man and I'm sure that all that independence is, at least in some part, you admire. But the other side of this is that he was in Baghdad and he found himself in some very dangerous situations near car bombings. He was in the middle of the market -- he doesn't speak any Arabic -- and drew a lot of attention to himself. He could have been really in harm's way.

ATIYA: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: All the while, did you -- at what point did you know he was in, you know, this kind of jeopardy?

ATIYA: To me, he was in jeopardy the minute he arrived to Kuwait. But -- and absolutely, when he got into Iraq, this whole situation is very dangerous. I just got some comfort once I heard from the State Department and from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and from Kuwait that they were, you know, he's under their supervision and they're monitoring his movements.

So that gave me some comfort.

But as far as being in jeopardy, I want -- he still is. I mean he's never that safe in that region, until he comes back.

M. O'BRIEN: Where did you think he was?

ATIYA: I really had no idea. What -- he, you know, as you read the e-mail, he just said I'll be in Iraq for a while. He did not say how is he going to Iraq or through which country in the Middle East.

So we basically -- but from his conversation prior to his trip, he said that he -- the best way through Iraq is from Kuwait. So that's the first thing that came to my mind. And then he gave me a number that I have to fax -- he asked me to fax some documents to help him get the visa from that region.

He says just fax all this information to this number. When we did some search, that's how I found out that he was in Kuwait. And then when he was denied a visa...

M. O'BRIEN: Well...

ATIYA: Yes?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you must have been worried sick, though.

What has this been like?

ATIYA: A nightmare. I have been -- I have had sleepless nights, worried sick. The children and I have been absolutely terrified and very worried, as you can imagine. So it's been a very difficult two or three weeks.

M. O'BRIEN: You're a mom and you are also a psychologist.

What goes on in the mind of a 16-year-old that would make him want to do this?

ATIYA: I think he's -- to start with, he's very confident and he's a very determined 16-year-old. He's very intellectual and very idealistic and he wanted to prove a point and he wanted to act as an ambassador for democracy.

And so with his confidence and high self-esteem, you know, he had -- he thought that he can accomplish anything he set his head, you know, to do. At the same time, a teenager thinks that, you know, what happens to other people may not happen to me and it's just -- the judgment is the judgment of a 16-year-old.

So, unfortunately, you know, I warned him and this is the reality. You know, this is -- things could be very, very dangerous over there. But I think he really did not think that it's so dangerous, so he left to go see it himself (ph).

M. O'BRIEN: All right...

ATIYA: So, it's almost like they're invisible.

M. O'BRIEN: Is he grounded?

ATIYA: Once he's back safe in my arms, then, yes, he's going to be losing a lot of privileges, as you can imagine.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

All right.

Satha, this is an amazing story.

Satha Atiya.

One the one hand, you know, I have great admiration for your son. One the one hand, as a parent, what a nightmare.

So we wish you well dealing with this one. This will be a real challenge.

The mother of Farris Hassan, a rather industrious young man, who will be back in the U.S. on Sunday.

And we'll keep you posted on this one.

ATIYA: Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: I'll bet he's going to have some privileges taken away.

M. O'BRIEN: He's got some 'splaining to do, doesn't he?

COSTELLO: Yes.

We're back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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