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American Morning
Katrina: One Year Later; Tropical Storm Ernesto; Deadly Attacks in Iraq; Mideast Diplomacy; Baton Rouge Bursting
Aired August 30, 2006 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Wednesday, August 30. Welcome to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Miles O'Brien in New York.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. We're coming to you live again from St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans. We are back again, a place where we actually spent a fair amount of time, if you'll remember. Today and throughout the morning, we're going to walk around and revisit the place where we met a lot of the folks, folks who were absolutely devastated.
You can see behind me, and maybe we can get a better shot of it as well, this is a typical home in St. Bernard Parish. We're on Florida Street. And right over here is where the levees are. The water, by some accounts, 25-foot surge came right into these homes, right into this part of the parish, wiped some of these homes practically off the foundation. I mean just a little bit of rubble and bricks. That's what happened.
Today we're going to take a look forward, see what has happened in the year since Hurricane Katrina struck this area and struck it so hard. You'll remember a year ago I asked a sheriff, so how much damage did you have, did you suffer in this parish? And what he said to me was, Soledad, we had 100 percent damage. We'll take a closer look at St. Bernard Parish and also continue our coverage of what's happening here in New Orleans one year after Hurricane Katrina when we come back in just a little bit -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad.
Happening this morning elsewhere, a string of bombings across Iraq leaves at least 47 dead. The worst attack at Baghdad's largest market killed at least two dozen.
And south of Baghdad, a new twist on violence, this time a bicycle rigged with explosives went off near an Army recruiting center. At least a dozen killed there. Thirty-eight wound in that attack.
Some U.S. Marines accused of war crimes in Iraq face a hearing in California today. Two Marines facing charges they dragged a civilian from his home in Hamdaniya and killed him last spring. Five others facing charges as well in that attack.
The cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah still holding. And U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan trying to keep it that way meeting today in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and then pushing Olmert to end the Israeli blockade of Lebanon.
In London, three more charged in that plot to blow up planes heading to the U.S. They're accused of conspiracy to commit murder and planning to commit terrorism.
And a soft, yet soggy landing for Tropical Storm Ernesto drenching Florida as we speak. Forecasters say it will likely weaken to a tropical depression this morning, but they warn it could become a hurricane once again if it heads out to sea in a couple of days.
Severe weather expert Chad Myers with more on Ernesto's track.
Hello, -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hello, Miles.
And that is the threat, really. Yes, it will be a wet, fairly windy day, winds to 40, 50 for south Florida. But the threat is if this thing gets back into the Atlantic Ocean, into a very warm gulf stream water, it will re-intensify and make a beeline for the North Carolina-South Carolina border, maybe a little bit farther to the east, maybe a little bit farther to the west.
Two areas of convection this morning, one over the Everglades, another a little bit farther to the north from about West Palm Beach up to Melbourne. Easier to see the spin of this storm here. There's Key West. Actually the winds are from the northwest today, where yesterday they were coming in from the south and southeast.
There was a tornado watch for a while for water spouts that could come on shore. Or as the storms actually did come on shore, you could see enough of a spin as the slowdown of the storms hit land, you'll get that spin to come up.
The heaviest convection today from about Everglade City south into Florida Bay. Some of the wind gusts we're seeing, Key Biscayne 23, Tavernier about 25, some of the other gusts I've been finding around somewhere in the 35 to 40-mile-per-hour range, but those were not sustained winds, those were just the guests.
Every time you see one of these squalls come over you, you will get a bigger gust, that's where the wind really is. That's where the wind whistles down or comes down from the upper atmosphere. Every time you get one of these cells to come over, your winds may go from 30 to maybe 50 miles per hour. That's the biggest jump you're probably going to see today.
The threat is when this thing ejects and gets into the ocean, that could be later today. It could hang on and go all the way up to Daytona, and that wouldn't be until tomorrow. And that would be good news for the people in North Carolina. The quicker it gets off shore, the more trouble this is going to spell for its second landfall, which will be somewhere up here in the Mid-Atlantic States -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, we're not done with Ernesto yet by any means. MYERS: Absolutely not.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Chad.
Ernesto may not be much of a storm right now, but this year, in particular, people are not taking any chances. In Florida, schools are still closed in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and flood watches, of course, are in effect.
CNN's John Zarrella joining us live from Miami with more this morning.
Hello, -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Miles.
And it certainly is a good morning here in south Florida in the Miami area. Ernesto confounding forecasters with its inability to gain any strength yesterday as it approached the southern Florida coastline, certainly good news for folks here.
You can see behind me, that's about it, a little bit of breeze in the trees. We're in a dry socket here in the storm right now. This morning, no rainfall at all.
Tragically, however, there were at least two deaths so far from the storm, indirectly, traffic fatalities. One up in Boca Raton, another one down here in the Miami area, hydroplaning car hitting a palm tree and a motorcyclist falling off of his motorcycle and hitting a couple of cars.
Now as far as power outages, Florida Power & Light Company reports 7,000 people without power out of about 4 million customers. So very, very minimal number of power outages.
And the storm and its weakness didn't keep people off the streets either. In Fort Lauderdale late yesterday and into the evening, lots of folks still out on the streets. The same here in Miami-Dade County. They should not have been, certainly, because of the threat of power lines coming down. But any time we get these kind of systems, that's what happens.
But still, the good news, Miles, in the Florida Keys, Keys officials reporting this morning that they believe that they should be open for business certainly within the next couple of days and well in advance of the Labor Day weekend so they can get those tourists back that had to be evacuated in the advance of the threat of Ernesto. So, Miles, real good news here. Still the possibility of three to six inches of rainfall; but certainly we hate to use that expression dodged the bullet, but we did -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. All right, that's -- that of course takes us all back to a year ago, doesn't it?
John Zarrella in Miami, thank you. A terrible string of bombings all across Iraq again today, at least 47 are dead. The targets are familiar, an open air market, a police convoy, an Army recruiting station. But in one case there's a different wrinkle, one of the suicide bombs was rigged to a bicycle.
Michael Holmes live now in Baghdad with more on the violence there.
Hello, -- Michael.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi to you, Miles, and good morning.
Yes, this has been a month, August, where U.S. and Iraqi officials had been actually pleased that acts of violence and the death toll had been down compared to previous months. But since Sunday, that's all changed. More than 200 Iraqis have been killed, 200 wounded in a string of bombings since Sunday.
Today, Wednesday, has been particularly bloody here. That marketplace bombing you meant -- mentioned is in a place called Shurga (ph), right in central Baghdad. It is the main marketplace, the biggest in the country, really. People come from outside Baghdad to shop there. It's a wholesale market, everything from food to electronics. This is the third time this market has been bombed this month, this is the biggest, 24 killed, 45 wounded.
Now just south of Baghdad, about 60 miles or so south of here, there was another bombing. Twelve killed, 38 wounded when a bomb was placed outside an Iraqi Army recruitment center. As you said, this bomb apparently had been rigged to a bicycle and was detonated as people were arriving at that Army recruitment center.
That wasn't all. All around the country there have been incidents. There was a double bombing here in Baghdad a couple of hours ago. One bomb went off near a fuel station. Everyone gathered around, including police, and then a car bomb went off. Two dead, 15 wounded.
South of here near Baquba, six people, all members of the same family, killed, a roadside bomb hitting their minibus.
So this has been an extraordinary day of violence, even by Iraqi standards. And it's not over yet, it's just after midday -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Michael Holmes in Baghdad.
That cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah still holding firm, but so is Israel to its controversial blockade. The Israelis say it is the only way to stop the flow of arms to Hezbollah. But the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan -- I believe we have some live pictures of him speaking in Jerusalem as he continues his talks and his Mideast tour. Mr. Annan would like that blockade to end.
CNN's Paula Hancocks joining us live now from Jerusalem with more, -- Paula.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Miles.
Well this was a real point of contention between Kofi Annan and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Now he's currently talking with the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni. But a little earlier he did say, next to -- standing next to Olmert, that he wanted an immediate lift of this blockade. He said it was humiliating for Lebanon.
And when Olmert was asked the same question, he managed to sidestep the issue and just said he thought that all of the conditions of Resolution 1701 should be implemented. So he has no intention of immediately lifting this air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Obviously the Israeli concern is that the Lebanese troops along the borders will not be able to prevent arms smuggling, which could restock Hezbollah's very low stocks at this point.
But they did agree that the two Israeli soldiers that were kidnapped back on July 12 that sparked this crisis should be released. They should be released unconditionally and immediately.
Now we know also this afternoon Kofi Annan will be going off to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. And he's got a very busy tour ahead of him. He's also going to be going to Iran and Syria. He said he's going to tell -- talk to the neighbors of Israel to make sure that they do know that they're not allowed to allow any arms smuggling.
This is what Annan had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: I've been asking for the immediate lifting of the blockade on Lebanon. It is important, not on the -- because of the economic effect it is having on the country, but it is also important to strengthen the democratic government of Lebanon with which Israel has repeatedly said it had no problems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS: Olmert, though, was fairly positive about this resolution, saying it could spell out a good future for Israel and Lebanon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We certainly hope that conditions will change rapidly in order to allow direct contacts between the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon in order to hopefully soon reach an agreement between the two countries. I believe that Resolution 1701 should be a cornerstone that creates an opportunity to build a new reality between Israel and Lebanon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS: So at this point the cease-fire has been going over two weeks. It's still holding, but it's still tenuous. Annan says he wants to get those U.N. troops in there as quickly as possible -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem, thank you very much.
We are one day after the one year anniversary of the landfall of Katrina. It was on this day last year that the full impact of this storm on the city of New Orleans became evident to us all. Remember we all thought that we had dodged a bullet. It was on this day a year ago we realized that was not the case.
Soledad is in New Orleans with more.
Hello, -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles, good morning to you.
And, yes, it was at this time on this day that the sheriff's department and other citizens as well were right in the middle of their rescue operations, 129 people were killed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in this parish. As it stands right now, about 10,000 to 12,000 have returned from an original 70,000 people who lived in this parish.
Want to show you some of the devastation that we have seen as we make our return here after you know about a year. We've been coming back and forth into the parish to see some of the progress.
Look at the house behind me, big, big problem. And maybe we can show you some live pictures from our camera here. Twenty-five-foot surge is what was the big issue because that surge pretty much wiped some of the houses off their foundations. This, what you're looking at now, are the live pictures from the house behind me.
And in a way it's good news for this guy, and it might not look like it, but look, he's got stairs that are standing. He's got actual walls that are still up. The houses literally next door, nothing was there, wiped right off their foundations. And when we did our aerial tour yesterday, you could see those houses, the actual houses landed right in the marsh.
Three million tons of debris and garbage, we are told by FEMA, has been removed. The cleanup, according to FEMA, 30 percent complete. Ninety thousand applicants for those road home grants, we were talking about that yesterday, 13,500 are from this parish.
A year ago, you might remember we walked right in this neighborhood. We took you on a tour of some of the homes that were still standing and some of the homes that had been completely wiped away.
Wow, what a big difference a year makes in a lot of ways, not because much has been done physically to the structures, but because you see that actually there are some things that are worth saving. There were homes that we saw that we said this is a total loss, this is going to have to be ripped down. I have got to tell you, some of those homes, they are rebuilding and they're hoping to move into them maybe as early as December.
But, and this is a big but, you're talking about a tiny, tiny number. You're talking about two or three or four or five homes where the residents on this street have actually come back in and are actively moving toward moving back.
So you know it's kind of a mixed bag. A big concern, according to the sheriff, is that the money won't be there and that, to a large degree, Americans, the nation, will forget about the people who live in this parish.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF JACK STEPHENS, ST. BERNARD PARISH, LOUISIANA: To ignore the contribution that we make strategically now in terms of oil and gas and the cultural impact that we have on this country and the flavor of this area, it's just ignorant and it's just -- it's intolerable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: That's Sheriff Jack Stephens.
You'll remember we spoke to him a lot over the last year. So we'll check in with him as well as we continue through this morning -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Soledad. We'll see you in just a little bit.
Still to come on the program, overrun with evacuees, Baton Rouge extending a helping hand when Hurricane Katrina came. A year later, the city is still overloaded.
Also, there's a boom in New Orleans, not a building boom, a baby boom. We'll tell you about that.
And Andy Serwer is here, business headlines.
Hello, -- Andy.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Miles.
AT&T customers get hacked. How many thousands are at risk? We'll let you know coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Happening this morning.
At least 47 dead in a series of bombings in Iraq, two dozen died at the Baghdad's largest outdoor market. An hour later, another bomb exploded near a Baghdad gas station, killing two there.
Tropical Storm Ernesto drenching Florida right now. It could weaken to a tropical depression today. Forecasters say, though, it could become a hurricane once again if it moves out to sea in a couple of days.
Our severe weather expert is Chad Myers with more on that.
Hello, -- Chad.
MYERS: Hi, Miles.
The storm may go down to a depression, but that doesn't mean that there's not going to still be that low pressure still there. So when the depression, because it's over land now, although it's Everglades, not much land, as it's over land, it can't strengthen. In fact, they always weaken over land because it needs the warm water to accelerate, to get bigger again.
Well if this storm makes a little bit of a right-hand hook and gets into the Atlantic Ocean earlier than some of the computer models are saying, this will be a much bigger storm for North Carolina and for South Carolina, even up into Virginia, D.C. and maybe New York City.
Key Biscayne 23, Tavernier 25 miles per hour right now. The showers and storms are really into Florida Bay, but there are some heavier showers still coming on shore from Miami into Fort Lauderdale. Most of your wind now for Fort Lauderdale and for Miami will either be from the east or from the southeast. As the storm travels to the north, it will eventually even come out of the southwest for you.
The story today is how quickly does this thing get off shore? Does it take all day and even into tonight to come all the way up through Daytona?
And, yes, it will be windy. It will be windy in Kissimmee, it will be windy in Gainesville, it will be windy in Ocala, but we're not talking hurricane force winds. We're talking 20, 30, 40. You're going to lose a couple of limbs, but you're not going to lose shingles, I don't think, with this storm, unless you get one big cell over you. And that can happen, especially if you have some kind of cell coming on shore that has some spin with it. And that could also, obviously, put down a water spout.
For today, Ernesto still on shore losing intensity. But also that's the story for the weekend. This big high pressure is going to come down here and stop about D.C. This big low pressure is going to come right up here to D.C. And there is going to be more wind with this storm, even windier than the storm is by itself, because high and low together will make a funneling effect right on shore here, D.C., New York, Atlantic City, all the way down to Virginia Beach. Some of the winds there could be gusting well in excess of what the hurricane says.
Soledad, back to you in New Orleans.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thanks. Thanks for watching it.
A year ago, many people thought Baton Rouge would be a good place to head, as they thought, temporarily, they would not only wait out the storm, but also in the wake of the storm, maybe wait to see if they would rebuild or not. Only about a 90-minute drive or so from here. Turns out, though, over time, Baton Rouge is booming.
AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Baton Rouge is a city bursting at the seams. The traffic, the schools, the supermarkets, people are everywhere, and so are the problems.
MAYOR MELVIN "KIP" HOLDEN, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA: You have mental health issues that are really very tough. At the same time, you have a large homelessness population.
CHO: Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden says that's just the beginning. Just after Katrina, the population doubled from $250,000 to $500,000. One year later, up to 100,000 of those people have stayed, and more are moving in from places like Houston. Hurricane evacuees are looking at Baton Rouge as a way to move closer to home.
HOLDEN: We're receiving somewhere over 100 calls a day from people who want to know whether or not there are any vacancies.
CHO: Louisiana's capital city is now its largest.
ROLFE MCCOLLISTER, JR., GREATER BATON ROUGE BUS. RPT.: Baton Rouge was evolving, but we've kind of put it on fast forward.
CHO: That's put a strain on social services and schools. This year, Baton Rouge schools have nearly 4,000 extra students. They've been forced to set up classrooms in FEMA trailers. There is more of everything.
SHERRY BROCK, PRINCIPAL, WESTDALE MIDDLE SCHOOL: From buses, to lunch preparation, to number of teachers.
CHO: On the housing front, Baton Rouge has more FEMA trailers than any other parish in the state, but that's still not enough to accommodate everyone. So there's construction, lots of it. This will soon be a city within a city. Once it's complete, there will be homes, retail shops, even a hospital.
ARTHUR STERBCOW, CJ BROWN REALTORS: The market is a perfect animal, supply and demand. And when there's that much demand, there's that much construction activity going on, and that's what we're seeing right now.
CHO: The city is growing. The good news, the population boom has created 15,000 new jobs. Wages are up, so is sales tax revenue. The bad news, unlike New Orleans, the mayor says Baton Rouge is not getting any help from Washington.
HOLDEN: In terms of any dollars whatsoever, on any front, homelessness, zero; in terms of mental health, zero; in terms of trying to do something about housing, zero. CHO: The federal government says the state decides how to allocate the money and that $110 billion has gone toward rebuilding the Gulf. The mayor says Baton Rouge badly needs some of that money. The former sleepy little town is dealing with growing pains and one year later is still stretched to the limit.
Alina Cho, CNN, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: And it was stretched to the limit really in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck. We were based there for a while and saw how tempers were flaring in some situations. But, in the future, that may all change, of course. Many people who are in Baton Rouge actually come in here, back to St. Bernard Parish and other parishes, in order to work on their homes in the hopes that one day they'll be able to move back to where they started.
Let's get right back to Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: There's no place like home, right, Soledad? All right, back with you in just a little bit.
Still to come, Ernesto limping along, but still making a mess. Live pictures from Miami there. The real worry is what lies ahead should Ernesto take a right turn. We'll explain.
Plus, if you bought some gear from AT&T online, you better sit tight, some hackers may have your number.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Listen up, folks, AT&T online is the place. If you bought something from there, I guess it's high speed Internet stuff.
Andy Serwer has some words of caution for you.
SERWER: Just letting the people know what is happening at AT&T and what the company is saying, Miles. Yesterday, AT&T announcing that hackers broke in to a computer system at an AT&T online store, stealing information from customers who bought high speed DSL equipment. The company says that fewer than 19,000 customers were affected. I guess that means more than 18,000, wouldn't you say?
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it would, yes.
SERWER: Now, they...
M. O'BRIEN: Eighteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.
SERWER: ... immediately shut down this site. They notified the customers and credit card companies. And this does not affect customers who have AT&T DSL service, so you don't have to worry about that. It's only if you bought this DSL equipment. And you would be notified either already or very shortly.
Another company in a little bit of hot water...
M. O'BRIEN: How did they get this information, though?
SERWER: Well that's...
M. O'BRIEN: And why is it even stored? A lot of places you go to, they say, we don't even see your card or we don't store that information, anyway.
SERWER: It's unclear at this point.
M. O'BRIEN: Questions on my mind.
SERWER: That's right. And of course it's unclear as to whether the hackers have used any of this information yet, as always is the case.
M. O'BRIEN: Right, right, good point, good point.
SERWER: Schering-Plough, another company making headlines this morning. The company has paid a $435 million fine and pleaded guilty to conspiracy. This concerning marketing drugs for unapproved uses, number one, and number two, overcharging for Medicaid, an investigation that goes back to 2001. The company saying, as you might understand, this is a chapter that it is now putting behind it.
Other news to tell you about, Miles, stock trading yesterday, the market headed up in the afternoon, this after the release of minutes from the latest Fed meeting. A little reading of the tea leaves and indications there perhaps that the Federal Reserve is not going to be raising interest rates anymore. And this morning, happy to tell you that futures are flat. And I'm happy to tell you that because that means that futures are not down. You see?
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
SERWER: I found a silver lining in other words.
M. O'BRIEN: Reading the tea leaves, as you do.
SERWER: Exactly.
M. O'BRIEN: Excellent. Thank you, -- Andy Serwer.
SERWER: Thanks, -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: We'll see you in just a little bit.
SERWER: OK.
M. O'BRIEN: The morning's top stories are straight ahead, including the fall and maybe the rise of Ernesto. The storm is dumping rain, losing steam, but we'll tell you why it could still come to haunt us. Plus, another series of deadly bombings in Iraq, one of them was a bicycle bomb. We'll tell you about that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening this morning, Tropical Storm Ernesto is drenching Florida as we speak. It could weaken into a tropical depression today, but forecasters say some areas say some areas could still see up to 10 inches of rain.
A string of deadly bombings in Iraq. The worst in Baghdad's biggest marketplace. At least 24 killed in that attack.
And in Jerusalem, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan trying to shore up the Middle East cease-fire. He'll meet today -- or he met today with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Annan wants Israel to lift that blockade of Lebanon. Israel wants peacekeepers to stop arms smuggling by Syria first, however.
Good morning. Welcome to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
I'm Miles O'Brien in New York.
Good morning, Soledad.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Miles. Good morning to you.
I'm Soledad O'Brien. We're reporting to you again today from New Orleans. We're in St. Bernard Parish. We're revisiting a place we spent a lot of time not long ago -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: OK. Thank you very much, Soledad. Back to you in just a moment.
It's not a hurricane, but Ernesto is still capable of causing some serious damage, and lot of flooding to watch. And still has quite a bit of life left in him, we're afraid to tell you, if in fact he takes a right turn.
Our severe weather expert, Chad Myers, with more on that.
Hello, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Miles.
(WEATHER REPORT)
M. O'BRIEN: Floridians escape the first hurricane of the season, but not out of the woods yet, as Chad is explaining to us. Ernesto has caused some power outages and a lot of other flooding problems.
CNN's John Zarrella is in Miami watching things for us there.
Hello, John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Miles.
Well, and that's exactly right. The -- as Chad pointed out, the flooding issue is still a concern here in Florida, with this storm just lumbering pretty slowly up the peninsula, at least three inches of rain. No rain right here in the Miami area right now, and not much in the way of wind either. But certainly, you can feel everyone in south Florida exhaling this morning as they begin to wake up and find out that the storm produced very little, if any damage.
One of the things that's interesting, I think there are a couple of points of good news here in south Florida. Certainly the fact that the storm confounded forecasters and did not intensify before making landfall. And the other point was that people actually did prepare.
A couple of days ago gas stations were packed with people, 25, 30 cars deep, 45-minute waits in line, the home improvement stores, the groceries. So, unlike what happened a year ago in October, right before Hurricane Wilma, when people did not prepare for Hurricane Wilma, which turned out to be a very serious hit here, people this time took this storm very seriously and got ready.
Hopefully the next time, if there is a next time this year, the same will hold true and people will again prepare as well as they did here -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, John Zarrella. We're glad that it's turning out better for Florida. Thank you very much.
We'll still be watching Ernesto, of course.
Happening this morning as well, a string of bombings across Iraq leaves at least 47 dead. The worst attack at Baghdad's largest market killed at least 24.
Now, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, a new twist on the violence. This time a bicycle rigged with explosive went off near an army recruiting center. At least 12 killed, 38 wounded in that attack.
Some U.S. Marines accused of war crimes in Iraq to face a hearing in California today. Two Marines facing charges they dragged a civilian from his home in home in Hamdaniyah, killing him last spring. Five others facing charges in that as well.
Polygamist and self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs behind bars this morning. The former FBI most wanted suspect accused of forcing underage women to marry older members of his polygamist sect. Officials in both Utah and Arizona are debating which state will try Jeffs first. He was arrested during a routine traffic stop near Las Vegas.
In San Francisco, an SUV rampage and a bloody trail. A hit-and- run driver took aim at pedestrians in a 20-minute spree yesterday. One killed, 14 hurt. Witnesses say the car never slowed down.
Police finally chased the car down, arrested the driver. His name not yet released.
And the family of a woman who was crushed to death in the Big Dig tunnel in Boston expected to hold a news conference this morning. Yesterday, they filed a wrongful death suit against the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and contractors.
Back to Soledad in New Orleans.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles. Thanks.
You'll remember, of course, it was a year ago today that we knew about the breach of the levees. Here, of course, the bigger problem was the storm surge, 25-foot storm surge. We're only about maybe 100 yards to the levees there.
A 25-foot storm surge came flying across here and really took out all the homes that are right on this corner and damaged severely this home and many of the homes in this neighborhood. You can see some live pictures of what's behind us this morning.
This is kind of a picture of good news, believe it or not. The guy who lives here has actually just recently started to clean up his home. There's been a hard line on the cleanup in this parish. They have said if you do not start gutting, if you do not start cleaning, the parish actually has the right to take over your home, gut it, clean it, bring it down, if they have to, and then they could actually ask the homeowners to pay them back, put a lien on the property.
So that's been a bit of a controversial issue here. The big issue, of course, is they want to make sure that he vermin and the snakes, frankly, that they have in some of these homes are not encouraged to spread and grow. And also, they're trying to bring back the neighborhood in homes like this. This kind of picture is not exactly conducive to -- as a picture saying, people come back, come back, we want to try to rebuild here.
So we're seeing more of this kind of picture cleanup in this neighborhood. But it's slow.
What else are we seeing more of? Believe it or not, we're seeing more babies, lots and lots of babies. Yes, there is a baby boom, not only in -- around here, but in the city of New Orleans as well.
These are pictures from Oxnard Hospital (ph), where they had 150 babies born in the month of August alone. That's up significantly. Last year it was just 60 babies born. And other hospitals, we're told, seeing the same increases.
The big boom, when you consider, of course, that the population and the region is decimated, it's not even half of what it used to be, why the boom? Well, doctors say in the wake of a storm people who survived, you know, felt that they valued life more and their family more. Also, frankly, they say people were just bored. They were evacuated, didn't have a lot to do. And there are some who said, without access to contraception, you see this big baby boom as well.
I want to introduce you to a new little member of our society, Ashley and Anthony Montalbano, the proud parents of little baby Anthony III, who was born on the day before Katrina's first anniversary.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANTHONY MONTALBANO JR., NEW FATHER: We lost the business. We lost our home, everything in both of them.
ASHLEY MONTALBANO, NEW MOTHER: Say, "Hi, world. Hi."
We definitely want to have children, but he wasn't planned at the moment, because we -- after everything just happened, you know, we were going to wait a little while to get resettled. I think that during a time like that, you really want to be closest to the ones that you love. I think it makes you feel -- realize what's really important in life, even if it's not even a conscious thing, even if it's a subconscious thing, just family and closeness, and not to mention you do wind up spending a little extra time together when you don't have a job, you don't have a house. For a lot of different reasons.
But I just think that we just were blessed, really. That was the reason for him. But, it is. It's a boom, definitely.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: It is a boom. And it is definitely a boom. Ashley says, anecdotally, many, many, many of her friends are pregnant -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Soledad. A lot of love in that part of the world.
Thank you very much.
Still to come, weak but still worth watching. Ernesto dumps rain on Florida and could become a hurricane once again.
We are your hurricane headquarters and we will be back shortly.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Here's a look at what CNN correspondents around the world are working on today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is in Israel. He's met Prime Minister Olmert and they managed to agree on most things. But Annan said he wants an immediate lifting of the blockade on Lebanon, calling it "humiliating."
Olmert managed to sidestep the issue. He's worried that arms will flood back into the country, allowing Hezbollah to restock. But both agreed that the two Israeli kidnapped soldiers should be released immediately and unconditionally.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Aneesh Raman in Tehran.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged President Bush to a live television debate. The only condition, it cannot be censored on American television. Of course that prospect is unlikely. The Bush administration has already dismissed it as a distraction from the issue at hand, tomorrow's deadline by the U.N. for Iran to suspend its nuclear program. But it does show Iran sees itself explicitly now as a balancing power to the United States, as the superpower in the region.
As for the deadline, at a rare press conference I asked the Iranian president if the country would suspend its nuclear program emphatically. He said no. Instead, that Iran would continue its pursuit of peaceful civilian nuclear energy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Max Foster in London, where three men are in court today accused of the alleged plot to blow up airplanes heading towards the United States. They're among 25 people arrested during this same investigation. Fifteen of them have already been charged, five have to be charged today or released.
If police want to keep them longer, they'd have to ask a judge. Five suspects have already been released without charge.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Mona Island, a very, very small little piece of land that's part of Puerto Rico, although it's actually closer to the Dominican Republic, less than 40 miles away. And it's become a preferred entry point to Cuban refugees who want to make it to the United States under the wet foot-dry foot policy. Officials say that more than half of them make it, that since the year 2002, each year the number who have come this way instead of the more treacherous Florida straits have literally doubled.
They're saying that this is becoming a very difficult problem to patrol, although they try by putting out resources in 1.5 million square miles of water.
Bob Franken, CNN, Mona Island, Puerto Rico.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
M. O'BRIEN: For more of these and any of our top stories, we invite you to head to our Web site. CNN.com is the place.
A short break. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.
The head of the NAACP, Bruce Gordon, says Hurricane Katrina provided an opportunity for the country to actually confront some big and entrenched problems, like poverty. But as we toured the Lower Ninth Ward, we could see that a lot of that opportunity has not yet materialized.
Here's a look at what we saw, both in failure and hope.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: So, the Lower Ninth Ward, I mean, this is sort of ground zero for damage, if you will.
BRUCE GORDON, NAACP PRESIDENT: It is. It is.
S. O'BRIEN: We've seen some places where a lot has been done, and it actually looks very impressive. But this is not one of those places.
GORDON: At all. You -- you recognize when Katrina hit, for some segment of America they said, "Oh, I didn't realize the poverty, I didn't realize the class structure" And now that we see it, what an opportunity to transform the area. Yet, we're a year later and there really is no sign of transformation.
S. O'BRIEN: When you hear the state say, "Well, we've got the Road Home Program, and we're cutting checks, and the money's coming," do you think it's just not going to trickle down here?
GORDON: It is -- it is not trickling down here. I think that when you hear the sound bite that $110 billion...
S. O'BRIEN: Which sounds amazing.
GORDON: It's a huge number. But then, when you deal with the fact that probably only $17 billion of that is really geared towards long-term housing improvement, that money is not finding its way to these people, you know, to these people who own these homes.
S. O'BRIEN: But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know when I say clout follows the money. You know, people who have a lot of clout often are the ones who can negotiate things. GORDON: It is.
S. O'BRIEN: And the Ninth Ward is not full of clout and it's not full of money.
GORDON: Well, it's not full of money. But there are people who represent the ward. And some of those people are pretty smart folks.
There are people in the black -- let's say the black caucus, that are knowledgeable people. They live in the Ninth Ward. They know the game, they know the process.
It's going to take us as a civil rights group, it's going to take elected officials, it's going to take the church community, and it's going to take you. Because the other thing that you do that is so important is you keep a light on this. You know, America has a little bit of an attention deficit disorder.
S. O'BRIEN: I can't decide if all these hand-painted signs -- have you seen them? The Lower Ninth Ward has -- has these hand- painted signs. And I can't decide if that's a good thing because people -- you know, they're coming in and they're putting back their community, or is it a bad thing because the local government doesn't even have it together yet to put the street signs back and help these folks?
I mean, is this a message of, you're on your own?
GORDON: What this says is in part is people are going to do everything in their power. They're behaving in an accountable way, they're demonstrating determination and commitment. They're saying, I'm going to do what I can do. It may be limited, but I'm going to do anything I possible can do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Some parts of the Lower Ninth Ward are so devastated, it's been very difficult to bring any kind of power in. And, of course, if you can't bring any services in, then you can't get the FEMA trailer in. You can't get the FEMA trailer in, you can't really camp out in your front yard and even think about rebuilding. It's a big, big problem, especially in the Lower Ninth Ward -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Soledad.
And we'll be back with more AMERICAN MORNING in just a moment.
Stay with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: You know, one of the greatest things about the Internet, it used to be everything was free on the Internet. That isn't so any longer.
Right, Andy Serwer? ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE": Right, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A little bit of commerce there, you might say.
SERWER: There is a little bit of commerce. And, you know, a lot of stuff on the Internet is free, but is it legal? And -- but we're here to tell you this morning that there is a whole bunch of new stuff that is on the Internet that is legal and free. And pretty interesting stories here.
First of all, free music downloads from a record company, of all places. Universal Music is announcing a two-year deal with a Web site called spiralfrog. And on this Web site will be thousands of songs from the Universal catalog, from its back catalog, that you can download for free. So, free downloads from the record company itself. Albums and artists from such as Mariah Carey, Eminem, U2 and Kanye West.
Now, how is it going to work? How is the company going to make money? Well, you're going to be watching ads while you download the songs.
This could happen later next year, download to an MP3 player or a drive, not to a CD. You have to visit the site several times. And there's a 90-second ad that you're going to have to sitting through.
So, interesting. And this is real competition, obviously, to iTunes and the iPod because it will not be compatible with the iPod. Maybe a boost to Microsoft's new player.
M. O'BRIEN: How do they do it for free?
SERWER: They're going to be selling ads.
M. O'BRIEN: So...
SERWER: So it's ad -- ad space.
M. O'BRIEN: ... you've got to click on the ad. You have to.
SERWER: You have to watch the ad.
M. O'BRIEN: Right. OK.
SERWER: You'll have to watch the ad.
M. O'BRIEN: One of those things they force you to watch the ad.
SERWER: That's right.
Other free stuff to tell you about. How about free books? Free books from Google. Listen to this.
You'll be able to download free books and then print them up, PDF files. It's not exactly "The Da Vinci Code," though. It's stuff that's not copy written. So, "Dante's Inferno," "Aesop's Fables," that sort of thing.
M. O'BRIEN: Oh yes. Weren't they like scanning the entire Library of Congress or something at one point?
SERWER: They were trying to do that.
M. O'BRIEN: Are they still working on that or...
SERWER: I think they are.
M. O'BRIEN: Is that part of this whole thing?
SERWER: It maybe a part of it.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
SERWER: But this stuff is good for the soul.
M. O'BRIEN: I love free stuff.
SERWER: You do? Well, we'll have to get to some of that.
M. O'BRIEN: You know, the question is, you know, if the ads become to onerous. There's a fine line.
SERWER: That's going to be the tradeoff...
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.
SERWER: ... particularly with the music business.
And next hour we're going to give you some surprising new information about incomes and poverty in the U.S.
And, in fact, that next hour of AMERICAN MORNING begins right now.
M. O'BRIEN: Ernesto is not what it was, but Floridians still take note. And up the coast you better start paying close attention as well.
His followers call him prophet. The FBI now calls him perp. Polygamist Warren Jeffs behind bars this morning. A tug-of-war between two states over where he will be tried.
The latest on that crash in Kentucky. Why was there only one person in the control tower? That's against FAA rules. Could another pair of eyes saved 49 lives?
And strap in and get ready for a wild ride. We're going to join a Coast Guard chopper crew as they train for the worst. And this Katrina-tested crew knows exactly what the worst looks like.
All that is ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien in New York.
Good morning, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles. Good morning to you.
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
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