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Desperate Need for Food; Waiting and Praying; Replacing Sen. Ted Kennedy; Heading for a New Home; Search Teams Have Saved Estimated 60 People In Port-Au-Prince

Aired January 18, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, John. Thank you so much to both of you. Good morning, everybody. Thanks so much for waking up with us. We are glad you are joining us.

You're going to see what happened overnight while you were sleeping, and of course, the breaking news right now.

First, Haiti, time is slipping away and frustrations building. Rescue workers searching for the fading signs of life. Meanwhile, desperation igniting new concerns about security.

And rebirth amid the ruins. We're going to talk about the plight of Haiti's orphans. If these kids are pulling at your heartstrings, I'll explain the adoption process as it stands right now.

And state of denial. Voters at Massachusetts could have a decisive role in the future of health care reform. We're going to look at one election that could affect all of us.

All right. Good morning, everybody. I'm Kyra Phillips. Thanks so much for joining us. We have a number of people on the ground right now. Of course, beginning in Haiti. Our Chris Lawrence will have the latest on the relief efforts and also the dizzying challenges ahead.

You can see trying to get supplies off the helicopters, of the ships and into the people there in Haiti.

Also, Ivan Watson is going to be focusing on the rescuers and the race against time right now. We're told that American -- one American right now among those rescued from a flattened grocery store. We're going to have more about that. More people believed to be trapped there.

And then CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano standing by, taking a look at the winter storms that are, boy, hitting both coasts of the country right now.

All right, we're going to give you the latest on the situation in Haiti. Against all odds, search teams pulled two more people from the rubble of a grocery store in Port-au-Prince late last night. Three were rescued from there earlier today. Among them a 50-year-old American woman.

U.S. military officials in Haiti setting up distribution points right now for feeding those Haitians. Also a group of five U.S. Navy ships arrived today with 2,200 Marines to provide security. They're bringing in medical teams as well as earth-moving equipment.

And former president Bill Clinton set to meet with the Haitian officials today to discuss those recovery operations.

Well, those are the headlines. But what's really going on in the streets, we go straight to CNN's Anderson Cooper joining us live now from Port-au-Prince.

Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, AC360: Kyra, you know, it is a -- the beginning of a new week here. The beginning of yet another difficult day. We were in Leogane yesterday. You know there's so much focus been put on Port-au-Prince and understandably. Some of these outlying areas have not gotten the amount of attention.

Karl Penhaul and I went out there yesterday in different convoys, different parts of the city, and what we saw there was an entire area that really is virtually untouched by international relief efforts. Just around the time that Karl was there, four doctors from Doctors Without Borders had arrived.

They immediately rolled up their sleeves and tried to start giving medical care as best they could, trying to get more supplies in there today. The World Food Program had done one food distribution effort in Leogane the night before.

And search and rescue teams had just arrived in the town when we got there just a little bit after we got there. But frankly, their efforts were too late, frankly. So much of Leogane is just destroyed. Homes unable to go back into.

The saddest thing I saw, and there were plenty of things that were horrifically sad, was a school which had been basically completely flattened. There was one classroom still standing. Four of the nuns -- the four nuns who ran the school, they perished in the earthquake I'm told.

At the time that I got there, there were -- a handful of Haitian volunteers who were just shifting through the rubble trying to find the remains of what they believe to be maybe 100 to 110 children. They don't have any accurate number of how many kids were actually there at the time of the earthquake.

I saw what I thought was a stone in the rubble. It turned out it was a child's skull. It had one tooth still attached to the skull. They're basically taking whatever remains they're finding, putting them in the dump truck, and they said the cemetery is full, so they're just going to drive it out to the countryside, dig a hole, and bury it as best they can. And the stadium in Leogane in this town has been taken over. It's become this makeshift tented camp with as many as 1,000 to 2,000 people just living in there, waiting for some sort of organization and relief to come. But it is a very desperate situation.

PHILLIPS: And that relief continues to come. Our Anderson Cooper there in Haiti.

Anderson, thanks so much.

And the search for survivors grows dimmer with every hour. Many of those missing family and friends are waiting and praying, and last night the prayers for five people were finally answered.

Our Ivan Watson tells us how rescuers risked their lives to pull survivors from the ruins of a grocery store.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the eerie light of a supermarket storage room, an international team of rescue workers waiting for a miracle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, guys. Take a breath. Nice and easy.

WATSON: Rescue teams from Florida and Turkey have been struggling to reach people buried in a supermarket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get them right over here.

WATSON: And at 10:23 on Sunday night, after more than five days trapped in the dark, a survivor emerges. A Haitian man, 30 years old. Rescuers are withholding his name.

As he comes into the light, he looks around and smiles. Then, a wave. And a sign of jubilation. He whispers "thank you" to his rescuers because against all odds this man escaped what should have been his tomb.

(On camera): What's one of the first things he told you guys?

LT. FRANK MAINAIDE, SOUTH FLORIDA URBAN SEARCH & RESCUE: I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly.

WATSON: I guess he was in the snack aisle or something.

MAINAIDE: Well, it's a grocery store. So whatever aisle he was, he had peanut butter and jelly. That's probably why he survived.

WATSON (voice-over): Moments later, a second survivor. This 40- year-old Haitian woman also a customer of the supermarket.

MAINAIDE: Health-wise, remarkably, they look pretty good. I don't know if they had access to water. We did give them water once we made contact with them and they drank those water bottles, as you can assume, very quickly.

And they were remarkably in very good condition, considering they have been in there for five days.

WATSON: Managers say there may have been up to 150 people in the five-story Caribbean Supermarket when the building collapsed. Saturday night and Sunday morning, rescuers succeeded in digging three other survivors out from under the rubble, including a 50-year-old American woman named Marie (INAUDIBLE).

But the rescue operations are dangerous work. Rescuers quickly evacuated when the walls of their tunnel suddenly shifted. Sunday night's rescue offers a devastated city a much needed moment of hope.

Captain Joe Zahralban takes a minute to embrace the manager of the supermarket, but their celebration is short lived. As long as there is a chance of more survivors, he says they cannot afford to rest.

CAPT. JOE ZAHRALBAN, SOUTH FLORIDA URBAN SEARCH & RESCUE: We're going to go back in, we're going to do more searches, and the commitment I made to Samir (ph) is we're going to do this until we no longer find survivors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully we're going to find more and more people. Hopefully.

ZAHRALBAN: Agreed.

WATSON: Ivan Watson, CNN, Port-au-Prince.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Living through a nightmare. We have new piece of powerful video to show you. It's a CNN exclusive showing the exact moment that the killer earthquake struck. Watch, and more importantly, listen.

(VIDEO OF THE HAITI QUAKE)

PHILLIPS: It took only 15 seconds for structures to start crumbling. And just so you know, everybody in that house survived.

Aid is pouring into Haiti right now, but so much more is needed. And we make it easy for you to help. Just log on to CNN.com/impact. There we have compiled a list of organizations working to help the people of Haiti. So just log on to see how you can "Impact Your World."

And on this Martin Luther King holiday, we want to take a look at the final resting place. It's actually right here in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the tomb and infinity pool at the King Center. Less than an hour from now, a service at King's church, Ebenezer Baptist.

King Center reminding people that today is not a day off, but a day on for community service and interracial cooperation. The battle over health care reform. Could the possibility of an overhaul be decided far outside the Washington beltway? Voters in one state will have a big voice in that issue.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Storms kind of book-ending the -- both coasts. Snow and rain across the northeast currently moving out and another storm on the way for the west coast. Power outages because of high winds in Washington.

We'll break down the forecast in just a few minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, just hours from now, voters in Massachusetts will fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy. And that will give them a big voice in the battle over health reform.

That's because Democrats need their nominee, Martha Coakley, to win tomorrow's special election and provide a critical vote for the overhaul. But Republican Scott Brown has ignited a (INAUDIBLE) rise largely on voter frustration with President Obama.

Now yesterday the president campaigned in Boston to rally support for his party's nominee and his party's agenda. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We know that on many of the major questions of our day, a lot of these votes are going to -- a lot of these measures are going to rest on one vote.

We have had one year to make up for eight. It hasn't been quick. It hasn't been easy. But we have begun to deliver on the change you voted for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: But beneath the headlines, there's even more political intrigue at play.

CNN's Jim Acosta is in Boston with a closer look.

Jim, this election could really affect how the health care vote goes.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Kyra. And to think that Ted Kennedy's lifelong ambition was the passage of universal health care reform, and the fact that a Scott Brown victory here would essentially dash the hopes for passage of health care reform obviously has a lot of people at the White House very worried.

The talk here in Boston obviously is how this race is going to turn out. And we don't want to presume that anyone is going to win this race, but they are talking about -- Democratic strategists are talking about what happens next if Martha Coakley loses. And a lot of that is riding on the secretary of the commonwealth, a guy by the name of William Galvin. He has said that a lot of this depends on how quickly the results can be certified. If the race is very, very tight, they may have to look at those absentee ballots and get an exact count as to who has how many votes.

But if there is a decisive victory here for Brown -- I talked to a spokeswoman for his campaign, they are going to ask for a quick certification of the results here, Kyra, which leads the White House to a couple of different scenarios as to what they're going to do with health care reform.

One is, is that they're going to have to go back to Olympia Snowe, the senator from Maine, a Republican from Maine, to see if perhaps they can bring her over to their side because they need 60 votes to get this through the Senate.

The other option is if the House can muster this, a very quick passage of the already passed Senate version of the bill. But liberals, as you know, Kyra, don't like that version of the health care legislation.

PHILLIPS: Well, and both of these candidates are literally sweeping the state trying to get the undecided voters.

ACOSTA: They are and those undecided voters are making their voices heard. We've heard from a lot of those voters just over the weekend. And many of them undecided independent, perhaps conservative Democrats in the state who have said in the past they might have supported somebody like a Martha Coakley, fall into a couple of different categories.

Some of those voters say they just don't like the campaign Martha Coakley has run. They feel like she's run a lackluster campaign that they took the Senate seat -- that she took the Senate seat for granted.

And then there were other people who that say, wait a minute, when President Obama was elected we didn't think he was going to go for health care reform, we thought he was going to focus on economy, in jobs.

And so they feel like the Obama that they supported during the campaign is not the person that they voted for, and so you're seeing a lot of disappointed independents, perhaps some Republicans who may have voted for the president, even some conservative Democrats are having second thoughts.

PHILLIPS: Jim Acosta, we'll be talking about it all throughout the day. Thanks so much.

And then less from -- or less an hour from now, we're going to get the inside scoop from Politico's Jim VandeHei. He's going to take a closer look at this race with us.

The littlest victims already facing the hardship of losing their parents, now finding new hope and a new home in the U.S. Plus their first ever plane ride.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. Rob Marciano, what's happening with these storms on both coasts?

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: That's right. They're paying close attention to you as they are all waking up right now on the West Coast.

Thanks so much, Rob.

All right, let's check some of the other top stories that we're watching this hour.

The Taliban launching attacks in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan. You can actually hear the gunfire. At least five people dead. Dozens are wounded. The attacks came at the same time members of the Afghanistan's Cabinet were supposed to be sworn in.

The U.S. government is set to get into the middle of a dispute between Google and China. Well, sort of. The U.S. is going to issue a formal diplomatic message of concern over a reported cyber attack against Google. The search engine says that China accessed e-mail accounts of human rights activists in China and in the U.S.

The movie "Avatar" has already earned more than $1.5 billion. Now it's brought director James Cameron two little gold statues. "Avatar" won the Golden Globe last night for Best Drama while Cameron nabbed the Best Director nod. You can see a full list of winners at CNN.com.

Today millions of people around the country are marking the birthday of civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit past of racism. Now is the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And so this morning, we are asking, do you think the U.S. has fulfilled the vision that King laid out in his "I Have a Dream" speech?

Well, in a CNN Research poll, more than 51 percent of Americans said yes, another 31 percent said no.

So let us know what you think. I'll read some of your responses in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Well, their stories will break your heart. The earthquake forcing so many orphans out into the street. But there is some hope. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised to expedite adoptions to the U.S.

And our Gary Tuchman has actually been at one orphanage where a handful of those kids are now headed for new homes in America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An orphanage in Haiti, where 25 small children were living and sleeping outdoors because of the partial collapse of the orphanage.

Two sisters from Pittsburgh who run the orphanage were gravely concerned that the adoption processes, which were under way for all the children to move to the United States, would be postponed indefinitely.

JAMIE MCMUTRIE, ORPHANAGE DIRECTOR: Their paperwork was in government offices downtown, and...

ALI MCMUTRIE, ORPHANAGE DIRECTOR: They're all crumbled.

J. MCMUTRIE: ... the officers are very crumbled. So there is -- that's what they need, all of those papers are what they need to be able to get a passport and a visa and go live somewhere else.

A. MCMUTRIE: And most of the people, even if the paperwork was there, we're hearing that most of the people who would do anything about it are under the rubble, too.

TUCHMAN: But now two days after we aired our story, some surprising but good news. The adoption process rapidly expedited. Six of the children given approval to start their new lives with their new parents in the United States, getting ready to fly in an Air Force C-17 to the U.S.

Moise (ph), holding hands with her sister Diana, who came with a provision of Crunch Berry Cereal. Then there is Claudia. And little Ethan. And even little Jenna (ph). The tiniest of the group.

13-year-old Gertrude is the elder stateswoman. I asked my French-speaking producer Justine Redmond (ph) to ask her if she knew who her new mom is.

Indeed, Melissa is meeting her at the Sanford Airport near Orlando.

(On camera): Little Jenna has lived in Port-au-Prince her whole life that are now be going to the rocky mountains, moving to Colorado.

(Voice-over): With their mother, Elizabeth, also meeting her and the other children in Florida. None of these children has ever seen a plane this close-up, let alone been on a plane. The lives of these orphans are about to change profoundly and poignantly. LT. COL. RANDON DRAPER, U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, it's a team work effort. I mean there were a lot of moving parts not coming together. The contingency response wing, the State Department and CNN crews, the U.N., a lot of people back in the States are now working together.

TUCHMAN: All six children safely strapped into the Air Force seats, calmly prepared to begin their new lives. Before they take off, we look at a bracelet given to Gertrude by her new mother, one of the charms says "daughter."

Daughter and sons who survived lives as orphans in a catastrophic earthquake on their way to the U.S.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, there's that bunch, the box rather of Crunch Berries. You've got to love that shot. The five little orphans arrived safely last night, we're told, in Orlando. Will soon be united with their new families.

And there were around 100 other quake survivors on that flight as well. The majority of them are Americans.

That C-17 cargo plane that they were on and the crew were in Afghanistan just four days ago.

And coming up a little later this hour, we're actually going to go live to Port-au-Prince and talk with one woman who is running an orphanage there. I'm going to talk to her about the new challenges that they're dealing with and the prospects for other kids finding new homes as well.

If you're interested in adoption, you won't want to miss that segment.

Forgotten in the aftermath. Port-au-Prince has gotten all the attention so far, but there were other towns closer to the epicenter that were battered and broken by the killer quake. We'll tell you about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, there are definitely miracles coming about in Haiti. About 60 people have been pulled alive from beneath the earthquake rubble. As we have seen right here on the air, many of them survived for days. CNN's Jonathan Mann in Port-au-Prince with a closer look at a number of those miracles.

It's the best part of the story, Jonathan.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is an amazing story. It just gives you a sense of the scale of the disaster; 60 people have been pulled out of the rubble. But there may be thousands across the city who were waiting for help that never came. People have been working around the clock for days now, knowing time was running out. Three days is a long time to survive beneath a collapsed building. We are now in day six. It's all the more extraordinary, for example, a U.N. worker from Denmark, named Jan Christenson (ph), was pulled out of the rubble from the Christopher Hotel, the building that was serving as the U.N. headquarters in Port- au-Prince. They took more casualties here than it has, I think, in its history in any particular catastrophe; some three dozen U.N. aid workers and officials among the dead. One lucky man pulled out.

The rescue efforts are continuing around the city with crews from the United States and around the world. But time is running short.

Time is also pressing on another front, Kyra. And that is when it comes to supplies, food, water, medical care and other essentials to the people of the city. By the government's estimate there are some 250,000 people homeless, homeless means they are without water, homeless means they are probably without whatever their regular supply of food was. The aid distribution effort has been enormous, enormous, but the need is all the greater.

So, even though we are seeing quite successful efforts, hundreds of thousands of meals being distributed around the city. So many people we run into say they have not seen any aid, they haven't heard from anyone in their government, any international organization. They approach us because they see we are carrying pads. And they think that we must be making lists of something and we may be able to help them. It is heartbreaking to see all of this international effort underway and for the time being, at least, such an enormous need, and a sense here, that not nearly enough is getting through, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jon Mann, there is the issue of the port, too. And getting that rebuilt. We are going to talk to the Coast Guard about that coming up next hour.

And we have shown you a lot of pictures and stories from Port-au- Prince. It is Haiti's capital and biggest city, but what about the smaller towns that were actually closer to the epicenter? CNN's Karl Penhaul has more now from a town called Leogane, where relief is just starting to trickle in there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(PEOPLE SHOUTING, MAN SOBBING)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Video shot minutes after Tuesday's quake. Classmates carry a friend through the streets of Leogane. A local cameraman records others, dazed, bleeding, shrieking. And a woman throws up her arms and asks why.

(WOMAN CRYING, SHOUTING)

PENHAUL: More students after a prayer, moments after escaping the ruins of their school.

Five days on, relatives carry loved ones on doors to a makeshift clinic. Patients wait their turn for treatment on the grass.

(on camera): In Leogane, until today, until Sunday, they saw no sign of international aid. So this emergency center was being run by a group of nurses and trainee nurses all from Haiti. And they say that in the course of the week they treated almost 5,000 patients.

(voice-over): This is 5-year-old Sandu LaPierre (ph). She has to clutch a toy bear in her left hand. Her right is now a stump. She is trying to be so brave. But it hurts too much. This was never intended to be a hospital. It's a nursing school. After the quake, nurses say they ran around town begging supplies. They still lack vital medicine and have only cardboard to make temporary splits for shattered limbs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anytime we see (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we could go somewhere to get it. We keep asking. We keep asking.

PENHAUL: Leogane is an hour west of Port-au-Prince. Until this weekend, the relief effort focused on the capital, leaving earthquake survivors elsewhere to fend for themselves.

Leogane Mayor Santos Alexis says the town has no heavy lifting equipment.

MAYOR SANTOS ALEXIS, LEOGANE, HAITI: I feel weak. Nothing I could do. There was nothing I could do. I think 90 percent of Leogane is destroyed. And the other 10 percent is only surviving, trying to make it.

PENHAUL: Rue D'Emphere (ph) means the Street of Hell in French, and after the quake, every street here deserves the same name. It's no better on the outskirts, dogs pick away the flesh of the unburied.

Back at the clinic, at least now the exhausted nurses have backup from international aid group, Doctors Without Borders.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape and in good spirits.

PENHAUL: But as hard as they try, it's tough to soothe the pain of broken bones and broken lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Karl Penhaul, how far away is Leogane from the capital? And how did you make your way there? And how are others making their way there?

PENHAUL: Leogane is about one hour west of Port-au-Prince. And from what I understand it was along the line of those two plates that were rubbing together to cause this earthquake. And that is why there is massive damage there. The roads are open now, although there are massive cracks in the road that leads from Port-au-Prince down to Leogane. And it is a different world out there. You can really see the disparity how aid is focused on Port-au-Prince, on the capital and in the provinces where there is much need, there has been very little until right now. In fact, the mayor said that until a day ago he had still heard survivors crying from under the rubble. But he said I simply have no heavy lifting equipment to see if anybody is really alive under there, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: That has to be so difficult to watch. Karl Penhaul, appreciate it. Thank you so much.

CNN Larry King has a two-hour special tonight on the crisis in Haiti. A powerhouse of celebrities, civic and political leaders, and activists will join Larry to show how you can help the quake victims. "LARRY KING LIVE" airing at a special time tonight, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. If you want to help out this will be the way to do it.

OK, all you taxpayers, better listen up. If you are eligible for the first-time homebuyer tax credit, there is good news -- and bad. We will get that from Christine Romans on the MONEY Desk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking our top stories: At least five people dead after a series of attacks by the Taliban today on government buildings in Kabul. About 20 Taliban members entered the presidential palace, the ministries of finance, mines, and justice, and a hotel close to those buildings. Afghan and NATO troops have now secured the roads around the buildings.

The U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts could have an impact on the Democrats' efforts at health care reform. Republican Scott Brown in a tight race with Democrat Martha Coakley. The winner will replace the late Ted Kennedy. A republican victory, by the way, could mean the Democrats could lose their crucial 60-vote majority. Voters head to the poll tomorrow.

Nasty weather headed for California. Forecasters say three to six inches of rain expected tonight. That is on top of yesterday's showers. More snow in the mountains will be good for skiers, but residents at lower elevations are being warned to be on the lookout for mud slides and flash flooding.

Well, there is good news and bad news for first-time homebuyers looking for the $8,000 tax credit. Christine Romans in New York to explain.

So, Christine, why don't we start with the good news first?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The good news is there is the $8,000 for homebuyers to buy a new house. You can file for that again. There was a brief period, the folks at CNN MONEY noticed it last week. You could not file for a few days there, for that $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.

So, you can file again. But here is the bad news. It will be a little more paperwork. It's going to take more time. And it's probably going to be more of a headache than you thought.

That homebuyer tax credit, of course, extends, that $,8000 tax credit through March 31st, and expires at the end of 2010. You need to be in the market here to buy a house pretty soon. But it is no more E-filing for this. You are not going to be able to electronically file. You will have to have in there copies of all your paperwork, and you will be able to expect some delays, two to four months of delays.

Why? So many scammers. Shady tax preparers. All of these people trying to claim the tax credit. They were not qualified for it. So the IRS had to get tough and start to requiring some more documentation, and E-filing just could not handle all the documentation that you will need. So, the money is still there. It is stimulus money meant to, you know, energize the housing market. It is just going to be a little harder to get it.

PHILLIPS: Imagine that, shadiness, and taxes, and our money. It just makes no sense, Christine Romans.

ROMANS: I know. But it does. When there is free government money out there, no matter who you are, a big company. A little guy, or a little guy, people are always trying to. There is always a huckster trying to get the money.

PHILLIPS: Nothing is always free. Not completely.

ROMANS: No. You are right.

PHILLIPS: All right, Christine. Thanks for the heads up.

ROMANS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Help and hope for orphans in Haiti. We are talking to one orphanage director who actually has run out of space, but some of her charges are soon heading out for a better life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to think that a California man's really happy with his career choice right now otherwise his body might have been in that car. He says he was driving over a bridge when his cell phone startled him. Seconds later he was trapped in the car with eight feet of 50-degree creek water dying to get in. His best shot at survival, his gun. Yes, this guy was a security officer at a casino and he packs heat. So guess what he did? He pulled out the gun and shot out the car window and ba-da-bing, swam right out of there.

And you know the economy is though when NASA is putting red sale tags on space shuttles. Forget that oceanfront property, it's so over rated. Atlantis, Discovery, $42 million apiece. But now a new price, on sale, just for you, $28.8 million. You save more than $30 million, and the engines, by the way, they are available absolutely free. It's kind of like NASA meets Big Lots. You know the ships sold once they stop flying and that should be later this year.

And here is an interesting idea. Divorced? OK, she'll take the shower curtain and all of the glassware, you'll get the TV and all of the towels, it's no problem. Listen to this, a store in the U.K. has actually started a divorce registry to welcome you to Splits Ville, well, hey, this is just to help you adjust. It's kind of like a wedding registry, but it's got a little built more cynicism.

Help and hope for orphans in Haiti, we're talking to one orphanage director who's run out of space, but some of her charges are soon heading for a better life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: OK, sounds good. Thanks, Rob.

A little earlier in the newscast we shared the story of five little orphans who have now arrived in the U.S. But there are so many more left behind waiting for their own prayers to be answered.

And Dixie Bickel runs the "Littlest Angels Orphanage" in Port-au- Prince. She joins me now live via Skype.

Oh, my gosh Dixie, I'm looking behind you, asking you, which one may I please take home? Reality check. What's going to happen to the kids behind you?

DIXIE BICKEL, LITTLEST ANGELS ORPHANAGE: All of these kids are going to be evacuated. I was notified this morning early that Haitian President Preval has given his permission for all the orphans, all the children that have been legally released for adoption that are sitting in orphanages here travel to their adoptive families.

These are not children from this disaster. These are children that have been in the orphanages for some time who have been legally released and already have been proposed to families in other countries for adoption. They're going to be sent to the U.S. I have 4 (ph) children here.

I have heard through the grapevine, we don't know if this is true, that the State Department has said that the children can enter the U.S. It's going to be -- UNICEF is going to be working with the U.S. government to get them out of Haiti.

PHILLIPS: Got you. We're also hearing from the state department that it's going to be a little tougher for the orphans that are victims of this quake. We'll talk about that in a second.

Dixie, if you don't mind, can you just tell me who the kids are behind you? And are these four actually going to be able to come to the states and do they have parents waiting for them?

BICKEL: One of them is going to Canada. One of them is going on a plane to the Netherlands tomorrow. 100 orphans are going to the Netherlands tomorrow. Their plane is already in the air coming here if it can land. The airport is so congested; we're not sure that -- if they're going to be able to land. And two of the children are going to the U.S. PHILLIPS: Wow. Now, the orphans, I know you're expecting a lot from this quake. How many have you taken in thus far? Have you had to turn kids down? From what I understand you were having to put a couple of kids into each bed. This has got to be a trying time for you.

BICKEL: It is. And we haven't received (AUDIO GAP). There's no transportation. And I said if we did receive orphans, I would have to put two to a bed. There are orphans down there. They're in the hospitals, they're in the clinics, they're sitting on the streets. As soon as I can get some beds free we're going to go out. We're going to go down and we're going to work with Haitian social services, put these kids up.

They need housing right now. Their parents may show up. Their parents may be in the hospital. They may just be lost. So they can at least have safe shelter until...

PHILLIPS: A loved one comes for them.

BICKEL: Or they're available for adoption. But right now we also need some funding. People can go to glaHaiti.org. They can help us with some funding because we're going to need to buy things for these orphans coming in. We do not have the funding to take in 100 new orphans.

PHILLIPS: All right. We will get that up on our Web site. GlaHaiti.org. But the State Department now saying, you just mentioned, as you get new orphans, as you try to provide for them, the state department is saying let's wait and see if family members come forward, loved ones come forward. We obviously want the child to go with a family member.

But if that doesn't happen, and, say, I or anybody else wants to adopt one of these children, Dixie, how long could that take? Is it going to be the normal process of a couple years or do you think the process will be expedited because of this horrific situation?

BICKEL: We're hoping that it will be quicker. The Haitian system, because -- UNICEF steps in here, too, and says, you know, there's a chance of trafficking of children. And that's true. And that's why we want to wait to make sure parents come forward.

But once these children have been released for adoption, why should it take two years to do an adoption? They've been released. The families have been qualified through the U.S., through their agents, through immigration, that they qualify to adopt. It doesn't take that long for the actual paperwork here; if it doesn't have to sit on people's desk for months at a time.

PHILLIPS: Amen.

BICKEL: So hopefully, of course, you know, I don't see -- there's buildings that are part of the process that are no longer there. It's going to take a while for the Haitian government to get up and running so that these adoptions can continue. It's -- it's going to be a long process, I'm afraid. I'm hoping they'll come up with a system.

PHILLIPS: Yes. I think we're all hoping that. There should be no red tape in a time like this. You mention the trafficking of kids. That's a big concern for us, too. I know you do everything in your power to make sure those kids go with the right people, and you're on top of that.

Dixie Bickel, we're going to continue to check in with you. So glad the kids behind you have parents waiting for them; it's just heartwarming. And you're doing an amazing job, Dixie. Thank you so much.

BICKEL: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: Be sure to tune in tonight for a very special edition of CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE". I'm sure orphans will come up within those two hours. Larry is going to be joined by a host of stars like Mick Jagger, Scarlett Johansson, also Colin Powell. They're all coming together to show how you can help with the people of Haiti. It's going to come your way tonight, 8:00 eastern, one hour earlier than normal.

Just 26 years old and a whole NFL career, a whole life in front of him, all cut tragically short. A deputy coroner in South Carolina says that an enlarged heart made Gaines Adams go into cardiac arrest yesterday at his family's home. He died a short time later. He was a defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears. He didn't play much this season. The team had big plans for him next year.

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