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American Morning

BP Ordered to Install Sensors in Pipes For Informational Purposes; Flash Flood in Arkansas Kills 19; Obama's $50 Billion Request; Are You Smart: Picking Your Brain; Alzheimer's Coalition

Aired June 14, 2010 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: We're back with the Most News in the Morning on this Monday, the 14th of June. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm John Roberts.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. We have a lot of big stories we're breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes.

First, it's deadline day for BP. The White House wants the oil giant to pick up the pays demanding a plan by midnight tonight for capturing more gushing oil faster. Meanwhile, President Obama is heading to Mississippi this morning for a two-day visit to the Gulf Coast.

ROBERTS: Search teams will be back in the water and moving piles of tangled trees and debris as the search continues for one person still missing after flash floods tore through an Arkansas campground. Crews have now found a 19th victim. We're live at the scene and speaking with the governor this morning.

CHETRY: Anyone ever called you a "brainiac"? How can you actually prove that you are smart anyway? We're showing how neuroscientists define smarts and give you some easy ways to improve your brain power to become perhaps more intelligent.

ROBERTS: The "A.M. Fix" blog is up and running. Join the live conversation going on right now at CNN.com/amfix.

CHETRY: First up though, this hour, we might find out later this week precisely how much oil is really spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day. BP as a request of government scientists has now installed pressure sensors into the leaking well. This happened yesterday.

The oil giant says it could take a couple of days to get the readings back.

ROBERTS: In about two hours, President Obama will leave the White House bound for Mississippi. He'll be briefed by Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen when he arrives. Later on he'll visit Alabama and Pensacola, Florida, where he will spend the night.

CHETRY: BP has until midnight tonight to present a new plan to the White House for containing the oil spill. The administration wants the oil giant to pick up the pace. President Obama is scheduled to meet face to face with BP executives at the White House Wednesday. Chris Lawrence is live in New Orleans this morning.

What are you hearing about this deadline? There was also a deadline for explaining containment that came to them from the Coast Guard which apparently expired overnight tonight. How is BP dealing with this, trying to meet these deadlines that keep coming on to them, knowing that really they're up against it?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Big changes, Kiran. We just got a look at BP's new plan for the first time just a few minutes ago. This is their new outlined plan in response to that coast guard demand. It is a long, lengthy document but the gist of it is this -- they have installed several new backup plans in case things go wrong, things that account for bad weather like hurricanes.

They are also mobilizing several ships in both South America and Europe and have now speeded up their timetable for collection by two weeks. Originally they thought they would be able to collect about two million gallons of oil per day in mid-July. Now they're saying they will be able to do that by the end of June.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: BP has just started installing the first pieces of a new conduit system it says could contain two million gallons of oil every day. It's supposed to be ready in July.

Crews have also started building the first of six sand berms that could keep oil out of the barrier islands. State officials say it will be done in August.

The here-and-now is oil-soaked birds, tar-stained beaches, and local businesses going bust, which is why the coast guard gave BP a Sunday night deadline to speed up its plans.

The government estimates anywhere from 900,000 to 1.7 million gallons are gushing into the Gulf every day. It told BP to deploy pressure sensors to get a more specific number. On Sunday the company used remote control robots to position those sensors inside the containment cap itself.

But a BP official told us it will take a few days to know if they're sending better information, quote, "It's complex operation, and how effective it will be, we don't know. It's not as if they'll plug these sensors in and get readings right away."

BP says it's capturing 600,000 gallons every day. Starting Tuesday, it plans to re-jigger that top kill system. Now, it didn't work when the ship was pumping mud down to plug the leak, but now the same pipes will suck up oil, and BP claims it can contain another 400,000 gallons a day.

This system can't capture enough oil, so other ships are skimming it off the surface. But as they head towards one beach, the constantly shifting oil slick splashes into another, so the coast guard commander ordered a change in strategy. Skimmers need to get further offshore to collect the oil that's not being captured above the well.

ADM. THAD ALLEN, U.S. COAST GUARD, NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: We're finding out we're getting to a point we need to fight this shore between the shore and offshore well where the oil is starting maybe 50 miles off the coast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: Of course, none of these plans are perfect. Though sand berms may in fact keep the oil from hitting the wetlands, they may also collapse before they do any good, or they could even possibly block some of the water, needed water, that needs to get in there to those barrier islands. Kiran?

CHETRY: How about an update on the wildlife? Any update on how many are possibly being rescued and how badly they're being affected despite the fact they're trying to get these booms, berms and other things in there to try to sop up the oil?

LAWRENCE: Yes. For the first time, Kiran, over the weekend we were allowed into the triage area. Think of sort of an emergency room for these birds. It is where they're taken from the water, they get them in there. We watched them get cleaned off, some of the oil get cleaned off. We watched them inject fluids to try to rehydrate them. And then they would be moved on to a more permanent facility.

The thing that the Coast Guard was really concerned about is, even though they had taken in more than 300, they say many, if not most, oil-soaked birds will sink in a matter of days. They feel the majority of the birds affected by this oil have probably died alone and unaccounted for.

CHETRY: There is also some concern by environmentalists, saying millions of migratory birds start to make their way to that area come August, and if this isn't taken care of, or at least managed better, that they too can suffer. We'll have to wait and see if any more progress is made on that front.

Chris Lawrence for us this morning, thanks so much.

The president is set to address the nation on the oil spill. That's happening 8:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow night. It will be the first time he's used the Oval Office to speak to the American people, and CNN will carry that speech live.

ROBERTS: Some other stories new this morning, the death toll continues to rise from days of ethnic violence in the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. At least 114 people have been killed, more than 1,400 injured. An estimated 80,000 refugees have flooded across the border to neighboring Uzbekistan.

CHETRY: He made his name in song and in sausage. Jimmy Dean died yesterday at his home in Virginia. He was 81 years old. He was a country music singer and TV star in the 1950s and '60s, his signature song, "Big Bad John" in 1961. Then later he went into the sausage business and became a multi-millionaire.

ROBERTS: Graphic new details this morning about Joran van der Sloot's murder confession. In transcripts released by Peruvian police, van der Sloot says he elbowed Stephany Flores in the face in a Lima hotel before strangling her and then suffocating her with his own shirt.

van der Sloot tells police that he thought about hiding the body but fled instead. He is now charged with murder in Florida.

CHETRY: And another day, another round of cancellations. Spirit airlines grounded by a pilot's strike for three days now, the airline canceling all of its flights through tomorrow. Thousands of passengers have been stranded since pilots walked off the job Saturday.

ROBERTS: Team USA still riding high after a tie with England in its World Cup opener on Saturday. They fell way behind early but got a gift from England's goalkeeper to pull out the 1-1 draw. The headlines across the pond read "Hand of Claude." America moves on to play Slovenia on Friday.

CHETRY: The world cup is introducing many Americans to a sound perhaps they wish they hadn't heard. It is turning out to be one of the most annoying sounds in the world according to people who listen to it.

That's a good enough taste of it. If you've tuned in to the World Cup for 30 seconds you've heard fans blowing into these thousands of plastic trumpets nonstop. Now organizers are considering a ban. Hear the World Foundation is warning they are more than simply awful, they can actually make people go deaf and that they're louder than a chain saw.

ROBERTS: They sound like an enormous swamp of mosquitoes.

CHETRY: Or killer bees coming your way.

ROBERTS: It is like the sound you hear in the head just before it pops off.

Eight minutes after the hour.

(WEATHER BREAK)

ROBERTS: The search resuming this morning for the only person still missing after the deadly flash flooding in Arkansas. We'll talk with the governor about the rescue effort and whether anything can be done to prevent a tragedy like this again. Did the warnings go out soon enough? It's ten minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: The search through muddy, mangled piles of debris will continue this morning for one person still missing after flash floods tore through campgrounds in Arkansas. Police say they found a 19th victim yesterday. There was no warning. Survivors talk about a wall of roaring water sweeping away everything in its path.

Our Casey Wian is live for us at the command center in Langley, Arkansas. Casey, this is such an enormous, enormous tragedy. And if there were any warnings, they just came in the middle of the night for people who were sleeping.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, John. It was incredible. When you talk to survivors of this flash flood, they talk about how quickly this water rose. The Little Missouri River normally flows at a level of about three feet. At midnight Friday, that's what it was doing.

Then the rain came quickly, just sheets of rain, and that river was more than 20 feet within a couple hours. Most of those victims and survivors were sleeping at the time. The victims just didn't have time to get out.

And behind me, search and rescue teams are beginning to gather to resume their effort. For three days they've fanned out throughout this area, more than 100 people have searched a 50-mile stretch of the Little Missouri River sometimes as many as two and three times.

The search and rescue efforts have involved searchers on horseback, canine teams. They've been in kayaks, on ATVs. But the search effort has been hampered by extreme heat and extreme humidity. They've seen water moccasins and even fresh bear tracks.

There's also piles of debris throughout the area from the flash flood. There are vehicles littered about, RVs stripped of their skins and just the chassis remains. Vehicles propped up against trees. Splintered cabins knocked off of their foundations, downed trees. It is just an incredibly difficult environment that these search teams are working in.

Survivors tell who harrowing tales of hanging from trees 40 feet in the air just to survive. We spoke with family and group of friends from Louisiana late yesterday. They'd just come back from the campground site. There were nine people in their party, all got out alive, but they were still bloody and bruised from their ordeal, just thankful to be alive, John.

ROBERTS: Casey, for folks who might not have heard too much about this over the weekend, how fast did that water come up and how deep did it get?

WIAN: Well, it got more -- the Little Missouri River normally is about three feet deep. And that's what it was at when the rain first hit Friday night. Excuse me, early Friday morning. It then rose to a level of more than 20 feet within a couple of hours.

And as I said, this was while people were sleeping so it just had -- there was no ability -- there's very little cell phone service in this area. There was no ability to warn those folks. So many of the survivors, the only warning they got is the noise that they heard outside of their tents or outside of their RVs. And many of them say they thought it was wind. But it turned out to be water and they had to scramble to get out.

ROBERTS: Oh, my goodness. Casey Wian for us this morning with the latest on that. Casey, thanks so much.

Coming up at 7:40 Eastern, by the way, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe will be updating us on the victims and the search and rescue effort and as well, we're going to be talking with a young woman who lost three members of her family in our 8:00 hour. She barely managed to escape with her life.

CHETRY: Such a tragedy.

Well, still ahead, we have an "A.M. Original" for you. How do you define intelligence? It's a difficult question to answer, of course, and it's one that inspires a lot of debate. But believe it or not, there is a way, some say, to tell who's smart and who isn't scientifically. Alina Cho is going to be joining us with that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Twenty minutes now after the hour. Christine Romans here "Minding Your Business" this morning. And we heard mantras of "drill baby drill." Now I guess this one is "spend baby spend," right?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right, the president --

CHETRY: But don't call it stimulus.

ROMANS: Don't call it -- whatever you do, do not call new spending in the economy stimulus because we have mid-term elections coming up and Republicans, and you know, frankly, a lot of Democrats are not real keen on spending a lot more money. But the president this weekend sending a letter to congressional leadership saying this is not the time to pull back on some important emergency spending measures because the economy is really at a critical juncture, he says, in the path to recovery.

The president in his three-page letter to Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell saying basically we cannot afford to slide backward, that we must take emergency measures. All told, maybe up to $50 billion in new spending for things like keeping teachers on the job, for helping people pay their premiums for health care insurance, for making sure that first responders have money so that they are out there actually being able to answer 911 calls and the like.

Here's the issue that the president points out in his letter. We have an economy that is in a recovery, but that recovery seems to be pretty fragile. You look at the number of people unemployed, it's still 9.7 percent. You look at the most recent retail sales number. Retail sales fell 1.2 percent in the most recent month. That was a surprise to people. And you have you a 30-year fixed rate mortgage of an unbelievable 4.81 percent. Folks, that is so low for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. But you still have a lot of concerns with the housing market. It's just not going to recover until you see the job situation recover.

So the president is asking for some, you know, solidarity behind some new spending. The letter went over like a letter (ph) balloon with Republicans.

ROBERTS: I'm sure.

ROMANS: And even some Democrats are concerned. Look, they can't support anything in the next few months that's going to turn up in a campaign ad against them as some kind of a new stimulus or spending money we don't have. So it's a tough fight the president has here.

CHETRY: All right. Christine Romans, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Sure.

CHETRY: Oh, what's your numeral? Sorry about that.

ROMANS: Oh, the numeral is 300,000. And this is one of the reasons why the president really makes it personal about this spending. 300,000.

CHETRY: This is how many people sign up for unemployment benefits each month?

ROMANS: This is according to David Axelrod, if you don't spend more money, you're going to have 300,000 teachers out of work. 300,000. That means if you don't find the money to spend --

ROBERTS: That's true, yes.

ROMANS: -- you're going to notice this in your school, in your classroom. This is something --

ROBERTS: State and local budgets.

ROMANS: It affects you. And the president noted that in his letter that state and local people are really in big trouble here.

ROBERTS: OK. And now it's time to say goodbye to all our company.

ROMANS: Or walk (ph).

CHETRY: All right, Christine.

Well, still ahead, Alabama's beaches took quite a beating this weekend. A lot of them now covered in crude oil. The losses are mounting and jobs are vanishing. The governor of Alabama has his own ideas about how to make everyone whole. His plan ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: Whether you've been called book smart or street smart, we'd all like to think that we're intelligent. It's nice when somebody says that from time to time. But what does being smart really mean?

CHETRY: And how do you get there. In our special series, "Are You Smart," Alina Cho took an in-depth look at every aspect of intelligence and she joins us now with part one. So are you just born smart or can you learn it?

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, some people think you can learn it. Book smart, street smart, you guys are both really smart. I'm here to tell you, guys. But, you know, if you think about it, the most famous measure of intelligence, guys, is the IQ test. But have you actually taken it? Many people haven't and does it really tell us if we're smart? What does a smart brain look like? Watch. A lot of what you're about to see may surprise you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEREDITH RESNICK, BRIGHT KIDS NYC: What's this? And what is the man doing? Which one matches this?

You're so smart. Are you sure you're only 3?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CHO (voice-over): He is. But believe it or not, this 3-year-old is taking a special class to prepare him for an entrance exam for kindergarten. Sort of an SAT-style Kaplan course for the toddler set.

RESNICK: It's a little like getting into college to get into kindergarten.

CHO (on camera): Doesn't that seem crazy to you?

RESNICK: It is a crazy system.

CHO (voice-over): It's happening all over the country. In some cases kids are being tested at 27 months, 30 months, barely out of diapers to determine whether they're gifted and talented, smart.

DANIEL PINK, AUTHOR, "A WHOLE NEW MIND": Good God. I mean, a kid tested when they're barely over 2 years old, somehow doesn't pass muster, and that kid goes down an entirely different track from a more precocious 27-month-old? That's insane.

CHO: For adults, the IQ test is the standard. Clear cut, right and wrong answers, average score 100. But researchers say IQ, your intelligence quotient, is only 25 percent of what makes you successful. IQ misses the other 75 percent.

PINK: So what we have here, we have mechanisms that measure an important part but an incomplete part of what it means to be intelligent and what it means to be successful. This ought to alarm us more than it does. Imagine getting into an airplane where the pilot was getting only 25 percent of the data she needed to fly the plane?

CHO: If that's the case, what does it really mean to be smart and how do you get smarter? We went to the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Dr. John Gabrieli is a professor of neuroscience.

DR. JOHN GABRIELI, PROFESSOR OF NEUROSCIENCE, MCGOVERN INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN RESEARCH AT MIT: There's lots of room to change throughout life.

CHO: He showed us computer images of two brains, a composite of a brain with a relatively low IQ, and one with a higher IQ. Look at the lower IQ brain. Lots of activity.

GABRIELI: They're using a lot of their mental resources. They're pushing the gas pedal really hard to do well on this test.

CHO: The higher IQ brain, not so much.

GABRIELI: They're trying smarter, not harder because it's easy for them relatively speaking.

CHO: Smarter brains, simply put, are more efficient.

GABRIELI: We think in many ways the magic of the brain is the wiring. You know, that our brains are really made up of millions of little brains all working together.

CHO (on camera): A smart brain is just processing information much faster than a less smart brain?

GABRIELI: We think that's a huge part of the secret of smartness.

CHO (voice-over): And there is a way to make your brain smarter and it's a new frontier in science.

GABRIELI: So this is an exercise where you have to remember two things at once. That's what makes this hard.

CHO: This mental exercise can help raise your IQ score by about five points in a relatively short amount of time, 30 minutes a day, five times a week for about a month.

(on camera): I'm like completely lost there.

(voice-over): Enough to make your head spin. What's significant about this test is that it shows adult brains can change, and a few points on an IQ test can change your life.

GABRIELI: Every few points you get increases your chances of a better paying job, of a healthy future, of more stability in your family life.

CHO (on camera): And a longer life.

GABRIELI: Even a longer life.

CHO (voice-over): Which is why these kids start so early.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you point to the picture of the season?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pumpkin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The pumpkin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHO: You know what's remarkable about brain research is that even after all of these years of studying the brain, researchers still know very little about it and a genius brain, guys, even less. One researcher told me, you know, you can be really smart. You can be really, really smart, and still there's only one Einstein. Right?

CHETRY: Exactly.

CHO: Yes.

CHETRY: I still can't get over the training of these little kids. They're barely out of diapers and they're learning so that they can do well to get into kindergarten.

CHO: Well, and some critics will say the big problem with that is the way we test people. Why are we testing kids so early? And why aren't we testing them later on in life? I mean, sometimes these kids get tested at 3, 4 years old. They don't get tested again and you get placed in this situation where you're considered smart or not smart and that puts you down different paths. You know, so it's really an interesting way to look at the whole idea of testing. And that's another story but at any rate, it's all fascinating.

CHETRY: It really is.

CHO: Yes.

CHETRY: Alina Cho, thanks so much. And as Alina was saying, IQ tests are not the only way to judge smart. In fact, some say that emotional intelligence is actually much more accurate in determining whether or not people succeed in life. Ever heard of emotional intelligence? Well, watch tomorrow for part two of our series, "Are you Smart?"

ROBERTS: We're crossing the half hour now. That means it's time for this morning's top stories.

Scouring miles of muddy, jagged terrain, search teams in Arkansas looking for one person still missing after last week's deadly campground flood. The 19th victim was found yesterday. Ten minutes away, we'll talk to Arkansas governor Mike Beebe about the devastation.

CHETRY: Also back on earth, four billion miles and seven years later, a Japanese space capsule landed in the Australian outback over night and scientists say that they think it may hold the first-ever samples of an a asteroid. And that could help them better understand the origin and evolution of the solar system. The capsule is headed to Tokyo where it will be cracked open in a couple of weeks.

ROBERTS: And back to the Gulf, President Obama's two-day trip to the oil-soaked region will again focused on the response to the catastrophe. He'll make stops seeing hard hit Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And tomorrow night, the president will tell the country what so many are wondering - and that is what now?

CHETRY: With fish, birds and livelihoods dying quickly in the Gulf, the governor of Alabama is bashing the Obama administration and demanding better coordination.

Jobs in that state are simply evaporating. And with crude now washing up on Alabama's beaches, tourism and the fishing industry are simply dead. Republican Governor Bob Riley wants to know where the White House plan is. He says he has one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, HOST, "STATE OF THE NATION": Governor, let me just hone in on this a little bit. Because who gets compensated? You've got oil workers who can't work because there's no deep water drilling. You've got shop owners who don't have customers. Hotels with empty rooms. You've got fishermen with no place to fish. Give us an idea of who gets money from BP. Everybody?

GOV. BOB RILEY (R), ALABAMA: Every one of them.

CROWLEY: Really?

RILEY: Absolutely. I don't think there is a dividing line. I don't think you can say that one group is going to get it and another one doesn't. If a restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama is off 50 percent because tourists didn't come. I think he is owed 50 percent of his revenues from last year. Same thing with anyone in these areas. Because the whole economy is based on the tourist market.

And when it goes away, someone's got to compensate them, because most of these people are not going to be here next year if we don't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: That was Governor Riley talking to our Candy Crowley on the "State of the Union." It was a tough day for Alabamans yesterday. The state's beaches got their first heavy coating of crude oil.

ROBERTS: Anger and frustration are mounting this morning for thousands along the Gulf coast. So far their beaches remain white but the odor of oil is in the air. The locals say it's so strong, it can actually make you dizzy. That's the way that it is these days in Hancock County, Mississippi, as Reynolds Wolf reports the enemy is near and everyone is on edge.

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, John and Kiran, as the oil continues to rise up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, tempers on shore continue to rise. We had special access behind the scenes to a community meeting and got to see some of the anger firsthand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The meeting with the state Attorney General Jim Hood went well.

WOLF (voice-over): In Hancock County, Mississippi, this team of emergency managers huddles over their game strategy. But it doesn't take long to see a referee might be needed.

WENDY MACDONALD, COUNCILWOMAN, BAY ST. LOUIS, MS: How many days have we been here? We've got a plan. They're working on a plan. How much more evidence do we need that it is time to do something?

WOLF: For city councilwoman Wendy MacDonald that evidence came this week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the area where the bird was.

WOLF: Jesse (inaudible) was there when this brown pelican was rescued. Tests confirmed it suffered from oil exposure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beautiful, beautiful bird.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he alive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am.

WOLF: The team makes progress but then, another setback. Allegations of rerouted supplies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom from I don't know where it was coming from, but Alabama intercepted it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I just think we got to get more productive on that part of it.

STEVE SEYMOUR, HANCOCK CO., SUPERVISOR: We got enough law enforcement. They going to try to take our stuff? It isn't going to happen this time. I guess I'm venting over here and I apologize to all of you.

WOLF: The players are tense, despite a hard-fought victory this week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just arrived yesterday at 3:00 so I've got a lot to do.

WOLF: After repeated requests, the joint command finally assigned a representative to the county.

COMMANDER PETE KILLER, U.S. COAST GUARD: I'm basically here to help you folks in regards to try to get some communication going between here and the incident command post. WOLF: The communication they desperately seek. Answers. When will the encroaching oil taint their beloved coast?

How close is this oil getting to shore?

JESSE FINERAN, HANCOCK CO., MS HAZMAT: We can smell it, we can taste it but they're telling us it's not here.

WOLF (on camera): We're going to take a look around with the Mississippi Army National Guard and see if their luck's going to cold. Let's go on board.

(voice-over): This bird's-eye view gives Hancock County a fighting chance in this unfair game.

LT. COL. STEPHEN MCCRANEY, MS NATIONAL GUARD: We have assessment teams that are on the beaches. We're flying above their locations every day with the (inaudible) with the helicopters and to make sure that we identify any hazard far enough away that it can be taken care of before it gets to the beach.

WOLF: Good news. Today, it's a win. No visible signs of oil as we travel the shorelines and for miles off the coast. It is an added comfort to Hancock County's leaders knowing they aren't fighting alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They sent the National Guard. It is a home game to us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF: Well, John and Kiran, we checked with joint command to find if a boom had been redeployed from Mississippi to Alabama and are told that real-time decisions often affect where the boom will go. Also as a note, both Alabama and Mississippi have roughly the same amount. That's the latest. Let's send it back to you.

CHETRY: All right. Reynolds Wolf for us this morning, thanks so much.

It just shows you though how much frustration is out there and how difficult it is to allocate these resources and get the whole, you know, everything organized quickly enough for some of these local communities.

ROBERTS: It's such a big area and there are so many areas of concern as well. And oil appears, as you know, then it goes away, then shows up over here. There are just so many other things to try to coordinate. I mean calling in the military might not be a bad idea because they need some huge coordination machine to get this all going in the same direction.

CHETRY: Something that General Honore was saying a month ago. You know -

ROBERTS: Senator Ben Nelson from Florida as well. CHETRY: Absolutely.

All right. Well, still ahead, another tragedy over the weekend. One of nature's quickest and most violent strikes, flash flooding. People were asleep in their cabins at a popular Arkansas campground when water rose eight feet an hour. A flash flood with no warning and complete darkness. Can anybody be done to stop a tragedy like this in the future? We're talking to the governor next. It's 37 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: 40 minutes past the hour right now.

Welcome back to the most news in the morning. The search is continuing this morning for one person still missing somewhere in the mud, water and debris after a devastating flash flood wiped out a campsite in Arkansas, a popular campsite this time of year.

19 people are now confirmed dead. But there are also a lot of questions this morning about how this happened and what, if anything, can be done to stop it from happening again.

And here to help us with some of those answers this morning, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe. Thanks for being with us this morning, governor.

GOV. MIKE BEEBE, ARKANSAS: Good to be with you, Kiran.

CHETRY: Wish it was under better circumstances, of course.

BEEBE: Sure.

CHETRY: But update us on the latest this morning of how many people are still considered missing and unaccounted for in the wake of this devastating flash flood.

BEEBE: Well, the number that's confirmed that - that were in the campsite that's still missing is just one. Now we had reports of other people that might have been in the area, family members that had called in to a hotline to try to determine. But so far, the only person that we know was in the area who is unaccounted for was just one person.

CHETRY: And I understand some of the difficulty is because the records at the campground were washed away in this instance. There were many different areas where people could come into the campground and it is a big area where people set up camp. Are you confident though that these numbers will hold? I know that over the weekend there was a much larger number of people feared missing, and now we have just one person unaccounted for.

Well, I think there's still a possibility there could be others because as you point out, the places where the people actually registered, the information there was washed away with that flood. But also, as you point out, there are a number of areas where people go that they don't check in to this campsite registration area.

Number of areas where they just go directly to a remote campsite. So the possibility exists that there were a number of people who never would have been registered, had their records still been available, had they not washed away. So that's part of the difficulty, that people are having trying to determine how many people are still unaccounted for.

Today's Monday. To the extent that people go back to work, we are keeping the hotline open so that if somebody doesn't show up for work that was suggested might have been camping somewhere, there will be additional information that we can find. And as the water has gone down, there's been additional evidence gathered with regard to some of the automobiles and license plates that were in the area.

CHETRY: Right.

And governor, we have put the hotline up on the bottom of the screen as well so people can call for information. And just to give people a sense who are not familiar with it, I want to show a map really quickly of the area so that people can understand a little bit more just what happened here.

This is an area in Arkansas right there. There's the river that's quite close to it. And they just got an enormous amount of rain. They say the little Missouri River was at four feet and in just a few hours that it shot up to 23 feet.

BEEBE: That's correct.

CHETRY: And you can imagine this happening at 2:00 in the morning when most people there had gone to bed for the night. Talk us through what this area is like and just how difficult it was for those who did survive to get out?

BEEBE: Well, it's a very remote area. That's the reason a lot of people like to go there. It is truly a wilderness area that's virtually no cell phone service because of the mountains and because of the valleys. This is an area that people like to go for those very reasons.

The mountains are fairly high all around it, so that the water shed actually flows all down into the little Missouri River. They had pretty much unprecedented amount of rain in a very short period of time. It struck at obviously the worst time when people are asleep. You mentioned 2:00 in the morning. It was probably more like about 3:00 when the worst of the actual crest of the flooding between 3:00 and 5:00 in the morning.

CHETRY: Right.

BEEBE: Most people were asleep. So it was really without any warning at all that those folks were inundated with that rush of water.

CHETRY: Right. BEEBE: Not just the amount of water but the speed with which the water was coming through there. It tore chunks of asphalt out of a parking lot and jammed or wedged that asphalt under other pieces of asphalt.

CHETRY: Yes, and you see the cars - the cars are literally huge, you know, SUVs and other cars just flipped upside down in this situation. I want to ask you though because you mentioned the timing. The weather service put out a warning over the radio at 2:00 a.m. obviously that probably wouldn't be heard by that many people.

But moving forward in an effort to prevent any tragedy like this happening again, are there other systems in place, perhaps warnings, sirens, something because I understand that cell service is difficult in that area too because it is so remote. Are there any plans to put something else in place to make sure that a tragedy like this doesn't happen again?

BEEBE: Well, the U.S. Forest Service actually operates this area. I know they have indicated that when all of this is over they want to review all those procedures to determine whether unmanned camp sites like this, camp sites that don't have somebody up and awake 24 hours a day, are something that they're going to try to change.

As I indicated, the remoteness, the remote nature of this area is what attracts people to begin with. So about the only way I know of that they would have done something different in this situation would be that if they had somebody tuned to the weather - the weather warning apparatus and had some methodology to be able to wake everybody up. But even then it would have been a very short notice.

As you pointed out, weather service warning was an hour or less from the time that the water came through, so I'm not sure how far, even if they'd have had somebody that was manning that campsite 24/7, whether or not they would have been able to get all that word to everybody that quickly.

CHETRY: Well, just a shocking tragedy. Our hearts go out to everybody who's dealing with this right now.

And again, we do have our - your emergency management number up and a little bit later we're going to be talking to some other relatives and people who've gone to this campsite for their entire lives and nothing like this has ever happened.

Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas, thanks for joining us this morning.

BEEBE: You bet. Thank you, Kiran.

CHETRY: Well, we're going to take a quick break. It's 46 minutes past the hour. Jacqui Jeras will be along with your travel forecast in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: Good morning, Tampa, where it's 82 degrees right now. It's hot and stinky outside, and later on today it's going to be even hotter and stinky, at 96 degrees.

When I say stinky I don't mean it's actually going to smell, but it will be very sticky. And boy, talk about -

CHETRY: That's a better word.

ROBERTS: Yes. Talk about heat along the Gulf Coast, last week and on the weekend, oh, my goodness.

Jacqui Jeras is looking into things.

CHETRY: Yes, she is, and, you know, that's really - I mean, the way it is today, the heat indices, as you call them, it's making it feel like what? Nearly 115 in some parts of the South? Unreal.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, really brutal, and Tampa feeling like 103 today. And thank you for that stinky clarification, by the way, John.

It's sticky, hot, humid, sultry, juicy. That's the state of the atmosphere across the Southeast. And when you add the humidity along with that temperature, it's really unbearable. So you want to do your outdoor activities early today if you can.

And there you see the heat advisories in the orange. We have this across the lower Mississippi River Valley and also across the coast of the Carolinas and into Georgia. Temperatures on the thermometer well into the 90s, but feeling like pushing even 112 at times this afternoon.

The nation's midsection's got a lot of moisture, too, but of a different sort, and this is some heavy showers and thunderstorms that have just been pounding the area day after day. This is moving into Kansas City. This is moving off towards Chicago and Milwaukee, so do expect to see some delays later on today.

The ground very saturated. Flooding is a huge concern. We've got watches all across the area in the red boxes there. That's where we have those warnings. We do expect a slight risk of these thunderstorms will become severe a little bit later on this afternoon.

That's a look at the nation's forecast. John and Kiran will be back on AMERICAN MORNING right after this break.

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ROBERTS: A massive all-out effort is happening to improve the treatment of brain diseases like Alzheimer's. Eleven American pharmaceutical companies, typically competitors, are pooling their data in hopes of making a medical breakthrough with the disease.

Joining us from Tucson this morning to explain this unusual arrangement is Dr. Raymond Woosley. He is the founder of the Critical Path Institute, which is spearheading this effort.

Doctor, thanks for being with us this morning. You know, it is so rare for drug companies to be working together. What spearheaded this effort? How did you put this all together?

DR. RAYMOND WOOSLEY, FOUNDER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CRITICAL PATH INSTITUTE: Well, I think it's just a sign of how serious this tsunami is that's coming at us. You know, over 7 million - almost 7 million Americans have either Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, and the companies came to us a couple of years ago and said we're getting nowhere.

Everything we try is not working. We're making some symptomatic improvement, but the disease is just going unchecked. And they said the - the way they look at it right now, if they had a good drug that was working, they wouldn't be able to prove it because of the data that - that was missing on this drug.

So they asked us, could we sit down with the Food and Drug Administration and pool what we know about this disease with them and come up with a better understanding of the disease, because some people develop it in their 40s or 50s.

ROBERTS: Yes.

WOOSLEY: Sometimes in their 80s. It's so variable. There's no way an effective drug could be found, so --

ROBERTS: You said just -

WOOSLEY: -- they've done that.

ROBERTS: -- you said just a moment ago that five million people are suffering from Alzheimer's, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, more than a million with Parkinson's, together it adds up to almost seven million now, but you talked about this tsunami that's on the way. How many people are expected to have Alzheimer's disease in the next 15 to 20 years?

WOOSLEY: Well, it's expect - it's gone up 46 percent just in the last two years, so it is skyrocketing as - as people live longer. And I think the other very important point is, it's not one disease, it's a symptom complex.

ROBERTS: Sure.

WOOSLEY: And that's why we're studying Parkinson's, because they're both just diseases in which the nerves die.

ROBERTS: You know, and I -

WOOSLEY: And if they die --

ROBERTS: I mentioned - I mentioned this to you when we're off camera that my mother passed away from Alzheimer's disease back at the beginning of March, and the one thing that we - we've just - was so frustrating was the relentless progression of the disease. Nothing seemed to work.

So what - what do you think might be the most promising areas of research here?

WOOSLEY: Well, I think the first thing we need to do is look at the genetics, and that's what our database that the companies have created will allow. We're going to be able to put in the genetic factors that we've already have found in smaller studies are associated with certain characteristics of the disease.

We'll be able to put in the images, the MRI, some of the biochemicals that are associated with disease progression. Then, we can start finding that subset of the disease that's more likely to respond to some of these targeted therapies.

The pharmaceutical industry's done - and the NIH has done some wonderful research, but it's failing because we just don't understand these diseases very well.

ROBERTS: Well, maybe if you put all these heads together and almost like a Manhattan Project-type of operation, something will get done because, you know, a lot of people are looking for a breakthrough.

Dr. Raymond Woosley, good to talk to you this morning, and - and, really, from the bottom of my heart, best of luck with this effort. We could all use a little help.

WOOSLEY: Thank you, John.

ROBERTS: All right.

Fifty-seven minutes after the hour. Top stories are coming your way in just two minutes. Stay with us.

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