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CNN Live Today
Nagin Back in Power in New Orleans; Thousands of Los Angeles County Inmates Get Early Walk; Could a Hurricane Hit New York City?
Aired May 22, 2006 - 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: This just into CNN out of Southern California. A power outage at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, one of the major airports in Southern California. Apparently a power outage has halted the morning flights out of the airport. They're not really sure what caused the power outage, but without power, passengers can't be screened. Therefore, no flights. So no flights coming in or out of John Wayne Airport. And they will keep it like that until power can be restored. More on that as it becomes available.
"The Da Vinci Code" silenced its critics this weekend. Coming up, box office results from the film's opening weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HANKS, ACTOR: Demons, (INAUDIBLE), monks, Da Vinci.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Professor Langdon, you are in grave danger.
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KAGAN: Encouraging news out of Southern California. We told you just a few minutes ago how the power was out at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, and the flights had been stopped. Well, apparently, the power is back on. The problem before -- they don't know what the outage was from -- but without power, passengers couldn't be screened, so no flights could be boarded. It's not immediately known what caused the electricity to fail. It happened at 6:00 a.m. local time. But apparently, the power has now been restored.
Talk about power, how about the power of a 7-year-old boy? I assume he's one of the dots in San Francisco Bay there. Braxton Bilbrey of Phoenix, Arizona, attempting to become one of the youngest people ever to swim from Alcatraz Island over to San Francisco. He's been training at home in San Francisco -- I mean, Phoenix. He got the idea when he saw last October a 9-year-old boy who did the swim. There are a couple adults in the water with him, but he's swimming on his own. Keep in mind that water is only in the 50s. So we will watch Brandon (sic) -- Braxton -- as he makes his way. Braxton Bilbrey.
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: It is just a day before hurricane season begins. Ray Nagin will begin his second term. The embattled mayor of New Orleans won this weekend's runoff election just barely. He beat Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu by a little over 5,000 votes.
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MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It's time for us to be one New Orleans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: So with the re-election battle behind him, Nagin now throws himself full throttle into rebuilding his hometown.
Here's CNN's Gulf Coast correspondent Susan Roesgen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROESGEN (voice-over): Mayor Ray Nagin used to say that after hurricane Katrina no one would want his job. In the end, he barely held on to it. Nagin defeated Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu by fewer than 6,000 votes.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: It was a hard-fought battle and I want to reiterate my thanks to Mitch Landrieu for running a very good campaign. And we stayed on the high road. So I think that was pretty unusual for New Orleans because, you know, everywhere we would go, people were saying when are you all going to mix it up a little bit more? And we decided to kind of stick with the issues since people were dealing with so many tough issues.
ROESGEN: The issues are obvious and everywhere. Piles of trash on the streets. Thousands of flooded and abandoned cars, and neighborhood after neighborhood empty. Still, enough of the voters believe Nagin deserves another chance to make things right. Nagin received more than 80 percent of the black vote and just 20 percent of the white vote. But that 20 percent was key. Nagin was able to convince conservative white voters that Landrieu, part of a political dynasty in New Orleans with roots in the civil rights movement, was too liberal to be trusted.
SILAS LEE, POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a political shotgun marriage essentially where you had conservative whites coming together to support Mayor Nagin because he was closer in terms of political philosophy with them than Mitch Landrieu.
ROESGEN: Mayor Nagin, a Katrina survivor, is now a political survivor.
NAGIN: Ghandi said it best. He said, first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then you win. God bless you!
ROESGEN: Susan Roesgen, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE) KAGAN: Easy time for thousands of inmates.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just a slap on the wrist, because time ain't nothing to us in there.
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KAGAN: Coming up, a short term fix leads to long term troubles.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: This out from Oregon. Whoo, a cloud of dust and a pile of rubble. Demolition crews bring down a defunct nuclear power plant cooling tower, the whole shebang, so to speak. It took 10 seconds and 2,800 pounds of explosives. The contractor says it's what the largest tower in the U.S. brought down with a kind of big bang.
Thousands of inmates get an early walk in Los Angeles County. Now they're back on the streets and the sheriff is the one with his hands tied.
CNN's Kareen Wynter has that story.
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KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice-over): It's Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, California. And at the county jail, it's time to hit the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up, chief?
WYNTER: Inmates like Rudy Shane count on getting an early ticket out.
RUDY SHANE, RELEASED INMATE: The judges, you know, they should give us more time. They should be more harder on us.
WYNTER: Shane was sentenced to one week for a drug parole violation and he still got out early.
(on camera): You described it as a slap on the wrist.
SHANE: It's just is a slap on the wrist because time ain't nothing to us in there. And it's easy for us in there, you know. We're already thinking criminal thoughts once we get out. And I mean, I've seen people come back in for murder after a couple of hours.
WYNTER (voice-over): L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca says his jails have become meaningless in stopping crime. Too many criminals, not enough cells.
SHERIFF LEE BACA, L.A. COUNTY: We have a criminal justice system that is severely broken. WYNTER: The county's early release program for low level offenders began nearly 20 years ago, a stop-gap measure to ease overcrowded. But today, roughly 40,000 of the county's inmates released early each year. That's 10 percent of the jail population. The remaining 90 percent are state prison transfers and those awaiting trial.
BACA: I've been basically handcuffs from doing the things that I know are the most important and that is to keep people in jail.
WYNTER: The sheriff says the crunch began in 2002 when a multimillion dollar budget deficit forced jail closures. Jamming existing facilities beyond capacity wasn't an option. A federal court ruling in 1988 stopped the common practice of allowing inmates in sleep in hallways, on floors, wherever they could find room.
BACA: If there were no court order, I would have everybody in the jail serving full sentences.
WYNTER: What started as a temporary fix became a troubled tactic. Put some offenders back on the streets early to free up space.
ROCKY DELGADILLO, L.A. CITY ATTORNEY: It makes our job hard to try to keep the streets safe.
WYNTER: L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo fears shaving sentences will boost crime.
(on camera): So these inmates are figuring out a way to beat the system?
DELGADILLO: Yes. For some of them, as I've said, it's the cost of doing business.
WYNTER: Daryl Derek (ph) was a homeless man living in the alleys of Los Angeles. He was murdered in 2004 by an inmate who was released early. Derek's mother, Gladys (ph), says she often wonders about the murderer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they had kept him in for his time, he wouldn't have been out there killing. Daryl would still be alive.
WYNTER: It's Rudy Shane's third release from jail. He can't wait to get home to his three-year-old daughter Brianna (ph). But if he has to come back, he says, it's easy time.
Kareen Wynter, CNN, Los Angeles.
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KAGAN: Let's move up the West Coast. So what's up with this? A bear on the prowl in Seattle? Yes, it happened. Police scrambled after a young black bear invited himself into one neighborhood. Officers tracked the animal to a home where it was hiding under a deck. They shot it with tranquilizer darts, but police say the bear put up quite a fight. Because of the safety concerns, it had to be tasered and it died at that time scene. Sorry for that sad ending for the bear story.
Well, it's happier ending, or happier chapter, for "The Da Vinci Code." Ron Howard can relax. "The Da Vinci Code" slams at critics with the only thing that matters in Hollywood: money. Details next, on LIVE TODAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Witness the biggest cover-up in human history.
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KAGAN: Critics, schmitics. Moviegoers head to see "The Da Vinci Code" in near-record numbers. The film had the second best opening weekend in box office history, behind only "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." Let's take a look at the numbers. In America, "Da Vinci" took in over $77 million. Worldwide, audiences shelled out over $224 million. Impressive despite those early bad reviews. And don't forget the protests from the religious groups as well.
As always, the Material Girl proved to be provocative girl. Madonna opened up her new tour over the weekend in Los Angeles. The tour is called "Confessions on a Dance Floor." MTV reports that Madonna sang her hit, "Live to Tell," while hanging from a cross. Tickets for the tour are pricey, anywhere between $70 to -- get this -- $45,000 on the Web. You better love your Madonna.
From tickets to pickets. Outside the hall where Madonna is performing, members of a stagehand's union protested. They're in a labor dispute with the company that manages the venue. Fans had to cross the picket line in order to get into the show.
Coming up at the top of the hour, we expect more information from here. This is the hurricane center, and they're going to be giving us the latest hurricane predictions for 2006. Max Mayfield will be giving us that information. You'll see it live here on CNN.
As we await that, we can tell you that the government admits it, that it bungled its response to Katrina. So it might surprise you that Americans still believe that Washington will come through for the next big one. Here's this latest CNN poll by Opinion Research Corporation. It shows more than half those asked believes the federal government can handle a hurricane. Forty-five percent said they were not confident at all. A closer look at the numbers may also surprise you. The same level of confidence was voiced both by the general public -- that is, Americans across the country -- and those who live in hurricane zones. Both groups record a slightly optimistic view of the government's ability to handle a catastrophe.
A hurricane in New York City? Forget about it. But experts are warning New Yorkers to take the storm season seriously, or at least more seriously, this year. Our John Zarrella has that story.
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JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Steve and Debbie O'Sullivan live in Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York; a tranquil setting, a beautiful, wide shoreline. They never really worried about hurricanes until now.
STEVE O'SULLIVAN, RESIDENT: We never really understood, you know, the greater impact of it. We never really had a great fear of them. We used to play out in them.
ZARRELLA (on camera): What's changed?
S. O'SULLIVAN: Katrina.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): For the first time, the O'Sullivans, whose house sits just one block from the ocean, with the Atlantic on one side and Jamaica Bay on the other, are thinking about stocking up on hurricane supplies.
DEBBIE O'SULLIVAN, RESIDENT: I really am seriously considering getting more supplies of water and dry goods. It is a worry for me. I mean, he is not as worried as I am.
ZARRELLA: There may be good reason for concern. New York City hasn't experienced a big hurricane since 1938. With the increase in hurricane activity, combined with the law of averages, many experts believe another major storm may be coming -- and soon.
(on camera): Is it going to be a slow rise?
NICHOLAS K. COCH, QUEENS COLLEGE CUNY: Yes, yes. It's going to come up slowly, about the rate that you'd fill a bathtub.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): Coastal geologist Nick Coch, himself a New Yorker, believes it would be catastrophic. Deaths might surpass Katrina.
COCH: Because the most dangerous thing in New York is the New Yorker, and the New Yorker thinks they've been tested by everything. But very few New Yorkers have been in the eye of a hurricane and know how uncontrollable the energy is.
ZARRELLA: National Hurricane Center computer models and comprehensive studies are chilling. The water is pushed into lower Manhattan, steadily rising. Sea water pours through the Holland and Brooklyn Battery Tunnels. JFK Airport goes under in an astounding 20 feet of water.
(on camera): This is the famous Fulton Ferry Boat, landing in Brooklyn. It's a popular spot for young couples to come and take wedding pictures. But if a major hurricane hits, all this will be underwater.
(voice-over): Water in the Wall Street District could be seven feet deep, the subways knocked out.
COCH: There's going to be glass all over the street, glass flying through the air.
ZARRELLA: One study puts economic losses from a Category 3 hurricane at $100 billion. That threat is causing AllState to stop writing new insurance policies in the New York area, and even canceling some customers.
JEANNE SALVATORE, INSURANCE INFORMATION INSTITUTE: Metropolitan areas high population density and very expensive properties. So you throw a hurricane into that scenario, and results can be really catastrophic.
ZARRELLA: City officials are in the midst of a major preparedness campaign. Part of the plan, move 2.3 million people out of coastal zones. But how many will go?
Dolores Orr heads the community board in Rockaway.
DOLORES ORR, COMMUNITY BOARD CHAIRMAN: For those that were raised here, I hear them today talking that they're not going anywhere. And that's a concern.
ZARRELLA: For the O'Sullivans, being prepared just makes sense. Even here in New York, where hurricanes are as unheard of as the Yankees not making play-offs.
John Zarrella, CNN, New York.
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