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American Morning

Firefighters Working Around the Clock on Wildfire in Los Angeles; Town of Big Lake, Missouri, Submerged Under Water; Tainted Food: The Chinese Connection

Aired May 09, 2007 - 06:59   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (voice over): Out of control. A raging wildfire roars through Hollywood Hills. Hundreds on the run, landmarks destroyed.

Plus, disastrous flooding and another possible tornado in the Plains. Staggering drought in the Southeast. A nation United by extreme weather on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: And good morning to you. It is Wednesday, May the 9th.

I'm John Roberts.

CHETRY: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Thanks so much for joining us.

You know, weather a huge story today, and just the differences from across the country. We showed you the last shot. That was a lake, and that was just a dried bit of mud with some grass growing out of it.

ROBERTS: And another part of the country where it's just usually a dry bit of mud with some grass growing out of it, it's now a lake. There happens to be a town in the middle of it, as well.

CHETRY: And also on our radar this morning, gas prices now averaging $3 a gallon. And we could see a jump to $4 a gallon.

What is behind the big spike in prices? As always, it seems to be conveniently timed to when we head into the summer months.

ROBERTS: Isn't it always funny the way that that happens?

Also, another element of the human food chain given tainted feed. This time it's fish. Is it a threat to humans? And the bigger question: Is China starting to pay any more attention to all of the products that it ships overseas, a lot of which end up here in the United States?

CHETRY: That's the big question today, and we'll try to answer it for you.

Also coming up in just a moment, extreme weather stretching from coast to coast. And right now we're focusing on Los Angeles, where a massive wildfire is forcing evacuations.

There's also fierce flooding in the Midwest, and an incredible drought creating fuel for these wildfires in Florida.

And we're everywhere this morning.

Thelma Gutierrez in L.A. Sean Callebs in the Missouri flood zone. And John Zarrella in south Florida. Also, our Rob Marciano is back from tornado-ravaged Kansas. He's here tracking all of this for us this morning.

But we begin with Thelma Gutierrez, and some of the progress that firefighters, some of them working 24 hours straight, have made in trying to get this fire knocked down.

Hi, Thelma.

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kiran.

You're right, they have been working around the clock. They say they are exhausted, but there is still a lot of work to do.

Now, these tinder-dry conditions have made this area ripe for the kind of wildfire that we are seeing out here. So far, 600 acres have burned in this Griffith Park area, which is a total 4,000 acres so far. Three hundred homes have been evacuated. And firefighters say that this is really a very extreme situation. These are extreme conditions.

This area burned yesterday. Again today, it's on fire.

Right now, there are firefighters who are here, they've been monitoring the situation. And really, what they're concerned about, they want to make sure that those flames don't get up into those tall pine trees that are up there on the hillside, because if they do, that fire could then jump over to the trees on this side of the road, and that could be very disastrous, because on the other side of that is the 5 freeway. So, that's what they're keeping an eye on right now.

The good news, though, at this point, none of the landmarks here at Griffith Park, the zoo, the observatory, or the amphitheater, are in jeopardy at this time, and neither are the homes. Right now, they're just trying to keep an eye on the weather. It's supposed to be 97 degrees today, and wind are expected to kick up to about 20 miles an hour, so that is the concern at this point -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Thelma Gutierrez, we'll be checking in with you throughout the morning on the progress.

Thanks.

ROBERTS: Meanwhile, on the other side of the nation, more than 200 fires are burning right now in Florida, and about 300 homes were evacuated on the Georgia border from two major wildfires. High winds and record dry conditions are making this a tough fight.

This is how dry it is. Take a look. Lake Okeechobee shrinking by the day.

CNN's John Zarrella is there, and he's got a live update for us later on this hour.

Now, the opposite problem is plaguing Missouri this morning. Take a look at these pictures. The entire town of Big Lake under water, washing out hundreds of homes.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Sean Callebs is there.

And Sean, as bad as it was in St. Joseph, where you were yesterday, it looks like you've really found the heart of all the problems today.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. I think that in talking -- I talked with Rob Marciano in the last hour, and we know, of course, the National Weather Service, others have been monitoring the river stage of the Missouri River, which is really the cause of what you're seeing here. Big Lake spilling into what normally is a dry field, and that river crested above 25 feet, and that really is about the same level as '93 here in this area, that really led to all the disastrous flooding back then.

Want to give you an idea of where we are. There are some 300 homes here in this Big Lake community. About 150 of them are people who live year round. The rest are summer vacations.

And look, if you can see, in the middle of all this debris. You can see a white line. Well, that is, of course, the white stripe, the middle of Highway 159. It carves its way down through Big Lake.

If you look further down this way, you can see a street sign barely peeking up above the floodwater here. A home down there just one of scores simply inundated by the high water.

We have a couple cameras set up, and I want to show you just an amazing sunrise here, but, sadly, I'm sure it's going to be lost on so many people here in this area who really focused on what's going on, on the ground. We were all over the area yesterday driving around, talking to people -- Leavenworth, Kansas, as well as across the river in Atchison, Missouri. People doing what they can to try to avoid this.

What led to all this water getting here if the Missouri is two miles away? Well, there were breaches in the levee, John. At least five of them that led to this. And we know there were some boat rescues out here yesterday. We saw a couple of boats as the sun began to peek up. People clearly out looking to see if anybody else is out there -- John.

ROBERTS: You know, it's amazing, Sean. Just as far as you can see behind you, nothing but water. Is it all about as deep as it is where you're standing, or does it get deeper in some parts of town?

CALLEBS: It gets deeper in some parts of town. We're standing on the road. If I walk over here just a bit, you can get to the shoulder.

Got to be somewhat careful doing this. And then you can see it drops off somewhat significantly. As you get closer to these telephone polls, it gets deeper and deeper and deeper. As it gets more daylight, we'll walk down that way a little bit and follow the road and see just how deep it gets there.

But it is -- it is deeper than this.

ROBERTS: All right. Be careful.

Sean Callebs for us.

Thanks very much.

CHETRY: And as we've seen from our reporters, a busy morning already for Rob Marciano, tracking the weather, including a big storm system, a subtropical system, I guess, off the southeast coast.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Vice President Dick Cheney in Iraq right now. He landed for an unannounced visit in Baghdad this morning.

The vice president is getting briefed by U.S. officials, and also meeting with leaders of Iraq's government. He will be urging them not to take a two-month vacation this summer. Rather, what they should do is work on hailing Iraq's political divisions.

The orders are in. More than 35,000 additional soldiers could be sent to Iraq this fall. That means that the troop buildup could last through the end of the year. Conditions on the ground in Iraq will determine whether the additional 35,000 are sent. And, of course, Congress might have something to say about that, as well.

Democrats in Washington are planning their next move in the war- spending showdown. That includes only temporary funding to see how the war is progressing. It would pay for the war through July, and then another vote would be taken to see if the rest of the money should be released.

Republicans in Congress are denouncing the idea, calling it unconscionable. The White House says it's just plain bad management.

CHETRY: Well, on Capitol Hill today, a House hearing on the tainted food crisis. The FDA has now expanded its investigation into food products and feed that was imported from China and laced with the chemical melamine to artificially boost the protein levels. Chinese authorities, meanwhile, have detained the manager of one company suspected of selling contaminated food products to the U.S.

John Vause spoke to him in a CNN exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This man, Tian Feng, is one of the main suspects in the contamination scandal that led to the recall of more than 60 million cans and packets of pet food across the United States. He has yet to be charged, but is being held in a detention center in the northern city of Binzhou. He insists he has been wrongly accused.

"I've done nothing wrong," he told me. Tian has been held here since April 25th, the same day police closed down his company, which allegedly sold chemically-treated wheat flour and passed it off as more nutritious and more valuable protein. Among the customers, Diamond Foods and other pet food makers, who were forced to recall their products after the reported deaths of thousands of dogs and cats.

The Food and Drug Administration says that tainted flour also made its way into feed for some 20 million live chickens, hundreds of thousands of farm fish, and thousands of pigs. But the FDA says there's no threat to humans. Authorities allege this chemical, melamine, made in factories like this was mixed into the flour to make it seem to have more protein than it really does.

"I don't know about melamine. I don't even know what this melamine is," he told me. "I've never heard of anyone using it."

The Chinese government banned the use of melamine as a food additive only last month. Before that, it was not illegal here.

This man, whose company makes corn gluten, says he never used the chemical, and he's angry because he can't compete with producers who do use it. "The fake stuff is much cheaper," he says. "So many times a customer looks at out product and then they see a cheaper, fake product and they'll go with that."

China has now stepped up its export controls, specifically looking for melamine. What remains unclear, will there be a thorough investigation into what some experts have said was a widespread practice, or is the government here just looking for a few scapegoats?

John Vause, CNN, Shandong Province, China.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: And under Chinese law, police can hold Tian for 30 days while this investigation continues. After that, he must be tried or released.

A little bit later this hour, Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be joining us for a closer look at melamine and its effect on the body.

ROBERTS: All of this very worrying. I mean, it's one thing to wonder what goes into the steel that we're importing from the country, but the food...

CHETRY: And it's a multibillion-dollar business. It's a huge part of their economy. And so as we heard in the last hour, the onus -- I mean, there really is no incentive to try to police this harder because this is where they make all their money. ROBERTS: Right. Incredible.

Pope Benedict XVI is now on his way to Latin America. It's his first journey there. He left Italy earlier today, destination Brazil.

The pope will hold a huge open-air mass on Friday in Sao Paulo. He'll also canonize Brazil's first saint who qualified for sainthood by prescribing paper prescriptions that apparently resulted in miracles. Just write a prayer down on a piece of paper and people would take it like they would take a pill.

Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic population in the world, but there are concerns that the church is losing its hold because of issues like contraception, abortion and same-sex relationships.

We'll be checking in all morning long on the huge wildfire that is forcing evacuations in the city of Los Angeles itself. We're going to take you live to the fire lines, coming up next.

And an ominous prediction about our country's growing gasoline crisis. Is $4 a gallon closer than you think?

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.

Investigators are revealing just how they managed to break up a plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. The FBI infiltrated a terror cell that was planning to gun down as many soldiers as possible.

Six men in all, all in their 20s charged in this plot. All born outside of the U.S. One of them a naturalized citizen, but three others illegal immigrants. And the FBI is calling them Islamic radicals, saying they were inspired by, but not connected to, al Qaeda and other terror groups.

We're going to be talking with the U.S. attorney leading that investigation coming up in our next hour.

ROBERTS: Gasoline prices across the country are at an all-time high. The national average now at $3.04.

The recent increase being blamed on refinery problems. There have been at least a dozen partial shutdowns in the United States.

And our next guest says that $4 a gallon gasoline could be just around the corner.

Phil Flynn -- he's a gasoline analyst -- joins me live from the Chicago Board of Trade.

Phil, explain this for people.

PHIL FLYNN, GAS ANALYST: Sure, John.

ROBERTS: The price of oil is now between $61 and $65 a barrel, lower than it was post-Katrina. Yet, gasoline prices are at record levels. What's going on?

FLYNN: Yes. I heard your question, John, before we got cut off.

Essentially, what's happening right now is that refiners in this country are having a run of bad luck. And essentially, because of that, crude oil is backing up at the refineries right now.

So, this has been a real big issue in the United States. Gasoline supplies are the lowest they have been, essentially, since the 1950s. And because of that, one little problem, any problem at all, could mean that $4 gasoline is just right around the corner.

ROBERTS: Phil, can you hear me now?

I sound like a Verizon commercial.

You know what? We're going to get this sorted out because Phil has got some important stuff to tell us about what's going on with gasoline.

We'll take a quick break. We'll get him fixed up. We'll come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Vice President Dick Cheney is in Baghdad this morning. He's pressing the government to get something done on reforms.

All week we've been taking a lock at the benchmarks that were set out by President Bush. They were goals for the Iraqis to achieve so that U.S. troops could eventually go home. Today's benchmark, a commitment from the Iraqis to rebuild their own country.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: To find out more about whether or not that is happening, CNN's Arwa Damon is in Baghdad and joins me right now.

Ten billion of its own money from the Iraqi government. What is the status, Arwa?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kiran, this is, in fact, money that the Iraqi passed in parliament. The budget that was passed in parliament did include in these $10 billion of Iraq's own money. Ninety-three percent of it coming, according to a spokesman for the Iraqi government, from Iraq's oil revenue.

That was passed in parliament in March. However, really getting reconstruction going in Iraq goes beyond just passing a bill that says that $10 billion will be spent. It even goes beyond the actual allocation of those fund to specific projects.

All of those projects meant to be infrastructure projects -- water, electricity, sewage, basic services. But the government is still facing a number of problems; namely, security. That has impacted everything that has to do with reconstruction, starting from the brain drain that is happening in Iraq -- engineers, quite simply, not in country to be able to push these projects forward, as well as getting employees to the various sites that need to be reconstructed out of fear of an attack or fear of sectarian violence -- Kiran.

CHETRY: So, it all still boils down to security. They can't even get the projects off the ground because of security concerns.

So, how are they going to get past that?

DAMON: Well, that is the number one question. And that is why this all plays into really the bigger picture of securing Iraq.

Quite simply, without security, nothing is going it be able to move forward here. And the situation, in terms of Iraq's infrastructure, could not be more dire than it is right now.

By all accounts, this situation here is far worse than it has been in the past. Electricity, water, sewage -- to give you just one statistic put out by Save the Children, they say that in 2005, one in every eight children under the age of 5 was dying, quite simply, because all of Iraq's infrastructure problems are affecting Iraq's medical care.

So this really bleeds into every single aspect of society. Iraqis we have been speaking to over the last week are saying that right now they're only getting two hours of electricity a day in Baghdad, where it is meant to be at six.

So, you can really see how crucial it is to get Iraq's infrastructure going, but, again, many roadblocks to actually see that happening.

CHETRY: All right. Thanks, Arwa.

Well, tomorrow, we're going to be taking a look at the progress being made on the commitment to hold elections in every province, getting those local governments involved.

Also coming up this morning, we'll be talking to Major General William Caldwell, live from Baghdad -- John.

ROBERTS: We put a little bit more gasoline in the generator. We got Phil Flynn, gas analyst, live back again from the Chicago Board of Trade.

Phil, you were saying before we went down there that there's a real backlog at the refineries in terms of distilling gasoline. What's responsible for that backlog? There are some people, charges from some corners, that they're slow-walking the process to keep the price of gasoline high.

FLYNN: Yes. You know, I hear that a lot. But, you know, at the same time a year ago, when they were complaining that refiners were holding back supply by going off line to do maintenance -- so the refiners really can't win. In fact, now we know what the refiners are going through when we went off the air for a second.

You know, the bottom line is, you know, they've had a run of bad luck. We've been squeezing more blood out of the same old turnip for a long period of time. And, you know, problems do happen. And because we had a late blast of winter, because demand is at record high, the refiners just can't get caught up. And when that happens, mistakes happen.

ROBERTS: Now, stories in the last couple of days, Phil, say that the upward pressure is off of gasoline, but what do you expect to happen in the coming weeks as we head toward the Memorial Day Weekend, the summer driving season after that?

FLYNN: Well, usually prices go up before the Memorial Day Weekend, but if you look at the cash market, there are some signs that maybe there is hope that things will stabilize. But still, you can't be too comfortable because supplies are so historically low. One little problem, you know, we could see prices spike again.

You know, I think the market's optimistic that we'll get a run of good luck, we'll see an increase in imports, an increase in gasoline production. But, you know, some of these ominous forecasts about hurricanes or, you know, geopolitical disruptions, you better watch out, prices will soar.

ROBERTS: Less than three years ago I talked to T. Boone Pickens, a famous oil man who said -- and this was back when oil was $41 a barrel. He said, "We're going to see $50-a-barrel oil before we see it go back down to $30.

I mean, we wish we would see $50-a-barrel oil now.

What is your sense? Are we going to see $4 a gallon gasoline before we see $2 a gallon gasoline?

FLYNN: I think it is really possible. In fact, yes. I'm going to say yes.

We're going to see $4 before we ever see $2 a gallon gasoline. And it was just a few months ago, last January, when we saw a different price.

We got close to $2 a barrel. I think that is the closest we're going to be to $2 a gallon in the foreseeable future. ROBERTS: Phil Flynn, thanks very much for being with us. Sorry for the problems earlier. Appreciate it.

FLYNN: No problem, John. Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right.

CHETRY: You can't blame those on the refinery, though.

ROBERTS: No.

CHETRY: That's something totally different.

ROBERTS: And we didn't do it to keep the price of television up either.

CHETRY: Exactly.

Twenty-four past the hour now, and Stephanie Elam is "Minding Your Business".

We broke an 80-year streak of the Dow ending up. That's done?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We almost did.

CHETRY: We almost broke it. We didn't even break that one. OK.

ELAM: Almost did. It was like so close last night.

I was on the air, we were looking, and we saw a little bit of green, but, no, we closed down four points on the Down, closing at 13,309.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

CHETRY: Good news there. All right. Stephanie, thanks.

ELAM: Sure.

CHETRY: Great to see you, as always.

Well, the top stories of the morning are coming up next.

That massive wildfire forcing evacuations in Los Angeles. We're live on the fire line in the Hollywood Hills.

That picture very dramatic. They say that it looks like a lot of the homes are in the clear, at least for now. But the pictures, nonetheless, very dramatic.

Also, we're live in Missouri. Floods ravaging from towns along the Missouri River.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Right now we're following extreme weather from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and all kind of places in between. We've got some pictures that we want to show you here. I mean, just incredible stuff from overnight.

CHETRY: Yes. There is a shot of it over there on our video wall. And as you get closer -- as we get closer to these pictures coming to us from KABC, you can just see how severe the fires are.

Here is a look at a fire coming across a bridge. You see it trying to be battled.

ROBERTS: Now, what's interesting is that there are firefighters trapped under that bridge with the fire all around. And a helicopter just came in and doused it with some flame retardant.

Now, look at this -- the flames leap back up again. There was nobody hurt, thankfully, but that's the sort of situation that firefighters can get in to, as we saw with, you know, fires in Colorado in years' past, that suddenly the fire just comes at them from both sides, engulfs them. And that's where you get fatalities.

CHETRY: Yes. And then, you know, to another extreme that we're seeing all across the areas in the Plains states, especially Missouri. Check out this picture. You see a car trapped. It takes as little as four to six inches of water and it can really cause some problems for your car. There you see a fire fighter rescue worker carrying one of the kids, his mom's car clearly trapped there as well. That's from Oklahoma City, that's a shot in Tulsa. So, the two extremes.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: ...drive down that country road. We saw this, too, when we were in Greensburg. Some washouts there. You get so far in, suddenly you can't go any further and you can't go back.

CHETRY: It just takes a couple of inches and your car is trapped.

ROBERTS: There are severe water restrictions in Florida right now and wildfires, as well. Everything is just really drying up in the entire Florida peninsula. That's where our John Zarrella is and John, what's the latest where you are?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John where I'm standing right now, this is literally Lake Okeechobee. If you look as far as you can see from one end to the other, all of this green grass is growing on what should be submerged lake. This again, Lake Okeechobee, but it is so low now, it is just all covered in grass. Look down here, all the ground is just dried up and cracking. This is Everglades muck, nutrient-rich muck and all this grass is just growing in it. Off in the distance here, that's a fishing pier. The water lines, you can see the water lines and below the fishing pier, those are manmade fish habitats, spawning areas for fish, obviously, not doing any good right now. The entire pier is high and dry. Beyond that, those islands out there, they would be submerged in normal times, but not any more. Fires are burning all across the state of Florida. This is a deepening drought that is threatening all of Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): More than 200 are burning from one end of the state to the other.

CAROL WEHLE, SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MGMT: We've been getting rain, but we get an inch, like little teasers.

ZARRELLA: Carol wheelie heads the south Florida water management district. She's never seen it this dry. Lake Okeechobee is less than 9 1/2 feet, five feet below normal and dropping fast. A prime source of drinking water for five million people, the lake is so low water can no longer flow from it.

WEHLE: This is the entire water shed to the Everglades system, is totally dried out.

ZARRELLA: Everywhere you look on and around the lake, water has been replaced by land. Pontoon boats sit high and dry. New islands emerge every day. For Dave Self, the drought has dried up his business.

DAVE SELF, WYLD WEST ANNUALS: These are pentas. These are a great half-hardy perennial.

ZARRELLA: A nursery owner says business is down 90 percent, about $.5 million in seasonal sales. Nobody is buying.

SELF: Nobody's buying. You can't give them away. I told people I would be glad to give them some to move them so I don't have the extra labor and they said, Dave, why should I plant these when I can't keep them alive.

ZARRELLA: Can't keep them alive because of ever-tightening restrictions on outdoor water use.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not only for the lawn, the lawn is not the most important thing. It is the lake that needs to rise so that you can have water in our homes.

ZARRELLA: Watering twice a week in much of south Florida is going to once a week by Monday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: And if the rainy season doesn't come very quickly, it is very likely that all outdoor watering is going to be banned in south Florida. Already south Florida water management district is being forced to shut down four coastal well fields for fear of salt water intrusion. John.

ROBERTS: John, one good hurricane can turn this whole situation around, but then you've got another problem on top of that. John Zarrella for us this morning at Lake Okeechobee, John, thanks. CHETRY: Right now to the other coast, we go to Thelma Gutierrez. She's on the fire line in Los Angeles. The fire chief was hoping that they would be able to make some progress this morning, Thelma and really knock this fire down. A progress report, do you have any news?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you for right now, Kiran, that firefighters are very happy because the winds have died down and the temperatures are down, but they're concerned about what may happen when the sun rises and then those winds pick up. Today it's expected to be 97 degrees out here. That could be terrible for firefighters. Also, the winds are expected to blow at about 20 miles per hour.

Now, firefighters have been monitoring this little hillside right here behind me. You can see that that fire is burning awfully close to the road. This is a road that kind of goes around Griffith Park. The good news at this point, according to a firefighter that we talked to a short time ago, he says that none of the homes or the landmarks here in Griffith Park are threatened right now.

Now, you can see that there is this river of embers that falls from the hillside on to the ground. The big concern is a gust of wind picks up those embers, transfers them into another area that's tinder dry and then you have these hot spots all over again. Also, if you take a look at the debris down on the ground, this is the kind of stuff that's falling throughout the morning. You can see these big rocks and trees and pieces of bark that are coming down into this area. Now, this fire began yesterday afternoon. There are 500 firefighters who are trying to put it out and so far, it has burned 600 acres, but that number is expected to go up, as soon as the, the firefighters are able to fly over the area and have a new assessment. Kiran?

CHETRY: Thelma Gutierrez on the fire lines in Los Angeles for us, thank you.

Coming up, the tables turned on Reverend Al Sharpton. He's under fire for some comments he made about Mitt Romney. We're going to tell you what he said.

Also it was the tainted pet food first, then animal feed and now the feed that the fish that we eat are eating. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has a closer look at the dangers of melamine and protecting our food supply. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Thirty nine minutes after the hour. You're looking at live pictures there of Marine one, President Bush is taking off for Greensburg, Kansas, today, to get a first-hand, on the ground look at the devastation from the tornado there. The president going even as there is a dispute brewing between Kansas Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius and the White House over what kind of resources Kansas has in terms of its national guards. Sebelius saying that the war in Iraq has depleted the equipment that the National Guard needs to respond it this disaster and the White House saying yesterday, hey, all she had to do was ask. We talked with the National Guard adjutant General, Major General Todd Bunting earlier today who said, look, what the governor said is correct. We didn't have all of the equipment that we needed to respond to this right off the bat. We're doing it right now, though. Certainly, if need be, we can get equipment from other National Guards in other states. President Bush will be walking off the helicopter here in just a second. Secret service coming out first and there's the president walking down the steps and saluting and off to Air Force one for what should probably be about a two hour and 20 minute trip out to Kansas.

Vice President Dick Cheney meantime is in Iraq right now, landing for an unannounced visit in Baghdad this morning. The vice president getting briefed by U.S. officials and meeting with leaders of Iraq's government urging them not to take a two-month vacation this summer, rather to work on healing Iraq's political divisions.

Reverend Al Sharpton is the target of criticism this morning for remarks he made during a debate with atheist author Christopher Hitchens about the religion of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REV. AL SHARPTON: As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that. That's a temporary situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: So, was Reverend Sharpton saying he believes in God and Mitt Romney doesn't? The reverend says he meant that Romney would be defeated as a Republican and his comment about those who believe in God versus those who don't was directed to Hitchens who again is an atheist and not Mitt Romney, definite antecedent to say the least there.

This morning Mitt Romney responded to Sharpton's comments saying, quote, I can only wonder whether there's not bigotry that still remains in America. That's an extraordinary thing for someone to say and I can't imagine what prompted him to say something of that nature. It's an extraordinarily bigoted kind of statement.

CHETRY: Talk more about that a little later as well, 41 past the hour now and our focus is on the weather, extreme weather in both coasts of the country and then we have a big trouble spot in the Midwest with the flooding, as well.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Lots of people getting ahead, either you're getting it in the form of rain or you're not getting it at all where they need it, they're not getting it. That has been the ongoing theme really for the past several months and now south parts of California are paying the price. So Cal definitely under the gun as far as fires are concerned, a red flag warning up for parts of the Los Angeles area today, low levels of humidity. Santa Ana winds will be blowing somewhat, but not quite as gusty as yesterday. So unbelievably dry and it's turning out to be the driest year on record in the Los Angeles area.

Meantime, over the central part of the country, it's where they are feasting on too much rain, in some cases flooding and touching the high water marks posted back in 1993 and there are more flash flood watches and warnings out for today and the radar showing some showers, thunderstorms moving off towards the northeastern. The great lakes also will see some showers and thunderstorms, some of which could become severe.

Interesting situation setting up across the South Carolina, Georgia and north Florida coastline. The National Hurricane Center is investigating it right now with a reconnaissance aircraft to see if this storm is of tropical nature and if we should name it our first tropical storm of the year. It's a cold core system, so probably won't get a full blown tropical storm status, but it might have enough characteristics and you can see that satellite picture there. It kind of looks like a hurricane or a tropical storm. It may have enough characteristics to be named. It has been causing problems in the way of coastal flooding and high winds in an area that's also seeing drought and fire problems, south Georgia and north Florida trying to get some of that moisture into the Florida area. It'll probably wind itself up before it does so, Kiran. Typically Florida and the southeast doesn't see drought after drought for years and years because they have hurricanes and tropical systems that usually throw some rain over that. So hopefully we'll get some of that over the coming months, but hopefully also not too much in the way of big time winds, kind of a "Catch-22" with weather.

CHETRY: It is. That system does need to go a little bit south right for it to hit where it needs to go.

MARCIANO: It's drifting that way. It's drifting south and west. The question is how much moisture does it have? Not a whole lot. It is doing more damage with wind and coastal flooding at this point.

CHETRY: Rob, thanks so much. John.

ROBERTS: If it's not hurricane season, can they actually name it a tropical storm?

MARCIANO: Sure, yeah. We've had tropical storms formed and named as early as January. So that certainly can happen and that may happen later on today.

ROBERTS: Thanks. It's been blamed for everything from poison pet food to chicken to pork to fish. What can melamine do to you? Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at how this chemical has now turned up in fish food and what you need to know about it.

And no books, no newspapers, no magazines, Bill Gates makes a startling prediction about what you'll soon read and more importantly, how you'll be reading it. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

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CHETRY: Well, if you're having trouble thinking at work, according to a new study you can blame it on your ceiling because it seems that the height of the ceiling can actually affect the way people think and behave. According to researchers, they say that people who work under a 10-foot ceiling can act more freely and have better problem-solving skills while people who work under a lower ceiling feel confined which them to focus more details, but they say that can be a good thing for technicians and accountants.

ROBERTS: Here at CNN we have, take a look at this, we have 19- foot ceilings. This is not just in the studio. We have 19-foot ceilings on most of our floors here at the Time Warner center. So that I guess would be conducive to big, expansive, creative thinking.

CHETRY: That's right.

ROBERTS: So what's wrong with us?

CHETRY: I have no idea. The lights, the blinding lights have gotten in the way. They didn't do that part of the study.

ROBERTS: Shuts down your pupils to little tiny dots. Nothing gets in.

CHETRY: Exactly. Are you responsible for your children's low test scores? According to a new study, the time of year that a woman conceives can influence her child's academic performance in the future. Well, researchers say that children conceived from May through August scored significantly lower on math and language tests, that would be me, August, than their peers. Scientists say one possible culprit could be pesticides and nitrates used on crops and lawns in the warmer months. They also say these chemicals affect cognitive ability.

ROBERTS: It's interesting. My daughter was born in August, as was my son and they both do very well at math. So, yeah, language not so much. But there is a lot of the word like that gets into everything they say.

CHETRY: That's a teen thing. They'll get over it.

ROBERTS: From pet food to chicken feed to pork and now farmed fish, all of it now linked to melamine. Is there a danger to the human food supply? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta to show you what you need to know. Sanjay, one of the big concerns people have with fish is we know that they tend to accumulate toxins, mercury, for example. What are the dangers of melamine being in fish feed?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears to have been in the fish feed. You know, that's what sort of prompted all this today. In fact there is going to be hearings later on today about the impact on the food supply. You talk about the chickens. You talk about the hogs, 20 million chickens, thousands of hogs, but also now fish, small fish. It turns out this melamine contaminated fish feed came from Canada and has been fed to several fish. We talked to the FDA about the impact on humans and they say, look, the impact is small for a couple of reasons. One is this whole dilution factor. Human beings may eat fish, but they also eat lots of other foods. So the concentration of melamine that they might get in their system is very small and also the fish that were eating this are very look, the impact is small for a couple of reasons. One is this whole dilution factor. Human beings may eat fish, but they also eat lots of other foods. So the concentration of melamine they might get in their system is very small, but also the fish that were eating this were very young fish, so they're probably going to continue growing, actually excrete the melamine probably during their life cycle, John.

ROBERTS: We initially thought, Sanjay, that the melamine was in wheat gluten. Now it turns out to be in wheat flour and of course, wheat flour is used in a lot more than just pet food. Is there a chance that this contaminated wheat flour could have made it into the human food chain in things like bread or muffin mix or in cake mix?

GUPTA: I found that interesting, as well. This investigation keeps changing. It's sort of fascinating. You're actually right. They thought wheat gluten, they thought protein rice powder, as well, was where the melamine may have been found. Now they're changing all that. Both of those typically have high concentrations of protein. What they found was just wheat flour that was probably spiked with melamine to make it seem like it was higher in protein.

Again, to answer your question, these are the questions we're asking of people, as well. The answer seems to be, no. We don't import a lot of this wheat flour from China and where it came from in this case. So very low risk of contamination into the human food supply. Let me say something else about the melamine, which I think will give people some calm them down a little bit regarding this is that none of the chickens, none of the hogs and none of the fish, so far, have had any sort of side effects from eating the melamine. The animals themselves don't seem to have been affected that ate this contaminated food in the feed. Obviously you know about the cats and dogs that died as a result of eating melamine (INAUDIBLE)

ROBERTS: But, basically, this is new territory that we're plowing here, correct?

GUPTA: Yeah, you know, the focus of melamine and the (INAUDIBLE) acid is something that we're just learning about. We've been doing some of our own independent homework here trying to look at the impact of high concentrations of melamine and (INAUDIBLE) acid on human beings. You're right, it is relatively new but one thing that keeps coming up is that it needs to be in pretty high concentrations for it to have an impact. Remember, pets, cats and dogs, just eat pet food. We as humans eat all kinds of foods. That's where we get that dilution factor.

ROBERTS: Sanjay Gupta, thanks very much for that. By the way, if you have your own questions for Dr. Sanjay Gupta, go to cnn.com/americanmorning and e-mail them to us. He'll be answering your questions tomorrow and every Thursday here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Still to come, hundreds of people evacuated, landmarks in danger. We'll go live to Los Angeles as fire rages in the Hollywood hills.

And pain at the pump, gas prices near all-time highs. Some predicting that it will hit $4 a gallon. We'll have some tips to keep the pain down while you fill up. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

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ROBERTS: Oh look at this, just a glorious day for sheep racing in England this week. It's the annual sheep grand national, more like a sheepal chase if you will as they jump over the barricades there. No doubt the queen was upset that she was at the Kentucky Derby, instead of this one. Some guys at a tourist farm in England's west midlands cooked up this competition. Seventeen sheep in knitted wool jockeys and a lot of people who are wearing sheep faces instead of hats took in the competition as the sheep competed over a furlong, an entire furlong.

CHETRY: Took them 50 seconds, not quite as exciting as the end of the Kentucky Derby, but there was food waiting for them. It's a motivation.

ROBERTS: Sheep can never be as exciting, but fun, always fun.

CHETRY: Nice touch with the woolen jockeys tied to their backs. That really added to it.

Four minutes now before the top of the hour and Stephanie Elam is "Minding Your Business." Should we get into the sheep racing business?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. I wonder how much drag they got from actually having those little woolly guys on top of them, faster without it.

But let's talk a little bit about Bill Gates. He has some comments about digital media and he says that is the wave of the future. He says soon within five years he doesn't see people under the age of 50 using the printed yellow pages any more. He says newspapers are going to have a tough and wrenching change to keep readers because he says reading eventually will be done completely online. So he's saying this change is happening and we can't stop it in any way.

He also talked about TV. He says those signals that we normally get through broadcast of traditional methods. He said, yes, those are going to be overtaken by signals that are sent through the Internet. He says the content is better and there's more creativity there and eventually they just won't be able to compete. So he's got a lot of people thinking about that. Back to you Kiran.

CHETRY: The Internet taking over the world.

ELAM: Yeah, exactly.

CHETRY: Stephanie, thanks so much.

The next hour of -- hold that thought because of the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING begins right now.

ROBERTS: On the move, a massive wildfire roaring through the Hollywood hills.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... fire, remind me of how Mick Jagger dances on stage, it has gone all over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Hundreds evacuated through the night. Firefighters now racing to save homes.

Plus, life is short. For a larger than life ad for divorce attorneys. What's behind the change of heart on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning to you. It's Wednesday, May the 9th. I'm John Roberts.

CHETRY: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Thanks so much for joining us. Stories on our radar today, the Ft. Dix terror plot. We're getting new details now about the six suspects and how a video store clerk may have helped save the lives of countless soldiers at Ft. Dix and we're going to be talking to the lead attorney who is heading up this case in just a couple of minutes.

ROBERTS: It's an amazing story. These guys took a videotape of them training with weapons to a commercial store saying, hey, can you dub this to a DVD?

CHETRY: The smart-thinking clerk. These are - our eyes are everywhere.

ROBERTS: Dumb thinking terrorists and smart-thinking clerks. That's the way to do it.

High gasoline prices $4 a gallon in some spots across the country. Is it possible in your city? Put it this way, we had an analyst on last hour who said more likely to have $4 a gallon gasoline than $2 a gallon gasoline coming up in the next few weeks at least.

We'll also give you some tips that can help save you money every time you fill up at the pump.

CHETRY: John is really a softie at the heart. I've discovered this because of his love of Knute the polar bear. There are new pictures of him, of course he was a cute little cub. Of course then people started picking on him saying, he's growing up and he's losing his good looks. Could it cost the Berlin zoo millions of dollars? Yes, our little polar bear is turning into an adolescent and we're going to show you more pictures of him a little later.

ROBERTS: Give you a tip, the zoo is already preparing for the day when Knute ain't so cute. So we'll talk to them about that. First to extreme weather coast to coast right now, a massive wildfire burning in Griffith Park within the city of Los Angeles, not just Los Angeles County, but within the city. Also there's flooding in the Midwest, a coastal storm pounding parts of the eastern seaboard, evere drought drying up lakes in Florida fuelling fires of their own. We're all over this for you this morning. Thelma Gutierrez is in Los Angeles. Sean Callebs in the Missouri flood zone and Rob Marciano is just back from the tornado disaster in Kansas. He's with us here in New York City. Let's begin with Thelma in Los Angeles. Thelma, what's it looking like there now in Griffith Park?

GUTIERREZ: Well, John, I can tell you

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