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CNN Saturday Morning News

People Trying to Clean Up Devastation in Florida

Aired February 03, 2007 - 09:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: That's just one of several desperate calls for help we've been hearing this morning as that deadly storm ripped through central Florida. Now a sea of rubble as far as the eye can see. People trying desperately to pick up pieces of their broken homes as well as their broken lives.
Good morning to you all from the CNN Center in Atlanta. I'm T.J. Holmes. Live with us in Lady Lake, Florida, this morning is Soledad O'Brien. Soledad has been talking to a lot of folks this morning who have just been devastated by this storm, hearing those personal stories, Soledad good morning once again to you.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, T.J., good morning to you. You're absolutely right. We knew as the sun came up, as it got a little bit lighter out here, people would start coming out just to be able to assess the damage again, to be able to do a little more work on cleaning up and kind of start their day again. I think, as one woman just told us a moment ago, yesterday she was kind of traumatized, she was in shock.

Today, in fact, she says things look a little bit worse. This was one of the hardest hit areas, the Lake County, Lady Lake specifically. Just hammered. We have some pictures to show you in just a few minutes of some of the worst damage to a mobile home park as well. Then, of course, the storm kind of went this way straight on to Paisley, which was also just ripped apart. The largest number of deaths, in fact, was in this county. So today a big job ahead, lots to do although I have to say most people are feeling very hopeful, and even Governor Crist, who spoke to us a few moments ago, said he is going to see exactly what kind of aid he's going to get from FEMA. But he's feeling hopeful about the financial end of it too.

T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Soledad who of we'll be checking in with you here shortly.

Meanwhile, we want to update folks who are just checking in here with us. Central Florida as we have been mentioning adding up the losses in lives and also the losses in property this morning. The deadly storms and at least one tornado that we know of left destruction along a 70- mile area from the City of Lady Lake pretty much to the east coast. Again, if you're just waking up, just joining us now, this is the latest.

Emergency officials say the storms killed at least 19 people. Lake County was the hardest hit. That's where the 19 deaths happened. Florida's governor, we heard from a short time ago, he has declared a State of Emergency in the counties of Lake, Sumter, Seminole, and Volusia. The four counties are located north of Orlando. We do want to head back to Soledad O'Brien, who's been covering it for us live from the scene. Hello to you again, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, T.J. Thanks. Got some new pictures I want to show you. It's of this mobile home park. It's called the Lady Lake Mobile Home Park. You can see them right here. Just the damage we heard a moment ago from 80-year-old Ellen Sarban, who was telling us how she didn't even hear the freight train sound that many people often describe. What she heard was just the sound of her mobile home breaking into pieces. She was able to grab some stuff, throw some clothes on, and get out of her mobile home.

The mobile homes there today just -- well, you're looking at it. That's what's left. That's what it looks like. And you can see, even see people who are there trying to do a little bit of the cleaning up and the picking up. They've got a long road ahead, just like Mr. Suggs, who lives here, who has some of the folks from his church helping him out as well this morning. It's just quite a mess and a lot to do. Not too far from here in Volusia County is where Susan Roesgen is. Similar story, a little bit of good news there though, no deaths to report in Volusia County. Susan good morning.

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. As it starts to rain here, it's adding some misery to the lives of the people who have had their homes destroyed in this county. You're right, no fatalities here, but as we listen to the 911 calls that we've gotten from the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, the calls of people calling in early Friday morning, you can get a sense of how frightening it was when the tornado came through.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CALLER: "My roof is gone."

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "No."

911: "You just have your roof is missing?"

CALLER: "Yes, my living room, my bedroom. I'm in the kitchen."

911: Ok, and there's nobody injured, correct?"

CALLER: "NO. NO, but I don't know about my neighbors. It's all old people in here, honey."

911: OK. OK, listen we got the calls and we are on the way, we are sending people as fast as possible. OK?"

CALLER: "OK, thank you."

911: "911, what's your emergency?"

CALLER: "I'm in an 18 wheeler and I've just been turned over by a tornado."

911: "You're definitely in Volusia County?"

CALLER: "Yes ma'am."

911: "Ok, what's the last cross street you're on 17? What the last cross street you remember seeing?"

CALLER: "Ma'am I couldn't tell you. I'm trying to get out of the truck."

911: "Ma'am, listen to me, listen to me. Did anybody get hurt?"

CALLER: "Yes, my mom is gone -- my mom is gone!"

911: "OK, is your mom there?"

CALLER: "Just send an ambulance! I don't know where she is."

911: " OK, hold on a second ma'am. Hold on - hold on."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: Those are just three, Soledad, of dozens of calls that came into the Volusia County Sheriff's Office early Friday morning. In that particular case, the woman did find her mother. Everybody was OK. And the sheriff told me just a while ago there were only minor injuries here in spite of widespread destruction that is every bit as bad in Volusia County as it is in the neighboring county, Lake County.

Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right. Susan Roesgen for us in Volusia County, thank you, Susan. In Volusia County as well as Lake County, what you're seeing today, now that the sun has come up, a little bit of a cleanup. Mr. Suggs, we talked to him a moment ago. He's the gentleman in the gray sweatshirt getting a little help from his family members and the media is here too, of course. He's got such good news to report in that he's OK. I'm not sure, John, how far you can get. He was here. This is his bedroom.

And the wind just blew his mattress and the wall down. He was able to crawl out from this area here. It's the part of the house was actually the most stable now. Crawl over here to this bed frame. That's where his wife was. But the wall had collapsed, and all the debris had collapsed on top of her. If you get that shot, that's the bed. He was able to lift it up a bit, pull her out from under there. Look what happened. They walked down right over this way through all these nails. It's pretty remarkable, when you think about it, to be able to get out, not hit any of this debris and not get injured at all. He's got bruises up and down his arm, and I know that they're both pretty shaken up today, but they're OK.

It's quite incredible news when you take a look at really what is left of their home. The only part of the home that withstood all this is this part, the middle. People talk a lot about going into the bathroom. See here, the bathroom is still intact. But, you know, this is the part of the home that withstood it, and this is more or less where they were. So incredible news for him today. Some good news too is he's had members of his church and some volunteers drop off this tent, the RV, and they're starting to pick up things and try to at least get their life back together. They've got a long way to go, though. It's quite a mess here today.

Going to send it right back to T.J. in Atlanta. T.J., back to you?

HOLMES: All right. Soledad, we're about to get a check of the weather here. Just looking up, how are the skies there? I think it looks like clear skies there. Blue skies?

O'BRIEN: No. Actually, it's not. It's cloudy, which is great for taking pictures, as you know, but it makes it cold and cloudy here today. Could be much nicer. But it's not raining. We'll take that.

HOLMES: We're going to get another check here. Thank you for that naked eye weather report there. We're going to get some more weather now from our Bonnie Schneider, who's over in the Weather Center. Bonnie, I asked her that because I know you're talking about still some showers and things that might be heading into that area.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. Where Soledad is, we're kind of just skirting where the rain is. If you look further to the east, some of the rain will be getting heavy at times. We're also looking at a statement that just came in from Melbourne from the National Weather Service reporting that some of these heavy downpours may contain hail. That's important to note for the rescue areas. We may see brief downpours, strong gusts of wind. Let's take a closer look. Here's Lady Lake, where Soledad is and she reported the sky is kind of broken, but overcast so it's not raining there now. But once you start heading across Lake County more towards the east and eventually into Volusia County right here, right along the shoreline. Once you head to the Ponce Inlet, we're seeing some more substantial and heavy rain.

These storms are fast moving. They're zipping across at 55 miles per hour. They are producing those strong gusts of wind. Even though they're brief, the problem is so much of the debris is still barely hanging on that a gust of wind could knock something over. This will create, unfortunately, more of a dangerous situation for rescue workers in the area, for people that are going to check out their property. The one thing I can tell you, we don't have a tornado watch or a tornado warning. But we are looking at fast-moving storms working their way across the southeastern portion of the tornado-ravaged area from yesterday.

That does include Orange County, Seminole County, and into Volusia County, especially where the heaviest rain is right now. In Lady Lake, you can see the rain is sort of just coming in. I don't think it will be quite as heavy, but we are still looking at cells that are offshore. These storms are coming in kind of from the Tampa area, and some of them have been a little intense. We've had reports of some lightning strikes as well. Here's a better idea of where it is raining in Lake County. Right now in Deland, we have rain. We also have it in south Daytona to the north. And just in Edgewater, right along the coastline.

The bigger picture shows what's happening. We have that moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, and notice the areas here in red. Those are the stronger thunderstorms that are working across the Tampa area and kind of holding together as they pass across central Florida. That's the problem and the concern there because there is that steady flow of moisture. There is that threat for rain throughout the day. We're not looking so much at the threat of severe weather. But remember, as I said earlier, a strong gust of wind may be all it takes to blow about loose debris that we have out there strewn about this region now. It's something we'll be watching throughout the day. I know it's not the best news to hear the weather is not picture perfect today. Be nice to get a break after yesterday.

T.J.

HOLMES: You are absolutely right. A break would be nice. Bonnie, thank you so much for keeping an eye on it for us. We'll see you hear soon.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

HOLMES: Meanwhile, we do want to tell you about some other stories making news this morning. Bird flu surfaces in Britain. British agriculture and health officials confirm the lethal h5n1 strain of bird flu has been found on a turkey farm in southeast England. The European Commission says the outbreak was discovered last night after 2,500 turkeys died.

Also, an hour from now President Bush will meet with house Democrats in Williamsburg, Virginia. The White House says President Bush wants to discuss domestic issues, but several Democrats say they'll press him about the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile in Iraq, more American deaths to report to you this morning. The U.S. military today announced the death of three more U.S. service members. Military says now 3,093 U.S. service members have been killed since the war in Iraq began.

Also, squaring off along party lines in the U.S. Senate. At issue, President Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq and the Senate's proposed resolution condemning it. Senate Republicans are threatening a filibuster. GOP leaders insist lawmakers be allowed to consider alternatives to a resolution opposing the plan.

And Charles Stimson, the man in charge of the Pentagon's terrorism detainee policy, has stepped down. Stimson resigned after controversial remarks he made last month. Those remarks, he said he thought major corporations should not do business with top law firms defending terrorist suspects held at the U.S. Detention Facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And as we've been showing you, picking up those pieces in central Florida. We've got continuous live coverage from the storm-ravaged region. Up next, a live interview with the superintendent of the Lake County School District.

And you can protect yourself from nature's power before a storm ever hits. Coming up at the bottom of the hour, a special live edition of "Open House" with Gerri Willis. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL NELSON, (D) FLORIDA: You ought to see the devastation 15 miles to the west of here where 11 people were killed. It looks like a total war zone about 300 yards wide, about three football fields. And the last thing we saw before we lifted off on the helicopter was a little faun, whose rear right leg was just completely dangling, limping off on three legs back into the woods.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The debris went all the way into the trees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Soledad O'Brien coming to you this morning from Lake County, Florida. With me is Anna Cowin. She's the superintendent of schools here in Lake County. Some 40,000 students, and unfortunately you've had some deaths among a couple of your students. Tell me about that.

ANNA COWIN, LAKE COUNTY SCHOOLS SUPT.: Well, early in the day I had heard about one of the students from Leesburg High School having passed from Lady Lake. At the same time, as the day was progressing, I was getting more rumors, but I did get a call, and that was very sad, from one of our food service workers. And she lived next door to her brother and sister-in-law, who had triplets and another son living with them. She informed us that her brother and sister-in-law and one of the triplets had passed away, had died in the storm. And that was really hard. Later on, we heard, which I'm still confirming, but I understand that there was a father and his son that died in another part of the county.

O'BRIEN: Terrible, terrible news. Devastating too for your students. What's the plan? When something hits so close to home literally -- hits your home, maybe, is a better way to put it. What are you going to do to help them?

COWIN: Well I get chills. We are a family. Lake County community is not a county, it's a family. And our school community is like a school within a school. And we wrap ourselves around the children and wrap ourselves around the families. Immediately we send what we call grief counselors to the schools to help the friends and neighbors of the children. The churches are wonderful in the community. They provide a lot of comfort where it's needed. We just try to provide the love and the listening ear. A lot of people, peer workers run down to the hospitals and try to be there with the families during this very difficult time.

I had my whole staff in different parts of the county working with different schools. One of the schools we closed early on because it was very difficult in Lady Lake here to get around with all the debris. And what we did was we closed the school but then opened it as a shelter. And the principal of the school was out of town to a meeting. Came immediately home within ten minutes of the call that he got, packed his things, came -- drove immediately home. And spent the night at the shelter with the families and people.

O'BRIEN: Will that school reopen as a school, or will you keep it as a shelter for a while?

COWIN: Well, a lot of our schools are built as hurricane shelters, and what actually happens is the school will reopen probably on Monday. Part of what we're hearing in the community is that there's so many people that are taking people in. Churches are opening their doors. Families are opening their homes.

O'BRIEN: Just great news.

COWIN: And the shelters, where we expected hundreds, 600, 500 people, because of the loss of homes, we've had 27. And so the people have gone somewhere, and it's from the community spirit. That's the beauty. I originally came from New York, but that's the beauty of being in a smaller community, smaller. We're growing. But the love and that community spirit is still there.

O'BRIEN: Anna Cowin, thanks for talking with us this morning. I know you and everybody else real busy today. We certainly appreciate it.

COWIN: We appreciate alerting everybody to the dangers that are here and knowing that, you know, you never know what one-day brings. But god loves us.

O'BRIEN: Tornadoes are scary like that. All right. Let's send it right back to T.J. in Atlanta.

HOLMES: All right. Soledad, thank you so much. Word we are just getting here now. We were reporting there were 19 deaths. We have confirmed now that that death toll has risen by one to 20 deaths. The toll now from the deadly storms in Florida. Again, those 19 deaths, we had first been reporting were from Lake County. This additional death we have confirmed now is from that same county, so now 20 deaths. All 20 attributed to the deadly tornado and powerful storms that moved through all in Lake County. Again, death toll has risen by one to 20 from those deadly storms. We'll bring you more information as we get it and as we continue to cover the devastation there.

Also ahead, going to be telling you about the storm as you saw it. Show you the amazing pictures sent to us by the CNN viewers. Stay here for those eye reports.

Also coming up in ten minutes, a special live edition of "Open House." Gerri Willis will be live from Florida. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed like an eternity, but I could hear the vinyl siding on the house rattling, and so much pressure buildup in the attic of our home that it blew out the attic wall from one end of the house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Meanwhile, we do want to let you know that, in fact, the death toll has risen in those deadly storms that hit central Florida yesterday, up by one this morning to 20 deaths. All of those in Lake County, Florida. Again 20 deaths now being attributed to this storm, all of those occurred in Lake County.

Of course, when deadly storms do hit in areas all around the country and now here in central Florida, our CNN I-reporters all jump into action. The sampling now of some of the pictures coming in to our I- reports.

This first picture we have here was sent by Alex Woods, he took this picture while walking around his neighborhood in Deland, Florida. He says his house actually was not damaged. This is what he found down the street. A picture of a house with a boat that got squeezed into a camper.

Also another picture here from Alex Woods' neighborhood. Shows what the storm did to trees and what the trees then did to houses.

Another picture here from Susan St. Amour. She's staying with her dead in the villages retirement community, took these pictures after the storm hit, she also sent us this picture. One more we have to show you. If you have any photos or videos to share with us, then we can share it with our viewers; send it to us at CNN.com/ireport. Send us whatever you have, and we'll show some of those throughout the day.

Meanwhile, a lot going on in Florida, a lot of cleanup, a lot of recovery. Also, a lot of search and rescue. CNN's Rob Marciano has more on that for us now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The call came at 4:30 in the morning, a tornado had hit. There could be people trapped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can take your crew right through there.

MARCIANO: One of the first to arrive, Lieutenant Charles Blinco and his elite special Ops Squad from the Lake County Fire and Rescue found this. This was Blinco's first tornado call, but he's no stranger to tragedy. He went to the Gulf when Katrina blew through. The destruction in Florida looks sadly familiar.

LT. CHARLES BLINCO, LAKE COUNTY FIRE AND RESCUE: What you see here is what you have with Katrina over a much larger area.

MARCIANO: Blinco's Squad 76 searched through what a few hours earlier were homes. But the sunshine in nearby Lady Lake Mobile Home Park were devastated. Almost every home severely damaged. With no heavy equipment on site yet, they used the only tools they had, manpower. Moving sheets of metal, busting through doors, crawling through tight spaces. They hoped not to find the worst, a fatality. After searching a home and finding no bodies, they marked it with an orange "x," meaning all clear. But unfortunately, they did find some bodies. Three people died at sunshine.

BLINCO: Unfortunately, you're going to find some people that have expired.

MARCIANO: Rob Marciano, CNN, Lake County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And we're going to head back to Soledad. Soledad, I asked you earlier about the weather conditions there. I hear it's not as pleasant as it even was when I asked you shortly ago. You're donning the hat now. I guess you're anticipating the rain coming.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say you can tell right. We got a little rain, a little mist here. In all seriousness, we're getting a lot of lightning strikes behind us, which we're a little bit concerned about. We're out here with a lot of equipment, of course. And also for people here trying to dig out, they've got a lot of their -- they're starting to pick through some of the debris. It's going to be a real challenge for them too because it's not going to help. We are hoping that they'll pass over quickly and then we can move on, and they can keep getting their work done.

Gerri Willis is coming up in just a moment. She's got her special edition of "Open House" this morning on the other side of this short break. T.J., we'll see you back in just a little bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We've been showing and we've been seeing what those deadly storms did to central Florida. Still some more weather to contend with right now. Bonnie Schneider in the Weather Center keeping an eye on storms moving through that area.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HOLMES: All right Bonnie, thank you so much for that report. Meanwhile, our coverage here of the storms and of the devastation in Florida continues right now with a special "OPEN HOUSE" with Gerri Willis, live from Florida. Good morning to you, Gerri.

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