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American Morning

Devastated Lives; Chasing The Storms; FEMA Response; Queen Elizabeth in D.C.; France's New Leader; Minding Your Business

Aired May 07, 2007 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Blown away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you hear that? Oh, no, the structures. Oh, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Block after block, a small town flattened beyond recognition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can prepare yourself all you want, but until you come home and see your house gone, it's hard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's just not much left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Greensburg comes back to pick up the pieces on this AMERICAN MORNING.

And good morning to you. It is Monday, March the 7th. I'm John Roberts in Greensburg, Kansas, this morning, where it's just a scene of utter devastation and destruction. I have to say, Kiran, I been to at a lot of disasters the world over and I have never seen anything that has this particular character of destruction to it. It's just amazing.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry here in New York.

John, really an entire town wiped out. It's amazing that we're only talking about nine fatalities when you get a chance to see the video of that tornado. But then also the aftermath. There's really nothing intact.

ROBERTS: You know, it's difficult to really come up with a valid comparison. I mean, you could say that maybe it looks like parts of Hiroshima without the actual fire effect because there was so much damage and destruction here. This tornado was an F-5. The absolute most powerful tornado that can be measured. Wind speeds of upwards of 205 miles an hour. It was 1.75, 1 3/4 miles in diameter and cut a swath of destruction 22 miles long in this town. And it was a real slow mover as well. A lot of these storms come through here very quickly. This was only going 20 miles an hour. So from the time it hit the outskirts of this town, Greensburg, to the time that it carried all the way through, it destroyed most of the town, it took fully 20 minutes. So you can imagine what it would have been like to be hiding in your basement or hiding in your bathroom or crunched in your bathtub, like so much people were, while this tornado, as big as it was, just lingered over this town, destroying, literally eating up everything in its path. As I say, Kiran, I've been to fires, I've been to earthquakes, I've been to hurricanes the world over and I have never seen anything like this in one place.

CHETRY: And that's why you're down there today, to give us more of a view of what's going on and talk to the people involved. So we're going to be checking in with you in just a couple of seconds.

A couple of other stories on our radar this morning. Jon Corzine, New Jersey's governor, headed back to work today. It really is unbelievable when you think about it. It was almost a month ago that he almost died in a car crash. He was critically injured. He's going to be working actually from his governor's mansion. And we're going to hear from him a little later.

Also, last week on the show, we interviewed LAPD Chief Bratton. Well, he spent the weekend reviewing the tapes of this. This was what happened in the aftermath of the immigration rally in Los Angeles, MacArthur Park. And now 60 members of L.A.'s elite metropolitan division are no longer on the street after their chief had a chance to view more of this tape. So we're going to talk more about it and we're actually interviewing the mayor of Los Angeles in about an hour from now.

John.

ROBERTS: Interesting developments there in Los Angeles. We're going to be talking with a lot of people on the ground here as well, including the city administrator, Steve Hewitt (ph), who lost his home. His family is out of town and he has been working literally around the clock since Friday night, trying to put together a plan to put this town back together again. And just the cleanup is going to be a monumental task, let alone actually rebuilding the town. But they're saying that they're going to do it.

We'll also be talking with the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, who says that she's got some problems because much of the equipment that the National Guard would need, like trucks and linings like that to haul away this debris, is tied up over in Iraq and the Pentagon hasn't replenished those supplies. We'll be talking with some survivors of the storm as well.

And then we're also going to introduce you to a couple of guys who were down in Oklahoma over the weekend, took some amazing pictures of a tornado. It looked like they got within a couple of hundred yards of it. It is the most incredible tornado video that I have ever seen. We'll be talking about them. They're a couple of storm chasers. They've been doing this, they say, for seven years and they have never seen anything like what they saw over the weekend. We've got team coverage for you covering the disaster here in Greensburg, Kansas. Rob Marciano, of course, we've been following this story all weekend, will be with us this morning. But first of all, let's check in with Jeff Flock, who's also been covering this storm.

Jeff, what's it been like this weekend? As I say, we got here last night and I can't describe the scene because it's just something that hasn't existed in the book that I've read.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, John, I have, like you, been in a lot of disasters, from hurricanes, to blizzards, to all sorts of earthquakes and everything else. But this one really ranks way up there. The Oklahoma City of 1999, the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado was also extraordinary. But this, as you point out, in its scope and its breath and in the intensity of the storm, just extraordinary.

We are out here where this tornado first touched down. About out to the southwest of where you stand, John. Out here in farm country. We focus so much on the downtown, we forget the farmers that have been -- have lost everything, too.

I'm in the midst of a destroyed farmhouse. When the sun comes up, perhaps you'll be able to see it better. We're going to meet later on AMERICAN MORNING the folks that were here when this all took place. We'll take you down into the basement, show you where they hundred down and survived this storm.

Indeed, John, everyone you talk to here in Greensburg has their own special story of survival.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOU TOMLINSON, TORNADO SURVIVOR: That was my favorite shirt.

FLOCK, (voice over): Not anymore. Lou Tomlinson, 20-plus years in the Marines, Korea, Vietnam.

TOMLINSON: Ricochets.

FLOCK: Looks like you got one that's almost -- that one there almost looked like it need to be closed or something.

TOMLINSON: Yes. I don't know.

FLOCK: What was happening? Stuff was flying off your head?

TOMLINSON: Yes, everything from the building was bouncing off my head, I guess.

FLOCK: These battle scars are from the Greensburg tornado.

What hit you in the eye?

TOMLINSON: I have no idea. FLOCK: Tomlinson ran from his F-350 truck carrying his two dogs into this convenience store in the center of Greensburg just as the storm hit.

TOMLINSON: Just as I got around a wall, three quarters of the western side just totally disappeared.

FLOCK: He dropped to the floor, sheltering the dogs under him as a wall fell on him.

Is this the first you've seen of it since you left it?

TOMLINSON: Yes, this is the first time I've seen my truck.

FLOCK: We gave Tomlinson a ride from the shelter where he was staying back to retrieve what he could from the wreck.

TOMLINSON: Medications.

FLOCK: What he most need was still is there.

TOMLINSON: And they're dry.

FLOCK: And they are dry.

So you haven't been taking your medication?

TOMLINSON: I haven't -- no. Not since Friday. I haven't had any.

FLOCK: It seems time stopped for all of Greensburg on Friday. The moments after the storm hit frozen. A slipper in the debris. A string of pearls. A bizarre window blind sculpture. What hasn't been destroyed likely will soon so they can start again. And if there was any doubt, Greensburg will be back. Listen to the man who directs Kansas Emergency Management.

TODD BUNTING, KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD: And we've heard people say, well, you're in the hurricane zone. You know, you shouldn't build there. You know what? This is America. We build where we want to build. We live where we want to live. And we understand the risk. The people that live on the coast know that. The people in Kansas know that. We don't like it. But when it happens, we deal with it and we build back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK: John, we are combing the wreckage this morning. You wonder how can they possibly build back? Well, I can tell you, the folks that live in this place have already started. They've already started clearing and preparing to build this place back. As we said, we're going to meet them later here on AMERICAN MORNING and take you into that basement. A fascinating picture down there to give you some sort of indication of what they and literally hundreds of others went through on Friday night.

ROBERTS: Yes, Jeff, that really is the question that I have this morning is, when you wipe an entire town off the map, as has happened with Greensburg, how do you ever rebuild it? Do you think, is this just an emotional reaction to this? Have they looked at the practical side of things at this point?

FLOCK: These folks here in Kansas, you know, you're not standing far there from that hand-dug well. The largest hand-dug well in the world. They dug it back in 1888. And folks said they couldn't do that either, but they said this is going to cement this community. That's the same sort of spirit that's here. And they, as you know around you, you've got that activity that indicates they are moving forward and they think there's absolutely no reason this town can't come back.

ROBERTS: Right. I'll tell you though, the first question you have when you come in here is, where do you even begin?

Jeff Flock, thanks very much. We'll get back to you as the morning progresses.

We're also going to be talking with the head of FEMA, David Paulison. He's about to get on an airplane at Andrews Air Force Base there just outside of Washington, D.C., to head here to Greensburg to assess the situation on the ground. We'll also be talking with the local FEMA director who says that one of the first things they're going to do is bring in a lot of those trailers that were destined for Hurricane Katrina that never made it to their destinations. There's about 1,500 people from Greensburg who could probably use some of that accommodation.

So, Kiran, we'll keep coming back here through the morning. Keep you updated. And as the sun comes up, we'll give you a better idea of the extent of the devastation.

CHETRY: All right, John, thank you.

And we are more top stories now. There are new pictures just in from Cameroon. Rescuers reached the wreckage overnight of a Kenya Airways flight that crashed near the capital of Cameroon on Saturday. The plane went down in a man grove swamp with 114 people on board, including one American. That flight was headed for Nairobi, Kenya. Searchers do not expect to find any survivors.

And a peaceful night in France following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. He defeated Segolene Royal with 53 percent of the vote. It was a historic election for France, 85 percent voter turnout. Sarkozy is a pro-American conservative. In his victory speech, he said France would be at America's side when needed. We're going to go live to France in just a few moments.

Also, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine will be back on the job as of 9:00 a.m. this morning. He spent 18 days in the hospital after a car crash left him critically injured. He talked with the Associated Press this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. JON CORZINE, NEW JERSEY: It's stressful in the leg, but they're working very hard at getting my flexibility back. I can now ride a bike and do 360 degrees on that bike. Able to walk up and down the stairs with crutches, of course, being in four places and four corners of the state, I will not be able to do for awhile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Corzine said that he recalls working on some papers and then the SUV was then being hit. He says not wearing his seat belt was "thoughtless" and he promised to always wear one from now on.

World Bank officials say the panel investigating Paul Wolfowitz will likely find him guilty of violating World Bank rules. The panel may recommend Wolfowitz be removed or he may hold - they may hold a no confidence vote to urge him to resign as president. Wolfowitz got into trouble for helping his girlfriend land a promotion.

And there's some relief this morning in the San Francisco Bay area. The highway ramp that melted after that tanker truck fire will re-open in the next two hours. You'll recall it was shut down just over a week ago when an overpass collapsed on it. That overpass section, though, still remains closed and it could take at least eight weeks to rebuild.

The price of gas at a record high this morning, $3.07 a gallon, the national average. Up 20 cents in the past two weeks according to the Lundberg survey. Coming up, we're going to take you to what could be the most expensive gas in the nation, $4.24 a gallon for regular.

And it was a record-breaking weekend at the box office. "Spider-Man 3" had the biggest movie opening ever, raking in $148 million in its first three days. That smashed the previous debut record of $135 million. That was set just last year by "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

And coming up in just a couple of minutes, we're going to take you back live to Greenburg, Kansas. The town that is no longer after a devastating, enormous tornado. The most powerful they come tore through that town. We have John Roberts live there bringing us more. He's going to be talking to some of the survivors out there.

And we're also going to be talking in just a few minutes with FEMA Director David Paulison. Where do you begin? How do you rebuild?

All of this, plus folks who got close enough to the tornados to take this heart-stopping video.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four miles south of 51 and 50 (ph).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: We're back on this AMERICAN MORNING.

You're looking at some pictures taken from Greensburg, Kansas, over the weekend. The utter devastation here. The town literally wiped off the map by an F-5 tornado.

We want to show you some pictures from a storm chaser, a couple of storm chasers who were in Ellis, Oklahoma, over the weekend. There's just been so many intense storm system coming through this whole area in the past 72 hours. And take a look at this video here. These guys got closer to a tornado I think than anybody that I have ever seen. This is like something right out of a Hollywood movie. But this is not a special effect.

This is Reed Timer (ph) who's on the camera. Joel Taylor (ph), his storm-chasing buddy, is doing the driving. These guys have been at this for about seven years, chasing these storms across Oklahoma, across the Great Plains states. They got within about 100 yards of this thing.

And you can see how close they were by looking at the very bottom of that tornado. Usually it's just sort of a fuzzy patch of dirt in the distance. You can actually see it as the tornado is picking up the debris there and flinging it around.

That's just one of the most incredible pictures, heart-stopping picture of a storm that I have ever seen. And you can understand their excitement. And it's coming toward them as well. Just take a quick listen to this video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Look at that. A little bit later on on AMERICAN MORNING, we're going to be talking with Reed and Joel. They'll be joining us from Oklahoma to tell us about that experience.

They say in the entire time that they have been chasing storms, that is the most -- see, there we go. It's just pulling up a couple of structures. And look at this video. We'll be talking to them about this incredible experience. And you can just hear from the sound of their voices what an amazing experience it was to be there.

So many people that we see out on the roads here, even as we were coming toward Greensburg last night, because there were some tornado warnings in and around the Inman area, people just sitting at the side of the road with their cameras waiting for the storm to develop, waiting to chase these things down. These guys are real adrenaline junkies. And this time it really paid off for them because they really got up close and personal, almost in the eye of the storm there.

Rob Marciano has been here in Greensburg all weekend. He has been following the path of destruction here. He's also been following some of the search and rescue efforts which will now slowly turn to recovery. And hopefully for people of this town, rebuilding efforts.

Rob, can you just briefly recap for us how this storm developed and how it came through this town?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it developed in the south of town, John. And on Friday afternoon, Friday evening, as a matter of fact, this was a huge super cell thunderstorm that spawned this tornado which quickly developed into a major, intense, F-5 tornado south of town.

The good news, if there's anything to report on this story, is the incredible amount of warning that these folks have. The National Weather Service put out a tornado warning 30 minutes in advance of this thing striking this town. Sirens went off 20 minutes. And if that didn't happen, certainly there would be more loss of life.

So even though we've seen almost complete destruction of this town, as far as fatalities go, it could have been a lot worse. It came from the south to the north. The National Weather Service storm surveyor that I spoke to yesterday said actually there were multiple tornados that formed or vortexes that formed around the big tornado. Then after that one dissipated, another one fired up.

And, you know, everything has been so frustrating this weekend because the following night, Saturday night, it was deja vu all over again with more storms developing and tornados forming and just rolling just to the east of Kansas.

Want to show you the radar map today because it is a little bit more encouraging for the central Plains, at least for central and western Kansas, where the threat for severe weather is shifting off towards the east. There was a tornado watch out for parts of Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City. That has since been dropped. But the threat for severe weather will be to our south and east today. Not completely over, but much less of a threat today than it has been over the weekend.

John, back to you.

ROBERTS: Rob, thanks very much.

And the thing you've got to remember about this storm, too, is not only was it an F-5 tornado, which is the most powerful on the Fujita scale, but it was almost two miles wide. And the town of Greensburg itself is only about three quarters of a mile wide. So it just, Kiran, it literally swallowed this entire place up. And as the sun begins to come up here, we'll roam a little further afield than we are right now, where we're sitting, and let you see some of the devastation in our area. But just to drive into this town is a life- changing experience.

CHETRY: All right, John, we're going to check in with you a little later. Thanks. And in other news today, there's a big, big turnabout in France where they had an election. Eighty-five percent of the populous coming out to vote. And today they have a new president, Nicolas Sarkozy. He's politically conservative. He's also pro-American. Sarkozy defeated his socialist opponent in a runoff election Sunday, winning 53 percent of the vote. So what does his victory mean for relations between the U.S. and France? Christopher Dickey is "Newsweek"'s Paris bureau chief and he joins us from Paris this morning.

Thanks for being with us.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, PARIS BUREAU CHIEF, "NEWSWEEK": My pleasure, Kiran.

CHETRY: Sarkozy, in his victory speech, said that the United States can "count on our friendship." How will we see a shift from the Chirac era of tense U.S./France relations?

DICKEY: Well, I think the shift in tone is going to be dramatic. One thing to remember about Sarkozy is that he already has a lot of credibility in Washington and his relationship with all kinds of figures in Washington, and in New York for that matter, has been building up over the past several years.

When he was interior minister in the outgoing government, he had a lot of dealings with U.S. in the war on terror, for instance. And, in fact, I think the secret -- largely secret relationship between France and the United States, which he was very much involved with, has been very positive in stopping a lot of terrorist acts.

So he's coming into this office as a known quantity in Washington and a respected one. And he's coming out and saying, I respect the United States. So I think it will be very different than the Chirac years.

CHETRY: Chirac wanted Europe to be more of a counter weight to America on the global stage. Do you think we're going to see this new president supporting some of the more controversial things worldwide, like the president's war on terror in Iraq?

DICKEY: Well, I don't think we're going to see French troops going to Iraq or anything like that. Far from it. I think Sarkozy recognizes that that war really has no support in France and President Bush has very little support. But Sarkozy still is coming out and saying, I want to work with the Americans. I want to work with the Bush administration on some issues, particularly Israel. Sarkozy's position is much closer to Washington's position than it is to the Chirac government's position. So I think we will be seeing a lot of cooperation and really a fairly dramatic change.

CHETRY: It's also interesting, there were some write-ups that said he wants to emulate what we do here at home, not necessarily what we do abroad. Speaking about the 35-hour work week in France. That looks like it's going to go by the wayside. And some other solutions, hopefully, to the rampant unemployment there.

DICKEY: Well, I don't think we're going to do away with the 35-hour work week as such. I think he realizes that if he tried to do that, he'd really have a lot of problems in the streets here. But what he's doing is introducing a policy that makes it much easier to work overtime. You have to remember how different the situation is here. Not only do they declare a 35-hour work week, but then the government made it increasingly difficult to work overtime here. So he's going to do away with that.

But he also is in favor of lowering taxes. He says nobody should pay more than 50 percent of his income. And he generally wants to get rid of a lot of bureaucrats. For every two bureaucrats who retire, he's only going to hire one new bureaucrat. So I think we'll see a lot of changes, a lot of attempts to streamline this government, along the lines that Americans understand very well.

CHETRY: All right. Christopher Dickey with "Newsweek," the Paris bureau chief, thanks so much.

And coming up, gas prices hit a record high. Some are now calling for an investigation into why they're always heading up and this year so much more quickly it seems.

AMERICAN MORNING is coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: And we're at 26 past the hour now. Ali Velshi is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

And today we're talking about high gas prices. It's not even summer yet.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I was driving around this weekend. Like I said, that's when everybody feels it. This is the one thing you don't need to hear from me. But gas prices are way up. You're going to be talking to somebody later on at a gas station . . .

CHETRY: $4.25 a gallon.

VELSHI: $4.25. That's nuts.

CHETRY: She's an independent gas station and she says this is what she has to charge (INAUDIBLE).

VELSHI: Yes, and they get squeezed, too. I mean the average price of gas right now is at $3.07 a gallon for unleaded across the country, according to the Lundberg Survey. Twenty cents higher than it was two weeks ago. Up 88 cents in about the last four months. Average prices around the country, we're looking at, in metro areas, Atlanta, $2.94. In Las Vegas, $3.12. San Francisco, $3.49. But as you said, Kiran, some places paying a lot more than that.

Adjusted for inflation, March 1981 was still the highest price. It's somewhere between $3.10 and $3.25 depending how you want to play with that inflation rate. It was only $1.35 back then. But we're pretty much there. We're at the highest price that we're at. Refineries, a lot of them, are out of commission right now. There are no new refineries being built in this country. There was one in Arizona. It's been halted. So we're going to have a lot of talk about this. We're not even at Memorial Day yet, which is when prices typically start going up.

CHETRY: No, we're not. And there are some people who say can't, wait, can't the federal government step in in any way, shape or form? In some of these states, it's high because of the taxes?

VELSHI: Yes. And Charles Schumer -- Senator Schumer is now calling for the government accounting office to find out why these refineries are not expanding their capacity. He wants an investigation into it.

CHETRY: All right. Ali Velshi, thanks so much.

ROBERTS: And, Kiran, coming up in the next couple of minutes, we're going to be back here live from Greensburg, Kansas, talk to a couple of people. We're going to talk with Steve Hewitt. He is the city administrator. Here's a guy who lost his home. His family is away from the city. And he has been going non-stop since Friday night trying to pick up the pieces of this town. And he is a real proponent of rebuilding Greensburg. We'll ask him what his plan is.

We'll also be talking with David Paulison, the head of FEMA -- he's about to get on an airplane at Andrews Air Force Base and head over here -- about what the federal response is going to be.

Stay with us. The most news on the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Pictures from over the weekend of Greensburg, Kansas, the extent of the devastation from that F5 tornado that hit on Friday evening. Ninety percent of the buildings in this town were either damaged or destroyed.

The tornado was up to two miles wide, one-and-three-quarter miles wide. It actually swallowed up the entire town and just blew everything away. This was a tornado that is as powerful as you can get, the most powerful tornado to hit the plains states since 1999.

And welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. It's Monday, May the 7th.

I'm John Roberts, in Greensburg, Kansas.

Good morning to you, Kiran.

CHETRY: Good morning.

And I'm Kiran Chetry, here in New York.

In just a couple of seconds we're going to be speaking to the director of FEMA. He is on the phone with us, and he's going to talk a little bit more about what to do. You know, John, I was reading -- and I know you're going to be talking to the governor of Kansas. They're hampered with some of the equipment they would normally have on standby in the state with the National guard because it's in Iraq. They say normally they are at 100 percent, and they are down to about 40 are because of their National Guard deployments.

ROBERTS: Yes, that's correct. The war in Iraq having an effect here on Greensburg, the fact that so much of that equipment is over in Iraq, and the Pentagon hasn't replenished it. Governor Kathleen Sebelius has been complaining about that, saying that it's going to be -- make the recovery that much tougher.

We're going to be talking with the active general for the state, Major General Todd Bunting, who's going to be joining us in a few minutes to talk more about that.

But right now we want to bring in Steve Hewitt. He is the city administrator here in Greensburg, a life-long resident of this town, moved out for a little while to go to college.

You have been city administrator for about a year now. Your home was destroyed in this tornado, your family has gone to live elsewhere for a while. Obviously, there's no place to live here. And you've been going pretty much nonstop since Friday night.

What's the latest on the search and rescue effort, Steve?

STEVE HEWITT, GREENSBURG CITY ADMINISTRATOR: Well, the search and rescue continues, and it will continue until -- you know, just until we find everything and have everything organized. And I think that will probably continue for days. It will just continue on. And we need to make sure we have found everybody and everybody is safe and accounted for.

ROBERTS: So far, the death toll -- death toll stands at?

HEWITT: At nine at this point in time.

ROBERTS: Nine. Do you have any reason to believe that there's anybody still trapped in the rubble?

HEWITT: Well, you know, it's hard to tell. I mean, obviously, such a devastating storm. This is a community that has quite a few basements in this part of the country. So with the rubble caving in, there could be some folks out there still.

We hope not. We hope for the best. But it's a possibility.

ROBERTS: Now, you talked about rebuilding this town. Is that an emotional reaction or a practical reaction? Can you rebuild devastation this widespread?

HEWITT: We can. I think we have to. I think it's a responsibility that we have to -- we have to do to this area. We're the county seat. We're an ag community out here in western Kansas, but we have to. These folks need -- need a place to go, a commerce area, a place to shop, a place to congregate. You know, this is a place they need to be.

Now, is it emotional and can we do it? That's going to be tough. There's a long road ahead of us.

One of the first things we need to do, we need to rebuild our government. I need employees to come back. And I've got employees that have lost their homes, I lost my home. We're going to bring people back.

We've got to get reorganized, we've got to build our government back up. We've got to be a leader, we've got to help folks get together and begin that process.

ROBERTS: We wish you a lot of luck, Steve. I know that you have been going at this since Friday night, probably working on about two or three hours sleep for the entire weekend. So we'll get back in touch with you. We'll keep following the progress.

HEWITT: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Appreciate you stopping by.

HEWITT: Thank you very much.

ROBERTS: One of the people, of course, who's going to be instrumental in the recovery of this town is the director of FEMA, David Paulison.

And Kiran, you have got some news on him?

CHETRY: That's right. President Bush has now declared a major disaster area in Greensburg. That will free up federal money. It's on its way.

And joining us on the phone is FEMA administrator David Paulison.

Thanks for being with us. You're at the airport. You're getting ready to fly to Kansas now. I understand that FEMA already on the ground, though.

Where do you begin when you look at this type of destruction? Where do you even start?

DAVID PAULISON, FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, we -- our main goal is to support the state and the local communities and help them recover from a disaster like this. You know, you've got people on the ground, you see how devastating it is.

Just personally want to go down and see it. I want to meet with the mayor and meet with the governor, assure them that we're going to be there through this entire process, show them what this new FEMA looks like. We have been on the ground for a couple days now. We're moving communications equipment for them, we're moving -- we've got travel trailers, mobile homes standing by if they need those. Just whatever they happen to need that we can provide, we want to make sure it's there and ready.

CHETRY: It looks like you guys are going to have an even bigger challenge because the Kansas governor is saying that the response is going to be hampered because a lot of the equipment they use to even clear out these areas, including these semis and a lot of the heavy equipment, like the transport trailers, et cetera, are all in Iraq.

PAULISON: Well, we have a lot of -- we have access to a lot of equipment also through the Corps of Engineers. They're like our partners in these types of things. And we can bring them in, and we can bring equipment from around the country to help them with the debris removal.

It's going to be a large task. You saw that and saw the amount of homes that were down and the businesses that were down. This is not going to be an easy recovery for this community.

CHETRY: And how do you assure people that this is a different FEMA than after Hurricane Katrina? What are some of the lessons learned?

PAULISON: I think the lessons learned were that we've already put in place, one, we're communicating early. I was -- I talked with the governor first thing in the morning after the tornadoes went through. I know the president has talked to her, Secretary Chertoff talked to her yesterday.

Put people on the ground immediately and their state emergency management office to make sure that we understand what their needs are. And we started moving equipment and supplies even before they asked for a declaration to make sure that they're going to be there and whatever their need.

We have water and food. We have tarps, we have home repair kits. It's already staged there. And they may not need it, but it's there in case they do.

CHETRY: I understand some of the trailers that were going to be used for Katrina victims that stood empty are going to be brought up there. Do you anticipate that a large number of residents of this town will be living in some sort of federal mobile home for weeks, even months?

PAULISON: That will be -- that will be a local decision. We have them there available if they want them. I'm not sure that the city has decided exactly how it wants to proceed with this.

Right now, everybody has a place to stay. There's a couple hundred people that are still in shelters, but right now others are staying with friends and families and relatives. So, we'll have to -- we are going to take it slow. The city is going to take it slow and just make a very conscious decision of how they want to house people and where they want to put them. CHETRY: All right.

David Paulison, the FEMA administrator, headed now -- at the airport, headed to Kansas to see for himself the devastation there in Greensburg.

Thanks so much for joining us.

And ahead, we're going to head back to Kansas. The director of Kansas's emergency management, the state agency, will be joining us as well.

And also, a first-hand look at the devastation from our CNN viewers. We got a bunch of I-Reports coming in to us. Many, many people were there to capture pictures and video of the devastation, and coming up we're going to show you more of that here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: You're looking at some of the destruction here as dawn is about to break in Greensburg, Kansas. The sun expected to come up in about 45 minutes or so. We'll get a better idea and a better look for you at just how damaging this tornado was.

An F5 tornado almost two miles wide that literally swallowed up this town of some 1,500 people on Friday night. Thankfully, though, they had 30 minutes' warning. So there were only nine people who were killed. Still, nine people a tragic number. But if it had hit without that much warning it could have been much, much worse.

They're in the search and rescue mode still. They've been searching all night. They'll start to get into cleanup mode one of these days in the not-too-distant future. I would expect probably in the next couple or three days or so.

And then they begin the process of recovery and potential rebuilding. And how big of a challenge is that going to be?

We want to bring in the active (ph) general for the state of Kansas, Major General Todd Bunting. He's with the National Guard, the Air Force National Guard. He's been here all weekend.

You flew in on a Black Hawk helicopter. How were you struck by this devastation when you saw it?

MAJ. GEN. TODD BUNTING, KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD: Well, it's just totaled. I mean, there's -- virtually the entire city has been destroyed.

We saw it coming in from 20 miles North. We saw farmhouses and trees for a mile to mile and a half wide just completely uprooted. So, we had a little bit of feel for what we were going to get when we got to the city. But then when we got here and saw that it hit the whole town, we had never seen anything like it.

ROBERTS: Even with the National Guard in the state for almost 30 years -- you respond to all of these disasters -- how does this compare to anything that you've seen in the past?

BUNTING: It's as bad as anything I've seen. We were talking about Katrina. I mean, that level of devastation. But what makes this one different is the fact that the entire city was hit. So there's no other -- no place to go, to stage, to rebuild. We'll have to recreate that.

ROBERTS: Yes. When you consider that this tornado was two miles wide, and this town is probably a mile wide at its widest point, it literally swallowed the whole place up.

BUNTING: It did, a direct hit.

ROBERTS: So, your folks have been searching all night. They've been searching all week. And where are you with the search and rescue efforts?

BUNTING: Well, we've been over the town twice now. You know, all of our partners around the state, the experts from the cities with the technical search and rescue. So, we'll go over it again today, but of course we have the families coming back today. We have been mostly doing search and rescue and making the town safe for the residents to come back.

ROBERTS: So you haven't found anything since Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon?

BUNTING: That's correct.

ROBERTS: So does that give you some hope that everybody who was affected by this storm may be accounted for? I know that it's difficult to get a handle on where everybody was because so many people left, and left in such a hurry. But do you think that perhaps you won't find any more victims of this storm?

BUNTING: Well, we've done everything we can. I mean, as far as -- some of this rubble is 20, 30 feet deep. And so that's always a challenge, but that's where we spend all of our efforts. And we'll do it again today.

ROBERTS: Do you think this town can come back from this?

BUNTING: Oh, absolutely.

ROBERTS: Really?

BUNTING: Absolutely. These are tough people out here.

ROBERTS: Yes.

BUNTING: And this is where they're from. And brick and mortar can be replaced. And so, they like this place, and we support them in that. And so we'll build it back.

ROBERTS: Well, General, thanks very much for being with us. Thank you for your efforts as well. I know you spent some time in Iraq, now you are here helping out. Really appreciate it.

BUNTING: It's what we do.

ROBERTS: All right -- Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. Thanks so much, John.

And we also have some amazing video that was shot by storm chasers as this tornado, as well as others, was bearing down on Kansas.

Jacki Schechner, our Internet correspondent, is here with us with more on that.

And this is when it really helps to get people sending in the video, because we were able to see things that we did not realize about how devastating this storm was.

JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN INTERNET REPORTER: It's a much shorter vetting process in terms of people putting their video online.

Now, these are storm chasers. Darin Brunin is the head storm chaser here.

This is the wedge that we've been hearing about. You can see right how incredibly wide this is. He took a bunch of photographs and video, and I don't know if we can sort of scroll through some of those, but you can just see how amazingly wide this is here.

Darin Brunin, 20 years old, University of Kansas. He has been storm chasing for years. He said he's seen about 70, 80 tornadoes. This is the worst one he's ever seen.

He went out with his partner, Dick McGowan. They said that there were power lines, gas leaks, cows in the road. They were about a half-mile to a mile away. And this is what they managed to capture in some still photographs. I mean, you just how ominous and dark that is.

CHETRY: And they have their own Web site, Tornado Live, where they do this.

Does it take any formal training, or are they just very gutsy? I mean, this could be deadly.

SCHECHNER: Well, yes, they have to stay a certain distance away, and Darin says on his Web site that he's interested in severe weather since he was a child. So, it's something that he's obviously very interested in, has a curiosity for, has been preparing for.

You have to stay obviously a reasonable distance away in order to do something like this. But they went out and they put this up online.

He says that he's got some devastation video that he went through and captured what it looked like after the fact. We are waiting for him to put some of that online.

Now, this is another one. This is one of our I-Reporters. His name is Chris Neal. He's young. He's going to be 18 this month. But he's an amateur photographer. He's going to school for photography. And this is in Greensburg.

He says his friend's grandparents live on Main Street in Greensburg, and they were in the house at the time. Most of the houses are standing in the area, he says, but obviously not standing totally intact at this point. He and his friend, Tracy (ph), went back to get something for Tracy's (ph) grandfather, and this is what they found when they went back to Greensburg.

CHETRY: Yes. I mean, they're destroyed.

SCHECHNER: Yes.

CHETRY: They say 95 percent of the town there -- you see it, an American flag up. It looks like a barn just ripped apart. So, they have a lot of work to do. And I'm sure they're going to be chronicling all of this in pictures as well.

SCHECHNER: We're going to keep you posted as soon as we get more stuff in -- so...

CHETRY: Jacki, thanks so much.

SCHECHNER: Of course. Any time.

CHETRY: And if you have any newsworthy photos or videos, please send them to us at CNN.com/ireport. And, of course, as always, please be smart about it. Be safe first.

Coming up, we'll have much more on the deadly tornadoes in Kansas.

We are also following some other stories this morning.

A royal visit to Washington. The queen is preparing for a state dinner in her honor. And our own Richard Quest is on the story.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I may be in Washington, but I have not been invited to the dinner. But I will tell you, why is Washington all of atwitter and why is President Bush getting out his white tie for the first time?

AMERICAN MORNING continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Well, welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.

The British royals are in Washington this morning, and it's the latest stop on their state visit. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were at Churchill Downs Saturday for the Kentucky Derby.

Then they arrived Sunday at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington. And they will be the president and the first lady's guest of honor tonight at a big state dinner.

CNN's Richard Quest is over here with the queen. He's live in Washington this morning.

First things first, she wore a green hat. So if you were a betting person, how did you do on that one? Because that was something they were taking wagers on at the Kentucky Derby.

QUEST: Oh, I have long since given up betting on the color of the queen's hat. The only sure thing is that she'll be wearing one, although, I have to say, not that -- I mean, look, sometimes I worry about myself being so immeshed into this trivia. She actually wasn't wearing a hat when she arrived at the airport in Louisville, Kentucky, but we will put that to one side for a moment.

Kiran, even by Washington standards, what's happening over the next few hours is pretty exceptional. There will be a state arrival.

This is now the state part of the visit. There will be a formal welcoming ceremony for the queen on the south lawn of the White House. It will have all the bells, whistles, 21-gun salutes, anthems being played. You name it, they are going to trot it out.

It doesn't get much bigger than what they are preparing for. And, in fact, even for a building like the White House, which is -- I mean, let's face it, it's hardly a shabby place. I mean, they can always have a few guests there without doing too much touching up. But they have been going around with a paint brush, just to make sure that everything is just so.

The dinner tonight will be a five-course dinner, instead of the traditional four-course dinner. That, again, signifies that what's taking place at the White House, Kiran, is more important than just an official dinner or cheese on toast or a TV dinner up in the residence.

CHETRY: Do they do anything because they know it's the queen's favorite when they plan the menu? Do they try to do things that are a touch British?

QUEST: No, quite the opposite. What they will be doing is they will be deliberately choosing food that is -- that showcases American cuisine.

The chef will -- we don't know the menu yet. It hasn't been given to us. But it will be very specific.

And also, they will have been in touch with Buckingham Palace. The queen doesn't like spicy food. She rarely eats shellfish, in case it gives a bit of a dodgy tummy. So, forget the shellfish. And she is an expert.

Let me give you one more bit of trivia. I should really have a plate here. A bit more trivia.

She's an expert of pushing the food around the plate, so you can't really tell that she hasn't eaten that much. She doesn't usually eat the whole meal.

CHETRY: Wow. We did that as a kid to avoid the vegetables. I didn't know the queen used the same tactic.

QUEST: Well, how would you like having several hundred people -- there's only 134 there tonight -- everybody is watching you eat every mouthful. It must be absolutely galling.

And we don't also know what the entertainment -- I mean, will it be more (INAUDIBLE) with the opera, or more Willie Nelson with the music?

CHETRY: Well, you will have to tell us as soon as you find out. And the menu as well.

QUEST: Absolutely. Absolutely.

CHETRY: Thanks so much. Great to see you. Check in with you a little later.

And the president and the first lady will formally welcome the royals to the White House this morning. CNN will be carrying the ceremony. It's live at 10:50 a.m. Eastern Time -- John.

ROBERTS: I love the way Richard Quest talks. It's not going to be cheese on toast at the White House today, it will be much more formal than that.

We're going to be back in just a couple of minutes from the devastation here in Greensburg, Kansas. We're going to be talking with the governor of the state of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, about her complaints that much of the equipment that the National Guard needs to respond to this tragedy is tied up over in Iraq and that the Pentagon hasn't come through with replacement gear.

We'll also be talking with an 80-year-old woman who did not have a basement, hid out in the bathroom of her house as the home came apart all around her and she was collapsed in the rubble. She screamed until her neighbors came to get her.

We will be back here from Greensburg, Kansas, in just a couple minutes.

You are watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: That's a beautiful live shot this morning from New York's Central Park. And you know all the good people out there, Ali, getting their exercise out of the way in the morning? Wish I could say that about us.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm burning a few calories just watching.

CHETRY: Exactly.

VELSHI: Fantastic.

CHETRY: Soldier on. Congratulations.

Well, meantime, two minutes before the top of the hour, Ali Velshi is minding our business right now.

Hewlett Packard and the strange situation going on right now with reporters that would normally cover this company.

VELSHI: Yes. Suing this company.

CHETRY: Right.

VELSHI: You'll remember about a year ago -- maybe it was a year ago -- Hewlett Packard, HP, the biggest computer company in the world, was sort of found out for this whole thing that we came to know as pretexting. They were pretending to be certain reporters that covered the company to find out who was leaking information to these reporters. They were checking in to their phone records and things like that.

Well, after months of all this, the judge has dismissed the case, the charges against Patrician Dunn, who you just saw on the cover of "Newsweek". She's the -- she was the chairman of the company. She has -- the judge has reduced the charges against some of the other defendants.

But the journalists involved -- there were nine journalists involved. Three of them are suing the company now. A number of them are still pursuing settlements.

We aren't sure where that's going to go, but the interesting matters of these journalists who were spied on by HP, they don't cover the company anymore. So a lot of people over the last year have been wondering what the effect of that spying scandal was if it didn't really hurt everybody else, didn't hurt the stock price. Well, here's the thing -- a lot of people who would be reporting on one of the biggest companies in the world don't get to report on that anymore.

I'll continue to be reporting on things for the next hour. I'm going to talk to you about gas prices and about the Oracle of Omaha. Warren Buffett holding his annual meeting this weekend. They call it Woodstock for Capitalists.

The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING begins right now.

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