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Update on Situation in Haiti; More Survivors Pulled from Wreckage in Haiti; U.N. Secretary General Arrived in Haiti Today; Former President Clinton to Arrive in Haiti Tomorrow; Many Haitian Towns Not Receiving Aid; Obama on the Campaign Trail for Coakley in Massachusetts

Aired January 17, 2010 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Fredricka Whitfield and this is the CNN NEWSROOM. Five days after the Haiti earthquake, they're still finding survivors. A New York police and firefighter team freed a man from debris in a crumbled four-story build today and three other people were rescued from the rubble of a grocery store. Let's go straight to CNN's Ivan Watson, who is in Pour-au-Prince with more on these rescue efforts -- Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, we're at the Caribbean Market in the -- it's a big supermarket that collapsed in Pour-au-Prince. This is just one of the locations where rescue teams have been frantically working, trying to dig out survivors still alive after nearly five days around the rubble.

And I'm joined by Captain Joe Zahralban, he's with the Florida Task Force II Search and Rescue. He's commanding it.

Can you tell me, sir, right now there's an operation underway. You're trying to rescue two people. Can you tell me about them, please?

CAPT. JOE ZAHRALBAN, FL TASK FORCE II SEARCH & RESCUE: Yes, we do have an operation underway. We have two people we are currently speaking with, a male and a female. They are both in good health, however, they are trapped. This one is No. 4 and No. 5 at this location. One of the obstacles that we're having now is this one has become much more difficult, the stakes are much higher due to the fact that we have an area of the structure that has somewhat collapsed.

So, we doubled our rescue efforts, we went from our 40-person team to an 80-person team. We have all feet on the ground and all equipment and they're working feverishly with the best minds thinking of innovative ideas in order to affect the rescue without harming the victim.

WATSON: And overnight you rescued three other people. Can you tell me about that operation?

ZAHRALBAN: Yes. Overnight we did rescue three people. One was a young female child, the second was approximately a 30-year-old male and the third was a 50-year-old female.

WATSON: An American woman who came out early this morning, right? And you spoke to her son in Florida.

ZAHRALBAN: Yes, as a matter of fact, it was an American female and she does have a son that lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida, which is in close proximity to Miami. She also has a sister that showed up here that we spoke with directly and assured her we did find her relative and we provided proper treatment and her relative is on the way to the hospital. So, it's funny that actually the individual who's persisting with the performance of the rescue, actually drilling to get her out was one of our firefighters that came from Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue, the same city her son lives in.

WATSON: Can you tell me, how does one survive in a five-story concrete deathtrap like this for five days?

ZAHRALBAN: Well, when you have a collapse in situations such as earthquakes, in this particular situation, we had a pancake collapse. Even in pancake collapses, you have void spaces that enable life to survive. And if you're going to be place trapped in any place for a extended period of time, a supermarket is the best place I can think of, because all the food came falling down around the victims and they actually had something to eat while they were waiting to be rescued.

WATSON: And a final question, what are the conditions your men are working in right now? How much space do they have to operate in as they're boring in on these last two survivors there?

ZAHRALBAN: They are crawling through such tight spaces down through the center of the structure, sometimes to the point where there's impingement on their chest where they can only take half a breath. That's how tight it is, but it's imperative that we get them in there, make contact with the victim and start getting treatment to the victim, start getting water to the victim, and assure the victim that somebody's coming for them. It's important that we keep the victim's spirit up to ensure that survival.

WATSON: Well, Captain, we wish all the best to your team there working in these very difficult conditions, and to the two victims who have been in verbal contact with his team that are still in there and they are frantically trying to rescue these two individuals -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Gosh. Ivan, this is an extraordinary effort. Any way of asking him before he leaves, how did they come across these folks that were trapped? Did someone here? Did some neighbors kind of run over to them? How did it all unfold?

WATSON: A final question from my colleague, Fredricka, in Atlanta, how did you find these people in the first place?

ZAHRALBAN: Initially, the very first information that we got, ironically, about this particular structure was an e-mail that was sent regarding a text message to our fire chief. So, the fire chief got an e-mail saying that text messages were coming from this building and could we please send someone to help. So, he forwarded that information to me over here in Haiti and we began to investigate. We got on the scene and in fact found that we could hear voices. People were actually in the structure alive and that's what began this entire effort and one turned into two, turned into three, turned into four, turned into five and who knows how far it's going to go, but I can tell you that we're not going to leave until we're absolutely sure that we've rescued every possible victim.

WATSON: And Fredricka, one last note, the manager of the store is working very closely with the joint American and Turkish rescue operation here, providing maps. They're actually locating some of the victims by figuring out what aisle in the grocery store they were in based on what groceries are next to them, be they paper towels or fruit rollups or cookies. That's helping them with the detective work on the ground in there.

The manager told me one of his employees that came out over night, a 33-year-old man, the manager was the first person the man saw when he came out. He said he had not had access to food and water. What kept him alive were his prayers -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Wow, that is so extraordinary. Thanks so much, Ivan Watson, and all the best to the rescue team there, continuing to try to reach at least two people trapped in that rubble. And you haurd theard them say, they're not leaving until they know that everyone in that rubble is accounted for.

All right, meantime, the last thing that anyone there in Haiti wants to hear about is aftershocks. They've been feeling them for many days now, five days after that 7.0 earthquake. Jacqui Jeras is in the Weather Center.

What kind of aftershock are we talking about right now?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's a decent-sized one, it was 4.6 in magnitude, Fredricka, we put it on Google Earth here, and this is the one. This was offshore, so that's good news that it wasn't strong enough to create a tsunami, wasn't over land so you didn't have a lot of shaking.

Now, 4.6 could be enough to rattle, say, grocery store shelves and cause a little bit of shaking going on inside. And any of those unstable buildings, that's the biggest concern, is that if people are still trapped, they might be in one of those pockets or safe zones that we were just hearing about, but if you get enough of a shift, you know, those aftershocks will create more problems.

So, it will continue to be a big concern and those aftershocks continue for days, for weeks, for months, sometimes over a year after the initial one. And that big circle you see right there, that was the initial 7.0, so we're working on day five, now. You can see the sunny conditions in Ivan's live shot, there. It's hot. It really is brutal, because there's a whole lot for cloud cover.

Temperature right now is 88 degrees in Pour-au-Prince, but the dew point is up to around 70 degrees. When you start getting dew points in the middle 60s, that's when it starts becoming uncomfortable with the humidity. So, it's feeling more like 90 plus. And the forecast throughout the week ahead is to stay in the low 90s. We're not anticipating any showers or thunderstorms, so that's some good news, but we could see a pop-up, possibly, say on Tuesday or Wednesday -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: OK, it's nice to have a little bit of good news for the folks there as they continue with these search efforts. They need the weather to cooperate as best they can, of course those aftershocks, too. All right, Jacqui Jeras, appreciate that.

Of course, prayers are multiplying for some sort of break, there. Survivors in Haiti are holding on to their faith to cope with the overwhelming devastation that they've been seeing everywhere around them. Many attended a prayer service, in fact, at an Evangelical Protestant church today that is still standing. Our Chris Lawrence was there and he joins us now from Pour-au-Prince.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah Fredricka, we were driving around today, just looking at these different church services. But buildings themselves may have crumbled, but the churches really remain intact. A lot of them have been moved to open fields. We went to one that was just a dusty patch of dirt where they hauled in a few benches from what was left of the church. People brought their own chairs, put cinder blocks on the ground and squatted on them. One guy hauled out a generator so they could hook up the microphone and some music and there was your church.

And take a look at this, if you can, at some of this video. The thing that really stood out to me was they made a very urgent plea to some of the people in the congregation at this one Protestant service we went to. And he said, some of our members have lost their homes, they've lost family members, what little you have, if you have anything at all, please share it.

And we just saw person after person -- I don't think there was a person there who didn't come up and at least give something to that pot so they could share it with their members that had lost everything. It was truly an example of Haitians helping Haitians.

We've talked a lot about the international aid, these big agencies like the U.N. and the USAID. This was a very good example of a small group of Haitians just banding together to help their own -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, that's extraordinary. And, you know, many of these makeshift kind of churches that have popped up in so many places, talk to me about why of many of the congregates thought it was important to try to establish some sort of service, even if it was with the cinder blocks, the, you know, dirt fields that were available?

LAWRENCE: That's true. You know, a lot of people felt like -- one man told me he had lost his home, he had to send his wife and children away to the countryside to live with his parents. He doesn't have a job, he's a teacher, but there are no schools. So, he really doesn't have anything left. But, he said just coming there to the service made him feel better.

But, the interesting thing was, you know, a lot of the Haitians, if you talk to them about beliefs and like that, there is a real sense of judgment and punishment in a lot of the sermons. A lot of people here believe that this earthquake was a punishment for sins committed and we heard that a lot in the sermon, today.

WHITFIELD: All right. Chris Lawrence in Pour-au-Prince, thanks so much.

Well, President Obama has said prayers today for the quake victims at a church service in Washington, D.C., and he also talked about the legacy of the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and of health care reform.

The president spoke at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church on the eve of the MLK holiday. He says that health care reform is critical for this country and would represent, "a victory for dignity and decency for our common humanity," his words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we're called to do then is rebuild America from its foundation on up, to reinvest in the essentials that we've neglected for the long, like health care, like education, like a better energy policy, like basic infrastructure, like scientific research.

Our generation is called upon to buckle down and get back to basics. And we must do so not only for ourselves, but also for our children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Negotiations to merge the House and Senate versions of health care are ongoing and they're intensifying. And this is why, after church, President Obama made a beeline for Massachusetts this afternoon, trying to save a crucial vote for his health care plan.

He's campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley, in a special election, to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Republican Scott Brown, who opposes the health care bill, has mounted a surprisingly strong challenge. CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian is at Northeastern University in Boston where, by the sound of the applause, does that mean the president is close?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, Senator John Kerry, actually, is behind me speaking and making various remarks in support of Martha Coakley, so that's why you're hearing the supporters applauding.

But, as you point out, this is a race that's gotten so much national attention because of what's at stake here, it's that 60th vote which would prevent the Republican filibuster. And so that's why you're seeing the president coming here, today.

What's interesting, just last week, early last week, the White House was asked if the president had any plans at all to come here and campaign for Martha Coakley and they said no. But, suddenly, at the last minute, the plans changed because they realize how this race is shaping up.

Just last weekend, she was ahead by double digits. Now, in the latest polling, this race is neck and neck. Martha Coakley telling her supporters that she's pushing for this health care reform. Scott Brown, though, has been saying, listen, health care reform is necessary, but this plan will only raise your taxes, will bring down your care, and he says it needs to go back to the drawing board. We had a chance to talk to supporters on both sides, all of them realizing what's at stake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENIS FITZGERALD, BROWN SUPPORTER: The issue of health care is very important, because it seems to me that we, at this particular time, we have a bill that no one understands, that is being -- in a clandestine fashion, being moved through the Congress, and no one understands the bill. The bill is tremendously expensive and it's going to have tremendous ramifications throughout the system.

ENID ECKSTEIN, COAKLEY SUPPORTER: This is so critical for the future of not only Massachusetts but our country. This seat, which we do consider to be the people's seat, is one that has a storied history of really leading in the country in terms of fighting for health care, for others, and importance for working families.

And I feel that is all up for grabs right now. This race has become a mandate for something much larger. I'm really proud to be here today with my union brothers and sisters. We've been working hard on Martha Coakley's race, not only because we feel that she's the right person for Massachusetts, but also because we understand the significance of this race. And we are not taking anything for granted...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOTHIAN: So President Obama coming here to lend his support to Martha Coakley, but also realizing how much this means to Democrats nationwide and certainly to his political agenda. Martha Coakley, though, saying that Scott Brown will only take you back to the past. In his words he's, "a bad Bush rerun" -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Dan Lothian, thanks so much, there in Massachusetts. And of course, the president is scheduled to speak about 20 minutes from now. We'll carry that live as it happens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper have covered many of the world's worst disasters. Well, this morning, on the CNN program, SANJAY GUPTA, MD., the two discussed the gravity of all what they've witnessed and reported on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, you and I have traveled all over the world together. We have seen so many different things, including natural disasters in Sri Lanka for example, certainly Katrina. Everyone that I have been talking to says this is somehow different. Is it and why?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I have never seen something so concentrated. It is not like this is spread all throughout Haiti. As we know, the impact zone was basically very close to Port-au-Prince and it is really affecting Port-au-Prince. Even if you go to other, some outlying suburbs, 20 minutes away or 20 miles away, you don't really see so much devastation. So, I've never been in a place where, in a few block radius you see so much death.

GUPTA: When we were driving in from the airport, I know you flew in originally, we were driving in, at first I thought it doesn't look that bad, initially, and then we got to some of these areas. And I remember at first I started to smell things and the decomposing bodies, I know they were. For the first time, someone pointed out that these were a bunch of bodies. I actually looked over it because I couldn't believe it was that obvious, sort of in plain sight.

COOPER: The first person I saw who died was a woman lying on the side of the road and she was laying there almost like she was sleeping, like she had just decided to rest for a few minutes and everyone was just kind of walking by. It was like you would see maybe a homeless person in a major city of the United States and people kind of pretend like they don't see this person.

It took me a few moments to realize -- for my eyes to adjust and realize, wait a minute, this person is dead. And then, of course, the next block, there were three people like that. And the next block there were four and they were covered in sheets. So, it really, I mean, it takes your eyes time to adjust to what you are seeing.

GUPTA: I was listening to some of your reporting on the first day. I think you may have still been in New York maybe on your way here and you made a comment about the death tolls. The death tolls at that time were already being imagined or predicted and you sort of said, you know, let's take a breath, I think, and recognize that they don't always end up that way. What did you mean?

COOPER: Well, I mean initial reports are always, I mean, as you all know, sketchy if not, you know, exaggerated or underestimated. So, it's important, I think, early on to, you know, not focus so much on total numbers. And now we are hearing of death tolls that are all over the place. And as we have seen, I mean, it doesn't look like they are counting the dead. They're not documenting the dead. When we were in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, they were at least photographing the dead so loved ones might be able to identify them.

Here they are picking them up in bulldozers, dumping them in trucks and taking them out to mass graves, where we've been, and literally just bulldozing them into pits and then moving on and getting another truckload. So, no one will ever know what happened to their loved ones. People are just disappearing or are going to disappear.

So, when we hear these estimates, I'm not sure how they can guess this because we have only seen the dead that are outside on the street and we've seen far too much of that, but there's untold number of dead inside these structures and they are never going to be able to excavate them. They're basically going to have to just bulldoze these entire structures, toss them into dump trucks and toss away the remains.

GUPTA: With lots of bodies inside.

COOPER: Right.

GUPTA: One of the toughest moments for me, we were at one of those dump trucks and we saw a bunch of must have been teenagers that were clambering up the side of the dump trucks with masks on and sort of like moving bodies around to see if they could find their mother, it was a...

COOPER: Yeah, that's how people are searching for the dead.

GUPTA: Well, last night you were -- and this is five days now, and last night they were still doing search and rescue missions as opposed to recovery missions. I mean, they are hoping to still find people living.

COOPER: They are. I mean, they acknowledge that this is, you know, I mean, the chances are dwindling rapidly minute by minute. I was with a search and rescue team from Los Angeles County Fire Department and, you know, these men and women, they have 75 people here, they are experienced, they've done this all over the world and they have been here since the first day, they came right after, the Wednesday morning.

A mother came crying up the street saying please come and look in this building my daughter is trapped inside, she is ten years old, her name is Laka (ph). We went there, our interpreter -- they didn't have an interpreter -- our interpreter was interpreting all of this, they asked our interpreter to go into the rubble, yell out this child's name, ask this child to tap three times if the person was alive.

They were sure they heard taping. They thought they heard moaning. They sent three teams of dogs or several hours of dogs and they didn't get any positive hits, but they kept on going, they kept thinking they heard tapping and then about seven, eight hours after the initial getting to the scene, for about an hour, they heard no more tapping. They sent in another dog, nothing and...

GUPTA: The child died between those two...

COOPER: The person was no longer alive.

GUPTA: So, between those two...

COOPER: Yes.

GUPTA: How are you doing? You know, I was talking to some of the reporters; and I mean, I think it is impossible not to be affected by what's happening, here. How are you holding up?

COOPER: You know what? I think the thing that's the most frustrating thing just witnessing, but even more so for the people who are living through this, is just the stupid death.

You know, there's a friend of mine who's a doctor named Milton Tectonidis who works with Doctors without Borders and I met him in Nijar, and that's what he describes a lot of the kinds of deaths we're not seeing, stupid death. Deaths that don't need to occur. That a child breaks a leg and there's an open wound and infection occurs and there's no one here to treat it, and so that child may die because the infection spreads throughout their body. And another stupid death is somebody dying because they can't get antibiotics. You know it doesn't have to happen.

GUPTA: It costs a nickel for some of these antibiotics. Well, we're going to be here for some time to come. So, I appreciate it, Anderson.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Our Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta there in a conversation this morning on SANJAY GUPTA, MD.

The lives of orphans in limbo in Haiti. We'll show you how the earthquake actually helped half a dozen of them get new, safe, loving homes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at our top stories, right now. The Iraqi man known famously as "Chemical Ali" has been sentenced to death today in Baghdad. He is the former Iraqi dictator of Saddam Hussein -- or, rather, he is the cousin of the late dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. He was convicted of a poison gas attack which killed thousands of Iraqis in 1988. This is his fourth death sentence.

And live pictures right now, that's Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. She is rallying for Democrat Martha Coakley, who's hoping to win the seat in a special election come Tuesday of the late Senator Kennedy. Let's listen in to Vicki Kennedy.

VICKI KENNEDY, WIFE OF LATE SENATOR TED KENNEDY: ...or wants to go to Washington, but we're not going to let him go there, that he wants to go to Washington to say "no." And so let's bring that down to what that means in reality. That means he's going to say "no" to that child with asthma. He's going to say "no," you have a pre-existing condition, you can't get that health insurance. He's going to say "no" to that cancer patient who's reached that lifetime limit and say, "sorry, no treatment for you."

He's going to say "no" to that senior worried about the doughnut hole. Sorry, we can't fill your doughnut hole. You get precipitation drug coverage for you, no prescription drug coverage for you. He's going to say "no, no home care for you." He's going to say "no" to working families. And we're not going to let that happen, not in Massachusetts, are we?

(APPLAUSE)

No. No. No, we don't -- we don't look back in Massachusetts. We look forward. And we're going to elect Martha Coakley as our next United States senator.

(APPLAUSE)

WHITFIELD: And that's Vicki Kennedy. Again, who was she talking about when she kept referring to "he," she was talking about the Republican challenger for the seat of her late husband, Scott Brown, who has been a strong opponent of health care reform, and if he were to win, he would be that no vote for health care reform as the senators and Congress members try to hash out some sort of compromise on health care reform.

President Obama is to arrive at that very location in Massachusetts in just about five minutes or so, he's scheduled to speak. Of course, when that happens, we'll take that live as well.

All right, meantime, still waiting for help in Haiti. Outside the capital city, there is much despair and frustration, but so far, little aid actually reaching people who need it most.

And now an update on the situation in Haiti. Four more survivors were pulled from the wreckage today, five days after the earthquake struck and still no official death toll, but Haiti's prime minister thinks at least 100,000 people have died.

And U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Haiti today for a firsthand look at the rescue and recovery effort as well as the aid effort. And former President Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti, is scheduled to visit that country tomorrow.

So five days into the destruction in Haiti and many towns outside the capital, they're not getting much help at all.

CNN's Karl Penhaul joins us now from a town near the quake's epicenter.

What are you seeing where you are?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're in the town of Leogane Fredricka, and we are in a field hospital, a make shift field hospital that's been set up here. This was never a hospital; this was a nursing training facility.

The hospital facilities in Leogane collapsed and so nurse trainees along with a nursing director have sprang into action. And since the quake happened, that nursing school director tells me they've treated 5,000 patients here. They've done first aid, they've done emergency aid for the ones they could, but they said this nursing school never had the supplies that a hospital would have.

And then this morning, for the first time since the quake struck, then here in Leogane, international aid did arrive. A small advanced team of doctors without borders are here and now they have sprung into action too. So this has now taken on the aspect of a hospital, but you can see here, people waiting. It's dramatic to see how they're bringing the people in. They're bringing people; they're bringing injured loved ones in on wooden doors, on wooden planks that they can find. They're carrying them in on mattresses that have been salvaged from the wreckage.

Because there is no material, no plaster, nothing to splint these legs, we have seen people coming in with their legs splintered with bits of wood and then wrapped around with tape. We've also seen women here with apparently broken legs that have been splintered so far with cardboard, so it really is a relief for them that international aid is starting to trickle through here. But I was talking to the mayor a short while ago, and he says that he believes that the international aid right now is being concentrated on Port-au-Prince, it's been bottlenecked, log jammed there and that's why it hasn't come to this area.

And again, I wonder if, I'm just seeing now, as I'm talking to you, talking about people being brought in on doors and tables, we're going to pan off and just look at this scene now, Fredricka, look at this scene now, again, a man being brought in on a wooden door. Doctor without borders there, but his friends and family also struggling to bring him in. And you can see, this facility is overwhelmed with the number of patients. As I say, the nurses here say that since Tuesday, they've attended 5,000 people.

And in the city so far, no one really has a handle on how many dead there may be. But in talking to the mayor, he said he had counted 4,200 people, but again, he said, the real death toll will never be known, because a lot of people are simply burying loved ones in waste grounds because the morgue facilities have collapsed, hospital facilities have collapsed, and so relatives are not prepared to leave. They're dead, lying on the streets for too long, so they then go and bury them in any patch of ground they can, without any formal counting procedure, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And Karl, Leogane is how far from Port-au-Prince?

PENHAUL: About an hour and a half drive west from Port-au- Prince. So from what I understand when those Continental plates started to shift, Leogane was on that line. Again, as well talking to engineers here in the city, they said that the soil of Leogane is very special, it's very soft. The water plate is very shallow or very close to the surface. And for that reason, houses here collapsed very quickly and they just fell down rather than toppling over.

And according to the mayor, he estimates that 90 percent of the buildings here have either been completely destroyed or so badly damaged that they will have to be bulldozed. And so for that reason, throughout the city, thousands upon thousands of people are living out under pieces of tin roof that they've managed to salvage from the earthquake, debris, or they're living out under makeshift tents made of sheets.

Again, you can maybe here while we're talking a woman crying. She, again, has been brought in here for treatment. She's getting an injection so that doctors can take a more thorough look at her. And really, that has been the seen here all morning. It's amazing to see how the doctors can cope with this. But I was told an American doctor, Mary Joe Faraway, the lady over here now treating, and she seems to be in high spirits. She says the team is optimistic they can do some good here. They're working very hard.

But, again, just to see the terrible conditions that these people have been brought in on, with injuries that they sustained in an earthquake five days ago and until now, have received little or no treatment at all, again, this room throughout the course of the day have been filled with agonizing cries -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Karl Penhaul, thanks so much from Leogane there, about an hour an half outside of Port-au-Prince.

Clearly, doctors are doing all they can there. And in Port-au- Prince, again doctors are having to conduct a lot of medical care without the necessary supplies. Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is in Port-au-Prince, and yesterday she met up with a group of medical personnel, racing to get an injured infant on a plane to Miami for critical medical care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABEHT COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Ma'am, you're part of the team that's going to be flying to Miami to bring this baby?

KAREN, NURSE WITH THE UNIV. OF MIAMI: I'm a specialist; I'm just going to assist, if they need me to bring the baby back. I'm not sure if everything is under way. Apparently they're trying to get the baby back though.

COHEN: So why does this baby need to go to Miami?

KAREN: Well, apparently the baby has multiple injuries, possible broken ribs and respiratory issues. I don't know what other -- we don't have any radiology equipment, so I don't know.

COHEN: How dangerous is it to fly a 2-month-old baby with broken ribs from Haiti to Miami?

KAREN: It's dangerous to fly anybody with respiratory distress in a high altitude -- at a high altitude. It can cause other problems.

COHEN: Are you worried about this baby on the plane?

KAREN: I think it's a concern, yes. This is the baby who's going to a hospital in Miami. They're hoping to save her. She's got broken ribs. They fear that she'll die soon if she stays here, but they also fear that she may not be able to withstand this flight.

KAREN: I have three!

COHEN: This baby, they think, is about 2 months old. You can see on the right side of her chest, that the ribs are broken. You can see that her breathing is irregular. They want to get on a plane and get to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

Dr. Foreignier (ph) is you worried about the baby on the plane?

DR. FOREIGNIER: I'm more worried about her here on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, the baby did arrive safely in Miami and we're told that she's in the pediatric intensive care unit recovering nicely.

Fred.

WHITFIELD: Wow, that's an extraordinary story. We wish all the best for that little girl. And yesterday you were also telling us Elizabeth about the need for surgery. There are about 100 people at the facility where you were, 100 people with a need for surgery. And if they didn't get in 24 hours one of the doctors said to you, quite frankly, they would die. Did the surgical teams get the equipment? Did the surgical teams actually arrive?

COHEN: The folks here Fred are very resourceful. They did set up a rudimentary operating room here where they're primarily are doing amputations. That is about all they are set up to do. But this doctor's predictions, to some extent, sadly did come true. Since midnight, five people have died here. To put that into perspective, in the first three days here, only three people died. And since midnight, five people have died.

That's what the doctors predicted. It takes this long for gangrene to set in, for the infection to kill people for a disease called Rabdomilis (ph) it is kidney disease that occurs when large muscles are crushed. That is what happens, just because someone gets out of the rubble doesn't mean that they are safe.

Fred.

WHITFIELD: And you had also mentioned to us that a field hospital might be up and running by today. Is it up and running?

COHEN: No, it's not. A U.S. government spokesman yesterday had said that he thought it would be up and running today, but I just got a text from him and he said, we hope to have them on the road soon. So that field hospital is not operating.

WHITFIELD: All right. Elizabeth Cohen thanks so much from Port- au-Prince there. A very tough situation for a lot of the teams of doctors that are trying their darnedest to try to help and offer as much care as they can to people.

So aid, by the way, overall, is flowing towards Haiti, but many who need the help say they simply are not getting it. You'll see why in about 15 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at our top stories right now.

The race for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is so close that President Obama is in Boston right now to campaign for this woman right here, Democrat Martha Coakley, who's speaking. Polls put Coakley in a tight race with Republican Scott Brown in Tuesday's special election. A Republican victory could give Senate Republicans enough votes to block the health care reform bill, which is why President Obama will be there momentarily, roughly five minutes or so from now, and when he does speak, we'll take that live.

And a follow to that security breach that prompted an evacuation yesterday at New York's JFK Airport. Jules Paul Bouloute was arrested late last night at his home in Brooklyn. He was charged with criminal trespass. Authorities say he passed through a restricted door at the airport yesterday and set off an alarm. Bouloute was returning to the U.S. from Haiti.

And many of you have a three-day weekend and that's because tomorrow is the federal holiday marking the birth of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Events marking the occasion will be held around the country.

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WHITFIELD: The devastating earthquake in Haiti may actually have benefited seven orphan children. Their adoption to three American families in Kansas was held up by governmental road blocks and red tape. And then missionaries fleeing the disaster took the children to the U.S. Embassy and lobbied for their visas, which they finally got before boarding a flight to the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALECIA O'BYRNE, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: I'm overwhelmed. I'm just overwhelmed. I don't want to let him go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So one of the families, the O'Byrne's, have been waiting for years for their adopted children to come to the U.S.

And Tim O'Byrne is a proud new dad of four of those Hatian kids today and he's joining us now by phone from Holton, Kansas, just outside Topeka.

Well, congratulations.

TIM O'BYRNE, ADOPTED FOUR HAITIAN CHILDREN (via telephone): Thank you very much. We are very excited.

WHITFIELD: Give me an idea what that was like, that first moment when the kids were escorted by adults on that flight actually made it to Topeka?

O'BYRNE: It really -- unspeakable. After waiting so long and not knowing if they would ever happen and then after the earthquake came, wondering -- we still believe it happened. But to see them actually here with us was just so exhilarating. We cried, we laughed. Just a little bit of every emotion you could have.

WHITFIELD: We are looking at the video tape right now. Clearly you all as a family, you understood what was at stake. You have been watching the images. But I can't help but notice these young kids look quite shell-shocked.

How have they managed this transition?

O'BYRNE: As far as the two younger ones at first I think they have been really scared. They were taken out in the middle of the night. And just hurried to the Embassy and to get processed. Not knowing what was going on. The older boy, even though they new some day they would come to the United States, they did not know it would happen this way.

For them it was still, they were rushed and everybody worked with them so hard to get them out of there, that it still was a bit of a shock to their system, flying for first time was very scary. Seeing sights they have never seen before.

The older boys were very good and they tried to help the little children to understand better what was going on. The little children still, you know, they do not understand everything. But since we have gotten home it is good. They are playing, they are laughing. It is so exciting to see them happy.

WHITFIELD: What are their ages and what are their names?

O'BYRNE: Our oldest son is Blanzi (ph) and he is 16. He has a brother and his brother's name is Blanco, he is 15. There's Jackson, he's 7 and his little sister's name is Woodland and she's 5.

WHITFIELD: Wow and how many years have you been trying to get these four kids?

O'BYRNE: We have been in the process for four years. It will be four years this February.

WHITFIELD: And did they-- were they aware the whole way -- maybe the 15-year-old and 17-year-old may have been aware of the effort that you all were making.

But did they really comprehend and understand what it would mean to leave Haiti to come to the U.S. to live with you all?

O'BYRNE: Well they have been preparing for it for some time. The older ones, yes they understood. Every time we talked to them, are you taking us home now? We would say no, not now. They wanted to come.

They did understand that. But what had happened so quickly the way it did, again, that was kind of hard and a shock because you are planning to say good-bye to friends and didn't get to do that. They still -- so excited to finally be coming and get to be here.

WHITFIELD: What are they looking forward to with this new life in a new place?

O'BYRNE: They are looking forward to having family and having a mom and dad, being able to -- for the older ones take advantage of the things that can be offered here in America that they would never be able to have there and in Haiti and they want to use that in their life when they grow up.

WHITFIELD: What happened in their lives in Haiti that left them orphaned?

O'BYRNE: They were found when they were about 4 years of age, they were found in the hills and an older man brought them down to the orphanage and asked if they would please take care of them. That's how they showed up there. There were two other young girls that came about the at the same time and the four of them, that's all they have known since they were 4 years old.

WHITFIELD: Then you, the O'Byrne family, how did you connect with these four kids?

How did it come about?

O'BYRNE: Our second oldest daughter, Emily, she had traveled to Haiti four years ago with a mission team Lifeline to the orphanage there and fell in love with all the children there. When she came home, she said -- she showed us pictures and told us their story, told us all about them. And said mom, dad, I would like for to you pray about something. We knew what she was going to ask.

I would like for you to pray about adopting one of these children. She had one specifically in mind which is Blanco that she had fallen in life with. My wife saw the other children and fell in love with Jackson. The little -- he was 3 at that time. And she said Tim I think we should think about adopting him as well. And then finding out he had a sister and then finding out that Blanco had a brother it just escalated. We ended up with four.

WHITFIELD: Wow. Tim O'Byrne, thanks so much.

Congratulations to you all. All the best to you as one very big happy family now, growing family. All the best and thanks for your time.

O'BYRNE: Thank you very much.

WHITFIELD: All right. In the mean time, aid is moving towards Haiti in other ways. But many people who say they need help. Just the basic necessities, water, food. They are not getting it. You will see why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Getting supplies where they are need most in Haiti has been a logistical nightmare. Brian Todd has that story from onboard the "USS Carl Vinson."

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here aboard the USS Vinson about 10 nautical miles off the coast of Haiti. A very, very busy operation here for the carrier strike group.

Behind me you have a MH-53 helicopter. Those are the heavy lifters carrying supplies to and from Port-au-Prince. Mostly to Port- au-Prince when they get them here from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This vessel already depleted its share of supplies that it brought with it. Taking it over there to Port-au-Prince, they had to get additional supplies from Guantanamo and use these lifters to bring them over to Port-au-Prince.

These vessels, these helicopters, however have a problem. According to the commander of the strike group when these helicopters deploy out into the other areas of the country aside from Port-au- Prince, sometimes they don't find any drop zones, any land zones where they can drop supplies off because of lost vegetation and hilly terrain and also when it is not this kind of terrain, it is covered with debris and rubble.

These choppers kick up a lot of that and it can get into the rotors, it is very dangerous. They may have to switch to their smaller search and rescue choppers to bring the supplies in so that they kick up a lot less debris. They cannot carry as much supplies.

Another one is coordination on the ground; the admiral here admitted to us that the coordination there is not what it needs to be at this point. But it is getting better every day. Also, security when they make their drops, the 82nd Airborne Division is there to provide security and basically keep the perimeter safe. They have to coordinate that and involves a lot of logistical planning on the fly. That's what some of this carrier group is up against. They try to frantically ferry supplies in to Haiti and we are about ten miles out.

I'm Brian Todd, CNN, aboard the USS Vincent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)