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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Ivan Devastates Gulf Coast; Grim Report on the Future of Iraq From U.S. Intelligence Community; Defense Attempts To Suppress Evidence In Michael Jackson Case

Aired September 16, 2004 - 19:00   ET

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

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


ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening, I'm Anderson Cooper, live from Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Tonight, the power of Hurricane Ivan, and the devastation left behind.

360 starts now.

ANNOUNCER: Gulf Coast pounded by terrible Ivan, leaving a trail of destruction, assessing the danger, damage, and deaths on 360.

Millions evacuated, but scores hunkered down and rode out the deadly storm. Stories of surviving Mother Nature.

A grim report from the nation's own intelligence community. Will there be a civil war in Iraq?

Is CBS questioning its own report over President Bush's National Guard record, softening its defense on the documents in question?

And legal drama in the case against Michael Jackson. King of pop's lawyers want evidence thrown out. We're following the case.

Live from Gulf Shores, Alabama, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COOPER: Good evening from Gulf Shores, Alabama, a town hit and hit hard by Hurricane Ivan.

This is the place where the storm actually came ashore less than 24 hours ago. What a night it was. We're going to have a lot of coverage on that tonight.

Take a look behind me, though, at some of the devastation, some of the floodwaters that have come from the Gulf, come over the barrier island, and inundated this area, debris strewn all around. It is a surreal scene. This water is not supposed to be here. That is supposed to be a road.

We'll show you some of the devastation that's been left behind tonight, but first, a look back at the storm, and what today was like for residents here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): It was a dark and stormy night, really. But this was no dimestore novel. As the storm crawled north out of the Gulf, it blasted communities all along the coast, ripping down power lines, trees, and damaging buildings.

JOHN MCNEIL, MOBILE, ALABAMA, RESIDENT: It was a rough night. This was -- you know, one of the scary things about sitting one of these things out is listening to the pine trees snapping all night. Sounds like somebody snapping their fingers, and then you hear the big crash when it hits the ground. You can't see anything, because it's pitch-black dark, but it's scary.

COOPER: Tornadoes spawned by the storm took at least seven lives in the Florida Gulf Coast. In the middle of it, fires broke out as well, posing a dangerous challenge for emergency workers.

JOHN DALY, PANAMA CITY BEACH FIRE CHIEF: We had four or five trailers burn. We were here last night, or early in the morning, with one trailer that caught another one on fire. The winds just spread the flames to each trailer.

COOPER: Before Ivan had moved very far inland, power outages were affecting thousands of residents, as more tornadoes and flooding were feared.

GOV. BOB RILEY, ALABAMA: So we're talking about today in the state of Alabama, we probably have between 800,000 and 850,000 customers without power. And it's going to continue to grow. And when it goes into Birmingham, we could very well have over 1 million people without power.

COOPER: Today, along the beach in Gulf Shores, where the storm first came ashore, the barrier island is under water, the homes flooded.

(on camera): We talked a lot last night about that storm surge. Well, here you really see the results. The waters from the Gulf broke over the barrier island, flooding out all those homes. They're all stranded. We can't even get over there.

This is normally a small lagoon. The waters rose, just swept up over here, bringing people's possessions, flooding people's homes. This home here, very badly damaged. You see this a lot all around Gulf Shores.

And people's possessions are just laying all around. Here's someone's life preserver.

(voice-over): Roads are littered with debris, boats, and hot tubs left behind by receding water. The zoo in Gulf Shores was evacuated before the storm, but some animals were left behind, and they escaped, causing problems all day for local police and zoo officials.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were six alligators that were five to six feet that are somewhere floating around in that body of water there. But we were real interested (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Chucky. And his -- he's about 12 feet, and weighs anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's still missing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he is unaccounted-for at this moment. We had a canoe in there. We've been looking for him for three hours. So we cannot send people in to assess more of the damages in there until we find the big boy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So on top of all the other problems, there's now a alligator named Chucky somewhere on the loose.

I just want to show you some of the debris that we're seeing just around us. It's very eerie, I mean, you see people's possessions kind of laying all around.

But there's also wildlife. I mean, this bird here, we think it's a tern, it's still alive, it's clearly been injured. You know, and you see this a lot. I mean, we've been seeing a lot of wildlife just kind of damaged with -- you know, it's one of those things. You're not sure what to do. It's -- we'll try to do what we can after the program, to see if we can try to get some help for it.

But, you know, there's a, there's a lot of damage here in this town. We want to talk to the mayor of Gulf Shores.

Mayor, if you could come in, appreciate you joining us.

MAYOR DAVID BODENHAMER, GULF SHORES, ALABAMA: Sure.

COOPER: What, how bad were you hit?

BODENHAMER: Well, in some respects, we made out a little better than we could have probably hoped for, in the residential areas north of Fort Morgan Road here. But in the beach area, we finally got a chance late this afternoon to -- myself, the chief of police, and our city administrator to go in and get at least a superficial assessment of the beach.

COOPER: Yes, we're, we're, we were talking about the beach area. I mean, that's, that's, what, like, six blocks from here.

BODENHAMER: Yes, we're talking about half a mile...

COOPER: Half a mile.

BODENHAMER: ... or so more down...

COOPER: And water, it's basically water from -- I mean, the -- it's all water that's up there.

BODENHAMER: It's solid water, except about the last 300 yards to the beach.

COOPER: Wow.

BODENHAMER: Yes.

COOPER: And, and, and how are the homes out there? I mean, we, I saw the barrier -- you know, the shore, the homes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BODENHAMER: A lot of roof damage out there, a lot of structures appear to still be intact. We can't tell much about, you know, structural integrity at this time. Most of them, however, inundated with water, lots of water.

COOPER: Have you ever seen any flooding like this?

BODENHAMER: We had water at this same level to this point after Hurricane Frederic, but not to this extent.

COOPER: Right.

BODENHAMER: This is a lot more water, and I think it's due primarily to the fact that when the eyewall crossed us last night, we got a lot of west wind...

COOPER: Right.

BODENHAMER: ... on the tail end when the eye came through. We didn't get that in Frederic. And we had another cut further down the beach that cut through from the Gulf, the little lagoon, and it pushed this water back on top of us. So, no, we've not had this extent of flooding before.

COOPER: How long do you think the water's going to stay here?

BODENHAMER: It's hard to say. We sent a crew down to look at that cut late this afternoon. Water is pouring out of the lagoon into the Gulf, which is a good thing, but at the same time that was happening this afternoon, the current was running from west to east across Highway 59. It appears that has calmed down somewhat, so hopefully with a day, day and a half, maybe some of this will recede, at least to where we can get through with four-wheel-drive vehicles.

COOPER: But in terms of injuries, I mean, how are the people here?

BODENHAMER: We're not aware that we have any injuries. None have been reported to us. I mean, that's not 100 percent, but we are not aware of any at this time.

COOPER: Well, I know you got (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a lot of work. I mean, do you have any sense of, I mean, the financial damage here? Do you...

BODENHAMER: We have no idea.

COOPER: No.

BODENHAMER: We are supposed to schedule a flyover tomorrow with our emergency management people, to try to determine the extent of the damage in the beach area. Because all we got to see today was just a very small thumbnail at the main public beach area.

COOPER: Yes. You know, you see this kind of stuff on TV. Actually being here, seeing it in person, how does it compare?

BODENHAMER: Well, we've been through it before, not to this extent. But, you know, our people are very resilient in this community, and it will take some time, but, you know, we'll get to work whenever we're finally able to finally let people on the island and get cleaned up and get back to business.

COOPER: Well, you got a beautiful town, I know it's going to be beautiful again. We appreciate you joining us.

BODENHAMER: Thanks so much.

COOPER: Thanks very much. Good luck to you.

BODENHAMER: Appreciate it.

COOPER: We've seen a lot of damage in a lot of different places. Want to check in with CNN's David Mattingly, who rode out the storm last night just a few miles, I think, from where I am. Let's check in how things are where Dave is. Dave?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In pitch darkness, the unmistakable roar of wind told Nikki Dawsey something terrible had happened. Just down the road, the double-wide mobile home of her aunt and uncle, Melvin and Frances Terria (ph) of Calhoun County, Florida, was caught in the path of Ivan-spawned tornado.

NIKKI DAWSEY, TORNADO SURVIVOR: Oh, they were good people. They were good people. They would help anybody in this world, no matter who they were, or how bad they were. They were good people.

MATTINGLY: Dausy's uncle died at the scene, as did her cousin Donna. Her aunt and two other cousins were badly injured. Their home was utterly shattered. Finding something to salvage was almost impossible.

(on camera): These cement posts are all that's left of the couple's home. According to family members, they had been through storms before, and this time they thought they would be OK.

But when the tornado hit, it picked up their home and threw it over there into the neighbors' house.

(voice-over): The neighbors, who also decided to stay, survived. In all, four people were killed in this tiny panhandle community near Blountstown (ph), 50 miles from the nearest beach, but not far enough to escape a deadly Hurricane Ivan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Eight tornadoes touched the ground from Ivan, killing six people, two of them right here in Bay County, Florida. And Bay County is not finished with Ivan yet. We have now gone 24 straight hours with nonstop gale-force winds, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, David, it's so much damage, so many places. Thanks very much for that.

West of where Dave Mattingly is, that's east of me about 45 minutes, we're going to check in with Chris Lawrence. He is in Pensacola, a town hard hit by Hurricane Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As bad as it looks the day after, living through Ivan was that much worse. Doctors and nurses at this Pensacola hospital are still shocked at how hard this storm hit them.

BARBARA TILSON, NURSE: I lived through Opel here with the hospital, and it was nothing compared to what it was like this time. Nothing.

LAWRENCE: When the hurricane hit, the hospital was cut off for hours.

TILSON: We had patients in those rooms, and they were quadriplegics and patients that couldn't move themselves, and worrying whether or not they would blow out the window (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I know that sounds crazy, but you're scared when you're on the second floor like that and the windows break.

SUSANNE DEATON, HOSPITAL SUPERVISOR: So we started getting rain in and wind, and so we had to get the patients on out into the hallway.

DEBY VARNEDOE, NURSE: And even though we were scared and terrified of what was going on, we tried not to let the staff know that we felt that, even though they could hear everything, glass breaking and windows popping open and flooding. We tried not to let them realize how scared we was.

LAWRENCE: That fear is gone, but for Nurse Deby Varnedoe, it's only been replaced by anxiety.

VARNEDOE: A lot of us don't even know if we have homes to go to.

LAWRENCE: She's obviously hoping for the best, and a home that looks nothing like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: And right now, it's anybody's guess what she's going to find when she actually gets home.

We spoke with another nurse, who was actually working in that building when the walls literally started peeling away from the building. Other staff rushed into that part of the building, they ran out. And when she got back to a safer part of the building, she told us she felt lucky to be alive.

Then, a few hours later, her husband called her to tell her their entire home had been destroyed, Anderson.

COOPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), still lucky to be alive. That is just terrible. Chris Lawrence, thanks very much for that.

Want to check in now with Jacqui Jeras at the CNN Center in Atlanta with a look. Because this is, this storm is still out there, it is still dangerous, it's a tropical storm, and it's hitting Atlanta hard.

Jacqui, where is the storm right now, and how bad is it?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the center of the storm right now is over northern Alabama, but all the problems have been in Georgia, for the most part, though we have had some flooding problems around Birmingham, where radar is estimating anywhere between five and six inches of rain has fallen just on the east side of the city.

Atlanta has been getting pummeled over the last couple of hours. This main line that caused all the trouble, and maybe a little bit of rotation, is now pushed off to the east. But we do have reports of some power outages and quite a few trees down, especially on the west and south side of town at this hour.

Jackson, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport was stopped for about an hour and a half. We have a live picture to show you what the conditions are like there right now. Twenty-three-mile-per-hour wind gusts reported at the top of the hour, with rain coming down. I guess some of the planes are coming and going, but delays are estimated to be up to five hours.

Let's go back to the map, and show you where the tornado watches remain in effect. We're likely going to see these bumped farther on up to the north as we head into the latter part of tonight. And then rainfall is going to be our big focus, once the tornado activity starts to die down.

You can see that flood watches and warnings are in effect all across the Southeast, and even extend as far northward as Pennsylvania, as the system stalls out across the Appalachians. Forecast track has it moving into the Carolinas late in the period.

We also have one other storm to talk about, tropical storm Jeanne, moving across the Dominican Republic. That is expected to be moving towards the Bahamas late in the week, and maybe taking aim towards the United States early next week, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, it is just hard to believe there's another storm heading this way out there. That is certainly not good news. Jacqui Jeras, it's, at least, it's not, definitely it's not as strong, though, I mean, it's not anywhere as strong as Hurricane Ivan, right?

JERAS: No, not at this time. In fact, the extended forecast, you can see only has it as a category two, as it gets closer to the United States. There's also one other storm, believe it or not, today. We have a tropical depression, which developed as TD-12. It's just right there on the edge of your screen.

And we'll end it on a good note, Anderson. Right now, the computer model forecast has it curving on up to the north, and hopefully being a fishing storm.

COOPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), let's hope for that, at least get it out of there over some water away from people. Jacqui Jeras, thanks very much for that. Thanks for tracking the storm for us...

JERAS: OK.

COOPER: ... in the last couple days as well. You did a great job.

We are live from Gulf Shores, Alabama a town very hit, hit very badly, hit hard. Debris all around. We'll have more reports from here.

There's also an alligator on the loose. It's a 1,000-pound alligator named Chucky. It's a little bit of a concern to us all here, standing on the water's edge.

Coming up next on 360, a grim outlook for Iraq. Tenuous security, or all-out civil war? The new intel report that takes a look ahead. Find out how it's playing on the campaign trail.

Plus, new poll numbers that show a very tight race indeed.

Also Dan Rather, in a fight over credibility. Can a story be half right? We'll take a closer look at that.

And a mountain of evidence and leaks to the press. The Michael Jackson case back in court.

First, let's take a look at your picks, the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And we are live in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Want to show you how people are getting around here, really the only way to get out to actually the shore here, which is about six blocks from where I am, is by boat. You can see some people in a boat there moving around.

The problem is, there are alligators on the loose here. The zoo here flooded. It had been evacuated before the storm, but a number of alligators and deer they left behind. About a dozen or so deer, they escaped during the storm, and a bunch of alligators, about six alligators are on the loose. They shot one of them.

But there's one out here, it's 1,000 pounds, they call it Chucky, and they say it is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you got to consider it very dangerous, because they, I mean, they basically frankly say, it will eat you. So they're warning people to be on the lookout. They've been hunting it all day. But Chucky's, is still out there. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), as soon as it gets a little bit dark here, I think we're going to get a -- move away from the water, because I don't want to meet Chucky.

We're going to get back to the story of Ivan in a few moments, and there are so many stories of survival and courage last night to tell you about.

But first want to talk a little bit about politics and Iraq. You don't have to be an expert on physics to know that anything that bounces up also comes back down, and you don't have to be an expert on politics to know that when often the same thing that happens with a bounce in the polls follows a political convention.

Case in point, the latest poll by the Pew Research Center. Now, it was conducted at the beginning of the week, and it shows the race among registered voters dead even at 46 percent each. President Bush holds a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 46 percent among likely voters now. Now, just a week ago, President Bush had a 12-point lead in the exact same poll. Take it for what it's worth.

A political thinker once wrote, "I'm a pessimist because of intelligence but an optimist because of will." There's a new intelligence report on Iraq's future that is pretty pessimistic, to say the least. And it says that the best-case scenario is basically tenuous stability, while the worst case is outright civil war, and that would be a disaster.

At the same time, President Bush, who got that report in over the summer, remains optimistic amid renewed attacks from his political opponents today.

Here's CNN's national correspondent Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president had the same public reaction to the Iraq prognosis that he's had for weeks, a nonreaction.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It wasn't all that long ago that Saddam Hussein was in power with his torture chambers, and mass graves, and today this country is headed toward elections. Freedom's on the march.

FRANKEN: President Bush saw the assessment in late July, another example, charged his opponent, of avoiding the truth.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence.

FRANKEN: The vice president wasn't about to let that go unanswered.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator Kerry said today that leadership starts with telling the truth. The American people also know that true leadership requires the ability to make a decision.

FRANKEN: One leading Democrat says the truth is even more dreary.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The report was written quite some time ago, so the only conclusion really that one can draw from that, and -- is that it's a lot worse since it was written.

FRANKEN: Republicans insist there is no effort to deceive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the American people are getting adequate information to make up their own minds about that controversial war.

FRANKEN (on camera): The White House press secretary contended the estimate really states the obvious. The stakes, he went on, are very high in Iraq, as they certainly are in this election campaign.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, the stakes are high all around now.

On the ground in Iraq, there's more trouble. Three contractors, two of them Americans, were kidnapped from their Baghdad residence in the early morning hours yesterday.

Senior international correspondent Walt Rodgers is in Baghdad these days, where optimism seems to be in short supply.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The two Americans and one British contractor living here believed an Iraqi security guard was protecting them overnight, but the guard disappeared, evaporated.

These U.S. soldiers arrived after the three contractors were kidnapped by what neighbors say were 11 armed men. There was no U.S. Army presence, the Army stretched far too thinly to protect much other than themselves.

LT. GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY: Well, it's a tough time, because we're in a period where the Iraqi security forces still don't have the capabilities that they'll need to take on an even greater share of the load.

RODGERS: There also have been brazen attempts to breach the perimeter of the so-called green zone, the highly fortified home of the U.S. and British embassies and interim Iraqi government. Questions now exist about whether the green zone's perimeter can be defended.

This week's car bombing, killing 47, prompted one U.S. general to say he simply cannot provide protection to all of Baghdad.

Iraqis have known that for months, that wherever they go, they could be blown up by car bombs or random mortar fire or kidnapped. The result, the U.S. is losing goodwill rapidly.

ROSEMARY HOLLIS, MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: You didn't need to create this hornet's nest. You didn't need to incite hatred more than there was already across the region by literally invading, and as far as a lot of Arabs are concerned, raping a country.

RODGERS (on camera): Amid renewed talk of civil war, it's useful to remember little is inevitable. Things could improve. But the trend now is discouraging.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, 360 next, credibility and dubious documents. Did someone pull a fast one on Dan Rather? We'll take a closer look at that.

Also, a little later in the program tonight, a mountain of evidence in the Michael Jackson case. Find out why lawyers are now fighting over all that evidence.

And more from Alabama ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to New York. We'll be back to Anderson Cooper in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in just a moment, but we wanted to bring you up to date on some of the other news.

CBS News is still under fire for its "60 Minutes" report on President Bush, and how he may have used preferential treatment to get into the National Guard during the Vietnam area. The latest development is from a woman who remembers vividly what happened 30 years ago when Mr. Bush was serving in the National Guard.

Here's Howard Kurtz, the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES" (voice-over): Eight days after the firestorm began over the "60 Minutes" piece charging that President Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard, CBS still insists the story is true.

The problem is that the 30-year-old documents on which the piece is based increasingly look like they may be fake. The latest and most damaging witness to question the memos, supposedly written by Bush's late squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, is an 86-year-old woman. Marion Knox was Colonel Killian's secretary, says she typed memos for him, and she told Dan Rather yesterday, as she had told some newspaper reporters, that the "60 Minutes" copies aren't real.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "60 MINUTES," CBS)

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS: You've seen the memos that we broadcast, these memos that we got.

MARION KNOX: I did not type those memos.

RATHER: You didn't type these memos.

KNOX: No. And it's not the form that I would have used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Several of CBS's own document experts are now saying they warned the network that it wasn't clear the memos could have been typed on a 1972 government typewriter.

Emily Will told me she had raised a series of red flags in writing. Linda James told me she saw serious problems and told CNN that she had advised "60 Minutes" not to air the story.

LINDA JAMES, DOCUMENT EXPERT: I believe I did say it that way, but my main was to caution them not to use the handwriting part, because there was incomplete evidence, and that I could not authenticate these documents for them.

KURTZ: Forty House Republicans, led by majority whip Roy Blunt, have demanded that CBS issue a retraction. But the network continues to defend the story, in part because Marion Knox says these memos reflect her late boss's view that Lieutenant Bush was getting favorable treatment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "60 MINUTES," CBS)

RATHER: Does that sound like Colonel Killian? Is that the way he felt?

KNOX: That's absolutely the way he felt about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Still, CBS is starting to back off just a bit. Dan Rather told me last night that, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story."

(on camera): Can a story about the president of the United States be true if the papers used to prove the case are false? Put it this way, would CBS accept that explanation from a government agency? Until the network either uncovers new evidence or admits its mistake, the media's focus will remain not on George Bush but on Dan Rather and "60 Minutes."

Howard Kurtz, Washington, for ANDERSON COOPER 360.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And today's buzz is this. Who do you believe more on President Bush's National Guard record, CBS News or President Bush? Log onto CNN.com/360 to vote. Results at the end of the show.

As for what's coming up at 8:00 p.m. here this evening, we have a primetime politics exclusive, an electoral map that gives us a snapshot of the election if it were held today.

Also, my interview with Governor Howard Dean. He and John Kerry closed ranks after the convention. But what does Dean think of Kerry's performance since then? He has some definite opinions. You'll hear them here tonight.

ANNOUNCER: Gulf Coast pounded by terrible Ivan, leaving a trail of destruction. Assessing the danger, damage, and deaths on 360.

Legal drama in the case against Michael Jackson. King of pop's lawyers want evidence thrown out. We're following the case.

And covering Anderson covering Ivan, a behind-the-scenes look at reporting in the path of a hurricane. 360 takes you inside the box.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, welcome back to Gulf Shores, Alabama.

While, I spent the night in Mobile, Alabama, CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman was right here in Gulf Shores braving the storm, basically right where the storm hit, right here. The fiercest winds passed through, as did the eye. He ran into -- we also ran into an old friend of our, the man who used to brave these monstrous storms for our network, former CNN correspondent Jeff Flock, who is shooting a documentary about storm chasers. We're going to talk about that.

Both of you had an extraordinary night. You were actually trapped in a building about six blocks from here.

JEFF FLOCK, JOURNALIST: A little by design. But yeah, we got right on the beach. In the old days, you get an assignment from CNN, you got to go where they tell you. Now you can go where you want to go, and that was right in the heart of it.

COOPER: And you were shooting this documentary with these storm chasers. Tell us about it, they strapped down a vehicle trying to get some readings.

FLOCK: Hurricane Landfall Project. They put a vehicle right in the path of a landfalling hurricane, hope that it gets trashed, hope that water over washes it, take measurements and gather, also video data. They've got six cameras rolling, so when it got washed down the beach, there was some pretty compelling pictures.

COOPER: But you ended up stuck. I mean, you were in a 5 story building, and the water -- what was the surge like?

FLOCK: Well, it was about 13, 14 feet where we were. And I had never been in surge like that. I was in Hugo, but didn't really have the worst of the surge. But this was just incredible. You're just hoping that the pilings hold, and of course they did.

COOPER: What does it actually look like? Is it like a wave?

FLOCK: It's not this tidal wave-type thing. It's just the water keeps coming, and it's essentially a flood, and the flood comes pretty fast. And by the end of it, we had Coke machines floating down the middle of the street. In the dark, you're shooting it with a flashlight.

COOPER: Well, yeah, one of the Coke machines is behind us right now. That's your old Coke machine.

Gary, what was it like being here last night? You were on the spot, and this water wasn't here a couple hours ago.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This water wasn't here when we started the night. We were broadcasting live on the island. The water started building up. We knew we had to go live for about 14, 15 hours. We moved inland a bit, a little bit away from Jeff. And in 14 or 15 hours, we had 115 miles an hour gusts. And then, precisely at 2:50 eastern time, for an hour and 20 minutes, the eye came over, complete calmness. The rain stopped, you could have had a picnic. After an hour and 20 picks, it picked up again for another 4 hours.

COOPER: There's also a 1,000 pound alligator out here named Chucky. I know you were at the zoo. You talked to Zoo officials. How serious is this?

TUCHMAN: I have to tell you, there is this 12-foot 1,000 pound alligator named Chucky on the loose right now. And one of our photographers, David Albriton (ph) actually captured video of it. We just showed it to the zoo keeper, they said, that is Chucky. You saw Chucky. We are trying to find Chucky. We want to capture Chucky live. Until we do, we can't go into the zoo to see all the destruction, because it would be too dangerous, because Chucky could literally grab your foot, grab you under the water and you could say goodbye forever if that happens.

COOPER: Well, Jeff. I know you did not run into Chucky, which I'm sure you're happy about.

FLOCK: We were going to wade out, and they said probably not a good idea, so they came and got us with a Ski-Doo, which I wasn't too sanguine about either, but it seemed to work.

COOPER: Did you leave -- did you leave your possessions there, or did you get everything out?

FLOCK: No, we got everything out. We just hiked out. I said I'm going to hike as far as we can, because I didn't really want to sleep with Rob here, my producer here, for another night. So, we just got out. And we got out as best we could.

COOPER: Gary, what was the worst part of the storm for you last night?

TUCHMAN: It was probably just before the eye came, when the winds got up to 115 miles an hour in the spot we were standing doing our live reports -- between the live reports, a huge tree fell right where we were standing. And we figured we would stand there afterward, because what was the likelihood of lightning striking twice, and a tree coming down on us a second time.

COOPER: It's those kind of calculations you have to make. You wish you never did. Great reporting last night, Gary. Thank you very much. I can't way to see the documentary. Great to see you again, Jeff.

We're going to talk now to man we spoke with first last night, Mayor Lee Sullivan down in Panama City Beach, a place expecting to be hard-hit. And it's seen some bad storms here in the past. Let's talk to him now. Mayor Sullivan, how did the town do?

MAY. LEE SULLIVAN, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: When you look at us in respect to the people to the west of us, not bad, but we've got some problems. We had some fatalities, we haven't caught a break on this wind. The surf's still up. We've suffered some structural damage through a lot of our beachfront properties. And back in our residential areas, and to compound that, most all of our island is without power. It seems except for wherever CNN is, there is no power.

COOPER: I know. We were down in Mobile downtown at a hotel, we had power all night long. I was amazed we were able to stay on the air. Let's talk about...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I'm sorry, what was that? I guess wherever we go, we've been very lucky in this storm. I know you've had some fatalities, as you said. When we talked -- you and I talked 24 hours ago, you had already had two fatalities from tornadoes. Did you have any more? And what caused them?

SULLIVAN: There's a little town above us to the northwest of us called Bluntstown. The tornadoes destroyed an entire mobile home park. You can almost not tell that there was anything that had been there. And there were at least 4 fatalities there.

We lost no one else here. We had a series of fires this morning in a trailer park. But as I am aware of, we haven't suffered any more fatalities than we had when we talked yesterday, and no injuries. And that is -- that's fairly amazing. But the weather has not given us a break here. The wind is still running 50, 60 miles an hour in gusts. We can't get our crews out. The water is still up on us. And what damage we have, just gets a little worse -- as you know. Until you get a break -- and if we don't break tomorrow, then some of the smaller problems that we have dealt with are going to be large.

COOPER: And no power still at this point?

SULLIVAN: Almost 80 percent of our island is without power. There are a few pockets of power. But the power people are inhibited on working on the issues, because the wind won't lay and they can't get up.

COOPER: Man. Mayor Sullivan, I know it's been a long 24 hours for you. And I know it's going to be a long couple of days and weeks ahead for you and your community. We wish you a lot of luck. We appreciate you joining us again. Good luck to you Mayor.

SULLIVAN: Thank you. And you be safe also.

COOPER: All right. We will.

A lot of -- as Mayor Sullivan was saying, a lot of folks who made it through Hurricane Ivan can't watch us cover the storm right now, because the storm left basically more than a million people without power. Tonight, a lot of them in Alabama, are still in the dark. CNN's Drew Griffin met some.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It literally began turning off the lights in its wake. Tremendous wind cracking the tops of trees, and slicing them right down through power lines. By 4:00 this afternoon, more than 700,000 of Alabama Power's 1.3 million customers were without power.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's 6:00 this morning.

GRIFFIN (on camera): When do you expect it back on?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say not until Saturday or Sunday.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Power crews have arriving from as far as New Mexico, but their trucks have been stuck in hotel parking lots. The hurricane that took so long to arrive has now been stubborn to leave.

Jan Ellis with Alabama Power says linger high winds make repair work tonight too dangerous. And this first dark night in Alabama could last for weeks.

JAN ELLIS, ALABAMA POWER: We tried to warn them, saying this is not your normal storm. And they may experience power outages for as long as two weeks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: It's not over yet. This storm is moving through Birmingham and beyond adding to the numbers of people without power, Anderson. Right now you can guess 25 percent of every single person in the state of Alabama has no power, and there's really not a good estimate of when that power is going to be back on.

Reporting live in Montgomery, the state capitol, Drew Griffin. Back to you, Anderson.

COOPER: Thanks Drew, I hate to hear that about Alabama now.

We are in Gulf Shores, Alabama, we're be broadcasting here for all evening long. We'll be right back after this commercial break. I just want to show you one thing. Over my shoulder, a little irony I guess, not much humor right now, but the town -- there's a park called Waterville. This whole town right now is Waterville, flooded from that storm surge. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Darkness is starting to descend here in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the flood waters receding a little bit, but we have a long way to go, you see an anchor still covered in some water, and a bird alive, injured, not sure what's going to happen. A lot of wildlife injured in this storm. You see them laying around. A sad sight.

I want to talk more about the storm in just a little bit, but we first want to talk about what's going on in tonight's section of "Justice Served."

When Michael Jackson plans to show up in court for another pretrial hearing, he doesn't have to attend to expect a showdown. The mother of the boy accusing Michael Jackson of molestation goes to court tomorrow to be grilled by the Jackson's lawyers. As we said, Michael Jackson is probably going to attend.

CNN's Miguel Marquez, reports the wrangling over evidence in court today, well it was just a warm-up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michael Jackson's lawyers back in court, taking the offensive in an effort to suppress evidence seized from Neverland Ranch and the office of a Beverly Hills private investigators. It is now a case that's grown into a mountain.

STEVE CORBETT, "SANTA MARIA TIMES": The mountain of evidence, the mountain of paperwork continues to build. The more search warrants that the judge signs means that it may in fact delay this. The judge even said how long can you continue to file new search warrants, two, three years?

MARQUEZ: With search warrants numbers near 100 new search warrants being sought and DNA evidence still not turned over to the defense, the judge issued a stern warning. He wants this case to go to trial on time.

CORBETT: He's asking for help, his words. He's asking for help, and he's threatening sanction if he doesn't get help.

MARQUEZ: Another growing issue for Jackson, information about the case leaking to the press. The TV show "The Insider" obtained sheriff's interview with the accusers mother, conducted in summer 2003. In it she gives insight to the claim that Jackson and his people conspired to get her and her kids out of the country. After the documentary "Living With Michael Jackson" aired on ABC. In the taped interview, she says Jackson associates showed up to her East Los Angeles apartment and told her why she had to leave the country.

The accuser's mother said, quote, "OK, one of the reasons was because there was people that were going to kill the children and me, mostly my children" The interviewer then ask, "Who's telling you this?" And the mother says, "Uh, Michael's people"

And it is the alleged victim's mother who will testify tomorrow, all the while Michael Jackson and his family will be only a few feet away watching and listening to every word.

ARTHUR BARENS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTY.: The trial is not going to be won or lost, in my opinion, by Michael Jackson, but by the credibility of his accuser and the witnesses they're going to bring to bear that support the accuser.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: And to give you an idea of how testy things are getting in court these days, today the defense for Michael Jackson accused the prosecution of misconduct for not turning over materials quickly enough to them. The prosecution countered that Jackson's defense is building their case on name-calling. It will get a lot nastier before it's over -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Miguel Marquez, thanks very much for that.

Covering the case for us tonight in "Justice Served," 360 legal analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, joins me from New York. Kimberly, good to see you.

I've got to tell you, I have not been paying to this at all.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE NEWSOM, 360 LEGAL ANALYST: Don't worry, I have.

COOPER: It feels like it's happening on another planet. It feels like it's happening on another planet right now to be honest.

But what's going on? What is the importance of this hearing tomorrow.

NEWSOM: Well, people really need to realize this is a crucial juncture of the case. Keep in mind, this preceded by the way of grand jury indictment. The defense never been able to question these witnesses. They never had a shot at these witnesses to nail down their statements. They get a chance tomorrow to confront the accuser's mother and really try to point out some of the problems they have with this case. Some have suggested that it's financially motivated. It begs the question, will the case go the way of the Kobe Bryant case or the 1993 Michael Jackson case where he was accused of molestation ending in a civil settlement.

Tomorrow they're going to ask her about an attorney-client privilege issue, basically Mark Geragos had hired Mr. Miller, an investigator to do investigating after the Martin Bashir documentary. What the prosecution is hoping is this women will say, we didn't know he was hired by Mark Geragos, therefore they're not in trouble with the search warrants they did at the investigator's office where crucial evidence was obtained.

If the defense can show, that the women, the accuser and her son knew that this was an employee of Mark Geragos, attorney-client privilege and all that evidence would be suppressed. This would be a huge victory for the defense, and a big blow to the prosecution.

COOPER: All right. Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, appreciate you -- you paying attention to this while we're off on this other stuff. We'll be back with us tomorrow. Thanks, very much Kimberly.

NEWSOM: OK, Anderson.

COOPER: 360 next, back to Ivan. Yours truly blowing in the wind.

We're going to take you "Inside The Box" and show you how we do what we did last night and show you some of the folks behind the scenes. Some great behind the scenes footage. You'll want to see that. We're back, live from Alabama.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Coming back to you from Gulf Shores, Alabama, a town hard hit. This is where the storm hit, and hit hard.

I want to show you some of the storm surge. I know we keep talking about it. We're about 6 blocks away from the Gulf coast, but the water came all up here, and even behind me. We're going to show you that shot. That is all storm surge, leaving a lot of debris behind.

To add insult to injury, the zoo, they had to evacuate a bunch of the animals, but a bunch of the animals got loose. There are about six alligators swimming around out there. The biggest one's name is Chucky. We got a shot of it. Our cameraman David got a shot of it earlier. We're going to show that to you now.

This alligator swimming around there, 1,000 pounds. They say it's hungry. And they say everyone should be very careful. A lot of people on the search for that tonight.

If you watched our coverage of Hurricane Ivan last night, you saw really only part of the story. During our reports through the whipping winds and drenching rains, we turned a second camera on ourselves, Rick took those shots, to show you what it's like putting the hurricane "Inside The Box."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Good evening. I'm Anderson Cooper, live in Mobile, Alabama, straight in the path of a killer storm.

(voice-over): It all started out simply enough: a little wind, a little rain, but it was definitely downhill from there.

(on camera): I'm clinging onto this rooftop. We'll see how long I can last for.

(voice-over): It took hours to scout a perfect location, the fourth floor of a hotel in downtown mobile, high enough to keep us from being sunk by a sudden storm surge. But how to keep from being blown away?

(on camera): It's very -- almost difficult to stand at times. You really have to push yourself into the wind.

I definitely think the winds are a little bit stronger right now. I've got some video to show.

Oh, man the wind really sucks the air out of you. It's really quite something. I know the picture is probably bad. I know my mom is probably watching and is not all that thrilled.

(voice-over): But I wasn't alone out there. I had a little help from a friend.

(on camera): I've employed the much bigger, stronger CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano to block the wind for me.

(voice-over): And a crew that's caring.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. I'm serious, I'm going to pull him out of there, because he cannot sit out there.

COOPER (voice-over): Courageous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

COOPER (voice-over): And a little bit crazy.

And when the wind's really whipped up, we sought protection from a potted palm, but that wasn't all. If you're wondering what kept me grounded, through live shot after live shot, it was this clever device. That's right. A rope tethered to my leg.

Of course in the cold light of day, that 600-pound potted palm didn't seem to offer the safety you expect.

(on camera): It's the glamour of this job that I love. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Yes. Very glamorous indeed, a rope tied to my leg. What were we thinking? We'll be right back with more coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We are live here from Gulf Shores, Alabama. As we said, this is really where the storm came ashore. The eye of the storm came over here. Gary Tuchman was telling us when he was here in that eye, you know, 1 second the winds were blowing really hard. And then for about an hour and a half, it was very pristine. And then, of course, that storm surge came back up again.

The storm surge caused a lot of problems here. We are about 6 blocks from the coast. All of this was flooded. Some of the water is receding, but it just leaves behind all this debris.

Look, here's someone -- child's water ski, over here you got someone's notebook, Wall Street Workshop it says, little ribbons from presents.

And this is block after block here in gulf shores. I mean, you go -- no matter how far you go along this coast, every home you go to you see the result of the storm surge. We talk a lot about it, but to actually it, it's a tough thing to see.

There's a lot of damage to this community. As we talked to the mayor earlier, he said they have not had any casualties, any fatalities here. And that is certainly some good news, but there is a lot of work to be done ahead. We'll be covering it in the weeks and months ahead.

"PAULA ZAHN NOW" is next.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired September 16, 2004 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening, I'm Anderson Cooper, live from Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Tonight, the power of Hurricane Ivan, and the devastation left behind.

360 starts now.

ANNOUNCER: Gulf Coast pounded by terrible Ivan, leaving a trail of destruction, assessing the danger, damage, and deaths on 360.

Millions evacuated, but scores hunkered down and rode out the deadly storm. Stories of surviving Mother Nature.

A grim report from the nation's own intelligence community. Will there be a civil war in Iraq?

Is CBS questioning its own report over President Bush's National Guard record, softening its defense on the documents in question?

And legal drama in the case against Michael Jackson. King of pop's lawyers want evidence thrown out. We're following the case.

Live from Gulf Shores, Alabama, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COOPER: Good evening from Gulf Shores, Alabama, a town hit and hit hard by Hurricane Ivan.

This is the place where the storm actually came ashore less than 24 hours ago. What a night it was. We're going to have a lot of coverage on that tonight.

Take a look behind me, though, at some of the devastation, some of the floodwaters that have come from the Gulf, come over the barrier island, and inundated this area, debris strewn all around. It is a surreal scene. This water is not supposed to be here. That is supposed to be a road.

We'll show you some of the devastation that's been left behind tonight, but first, a look back at the storm, and what today was like for residents here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): It was a dark and stormy night, really. But this was no dimestore novel. As the storm crawled north out of the Gulf, it blasted communities all along the coast, ripping down power lines, trees, and damaging buildings.

JOHN MCNEIL, MOBILE, ALABAMA, RESIDENT: It was a rough night. This was -- you know, one of the scary things about sitting one of these things out is listening to the pine trees snapping all night. Sounds like somebody snapping their fingers, and then you hear the big crash when it hits the ground. You can't see anything, because it's pitch-black dark, but it's scary.

COOPER: Tornadoes spawned by the storm took at least seven lives in the Florida Gulf Coast. In the middle of it, fires broke out as well, posing a dangerous challenge for emergency workers.

JOHN DALY, PANAMA CITY BEACH FIRE CHIEF: We had four or five trailers burn. We were here last night, or early in the morning, with one trailer that caught another one on fire. The winds just spread the flames to each trailer.

COOPER: Before Ivan had moved very far inland, power outages were affecting thousands of residents, as more tornadoes and flooding were feared.

GOV. BOB RILEY, ALABAMA: So we're talking about today in the state of Alabama, we probably have between 800,000 and 850,000 customers without power. And it's going to continue to grow. And when it goes into Birmingham, we could very well have over 1 million people without power.

COOPER: Today, along the beach in Gulf Shores, where the storm first came ashore, the barrier island is under water, the homes flooded.

(on camera): We talked a lot last night about that storm surge. Well, here you really see the results. The waters from the Gulf broke over the barrier island, flooding out all those homes. They're all stranded. We can't even get over there.

This is normally a small lagoon. The waters rose, just swept up over here, bringing people's possessions, flooding people's homes. This home here, very badly damaged. You see this a lot all around Gulf Shores.

And people's possessions are just laying all around. Here's someone's life preserver.

(voice-over): Roads are littered with debris, boats, and hot tubs left behind by receding water. The zoo in Gulf Shores was evacuated before the storm, but some animals were left behind, and they escaped, causing problems all day for local police and zoo officials.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were six alligators that were five to six feet that are somewhere floating around in that body of water there. But we were real interested (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Chucky. And his -- he's about 12 feet, and weighs anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's still missing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he is unaccounted-for at this moment. We had a canoe in there. We've been looking for him for three hours. So we cannot send people in to assess more of the damages in there until we find the big boy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So on top of all the other problems, there's now a alligator named Chucky somewhere on the loose.

I just want to show you some of the debris that we're seeing just around us. It's very eerie, I mean, you see people's possessions kind of laying all around.

But there's also wildlife. I mean, this bird here, we think it's a tern, it's still alive, it's clearly been injured. You know, and you see this a lot. I mean, we've been seeing a lot of wildlife just kind of damaged with -- you know, it's one of those things. You're not sure what to do. It's -- we'll try to do what we can after the program, to see if we can try to get some help for it.

But, you know, there's a, there's a lot of damage here in this town. We want to talk to the mayor of Gulf Shores.

Mayor, if you could come in, appreciate you joining us.

MAYOR DAVID BODENHAMER, GULF SHORES, ALABAMA: Sure.

COOPER: What, how bad were you hit?

BODENHAMER: Well, in some respects, we made out a little better than we could have probably hoped for, in the residential areas north of Fort Morgan Road here. But in the beach area, we finally got a chance late this afternoon to -- myself, the chief of police, and our city administrator to go in and get at least a superficial assessment of the beach.

COOPER: Yes, we're, we're, we were talking about the beach area. I mean, that's, that's, what, like, six blocks from here.

BODENHAMER: Yes, we're talking about half a mile...

COOPER: Half a mile.

BODENHAMER: ... or so more down...

COOPER: And water, it's basically water from -- I mean, the -- it's all water that's up there.

BODENHAMER: It's solid water, except about the last 300 yards to the beach.

COOPER: Wow.

BODENHAMER: Yes.

COOPER: And, and, and how are the homes out there? I mean, we, I saw the barrier -- you know, the shore, the homes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BODENHAMER: A lot of roof damage out there, a lot of structures appear to still be intact. We can't tell much about, you know, structural integrity at this time. Most of them, however, inundated with water, lots of water.

COOPER: Have you ever seen any flooding like this?

BODENHAMER: We had water at this same level to this point after Hurricane Frederic, but not to this extent.

COOPER: Right.

BODENHAMER: This is a lot more water, and I think it's due primarily to the fact that when the eyewall crossed us last night, we got a lot of west wind...

COOPER: Right.

BODENHAMER: ... on the tail end when the eye came through. We didn't get that in Frederic. And we had another cut further down the beach that cut through from the Gulf, the little lagoon, and it pushed this water back on top of us. So, no, we've not had this extent of flooding before.

COOPER: How long do you think the water's going to stay here?

BODENHAMER: It's hard to say. We sent a crew down to look at that cut late this afternoon. Water is pouring out of the lagoon into the Gulf, which is a good thing, but at the same time that was happening this afternoon, the current was running from west to east across Highway 59. It appears that has calmed down somewhat, so hopefully with a day, day and a half, maybe some of this will recede, at least to where we can get through with four-wheel-drive vehicles.

COOPER: But in terms of injuries, I mean, how are the people here?

BODENHAMER: We're not aware that we have any injuries. None have been reported to us. I mean, that's not 100 percent, but we are not aware of any at this time.

COOPER: Well, I know you got (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a lot of work. I mean, do you have any sense of, I mean, the financial damage here? Do you...

BODENHAMER: We have no idea.

COOPER: No.

BODENHAMER: We are supposed to schedule a flyover tomorrow with our emergency management people, to try to determine the extent of the damage in the beach area. Because all we got to see today was just a very small thumbnail at the main public beach area.

COOPER: Yes. You know, you see this kind of stuff on TV. Actually being here, seeing it in person, how does it compare?

BODENHAMER: Well, we've been through it before, not to this extent. But, you know, our people are very resilient in this community, and it will take some time, but, you know, we'll get to work whenever we're finally able to finally let people on the island and get cleaned up and get back to business.

COOPER: Well, you got a beautiful town, I know it's going to be beautiful again. We appreciate you joining us.

BODENHAMER: Thanks so much.

COOPER: Thanks very much. Good luck to you.

BODENHAMER: Appreciate it.

COOPER: We've seen a lot of damage in a lot of different places. Want to check in with CNN's David Mattingly, who rode out the storm last night just a few miles, I think, from where I am. Let's check in how things are where Dave is. Dave?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In pitch darkness, the unmistakable roar of wind told Nikki Dawsey something terrible had happened. Just down the road, the double-wide mobile home of her aunt and uncle, Melvin and Frances Terria (ph) of Calhoun County, Florida, was caught in the path of Ivan-spawned tornado.

NIKKI DAWSEY, TORNADO SURVIVOR: Oh, they were good people. They were good people. They would help anybody in this world, no matter who they were, or how bad they were. They were good people.

MATTINGLY: Dausy's uncle died at the scene, as did her cousin Donna. Her aunt and two other cousins were badly injured. Their home was utterly shattered. Finding something to salvage was almost impossible.

(on camera): These cement posts are all that's left of the couple's home. According to family members, they had been through storms before, and this time they thought they would be OK.

But when the tornado hit, it picked up their home and threw it over there into the neighbors' house.

(voice-over): The neighbors, who also decided to stay, survived. In all, four people were killed in this tiny panhandle community near Blountstown (ph), 50 miles from the nearest beach, but not far enough to escape a deadly Hurricane Ivan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Eight tornadoes touched the ground from Ivan, killing six people, two of them right here in Bay County, Florida. And Bay County is not finished with Ivan yet. We have now gone 24 straight hours with nonstop gale-force winds, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, David, it's so much damage, so many places. Thanks very much for that.

West of where Dave Mattingly is, that's east of me about 45 minutes, we're going to check in with Chris Lawrence. He is in Pensacola, a town hard hit by Hurricane Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As bad as it looks the day after, living through Ivan was that much worse. Doctors and nurses at this Pensacola hospital are still shocked at how hard this storm hit them.

BARBARA TILSON, NURSE: I lived through Opel here with the hospital, and it was nothing compared to what it was like this time. Nothing.

LAWRENCE: When the hurricane hit, the hospital was cut off for hours.

TILSON: We had patients in those rooms, and they were quadriplegics and patients that couldn't move themselves, and worrying whether or not they would blow out the window (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I know that sounds crazy, but you're scared when you're on the second floor like that and the windows break.

SUSANNE DEATON, HOSPITAL SUPERVISOR: So we started getting rain in and wind, and so we had to get the patients on out into the hallway.

DEBY VARNEDOE, NURSE: And even though we were scared and terrified of what was going on, we tried not to let the staff know that we felt that, even though they could hear everything, glass breaking and windows popping open and flooding. We tried not to let them realize how scared we was.

LAWRENCE: That fear is gone, but for Nurse Deby Varnedoe, it's only been replaced by anxiety.

VARNEDOE: A lot of us don't even know if we have homes to go to.

LAWRENCE: She's obviously hoping for the best, and a home that looks nothing like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: And right now, it's anybody's guess what she's going to find when she actually gets home.

We spoke with another nurse, who was actually working in that building when the walls literally started peeling away from the building. Other staff rushed into that part of the building, they ran out. And when she got back to a safer part of the building, she told us she felt lucky to be alive.

Then, a few hours later, her husband called her to tell her their entire home had been destroyed, Anderson.

COOPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), still lucky to be alive. That is just terrible. Chris Lawrence, thanks very much for that.

Want to check in now with Jacqui Jeras at the CNN Center in Atlanta with a look. Because this is, this storm is still out there, it is still dangerous, it's a tropical storm, and it's hitting Atlanta hard.

Jacqui, where is the storm right now, and how bad is it?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the center of the storm right now is over northern Alabama, but all the problems have been in Georgia, for the most part, though we have had some flooding problems around Birmingham, where radar is estimating anywhere between five and six inches of rain has fallen just on the east side of the city.

Atlanta has been getting pummeled over the last couple of hours. This main line that caused all the trouble, and maybe a little bit of rotation, is now pushed off to the east. But we do have reports of some power outages and quite a few trees down, especially on the west and south side of town at this hour.

Jackson, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport was stopped for about an hour and a half. We have a live picture to show you what the conditions are like there right now. Twenty-three-mile-per-hour wind gusts reported at the top of the hour, with rain coming down. I guess some of the planes are coming and going, but delays are estimated to be up to five hours.

Let's go back to the map, and show you where the tornado watches remain in effect. We're likely going to see these bumped farther on up to the north as we head into the latter part of tonight. And then rainfall is going to be our big focus, once the tornado activity starts to die down.

You can see that flood watches and warnings are in effect all across the Southeast, and even extend as far northward as Pennsylvania, as the system stalls out across the Appalachians. Forecast track has it moving into the Carolinas late in the period.

We also have one other storm to talk about, tropical storm Jeanne, moving across the Dominican Republic. That is expected to be moving towards the Bahamas late in the week, and maybe taking aim towards the United States early next week, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, it is just hard to believe there's another storm heading this way out there. That is certainly not good news. Jacqui Jeras, it's, at least, it's not, definitely it's not as strong, though, I mean, it's not anywhere as strong as Hurricane Ivan, right?

JERAS: No, not at this time. In fact, the extended forecast, you can see only has it as a category two, as it gets closer to the United States. There's also one other storm, believe it or not, today. We have a tropical depression, which developed as TD-12. It's just right there on the edge of your screen.

And we'll end it on a good note, Anderson. Right now, the computer model forecast has it curving on up to the north, and hopefully being a fishing storm.

COOPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), let's hope for that, at least get it out of there over some water away from people. Jacqui Jeras, thanks very much for that. Thanks for tracking the storm for us...

JERAS: OK.

COOPER: ... in the last couple days as well. You did a great job.

We are live from Gulf Shores, Alabama a town very hit, hit very badly, hit hard. Debris all around. We'll have more reports from here.

There's also an alligator on the loose. It's a 1,000-pound alligator named Chucky. It's a little bit of a concern to us all here, standing on the water's edge.

Coming up next on 360, a grim outlook for Iraq. Tenuous security, or all-out civil war? The new intel report that takes a look ahead. Find out how it's playing on the campaign trail.

Plus, new poll numbers that show a very tight race indeed.

Also Dan Rather, in a fight over credibility. Can a story be half right? We'll take a closer look at that.

And a mountain of evidence and leaks to the press. The Michael Jackson case back in court.

First, let's take a look at your picks, the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And we are live in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Want to show you how people are getting around here, really the only way to get out to actually the shore here, which is about six blocks from where I am, is by boat. You can see some people in a boat there moving around.

The problem is, there are alligators on the loose here. The zoo here flooded. It had been evacuated before the storm, but a number of alligators and deer they left behind. About a dozen or so deer, they escaped during the storm, and a bunch of alligators, about six alligators are on the loose. They shot one of them.

But there's one out here, it's 1,000 pounds, they call it Chucky, and they say it is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you got to consider it very dangerous, because they, I mean, they basically frankly say, it will eat you. So they're warning people to be on the lookout. They've been hunting it all day. But Chucky's, is still out there. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), as soon as it gets a little bit dark here, I think we're going to get a -- move away from the water, because I don't want to meet Chucky.

We're going to get back to the story of Ivan in a few moments, and there are so many stories of survival and courage last night to tell you about.

But first want to talk a little bit about politics and Iraq. You don't have to be an expert on physics to know that anything that bounces up also comes back down, and you don't have to be an expert on politics to know that when often the same thing that happens with a bounce in the polls follows a political convention.

Case in point, the latest poll by the Pew Research Center. Now, it was conducted at the beginning of the week, and it shows the race among registered voters dead even at 46 percent each. President Bush holds a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 46 percent among likely voters now. Now, just a week ago, President Bush had a 12-point lead in the exact same poll. Take it for what it's worth.

A political thinker once wrote, "I'm a pessimist because of intelligence but an optimist because of will." There's a new intelligence report on Iraq's future that is pretty pessimistic, to say the least. And it says that the best-case scenario is basically tenuous stability, while the worst case is outright civil war, and that would be a disaster.

At the same time, President Bush, who got that report in over the summer, remains optimistic amid renewed attacks from his political opponents today.

Here's CNN's national correspondent Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president had the same public reaction to the Iraq prognosis that he's had for weeks, a nonreaction.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It wasn't all that long ago that Saddam Hussein was in power with his torture chambers, and mass graves, and today this country is headed toward elections. Freedom's on the march.

FRANKEN: President Bush saw the assessment in late July, another example, charged his opponent, of avoiding the truth.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence.

FRANKEN: The vice president wasn't about to let that go unanswered.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator Kerry said today that leadership starts with telling the truth. The American people also know that true leadership requires the ability to make a decision.

FRANKEN: One leading Democrat says the truth is even more dreary.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The report was written quite some time ago, so the only conclusion really that one can draw from that, and -- is that it's a lot worse since it was written.

FRANKEN: Republicans insist there is no effort to deceive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the American people are getting adequate information to make up their own minds about that controversial war.

FRANKEN (on camera): The White House press secretary contended the estimate really states the obvious. The stakes, he went on, are very high in Iraq, as they certainly are in this election campaign.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, the stakes are high all around now.

On the ground in Iraq, there's more trouble. Three contractors, two of them Americans, were kidnapped from their Baghdad residence in the early morning hours yesterday.

Senior international correspondent Walt Rodgers is in Baghdad these days, where optimism seems to be in short supply.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The two Americans and one British contractor living here believed an Iraqi security guard was protecting them overnight, but the guard disappeared, evaporated.

These U.S. soldiers arrived after the three contractors were kidnapped by what neighbors say were 11 armed men. There was no U.S. Army presence, the Army stretched far too thinly to protect much other than themselves.

LT. GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY: Well, it's a tough time, because we're in a period where the Iraqi security forces still don't have the capabilities that they'll need to take on an even greater share of the load.

RODGERS: There also have been brazen attempts to breach the perimeter of the so-called green zone, the highly fortified home of the U.S. and British embassies and interim Iraqi government. Questions now exist about whether the green zone's perimeter can be defended.

This week's car bombing, killing 47, prompted one U.S. general to say he simply cannot provide protection to all of Baghdad.

Iraqis have known that for months, that wherever they go, they could be blown up by car bombs or random mortar fire or kidnapped. The result, the U.S. is losing goodwill rapidly.

ROSEMARY HOLLIS, MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: You didn't need to create this hornet's nest. You didn't need to incite hatred more than there was already across the region by literally invading, and as far as a lot of Arabs are concerned, raping a country.

RODGERS (on camera): Amid renewed talk of civil war, it's useful to remember little is inevitable. Things could improve. But the trend now is discouraging.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, 360 next, credibility and dubious documents. Did someone pull a fast one on Dan Rather? We'll take a closer look at that.

Also, a little later in the program tonight, a mountain of evidence in the Michael Jackson case. Find out why lawyers are now fighting over all that evidence.

And more from Alabama ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to New York. We'll be back to Anderson Cooper in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in just a moment, but we wanted to bring you up to date on some of the other news.

CBS News is still under fire for its "60 Minutes" report on President Bush, and how he may have used preferential treatment to get into the National Guard during the Vietnam area. The latest development is from a woman who remembers vividly what happened 30 years ago when Mr. Bush was serving in the National Guard.

Here's Howard Kurtz, the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES" (voice-over): Eight days after the firestorm began over the "60 Minutes" piece charging that President Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard, CBS still insists the story is true.

The problem is that the 30-year-old documents on which the piece is based increasingly look like they may be fake. The latest and most damaging witness to question the memos, supposedly written by Bush's late squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, is an 86-year-old woman. Marion Knox was Colonel Killian's secretary, says she typed memos for him, and she told Dan Rather yesterday, as she had told some newspaper reporters, that the "60 Minutes" copies aren't real.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "60 MINUTES," CBS)

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS: You've seen the memos that we broadcast, these memos that we got.

MARION KNOX: I did not type those memos.

RATHER: You didn't type these memos.

KNOX: No. And it's not the form that I would have used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Several of CBS's own document experts are now saying they warned the network that it wasn't clear the memos could have been typed on a 1972 government typewriter.

Emily Will told me she had raised a series of red flags in writing. Linda James told me she saw serious problems and told CNN that she had advised "60 Minutes" not to air the story.

LINDA JAMES, DOCUMENT EXPERT: I believe I did say it that way, but my main was to caution them not to use the handwriting part, because there was incomplete evidence, and that I could not authenticate these documents for them.

KURTZ: Forty House Republicans, led by majority whip Roy Blunt, have demanded that CBS issue a retraction. But the network continues to defend the story, in part because Marion Knox says these memos reflect her late boss's view that Lieutenant Bush was getting favorable treatment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "60 MINUTES," CBS)

RATHER: Does that sound like Colonel Killian? Is that the way he felt?

KNOX: That's absolutely the way he felt about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Still, CBS is starting to back off just a bit. Dan Rather told me last night that, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story."

(on camera): Can a story about the president of the United States be true if the papers used to prove the case are false? Put it this way, would CBS accept that explanation from a government agency? Until the network either uncovers new evidence or admits its mistake, the media's focus will remain not on George Bush but on Dan Rather and "60 Minutes."

Howard Kurtz, Washington, for ANDERSON COOPER 360.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And today's buzz is this. Who do you believe more on President Bush's National Guard record, CBS News or President Bush? Log onto CNN.com/360 to vote. Results at the end of the show.

As for what's coming up at 8:00 p.m. here this evening, we have a primetime politics exclusive, an electoral map that gives us a snapshot of the election if it were held today.

Also, my interview with Governor Howard Dean. He and John Kerry closed ranks after the convention. But what does Dean think of Kerry's performance since then? He has some definite opinions. You'll hear them here tonight.

ANNOUNCER: Gulf Coast pounded by terrible Ivan, leaving a trail of destruction. Assessing the danger, damage, and deaths on 360.

Legal drama in the case against Michael Jackson. King of pop's lawyers want evidence thrown out. We're following the case.

And covering Anderson covering Ivan, a behind-the-scenes look at reporting in the path of a hurricane. 360 takes you inside the box.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, welcome back to Gulf Shores, Alabama.

While, I spent the night in Mobile, Alabama, CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman was right here in Gulf Shores braving the storm, basically right where the storm hit, right here. The fiercest winds passed through, as did the eye. He ran into -- we also ran into an old friend of our, the man who used to brave these monstrous storms for our network, former CNN correspondent Jeff Flock, who is shooting a documentary about storm chasers. We're going to talk about that.

Both of you had an extraordinary night. You were actually trapped in a building about six blocks from here.

JEFF FLOCK, JOURNALIST: A little by design. But yeah, we got right on the beach. In the old days, you get an assignment from CNN, you got to go where they tell you. Now you can go where you want to go, and that was right in the heart of it.

COOPER: And you were shooting this documentary with these storm chasers. Tell us about it, they strapped down a vehicle trying to get some readings.

FLOCK: Hurricane Landfall Project. They put a vehicle right in the path of a landfalling hurricane, hope that it gets trashed, hope that water over washes it, take measurements and gather, also video data. They've got six cameras rolling, so when it got washed down the beach, there was some pretty compelling pictures.

COOPER: But you ended up stuck. I mean, you were in a 5 story building, and the water -- what was the surge like?

FLOCK: Well, it was about 13, 14 feet where we were. And I had never been in surge like that. I was in Hugo, but didn't really have the worst of the surge. But this was just incredible. You're just hoping that the pilings hold, and of course they did.

COOPER: What does it actually look like? Is it like a wave?

FLOCK: It's not this tidal wave-type thing. It's just the water keeps coming, and it's essentially a flood, and the flood comes pretty fast. And by the end of it, we had Coke machines floating down the middle of the street. In the dark, you're shooting it with a flashlight.

COOPER: Well, yeah, one of the Coke machines is behind us right now. That's your old Coke machine.

Gary, what was it like being here last night? You were on the spot, and this water wasn't here a couple hours ago.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This water wasn't here when we started the night. We were broadcasting live on the island. The water started building up. We knew we had to go live for about 14, 15 hours. We moved inland a bit, a little bit away from Jeff. And in 14 or 15 hours, we had 115 miles an hour gusts. And then, precisely at 2:50 eastern time, for an hour and 20 minutes, the eye came over, complete calmness. The rain stopped, you could have had a picnic. After an hour and 20 picks, it picked up again for another 4 hours.

COOPER: There's also a 1,000 pound alligator out here named Chucky. I know you were at the zoo. You talked to Zoo officials. How serious is this?

TUCHMAN: I have to tell you, there is this 12-foot 1,000 pound alligator named Chucky on the loose right now. And one of our photographers, David Albriton (ph) actually captured video of it. We just showed it to the zoo keeper, they said, that is Chucky. You saw Chucky. We are trying to find Chucky. We want to capture Chucky live. Until we do, we can't go into the zoo to see all the destruction, because it would be too dangerous, because Chucky could literally grab your foot, grab you under the water and you could say goodbye forever if that happens.

COOPER: Well, Jeff. I know you did not run into Chucky, which I'm sure you're happy about.

FLOCK: We were going to wade out, and they said probably not a good idea, so they came and got us with a Ski-Doo, which I wasn't too sanguine about either, but it seemed to work.

COOPER: Did you leave -- did you leave your possessions there, or did you get everything out?

FLOCK: No, we got everything out. We just hiked out. I said I'm going to hike as far as we can, because I didn't really want to sleep with Rob here, my producer here, for another night. So, we just got out. And we got out as best we could.

COOPER: Gary, what was the worst part of the storm for you last night?

TUCHMAN: It was probably just before the eye came, when the winds got up to 115 miles an hour in the spot we were standing doing our live reports -- between the live reports, a huge tree fell right where we were standing. And we figured we would stand there afterward, because what was the likelihood of lightning striking twice, and a tree coming down on us a second time.

COOPER: It's those kind of calculations you have to make. You wish you never did. Great reporting last night, Gary. Thank you very much. I can't way to see the documentary. Great to see you again, Jeff.

We're going to talk now to man we spoke with first last night, Mayor Lee Sullivan down in Panama City Beach, a place expecting to be hard-hit. And it's seen some bad storms here in the past. Let's talk to him now. Mayor Sullivan, how did the town do?

MAY. LEE SULLIVAN, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: When you look at us in respect to the people to the west of us, not bad, but we've got some problems. We had some fatalities, we haven't caught a break on this wind. The surf's still up. We've suffered some structural damage through a lot of our beachfront properties. And back in our residential areas, and to compound that, most all of our island is without power. It seems except for wherever CNN is, there is no power.

COOPER: I know. We were down in Mobile downtown at a hotel, we had power all night long. I was amazed we were able to stay on the air. Let's talk about...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I'm sorry, what was that? I guess wherever we go, we've been very lucky in this storm. I know you've had some fatalities, as you said. When we talked -- you and I talked 24 hours ago, you had already had two fatalities from tornadoes. Did you have any more? And what caused them?

SULLIVAN: There's a little town above us to the northwest of us called Bluntstown. The tornadoes destroyed an entire mobile home park. You can almost not tell that there was anything that had been there. And there were at least 4 fatalities there.

We lost no one else here. We had a series of fires this morning in a trailer park. But as I am aware of, we haven't suffered any more fatalities than we had when we talked yesterday, and no injuries. And that is -- that's fairly amazing. But the weather has not given us a break here. The wind is still running 50, 60 miles an hour in gusts. We can't get our crews out. The water is still up on us. And what damage we have, just gets a little worse -- as you know. Until you get a break -- and if we don't break tomorrow, then some of the smaller problems that we have dealt with are going to be large.

COOPER: And no power still at this point?

SULLIVAN: Almost 80 percent of our island is without power. There are a few pockets of power. But the power people are inhibited on working on the issues, because the wind won't lay and they can't get up.

COOPER: Man. Mayor Sullivan, I know it's been a long 24 hours for you. And I know it's going to be a long couple of days and weeks ahead for you and your community. We wish you a lot of luck. We appreciate you joining us again. Good luck to you Mayor.

SULLIVAN: Thank you. And you be safe also.

COOPER: All right. We will.

A lot of -- as Mayor Sullivan was saying, a lot of folks who made it through Hurricane Ivan can't watch us cover the storm right now, because the storm left basically more than a million people without power. Tonight, a lot of them in Alabama, are still in the dark. CNN's Drew Griffin met some.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It literally began turning off the lights in its wake. Tremendous wind cracking the tops of trees, and slicing them right down through power lines. By 4:00 this afternoon, more than 700,000 of Alabama Power's 1.3 million customers were without power.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's 6:00 this morning.

GRIFFIN (on camera): When do you expect it back on?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say not until Saturday or Sunday.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Power crews have arriving from as far as New Mexico, but their trucks have been stuck in hotel parking lots. The hurricane that took so long to arrive has now been stubborn to leave.

Jan Ellis with Alabama Power says linger high winds make repair work tonight too dangerous. And this first dark night in Alabama could last for weeks.

JAN ELLIS, ALABAMA POWER: We tried to warn them, saying this is not your normal storm. And they may experience power outages for as long as two weeks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: It's not over yet. This storm is moving through Birmingham and beyond adding to the numbers of people without power, Anderson. Right now you can guess 25 percent of every single person in the state of Alabama has no power, and there's really not a good estimate of when that power is going to be back on.

Reporting live in Montgomery, the state capitol, Drew Griffin. Back to you, Anderson.

COOPER: Thanks Drew, I hate to hear that about Alabama now.

We are in Gulf Shores, Alabama, we're be broadcasting here for all evening long. We'll be right back after this commercial break. I just want to show you one thing. Over my shoulder, a little irony I guess, not much humor right now, but the town -- there's a park called Waterville. This whole town right now is Waterville, flooded from that storm surge. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Darkness is starting to descend here in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the flood waters receding a little bit, but we have a long way to go, you see an anchor still covered in some water, and a bird alive, injured, not sure what's going to happen. A lot of wildlife injured in this storm. You see them laying around. A sad sight.

I want to talk more about the storm in just a little bit, but we first want to talk about what's going on in tonight's section of "Justice Served."

When Michael Jackson plans to show up in court for another pretrial hearing, he doesn't have to attend to expect a showdown. The mother of the boy accusing Michael Jackson of molestation goes to court tomorrow to be grilled by the Jackson's lawyers. As we said, Michael Jackson is probably going to attend.

CNN's Miguel Marquez, reports the wrangling over evidence in court today, well it was just a warm-up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michael Jackson's lawyers back in court, taking the offensive in an effort to suppress evidence seized from Neverland Ranch and the office of a Beverly Hills private investigators. It is now a case that's grown into a mountain.

STEVE CORBETT, "SANTA MARIA TIMES": The mountain of evidence, the mountain of paperwork continues to build. The more search warrants that the judge signs means that it may in fact delay this. The judge even said how long can you continue to file new search warrants, two, three years?

MARQUEZ: With search warrants numbers near 100 new search warrants being sought and DNA evidence still not turned over to the defense, the judge issued a stern warning. He wants this case to go to trial on time.

CORBETT: He's asking for help, his words. He's asking for help, and he's threatening sanction if he doesn't get help.

MARQUEZ: Another growing issue for Jackson, information about the case leaking to the press. The TV show "The Insider" obtained sheriff's interview with the accusers mother, conducted in summer 2003. In it she gives insight to the claim that Jackson and his people conspired to get her and her kids out of the country. After the documentary "Living With Michael Jackson" aired on ABC. In the taped interview, she says Jackson associates showed up to her East Los Angeles apartment and told her why she had to leave the country.

The accuser's mother said, quote, "OK, one of the reasons was because there was people that were going to kill the children and me, mostly my children" The interviewer then ask, "Who's telling you this?" And the mother says, "Uh, Michael's people"

And it is the alleged victim's mother who will testify tomorrow, all the while Michael Jackson and his family will be only a few feet away watching and listening to every word.

ARTHUR BARENS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTY.: The trial is not going to be won or lost, in my opinion, by Michael Jackson, but by the credibility of his accuser and the witnesses they're going to bring to bear that support the accuser.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: And to give you an idea of how testy things are getting in court these days, today the defense for Michael Jackson accused the prosecution of misconduct for not turning over materials quickly enough to them. The prosecution countered that Jackson's defense is building their case on name-calling. It will get a lot nastier before it's over -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Miguel Marquez, thanks very much for that.

Covering the case for us tonight in "Justice Served," 360 legal analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, joins me from New York. Kimberly, good to see you.

I've got to tell you, I have not been paying to this at all.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE NEWSOM, 360 LEGAL ANALYST: Don't worry, I have.

COOPER: It feels like it's happening on another planet. It feels like it's happening on another planet right now to be honest.

But what's going on? What is the importance of this hearing tomorrow.

NEWSOM: Well, people really need to realize this is a crucial juncture of the case. Keep in mind, this preceded by the way of grand jury indictment. The defense never been able to question these witnesses. They never had a shot at these witnesses to nail down their statements. They get a chance tomorrow to confront the accuser's mother and really try to point out some of the problems they have with this case. Some have suggested that it's financially motivated. It begs the question, will the case go the way of the Kobe Bryant case or the 1993 Michael Jackson case where he was accused of molestation ending in a civil settlement.

Tomorrow they're going to ask her about an attorney-client privilege issue, basically Mark Geragos had hired Mr. Miller, an investigator to do investigating after the Martin Bashir documentary. What the prosecution is hoping is this women will say, we didn't know he was hired by Mark Geragos, therefore they're not in trouble with the search warrants they did at the investigator's office where crucial evidence was obtained.

If the defense can show, that the women, the accuser and her son knew that this was an employee of Mark Geragos, attorney-client privilege and all that evidence would be suppressed. This would be a huge victory for the defense, and a big blow to the prosecution.

COOPER: All right. Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, appreciate you -- you paying attention to this while we're off on this other stuff. We'll be back with us tomorrow. Thanks, very much Kimberly.

NEWSOM: OK, Anderson.

COOPER: 360 next, back to Ivan. Yours truly blowing in the wind.

We're going to take you "Inside The Box" and show you how we do what we did last night and show you some of the folks behind the scenes. Some great behind the scenes footage. You'll want to see that. We're back, live from Alabama.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Coming back to you from Gulf Shores, Alabama, a town hard hit. This is where the storm hit, and hit hard.

I want to show you some of the storm surge. I know we keep talking about it. We're about 6 blocks away from the Gulf coast, but the water came all up here, and even behind me. We're going to show you that shot. That is all storm surge, leaving a lot of debris behind.

To add insult to injury, the zoo, they had to evacuate a bunch of the animals, but a bunch of the animals got loose. There are about six alligators swimming around out there. The biggest one's name is Chucky. We got a shot of it. Our cameraman David got a shot of it earlier. We're going to show that to you now.

This alligator swimming around there, 1,000 pounds. They say it's hungry. And they say everyone should be very careful. A lot of people on the search for that tonight.

If you watched our coverage of Hurricane Ivan last night, you saw really only part of the story. During our reports through the whipping winds and drenching rains, we turned a second camera on ourselves, Rick took those shots, to show you what it's like putting the hurricane "Inside The Box."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Good evening. I'm Anderson Cooper, live in Mobile, Alabama, straight in the path of a killer storm.

(voice-over): It all started out simply enough: a little wind, a little rain, but it was definitely downhill from there.

(on camera): I'm clinging onto this rooftop. We'll see how long I can last for.

(voice-over): It took hours to scout a perfect location, the fourth floor of a hotel in downtown mobile, high enough to keep us from being sunk by a sudden storm surge. But how to keep from being blown away?

(on camera): It's very -- almost difficult to stand at times. You really have to push yourself into the wind.

I definitely think the winds are a little bit stronger right now. I've got some video to show.

Oh, man the wind really sucks the air out of you. It's really quite something. I know the picture is probably bad. I know my mom is probably watching and is not all that thrilled.

(voice-over): But I wasn't alone out there. I had a little help from a friend.

(on camera): I've employed the much bigger, stronger CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano to block the wind for me.

(voice-over): And a crew that's caring.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. I'm serious, I'm going to pull him out of there, because he cannot sit out there.

COOPER (voice-over): Courageous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

COOPER (voice-over): And a little bit crazy.

And when the wind's really whipped up, we sought protection from a potted palm, but that wasn't all. If you're wondering what kept me grounded, through live shot after live shot, it was this clever device. That's right. A rope tethered to my leg.

Of course in the cold light of day, that 600-pound potted palm didn't seem to offer the safety you expect.

(on camera): It's the glamour of this job that I love. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Yes. Very glamorous indeed, a rope tied to my leg. What were we thinking? We'll be right back with more coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We are live here from Gulf Shores, Alabama. As we said, this is really where the storm came ashore. The eye of the storm came over here. Gary Tuchman was telling us when he was here in that eye, you know, 1 second the winds were blowing really hard. And then for about an hour and a half, it was very pristine. And then, of course, that storm surge came back up again.

The storm surge caused a lot of problems here. We are about 6 blocks from the coast. All of this was flooded. Some of the water is receding, but it just leaves behind all this debris.

Look, here's someone -- child's water ski, over here you got someone's notebook, Wall Street Workshop it says, little ribbons from presents.

And this is block after block here in gulf shores. I mean, you go -- no matter how far you go along this coast, every home you go to you see the result of the storm surge. We talk a lot about it, but to actually it, it's a tough thing to see.

There's a lot of damage to this community. As we talked to the mayor earlier, he said they have not had any casualties, any fatalities here. And that is certainly some good news, but there is a lot of work to be done ahead. We'll be covering it in the weeks and months ahead.

"PAULA ZAHN NOW" is next.

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