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American Morning

Jobless Benefits Expiring; Chile Quake Aftermath; Your Health Care Dollars Being Wasted

Aired March 01, 2010 - 07:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning to you, thanks for being with us on AMERICAN MORNING. It is March 1st. Hopefully that means that some milder weather is on the way for many people who have been suffering for this winter.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Not on my backyard yet. Not out there yet. I'm Christine Romans in for John Roberts this March 1st. Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.

Other devastation along the coast of Chile. Two days after a powerful earthquake, new stories and pictures are pouring in to CNN. The death toll is climbing, power and water are out to many, and looters are taking to the streets in some places. In a moment, we'll take you live to Chile.

CHETRY: Everyone can relate to the high cost of health care, but imagine a hospital charging you $140 for what? One Tylenol. We're taking a look at how health care is draining our bank accounts in a new "A.M." original series "Prescription for Waste."

ROMANS: And another night without heat or light for some 200,000 people in the northeast who suffered through a monster storm. More snow expected in New England, and more snow in New England, folks. We're tracking all the extreme weather ahead this hour.

CHETRY: But, first, it's been 53 hours now since the earth shook, shattering parts of Chile. Frustrations are mounting this morning as hundreds of thousands are still without food, water or shelter in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

Chile's president now calling on the army to try to stop an outbreak of looting that they are seeing as well, and hundreds of thousands of frightened Chileans waking up on parks and sidewalks. More than 1,000 homes damaged or destroyed in this quake.

And right now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her wage to the region where she will meet with that country's president and also touring the devastation.

Also this morning, CNN is covering this story like no one else can. Our Karl Penhaul is in Concepcion, Chile, a city not far from the earthquake's epicenter. Also Soledad O'Brien is about 100 miles outside of Concepcion. Let's begin, though, with CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A curfew is in place throughout the night in the city of Concepcion, and that was an effort by authorities to stamp out early signs of looting. We're told by the police that looters stormed into supermarkets, they stormed a flour mill, and they were trying to steal gasoline from some of the gas stations there.

Those scenes were repeated in other cities up and down south central Chile, and authorities say there is a great deal of desperation after two days of people without drinking water, without power, but also, they say, in some cases, people were stealing electrical items that they believed were for resale.

In the area of Concepcion where we are now a search by rescue firefighters crews are going on in a 15-story building. The building that you can see behind me was actually a new building and it simply fell on its side in that earthquake.

Now, firefighter team leaders say they have pulled out survivors alive. They have pulled out dead. They also believe that up to 40 to 50 other people are somewhere still inside that building, possibly inside the stairwell. They say they have heard no signs of life for the last 24 hours, but they say that they're not ruling out that some people may still be alive inside this building. There are many survivable spaces.

Now, of course, uppermost in people's minds, Haiti. This earthquake here in Chile was much bigger than Haiti, so why hasn't the death toll been higher? I put that to the team leader of the firefighters here in Concepcion. His team in fact had only recently returned from duty in Haiti.

He said the first key is the building codes. He says Chile as a long history of earthquakes, and so that is built into the building codes. The buildings are much stronger, they're much more scientifically built, and, of course, Chile is one of the richest countries in South America, whereas Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere.

The city of Concepcion, too, also has an interesting history. Since it was created, it has been destroyed no less than four times by tsunamis and earthquakes. The Chileans says that have learned the lessons and now they built buildings to withstand earthquakes even like this 8.8 monster earthquake. Kiran and Christine?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: A monster, indeed. This morning it is a struggle to get aid to Concepcion. One reason is many roads are impassable, either littered with debris or they have been destroyed and washed out. About 167 miles south the quake damaged homes and the regional capital.

The tremor also took down a bridge over the Claro River. Take a look at these pictures. The bridge serves as a major artery from Temuco to Concepcion. Our Soledad O'Brien trying to make her way to Concepcion. She's on the road right now and she joins live on the phone.

Soledad, where are you right now, and what are the roads looking like there?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in the town of Los Angeles, and the roads are actually looking OK unless you're trying to get over a bridge, and then you see these massive cracks. And the often put authorities or police officers in front of those cracks, and sometimes you can get past one car at a time, other times they're just not letting anybody by.

There was a big aftershock here about 90 minutes ago and about 30 minutes after that they dispatched a couple of ambulances. We're told we're going to be heading into Concepcion. Here the damage not so bad, but there we're told they actually need more of the resources and more of the supplies.

Here in the Los Angeles it's much more rural. which means that people who are actually used to quakes, as Karl Penhaul told you a moment ago, they know what to do. They are people who all have tents out in the front yards, and it's nothing like the tents we saw in Haiti because people have far more space, it is much more rural. You may have one tent and then ten acres of land.

Along the roads you see some of the roads about to collapse, as well, and those bridges have been blocked off. The drive has really been very challenging. Gas line we're seeing here, too. Several stations just closed and gas lines are just people waiting in the hopes that gas will come to that gas station and the gas station is not even open yet.

But things are more calm. We saw some police officers heading off to guard some homes that have collapsed, but they do not have the looting issue that they are having a little bit farther up north. The problem they are having in Chile is cold. This is the coldest summer they have had in a long time here and people outdoor in tents is not particularly comfortable for them. Christine?

ROMANS: Soledad O'Brien, thanks.

It's interesting to point out that the people in Chile have a better standard of living frankly than in Haiti. Average person in Chile has $14,700, and when you compare that with Haiti, it's only a little over $1,000. So, more resources for each of these people who are struggling right now.

There are some 18,000 Americans in Chile, and coming up in less than 15 minutes we'll find out how many have been accounted for when we talk to the U.S. ambassador to Chile, Paul Simons.

CHETRY: Better safe than sorry is essentially what scientists are saying this morning, and they're defending that decision to issue widespread tsunami warnings after the Chile quake. They issued these warnings as far away as New Zealand and Japan. These are some pictures from northern Japan where the tsunami hit the country's main island Sunday. But the initial waves washing ashore without causing any damage.

Meantime, 6,000 miles in Hawaii was actually the largest scale evacuation there in five years. The U.S. military even moved ships from Pearl Harbor and ended up doing it for waves that could barely knock down a sand castle.

But, again, they're saying that they did it out of an abundance of caution after looking back at what happened in 2004 after that tsunami hit off of Indonesia.

What did happened and why didn't we see the large waves forecast? Jacqui Jeras is in Atlanta this morning with more on just geologically speaking what determines whether or not you'll see the huge after effect of the tsunami in the wake of an earthquake.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. Well, it has to do with the plates that come together and what type of movement they actually create. So this animation will show you what will typically happen in order to create a tsunami.

So you have one plate which subducts underneath the other, and you can see that the plate or the crust in the ocean floor thrusts upward. And when that happens, that displaces the water, and then you can see, as I put that back into play, is that pushes up the water up, the tsunami is created and moves on.

So we think this type of earthquake happened, but the displacement wasn't as great as they initially thought. So the more that plate moves the more the water gets pushed up, and that's what will happen in that type of situation.

The forecast overall wasn't so bad in some of these places. We did have a tsunami in the small island of Chile, 7.7 feet, and five people were killed in those waters. So they did the right thing by putting those warnings out there.

And then as we look at Hawaii, the greatest wave height we saw here was 3.2 feet. The official forecast a foot and a half up to eight feet. We got the blip, it just wasn't quite as big as they anticipated.

So there are still some things we don't know about what happens during these conditions. But one of the ways that we detect this as it moves through the ocean is what we call the dark buoy system. And NOAA has placed all these little sensors out here in the middle of the ocean so that we can detect these little changes in the earth's crust.

There is a little sensor on the bottom of the ocean floor that will feel these pressure changes, and we saw the rises and the falls within those, so we knew that it was coming. We just didn't know exactly how about it was going to be.

So there is a lot we know about these things, but there is still a long ways we have to go in order to understand. But worst case scenario, it was a good warm up for Hawaii and other places across the Pacific basin as to what they need to do when something like this happens.

Also one other point I want to make is that there was an earthquake a little stronger than this in 1960 near Chile which did create an enormous tsunami and killed people in Hawaii and Japan, as well. So when you look back at history, you have to put out a warning just like that.

CHETRY: Good points. Jacqui Jeras for us this morning, thank you.

Also coming up at 7:30, we'll talk to a professor, Roger Bilham of the geological sciences at the University of Colorado. We'll ask him why this earthquake in Chile that was 500 to 900 times stronger than the one that hit Haiti did not cause nearly as much damage.

It's, of course, as we know, the building construction, but also it sometimes has to do with the luck of the draw in terms of how shallow and how deep the earthquake is, as well as other factors.

ROMANS: That's absolutely right.

Now, would you spend $1,000 on a toothbrush? You already did. How about 50 cents of every dollar we spend on health care is wasted. We have that coming up. You'll be shocked at what a Tylenol costs in a hospital setting.

CHETRY: Elizabeth Cohen has been doing some digging. She joins us with that.

Also at 7:40, for the first time we will hear voices from a nation brought together in grief. We have newly published letters that were sent to Jackie Kennedy after JFK's assassination.

ROMANS: And at 7:55, Jay Leno, can he get his "Tonight Show" mojo back? We'll see starting tonight when he returns to anchor NBC "Late Night." We'll go to Los Angeles for a closer look.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. The death toll from the monster earthquake in Chile is rising steadily and panic is spreading among the survivors. Thousands of American citizens are living in Chile.

CHETRY: Yes, and a lot of questions today about how exactly they're fairing, worries about relief supplies. We're going to be speaking in just a few minutes to the ambassador from Chile, the U.S. ambassador to Chile and how things are going there and also how they're notifying people here in the U.S. who are looking for their loved ones in Chile. So we'll check in with him in just a moment.

First, some other news for you. We're minding your business this morning, and we start with pay raises slowly making a comeback. This is some good news here as we talk about joblessness and unemployment. Federal Express says it plans to give merit raises again in the wake of salary cuts, also Hewlett-Packard, some employees getting a one- time bonus, that also to try to make up for some of the slashed salaries.

ROMANS: Cell phone technology has changed the way many Americans get their news, if you didn't know. A Pew report finds more than a quarter of all adults in the U.S. get their news from their phone thanks to easy Internet access. The number one search on your phone for news -- weather.

CHETRY: There you go. Relentless snow storms, speaking of weather, in the northeast and also the Midwest putting U.S. car sales in a deep freeze. The snow kept thousands of customers out of dealerships. You also have Toyota's recall, and that meant troubles, as well -- expected to weaken sales by 25 percent or more.

ROMANS: Here's something that matters to more than 11 million people currently surviving on jobless benefits. starting today, millions of unemployed Americans will not be able to apply for federal benefits or the COBRA insurance assistance that so many people are relying on.

That's because the Senate did not pass an extension last week. For unemployed workers, this means no more checks once they run out of their state benefits.

Some 1.2 million people could lose benefits in March. That's according to the National Employment Law Project. By June, the number could reach five million people. Last week lawmakers repeatedly tried to approve just a 30-day extension but Republican Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky, he stopped the $10 billion measure from passing, saying it needs to be paid for first. If it's so important, he said we can find $10 billion from somewhere else to pay for it.

Over the weekend the top Republican Jon Kyl said Republicans will support a temporary extension of the deadline this week. So many people saying it's going to come eventually but clearly, a lot of people out there who are on unemployment benefits right now, who the average wait to get a job, folks, is 211 days. So there are families surviving on those benefits. They're a little nervous here.

CHETRY: Of course, understandably. All right, we'll continue to follow that.

Meantime, the sky-high cost of health care. And this is another big chunk that takes out of the family budget. Our Elizabeth Cohen has a look at some waste that really is eye popping. A.M. special series coming up in just 10 minutes and, of course, we're going to bring the latest from Chile in just a moment as well.

It's 16 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right, welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Still assessing the damage in Chile where the death toll from this monster earthquake rises. Panic spreading among the survivors.

Soledad O'Brien just reported to us that she sees people living in tents along the road. She's trying to make her way into Concepcion but there are cracked roads and bridges that are down and, still, a lot of work to do to get where she's trying to go right now.

CHETRY: Yes, and there are thousands of American citizens that are living in Chile, as well. And joining us on the phone right now to talk more about that and also what the Obama administration is doing to help the Chilean government, Paul Simons, the U.S. ambassador to Chile.

Ambassador Simons, thanks for being with us this morning.

AMB. PAUL SIMONS, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHILE (via telephone): Thank you very much.

CHETRY: So, we're now 48 hours since the initial earthquake hit Chile. Tell us what the latest is, what it is like especially in the areas closest to ground zero.

SIMONS: Well, first of all, I think it's important to note the Chilean government has really done an outstanding job in these first 48 hours assessing the magnitude of this tragedy and beginning to deploy assistance to the affected areas.

In our area here around Santiago, there's really to some extent two earthquakes as life has largely returned to normal here. The government is up and running. The (INAUDIBLE) exchange is running. The newspapers are out. We're functioning. We've been able to, fortunately, locate and found safe all of our approximately 300 American and Chilean employees here at the embassy. But down south in the region most directly affected, clearly the devastation was substantial and it was greater than was originally expected.

So yesterday, President Bachelet declared a national emergency. They've placed additional security measures and for the first time she opened up the possibility of working with other countries, including the U.S. in the area of providing assistance.

ROMANS: It's interesting that you mention the stock exchange will open. That business is returning to normal in some parts of the country. You know, this is -- this is, frankly, an economy that is stable and a political system that is stable. It depends on tax -- I mean, some of the stability that we see here that we didn't see in Haiti, for example, will be an advantage for this country. But there are still some 18,000 Americans either living there or visiting there, I'm told, at any given time. What do you do to try to reach out and find those people and account for as many people as possible?

SIMONS: Well, we from the very first moments of the crisis beginning at about 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, we set up a 24-hour (INAUDIBLE) operation center here. We have reached out to every means that we have telephonic e-mail, other kinds of contacts we have through our worldwide (ph) network to try to get a handle on how the Americans are doing. Up to this point, we have no confirmed reports of any fatalities or any serious injuries in the American community. However, we do not have good information back from the Concepcion area. We had a few sporadic reports, but we have not established regular communication. The lines are down. Electricity is down, so a lot of the cell phones have lost their charges.

ROMANS: Right.

SIMONS: There's no water. There's some public security issues down there that the government is dealing with. Obviously, the situation down in the immediately affected area is very, very serious.

CHETRY: And that's potentially where you could use some international help, as we understand it. Chile's president calling for some international help. What are you hearing about specifically what they would need perhaps from the U.S. administration and others in terms of their greatest immediate needs?

SIMONS: The president outlined a number of areas yesterday and we're taking a very hard look at those areas to see where we could respond. President Obama (INAUDIBLE) assured on Saturday indicated that the U.S. was prepared to move quickly. The Chileans have indicated some needs in the area of mobile telecommunications, field hospitals, search and rescue teams, and we are gearing up in all of those areas.

I think it is important to note that the Chileans have a rather well-developed system, emergency response system. This is a country that has suffered earthquakes and volcanoes. In fact, we're one of the first countries to deliver search and rescue in Haiti. So, they have some capabilities, but, clearly, over the last 24 hours it's clear the magnitude of this event is such that they are also going to be reaching out to the international partners.

CHETRY: Certainly, certainly. And people will hopefully be there to help them in any way they need. Ambassador Paul Simons, U.S. ambassador to Chile, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

And if you'd like to help, as well, go to our "Impact" page, CNN.com/impact.

It's 24 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-six minutes past the hour. Your top stories just four minutes away. First, an "A.M. Original." It's something you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.

Imagine someone spending $1,000 on a toothbrush. It might sound amusing or far fetched as long as it's not your money. But consider this, for every dollar that we spend on health care, 50 cents of that is wasted. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here now to kick off our new series, "Health Care: Prescription for Waste." And when we were teasing this story and introducing it, we were saying a hundred some dollars for one Tylenol pill, it sounds crazy.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, it is crazy, Kiran. When I got a look at these hospital bills, I couldn't believe what I saw. You know what, $1 trillion is wasted in this country on ridiculous medical expenses. Here are a few examples.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: When you or I go shopping for a toothbrush, how much do we pay? $2, $3, maybe $4. Well, guess what one hospital once charged a patient for a toothbrush? $1,000. Can you believe it? $1,000 for a toothbrush.

Well, you know who ends up paying for that? You and I. We end up paying for it. It comes out of our pocket in one way or another.

And that's not the only crazy hospital costs I've run into. Come on, come with me.

(voice-over): And at the store, how much does a bottle of Tylenol cost? $10 for 100 pills.

(on camera): Well, we know of someone at the hospital who was charged $140 for one Tylenol. Can you believe it? $140 for this.

Now, here's a box of disposable gloves. When you buy them here at this store, they come out to 24 cents a pair. But I know of a hospital that charged $53 for a pair of gloves. That's right, $53 for a pair of disposable gloves. What the heck is going on here?

So, I'm here in the home office of a medical billing advocate. This is Cindy Holtzman and she helps people go through all of these crazy charges. And she has all sorts of examples.

I've got to tell you, Cindy, this is one of my favorite ones. This is just like a little alcohol prep swab. We've all had these. How much did a hospital charge for this one?

CINDY HOLTZMAN, BILLING ADVOCATE: $23 apiece.

COHEN: $23 for this little tiny piece of cotton.

HOLTZMAN: And on one bill there were 44 of them. It becomes very expensive.

COHEN: Oh, my goodness. But this isn't even the craziest thing you've ever seen. Tell me about one of your crazier charges.

HOLTZMAN: Well, recently I had somebody that was charged for 41 IV bags when she went to the E.R. for a two-hour visit.

COHEN: Oh, yes, you heard that right. A woman went to the emergency room with a migraine headache and they gave her one bag of saline and then they charged her for 41 bags of saline to the tune of $4,182. Now, the really crazy thing about this is that her insurance company actually paid this bill. They didn't even question it. So why did her insurance company pay for this when it was, obviously, wrong.

HOLTZMAN: There's not many people working at these companies any more. They're very busy and usually any kind of bill that's under $100,000, they don't look at the detail.

COHEN: So they just write a check.

HOLTZMAN: They just write a check.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: That's shocking. Are those errors, Elizabeth, when you talk about the 41 bags, do the hospitals know that the insurance companies aren't going to look at it?

COHEN: Oh, well, it's a combination though. The hospital, it was an error. They actually fixed it when the patient brought it to their attention. That hospital wouldn't speak to us and the insurance company just paid for it because that's what they do. They often just pay for these things as long as it's under say around $100,000. The insurance company in this case say they couldn't talk to us because of privacy reasons.

CHETRY: You know, some people may say, you know what, I have insurance, so why should I care, you know, if hospitals are overcharging if the tab gets picked up anyway. Really, all of us need to care about this.

COHEN: Oh, absolutely, because it comes out of your wallet. I mean, when charges go up, up, up, your premiums go up, up, up. So the reason, one of the major reasons why we're paying so much in premiums is because of this medical waste. I know. I see it coming out of my paycheck and we all see it coming out of our paycheck.

CHETRY: You know, you get those bills or explanation of benefits. You should look at them closely because you never know. And you're right, a lot of times there is waste that maybe we just, you know be swept under the rug if we didn't check a little harder. Very, very interesting investigation, Elizabeth. Thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

ROMANS: All right. It's 31 minutes past the hour and that means it's time for this morning's top stories. A catastrophe in Chile. The post-earthquake scene in the city of Concepcion is desperate with hungry residents resorting to looting in some cases. Authorities are using tear gas and water canyons with no military reinforcements to help regain order. Some shop owners are using rifles and shotguns to protect themselves.

CHETRY: Well, police have confirmed that Marie Osmond's 18-year- old son committed suicide. Michael Blosil left a note about his life- long battle with depression. The family issued a statement on Saturday saying they were devastated and in deep shock over Michael's death. An autopsy might be completed today.

ROMANS: Lawyers for former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling are trying to get his 24-year sentence reduced. They claim the law used to convict him is too vague to be constitutional. The Supreme Court will hear arguments today specifically about a 28-word addendum to the fraud statute used against Skilling.

CHETRY: Thirty-two minutes past the hour now. We return to our developing story this morning. Saturday's magnitude 8.8 earthquake was 500 times, at least, stronger than the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti last month, but Chile is expected, as we've seen now, to suffer far less.

ROMANS: One reason Chile's earthquake occurred at a depth of 21.7 miles, Haiti's quake was 8.1 miles deep. So much more shallow there. Joining us now to talk about this is Roger Bilham, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Welcome to the program.

You know, first off, these are different fault lines. Of course, seven weeks apart and people are raising all kinds of questions, one caused the other. Are they related in any way but these are completely separate incidents, aren't they?

ROGER BILHAM, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER: Absolutely. They are completely different plates that are colliding. In one case and sliding past each other in another and the mechanisms of the earthquakes are very different. In Chile, it was very large thrust earthquake that probably suddenly raised the sea floor in places and sunk it in others. In Chile, there was very little movement of the sea floor and as a result the tsunami generated in Haiti was quite small.

CHETRY: So, is there actually, we make so much of the magnitude and we talk about the 8.8 versus the 7.0 and how it's, you know, exponentially higher and it also has a lot to do with the depth though of how much damage you're going to see, correct?

BILHAM: Yes. And the distance off shore. The Chilean earthquake was somewhat out to sea. A very, very large area involved. 300 miles long, probably 100 miles across. And, as a result of the very large heaving motion, the frequencies of shaking were very different from that in Haiti. In fact, the very low frequency shaking resulted in damage hundreds of miles away in Santiago.

But it is quite a remarkable fact that 500 times more energy has resulted in a death toll that is under four figures. And the population exposed to the shaking is probably twice as much as of that in Haiti.

ROMANS: That becomes an engineering story, doesn't it? This is a country, Chile, with an experience in large, very large earthquakes. 9.5, I think, in 1960 that was simply devastated. We don't want to minimize the importance of the loss of life here, but it is really engineering and preparedness that you think that have helped minimize the loss of life in this event.

BILHAM: Yes, I have to agree with you. Despite the loss of life, this has to be regarded as a success story. But remember that 500,000 buildings are damaged, probably half of those irreparably but we're looking at a kind of earthquake resistance that enables people to walk out of these damaged structures.

In Haiti, the structures pancaked. There was no possible way of surviving death, largely because the buildings were incredibly fragile. They have been doomed from the moment that people started building them because people were copying designs that were completely hopeless at surviving shaking.

In Chile, the history of earthquakes goes back several hundred years and even in the largest earthquake in the world, the 1960 Chile earthquake, which you point out, magnitude 9.5. Only 1,600 deaths or so and that, again, is a success story, despite the loss of life. Many, many more could have died. And another important thing you must remember is that the Haiti earthquake happened at 5:00 in the afternoon when most people should have been outdoors and this earthquake happened in the early hours of the morning when everybody were in their dwelling.

So, we're seeing, I think a quite remarkably sensible country. They've built their buildings correctly and the damage that's now occurred is largely from foundation failure, unexpected long period shaking to large structures and they'll get it right for the next earthquake, I'm sure.

CHETRY: Speaking of getting it right for the next earthquake, Roger, I want to ask you about this. We've been hearing about it's not a matter of if, but when we here in the United States get hit. I mean, take a look at the San Andres fault lines and take a look a lot of the vulnerabilities in California. Are we due for an earthquake of this magnitude, I guess, if you can say. And how prepared are we here in the U.S.?

BILHAM: Well, the places you've mentioned can't actually experience much more than a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. The San Andreas fault is kind of a low area fault. It's long, but it's not very wide. And we are expecting, of course, the big one to return to L.A. any time now. However, the largest earthquake that we are really concerned about at the moment is a magnitude 9 between Oregon and Washington state. And that will be quite serious.

In fact, we know such events had occurred about 300 years ago in other times in our history prior to the arrival of western civilization, as it were. These earthquakes are going to recur and they will cause considerable damage because not all of the structures in our northwestern coastline are, in fact, designed to resist shaking.

CHETRY: I know they have been working on it steadily, but you can't retrofit everything at once. Of course, it's a long pain staking process.

BILHAM: Yes.

CHETRY: Roger Bilham, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, thanks for your insight today.

BILHAM: Thank you.

CHETRY: All right. We're going to take a quick break. It's 38 minutes past the hour. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ROMANS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. The assassination of John F. Kennedy has been revisited many times on film and television, but now a new book gives us an entirely different picture on how JFK's death brought this country together in grief.

Carol Costello takes a very personal look back at the condolences of a grieving nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A file folder, full of personal and national anguish.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I loved this letter.

COSTELLO: Just one of the hundreds of thousands of letters Americans sent to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, after the nation buried her husband.

ANNOUNCER: The old, the young, the aged, the children. They became one in their grief in a spontaneous outpouring that throws up an enduring memorial to the American spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a wonderful letter.

COSTELLO: Historian Ellen Fitzpatrick has for the first time cataloged that grief by combing through the archives of the JFK Library and selecting 250 nearly forgotten condolence letters. She has put them in a book, "Letters to Jackie."

(on camera): Did it stun you? Just the sheer number of letters that people wrote to Jackie Kennedy?

ELLEN FITZPATRICK, HISTORIAN: Well, she actually received over, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million letters.

COSTELLO (voice-over): One of them written by an eight-year-old boy named Kevin Radell. It says "Dear Mrs. Kennedy, I'm sorry your husband got shot. I know you should forgive your enemies, but it is hard to forgive Lee Oswald."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is hard to forget the president got shot.

COSTELLO: That little boy is all grown up now.

(on camera): Take me back to that time, what was that like?

KEVIN RADELL, LETTER WRITER: It was terrifying. It was terrifying and just a convergence of emotions, of fear because he was such a protector of the nation and such a leader and we all loved him. He was a fatherly figure.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Fatherly figure. If there is a common theme in these letters, it's that.

FITZPATRICK: One woman compared the assassination of President Kennedy with the crucifixion. She said they killed our lord and father and now they have killed our president and father.

COSTELLO: The flood of grief transcended racial and economic lines. "I am a colored lady, but he seemed close to me as my own. All the luck and to Caroline and little Johnny, all the love I have. I am 74 years old and your father was my friend." The letter was written by Martha Ross, daughter of a slave, with no formal education. Her great-grandson, Winston Lucky.

WINSTON LUCKY, LETTER WRITER'S GREAT GRANDSON: Even those people who didn't like him, they loved him. He was a strong man. My grandmother, she always talked about, you know, that he was going to help to set this country right.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY, FMR. FIRST LADY: All of you who have written to me know how much we all loved him and that he return that love.

COSTELLO: Mrs. Kennedy tried to show her appreciation. This little boy sent a photo and comfort of his own. "Some mean man killed my daddy, too." How Americans responded to the murder of a president and captured the idealism of the times. An idealism, that like its hero, maybe just a memory.

Carol Costello, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: Amazing.

It's 44 minutes past the hour right now. Jacqui Jeras is going to be coming along and have this morning's travel forecast for us right after the break.

ROMANS: And he once ruled late night as host of the "Tonight Show." That was before Jay Leno became a primetime bust and now he has his old job back. Did NBC make the right move? 44 minutes after the hour.

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CHETRY: Wake up, Dallas, Texas. It is 51 degrees right now. Later we're going to get some rain. It's 46 degrees in Dallas. It's still a little, little dark over there. Usually they don't have the lights on in the buildings.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: They're getting ready to wake up and head to work. We're going to talk to Jacqui --

CHETRY: Oh, yeah, our own Jacqui Jeras who points out today is actually the start of meteorological spring. We all wish it was real spring though. We had enough of the shoveling and the snow and the salt.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHETRY: This morning's top stories just minutes away, including we have been covering the latest in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Chile. Now they're dealing with looting, a desperate search for food and the number of dead is still climbing. Chaos setting in after the earthquake, 500 times more powerful than the one that hit Haiti. We're live on the ground.

ROMANS: Plus at a quarter after, a reconciliation that's one- sided, only in Washington, right. The drastic new move Democrats are considering to get health care reform done.

CHETRY: At half past the hour we are hoping we have a different tale to tell this morning, but alas, Canada wins the gold and President Obama loses a bet. How Sid the kid cost him a beer and how his press secretary will be paying for it. Those stories and much more at the top of the hour.

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ROMANS: Welcome back to "The Most News in the Morning." Check that out. That -- look closely, boys and girls and good morning, that's a lot of nude Aussies, nude I said. More than 5,000 people got naked next to each other outside the famous Sidney opera house. They posed for an hour in a variety of possessions for a photographer who is famous for shoots just like this.

CHETRY: From that far away you can't tell (INAUDIBLE) clothes or whether they're all just wearing (INAUDIBLE). He is about to become the sixth host in the history of "The Tonight Show." He was also the fourth. Tonight, Jay Leno makes his return to late night after that PR disaster that saw NBC basically kick Conan O'Brien to the curb to make room for Jay part two. The big question is even though Jay is back, will his audience be? Here's Kareen Wynter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jay Leno recently signed off from his short-lived primetime gig, admitting the show was a bomb.

JAY LENO, LATE NIGHT HOST: It seemed like just yesterday I was telling NBC this is not going to work, but no.

WYNTER: But will his late night return also be a bust? Leno's back on "The Tonight Show" after a highly publicized shake up -- CONAN O'BRIEN, LATE NIGHT HOST: And we have exactly one hour to steal every single item in this studio.

WYNTER: ... that pitted the comic against Conan O'Brien who bitterly left the network when he was forced out of his time slot after just seven months.

DL HUGHLEY, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: I've had an opportunity to work in television and some of what the television networks do, like I said, it defies logic.

WYNTER: Comedian DL Hughley says Leno can get back on top.

HUGHLEY: (INAUDIBLE) they don't call it a comeback. He's been there for years. If anything he was on a brief sabbatical. But I think he will hit the ground running like he always has.

WYNTER: Hughley says viewers want to see Leno back in the chair now that the NBC controversy has cooled thanks to the rating success from the winter Olympics that replaced Leno's struggling prime time show this month. Still, media critic Andrew Wallenstein says it could be a slippery slope.

ANDREW WALLENSTEIN, THEHOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM: The success of the Olympics certainly puts additional pressure on Leno to win the gold in terms of late night ratings.

WYNTER: Wallenstein says the audience that helped Leno stay on top for more than a decade must return for the show to succeed.

WALLENSTEIN: So many of his followers who were conditioned to watch him at 11:30 may have gone on and found new viewing habits and this will be the test.

WYNTER: A test for Leno who Wallenstein says must also repair his battered image. Leno found himself on the receiving end of jokes, with comedians like Letterman taking aim.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Jay is like a whack-a-mole, you know. You think you've canceled him and he pops up on another time period.

WYNTER: Leno has avoided the spotlight since his hiatus, but recently talked to Oprah about the backlash.

LENO: I think it's a little unfair and I am going to work hard to try and rehabilitate that image.

OPRAY WINFREY: Do you think now that that has happened, you will be able to revive "The Tonight Show?"

LENO: I hope so.

WYNTER (on-camera): And Jay is getting a little help with a star- studded line up of guests. Listen to this. You've got Jamie Fox (ph), Brett Favre, oh and Sarah Palin and that's just in the first week. Kareen Wynter, CNN, Burbank, California. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: Kareen Wynter for us, thanks so much. We're going to take a quick break, our top stories coming your way in 90 seconds.

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