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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Family's Happy Ending; Hope for Haiti Now Telethon; Tent City Health Dangers; Haiti's New Orphans
Aired January 22, 2010 - ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening from Port-au-Prince. I'm Anderson Cooper.
Welcome to all of you who have been watching the "Hope for Haiti" now telethon. George Clooney who organized it is going to be joining us shortly.
Also tonight, thankfully, two stories disproving the conventional wisdom that there's little chance of finding anybody alive under the rubble after about three days.
Today Israeli crews dug out a 22-year-old man; he's being treated at a mobile field hospital set up by Israeli defense forces. Dehydrated but in otherwise good health we're told considering what he has been through.
And recovering as well tonight at the General Hospital an 84-year-old woman pulled from the wreckage of her home. She's at General Hospital in critical condition. We'll continue to follow her.
And then there is of course the case of 5-year-old Monley Elize (ph) who looked so frail when rescuers got to him on Friday. His uncle and his other uncles found him. He's with us tonight.
You're going to see what a remarkable difference two days can make. A little boy brought back from the brink but also why his life ahead, will not be easy.
We're also going to bring you up to date on the orphanage that Gary Tuchman visited the other day and the happy ending that came of that visit for two American families.
But beyond all the individual reunions and survival stories, Dr. Sanjay Gupta tonight is covering the larger story unfolding, the disaster after the disaster.
In this case sickness spreading in tent cities; so many people in close quarters, hundreds behind me right now in a park. Primitive sanitation, little access to medical care -- their story ahead.
But we begin with Monley's story and how he's doing now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Monley Elize was brought to General Hospital by his uncle who says he found him in the rubble alive after nearly eight days. Monley was covered in dust, weak and limp. A doctor and nurse quickly gave him an IV.
(on camera): And what's he saying?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to drink some juice? Do you want to drink some juice?
GABRIELA MCADOO, REGISTERED NURSE, INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS: You can tell that he's very dehydrated by his skin.
COOPER: Because his skin doesn't bounce back?
MCADOO: Yes, it doesn't bounce back.
DR. COLLEEN BUONO, INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS: He's in something called starvation Ketosis. You have to be very, very careful as you start re-hydrating before you feed them again. So I'm sure he'd love some food right now but we can't give it to him.
COOPER (voice-over): That was Monley on Wednesday. This is what he looks like today. The transformation is remarkable.
(on camera): Medically do you think he's out of the woods?
MCADOO: I couldn't tell you that for sure but he looks great and he looks like he's been hydrated and he's eating and we fed him this -- today. He's doing really well.
COOPER: When we were here before, when you pinched his skin his skin didn't bounce back. Now if you do that, would it be normal?
MCADOO: It's bouncing back. So that just shows that he is drinking and he's being hydrated. So that's a very good sign.
COOPER (voice-over): Monley doesn't speak much. He clings to a bottle of water. He's sweet and silent, as if absorbing it all.
(on camera): You're very brave. "Thank you," he whispers.
Has he talked about what was it was like for him all that time in the rubble?
(voice-over): "He talks to me normally," his uncle says, "But doesn't say a lot". From time to time he says he's hungry, would like to have some milk or juice. He talks about being in the hole, that he didn't have food, he didn't have milk, didn't have anything. He was hungry. Everyone was screaming "help". He said his father was close to him, that his father spoke to him and told him, don't move. Someone will find you.
We went back to where his uncle says he found Monley. His other uncle shows us the spot where the little boy lay.
(on camera): And he was here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, inside.
COOPER: He was under this, inside this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Inside this.
COOPER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just sleeping. You know...
COOPER: Did he have water or food?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Nothing.
COOPER (voice-over): They show us the place they found Monley's father. They took the body away just yesterday. His mother is dead. They show us her picture. They've buried her body one block away.
Monley now stays in this makeshift tent with two uncles but they're poor and say they can't care for the boy.
For all that he's been through, Monley is so very lucky but luck only lasts in this city so long.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And joining us now is Monley. We're very happy to have him here and registered nurse Gabriella McAdoo who is from Stanford Hospital in California. You're working with the International Medical Corps here, which is a great American aid organization that sends doctors, nurses around the world.
I've been covering IMC since like '92 in Somalia. You guys do incredible work.
He's coughing. Do you think that's from the dust that he might have inhaled?
MCADOO: Yes, we think it is.
COOPER: But otherwise, I mean, his skin -- it's incredible. He looks -- when I first saw him this morning I didn't recognize him almost.
MCADOO: He's hydrated now. And when we first got him he was dehydrated. So we gave him some fluids and after eating and drinking he just -- his progress is great.
COOPER: Yes. And his -- I mean, he's lost his parents. His uncle is trying as best he can to take care of him but had said you know he wants to figure out some other solution for him. And they're literally sleeping in kind of a makeshift tent right now.
It just got to just break your heart to see these kids who you're treating and then they kind of go out into the big, bad world.
MCADOO: Yes, it is heartbreaking. And his uncle is very worried about the resources he would have for him and to try to care for him. And he really wanted to leave him with me. And I told him I couldn't like we couldn't you know -- he had to have someone...
COOPER: His uncle wanted to leave him at the hospital with you?
MCADOO: Yes. And I asked him just to stay and we could follow-up and kept him overnight. So when he came back today to see me it was just a great joy to see that he was doing well.
COOPER: We think he may have a grandmother who may be living in the United States. And we're trying to track that down because obviously we don't want to just -- none of us can imagine just leaving and having Monley you know still kind of one of the many unaccounted for or not knowing what's going to happen to him.
I mean, every day -- I mean, you are saving lives every single day. It's got to be so frustrating though, you know, not having all the supplies you need especially in those early days.
MCADOO: It is. IMC has done a great job just supplying the things that we need and we're really not have had such an issue with it. And everything that we've asked we've pretty much gotten. So I think they've done a great job just giving us the things that we need...
COOPER: They are like at a General Hospital -- was it two days ago, I mean, like in the morning they had to delay surgeries because they didn't have surgical gloves. And that wasn't an IMC thing; it was a hospital wide thing.
MCADOO: Yes and I think IMC has actually stepped in to help with the different operating rooms and to start functioning. And surgeons are coming in on a regular basis now.
COOPER: Where did you find the X-Men shirt?
MCADOO: It was donated in a box. And so I thought since it was bright and red that he might be spotted in case we needed to look for him.
COOPER: You know we went to his house today. It was totally destroyed. They buried his mom and dad nearby. It's going to be a long road for him.
And there really is this new generation of kids who are going to be now facing, I mean, a new kind of life. A lot of them have had limbs amputated because of infections and they don't have parents.
MCADOO: Yes, it's a very sad situation. And I'm just hoping that people will, you know, donate and help with, you know, just the long- term progress of Haiti because it's not a short-term fix.
COOPER: Yes, a lot of the surgeries that you're having now they will need follow-on surgeries in some cases, right?
MCADOO: Oh, yes and also prosthetics, physical therapy. There's just a whole lot of things, you know, that needs to be done.
COOPER: Right. MCADOO: And it's going to take a long time.
COOPER: Are you ok? He's very shy.
MCADOO: He is.
COOPER: Well, thank you very much, Monley for being with us. I hope that cough gets better...
MCADOO: Yes.
COOPER: ...and we'll continue obviously to follow. Thank you so much for all you're doing. I appreciate it.
MCADOO: All right, you're welcome.
COOPER: I should also point out that the doctor, also, you were working with.
MCADOO: Colleen Buono.
COOPER: Yes, Colleen Buono. .
MCADOO: Yes.
COOPER: She did an amazing job.
MCADOO: She did.
COOPER: Both of you did.
MCADOO: She did.
COOPER: Thank you.
We've got a lot tonight. For two hours tonight on networks all around the planet and on every continent except Antarctica millions watched the television event aimed at reminding us that saving Haiti is the world's business. "Hope for Haiti Now." You can see the banner at the bottom of the screen with how to donate.
George Clooney was the driving force behind "Hope for Haiti Now". He joins us from Los Angeles.
George, how did the telethon do so far? 60 countries, six continents, 58 domestic networks; 60 international networks. I mean, how did you organize this? How did you get it up and running?
GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: Well, one of the things we did, the first thing we did was I called the people at MTV and they were kind enough to start the ball rolling and then it seemed as if everybody wanted to participate. All the networks immediately jumped in. And once they jumped in we were able to get other networks and other networks. Eventually I think we even got the Chinese government to allow it to run in China. So we've had -- I think there's an outpouring because of those images that you're showing. I think there's an outpouring across the world of people understanding that as bad as it is for them it's nowhere near as bad as it is where you are right now.
COOPER: How quickly will the money donated tonight, you think, get to relief organizations?
CLOONEY: Well, that was one of our big -- what was most important was that we were using organizations that actually are on the ground that are up and running. Red Cross, obviously, OXFAM, World Food Program, places like that. It's important for us to make sure that it's an influx of money immediately because, you know, there isn't much else we can do except make sure that there's money and begin the process of healing because everyone here feels very helpless otherwise.
COOPER: Yes. Do you -- I mean, as you addressed in the beginning of the program and there's a lot of people who feel like their donations aren't going to make a difference in a country where you know, as you pointed out 80 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day. What do you say to people about, you know, the effect that their money can have?
CLOONEY: Well, it's obvious -- and everyone -- is he ok?
COOPER: Yes. He's all right. I think he needs a little water.
CLOONEY: Oh.
COOPER: Well, go ahead, George.
CLOONEY: Well, no it's obvious that anything, a $5 donation from, you know, 300 million people is a lot of money. You can find a way to do it and make a huge difference to a country, and particularly a country that's as poor as Haiti. And it's going to need a lot of work.
It's going to be -- the biggest issue and you will have the same problem as the rest of us, will be keeping it -- keeping it front-page news, not now because it is now, but three or four or five or six months from now. That's the trick and that's why it has to be sustained. And that's part of our job.
COOPER: Yes. And I mean, that's what, you know, a lot of the big relief organizations which you guys are supporting tonight, you know, they are going to have a presence here for a long time to come...
CLOONEY: Sure.
COOPER: ...but as we were talking with Gabriela, a lot of these surgeries that these kids are having, you know, it's amputations now but it needs follow-on care, it needs follow-on surgeries. And that is the fear, that six months from now people are going to be like, oh, you know, Haiti that was six months ago, didn't we deal with that? But the answer is no. Because there's so much infrastructure that needs work here, there's -- the needs are so great. CLOONEY: Well, historically that's true. I mean, certainly Katrina of most recent times, Darfur you could talk about, you know -- you're going to have a big rally but then after it's over people feel as if, ok, I've done my bit and that's it and it's no longer part of the conscious, the collective.
And so our job in the -- in all of our industries, the industries that are seen by people is to remind people of it and to keep it up until it's healthy. And that's a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time.
COOPER: Yes, well, I certainly hope to come back a lot and continue reporting on this. George, we appreciate all you've done thank you very much for joining us tonight.
CLOONEY: Thank you Anderson for everything you're doing.
COOPER: Well, it's the least I can do.
Up next, Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the medical dangers of life the way so many people are living right now here in tent cities right behind us.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER (on camera): There's no way to tell exactly how many families are living here. A lot of them have even brought in mattresses. They have all their possessions. They've built up these -- they're using sheeting to create some privacy. Each family gets about, well, it looks like a space of about 10 or 15 feet by about maybe 10 feet.
These alleys have been created that just keeps going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's how people are living in right now Leogane in (AUDIO GAP) just about an hour from Port-au-Prince. Tent cities are popping up all across the quake zone. And as you know if you've been watching us, there's one right behind us. Several hundred people, I don't know if you're hear that music. They've actually set up speakers tonight for the first time and they are just kind of playing music for the people who are living there.
One international public health agency says that there are about a million Haitians living in about 600 impromptu settlements. So many people living so close together in these conditions pose potentially some seriously health risks. Sickness can spread easily through tent cities.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited one of these makeshift settlements to try to size up the risk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): And we're here with Tatania (ph), she's a little baby 2-month-old. T- shirt, cute, it says "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" She's living here with four other kids, three adults. This is their home. This is a tent. This is what it's like to be displaced after the earthquake.
Just everywhere you look there are tents like this and this is one of the things that people are most concerned about when they talk about a potential second wave of death. They're worried about infectious diseases in part because of living conditions like this. People living in very close quarters. There's a concern, could you start to spread diseases like -- could you start to spread respiratory illnesses?
And what about the water? Is the water clean enough to actually prevent water-borne illnesses as well? Take a look over here. They do a pretty good job here. They have clean water. It's really important. You have clean water and you can solve a lot of problems.
For the most part if you talk to public health officials they'll tell you this idea of a second wave of death due to infections is probably overblown. Actually probably it doesn't happen that much. In fact, if you can control some very basic things including water, making sure they get that, including access to some good, clean food you can probably stave off a lot of these potential infections.
Keep in mind we are talking about Haiti here. Even before the earthquake about 45 percent of people did not have access to clean drinking water. And of course, this is how they're living in very close quarters. If a disease outbreak were to occur it could spread very quickly from person to person.
One thing that's important to notice as well is how hot it is out here. It is just hot. Forget about infectious diseases, forget about cholera, (AUDIO GAP) forget about Hepatitis A; worry about the heat. People are at real risk of having heatstroke if they simply don't get enough water.
Another concern people hardly ever think about, is that all the aid workers that are coming to this area, well, they need to be inoculated as well. In fact as journalists we get these immunization cards to make sure that we don't become the carriers and the cause of a big infectious disease outbreak in a place like this.
But again, this is tent city. People living in close quarters, people concerned certainly about infectious disease outbreaks. But as things stand now the likelihood of that seems pretty remote.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. Were you surprised by what you saw in the tent cities besides the t-shirt that said about the diaper making the butt look big? GUPTA: She was a really cute baby. You know I wasn't surprised because we know they live in close quarters. What's sort of surprising is every time there's one of these natural disasters people always say there's a second wave of disease coming. And I've heard people say it could be -- it could cause even more deaths...
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: ...than the earthquake itself.
And I think it's pretty safe to say based on history now that that's not likely to happen. That's probably just some an overblown thing. Certainly there are risks of certain diseases. But what happens is that if you have clean water and you're able to get people treated pretty quickly they're not going to have these sort of large outbreaks of cholera or typhoid fever or hepatitis.
Keep in mind though that this is Haiti. You know about half the population didn't have access to clean water before all this started.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: So it's a little bit harder to predict. But I think that -- I think I'm pretty comfortable saying that we're not going to see these huge outbreaks causing massive deaths. There might be clusters of measles, clusters of various infections. That's probably what we're going to see.
COOPER: Did you get a sense -- I mean, every day you see little bits of progress and you see improvements and you drive by a street just that the other day it wasn't cleared and then suddenly it's cleared and you go to the hospital and you notice ok, there's more doctors here, it looks like things are moving a little bit better.
Do you sense today is better than yesterday?
GUPTA: No question about it. Three things that I noticed; first of all that baby that you met in the piece, they were smiling. They clearly had gotten food recently. There was a water truck that had come by actually distributing water and so even the children getting fresh water and not that concerned about water-borne illness.
But also I think the cleanliness, the hygiene seems to have improved as well. And obviously if you have squalid conditions, that puts you at higher risk of some these infectious diseases as well. But it was clean. People were sweeping up. I saw a lot of the trash being picked up. So it's a lot better than I think I expected.
COOPER: Right. And tomorrow, the next day, what do you think the priorities are right now?
GUPTA: Well, you have about, as you mentioned, hundreds of thousands of people. It's hard to estimate but probably at least 400,000 people who are living in these types of conditions right now. I think that the plan is to try and get them located to an area where they're going to have easier access to all these basic things. And by the way, medical access as well. So food, water...
COOPER: But it is a situation now that -- it's still this patchwork of well in this park there's a surgical theater that medics have set up and down here it's still sort of patchwork. The idea is maybe get folks into a central location.
GUPTA: That's right. Get them into a central location. And a lot of these people, by the way, they still have homes. They're just frightened to go back to them...
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: ...because of all the aftershocks.
COOPER: Understandably. Because I mean, the construction here, even if a home is standing, the concrete that's used is nowhere near -- it's not reinforced concrete like we have in the United States.
GUPTA: That's right. And so they have the physical trauma that they may have suffered but the emotional trauma that's ongoing as well.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: We kept hearing that over and over again.
COOPER: Yes, all right, Sanjay, great thank you. Another good day for Sanjay.
We've been tracking relief supplies sent to Haiti on our Web site. You can go to AC360.com for sort of an overview of aid and where's it going.
Just ahead tonight, the max exodus out of Port-au-Prince: a lot of people leaving the capital trying to get to other parts of Haiti. But the question is, where exactly are they going and what awaits them when they get there? We'll show you ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Aid officials say about 200,000 people have fled the capital by bus or ferry or on foot, some planning to stay with relatives elsewhere in Haiti, others, well, their plans are less certain. They just kind of want to get out of the city as Karl Penhaul found out. He joins me now. There are a lot of people just trying to get out, right?
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really is. I mean, there were a lot of people that we saw today heading toward the coastal city Jeremie (ph) down in the southwest there. There seemed to be a lot of family ties here, a lot of kind of rural connections so they just want to get out in the countryside.
I wouldn't say so much that they want to build a new life, but they really just want to find some way to survive, but pushing, fighting for seats, you know, it's 90-some degrees outside and then on those buses it's absolutely boiling inside.
As you can imagine, the kids are just crying. Everybody's getting bent out of shape. And the bus is in such a poor condition.
COOPER: Right.
PENHAUL: They might be sitting on the bus for four or five hours while they do repairs to axles and everything else.
COOPER: And until they get some sort of large mobilization to get people working on rebuilding -- I mean, there's not a lot of jobs. Businesses aren't open and people are just kind of -- there's a lot of people are just kind of hanging around.
PENHAUL: Exactly. I mean, one of the ladies that I met today she said, "Well, you know, one of the reasons I'm going is that there are no jobs here. I worked for kindergarten and that kindergarten is no longer here." In the second part of her sentence she then added that her 5-year-old and one-and-a-half-year-old were crushed by the building when she was away.
And when asked, "Did you have time to bury them before you're leaving," and she simply said, "I threw them away."
COOPER: She said she threw her kids away?
PENHAUL: She just tossed her kids away. And that, I think, they are fleeing but at some point they're going to have to come to terms not only with where they're trying to build their new life but with these emotions as well.
As I put to this lady, you know, why don't you Haitians cry? Because we haven't really seen...
COOPER: Yes.
PENHAUL: ...you know, we have seen some immediate outpourings of grief...
COOPER: Right.
PENHAUL: ...but not a lot of long-term outpourings.
COOPER: Yes.
PENHAUL: I said, why don't you Haitians cry? She said, "There's no point, they're dead already. That's over and done with."
COOPER: I think there's been generations of suffering on this island. And we know there have. You know, from dictatorships and killings at night and people who have no power really have absolutely no power. And there's this kind of resignation almost at times of people just kind of throw up their shoulders and say you know what, this is the way it's always been.
PENHAUL: I think it's a really interesting issue and you know, I get that and I think that's part of this, that's the explanation. I can't believe that it's the whole part of the situation. Can you imagine a mother saying in any culture, "I threw them away?"
COOPER: Yes, yes it's -- I'll never forget being at the cemetery on the second day of this and you know, families bringing their loved ones and there was just no place to put them and putting them in crypts and anyway -- a lot of things which are just kind of eye opening and I think are going to take a lot of time for the Haitians to kind of wrap their minds around what has happened.
I mean, I think the shock is still kind of very present.
PENHAUL: Absolutely. Yes.
COOPER: Yes, all right Karl. Thanks very much.
Up next, so many children left orphaned by the quake. There is some good news. We're going to show you the happy ending for some families who were already in the process of adopting Haitian kids.
There are so many others not even near that yet. But we'll show you the good news, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Those are just some of the kids affected by the quake we've seen. And you know in 2007 the UNICEF estimated there were about 380,000 orphans in Haiti. That was in 2007.
There are many more new orphans after the quake. Orphanages as you know have been hit pretty hard.
Gary Tuchman visited an orphanage here. And the parents back in the U.S. saw Gary's report, saw the kids they were in the process of adopting and tonight happy endings for two of the families that we've been profiling.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We arrived at the Bresma Orphanage (ph) three days after the earthquake. It seemed remarkable. None of the orphans were crying, but we also noticed they weren't smiling.
Two sisters from Pittsburgh who ran the orphanage were nervous and upset. The children's adoption papers have been destroyed in the quake. They didn't know what they were going to do.
JAMIE MCMURTRIE, BRESMA ORPHANAGE: Their paperwork was in government offices downtown and their offices are all crumbled.
ALI MCMURTRIE, BRESMA ORPHANAGE: They're all crumbled.
TUCHMAN: Though we didn't know it until later, our trip to the orphanage triggered two amazing coincidences. This is what I said on the air at the time. (on camera): There are fears the rest of these orphanage could collapse because of the frequent aftershocks we're having. So the decision has been made to leave these children outside 24 hours a day.
The little girl on my lap is the first coincidence. A woman in Denver, Elizabeth Dowling, happened to be watching and she was stunned. The little girl was Jenna and Jenna was the girl that Elizabeth was adopting.
ELIZABETH DOWLING, JENNA'S MOM: It's been exhausting. And going from terrifying to seeing her on TV was amazing. To see if she was ok and then not to know she was going to be safe at the orphanage.
TUCHMAN: But the very next night, Jenna and four other children from the orphanage were approved to move to America and start new lives.
I got to say good-bye to Jenna at the Port-au-Prince airport before she and the others boarded an Air Force C-17 for a trip to Florida. Their new parents would meet them there.
DOWLING: Hi, guys. This is Jenna.
TUCHMAN: Jenna and her mom would no longer be separated.
Thursday night, mother and daughter flew to Denver where Jenna made her grand entrance into her own bedroom. And how does Elizabeth feel?
DOWLING: I can exhale and get used to it and start her little routine.
TUCHMAN: As for the second coincidence, while we were at the orphanage, a couple from Kansas reached out to our producers at AC360 in New York and told them they were looking for information about the boy they were adopting. So they called us and we found him.
J. MCMURTRIE: This is Alexander.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How is he doing?
J. MCMURTRIE: He's doing good.
ROSS HASKELL, ALEXANDER'S ADOPTIVE DAD: Well, I guess I have got mixed emotions. I'm incredibly happy to see him. And I'm also terribly worried.
TUCHMAN: Two nights after that, Alexander and 53 other children from the orphanage were driven to the U.S. embassy. They did not all have approval to leave, but ultimately each child received permission. And now Alexander is home, too, in Kansas with his mom and dad, Jean Griffith and Ross Haskell.
JEAN GRIFFITH, ALEXANDER'S ADOPTIVE MOM: I just kissed him and hugged him and...
HASKELL: Yes.
GRIFFITH: And checked him out and made sure for myself that he was ok.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: Almost all of these parents were months away from getting their children. So the interesting thing is because of the earthquake they got their children quicker.
So, Anderson, that is the silver lining here amid this terrible catastrophe.
COOPER: Well, for these families certainly, Gary, thanks.
We are joined now by Alexander's dad, Ross Haskell; he joins us now. Ross, we have a picture I think of Alexander that was in your home today. How's it going? How are you doing?
HASKELL: Anderson, we are overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed by...
COOPER: In a good way.
HASKELL: ...happiness for Alex being here in our house. We're overwhelmed with gratitude for all the people who made this happen, yourself included. And especially Jamie and Ali, they are heroes in our eyes.
We also are overwhelmed that there are still hundreds and hundreds of children in Haiti, just like Alexander, who need to be rescued and united with their parents.
We think about that a lot because we understand what it's like to be waiting and suffering in that way. Our ending was happy. There's a lot of other happy endings that could be happening.
COOPER: Yes. And there's a lot of kids who weren't even in the pipeline but who are unfortunately now orphaned by, you know, by circumstances. Their parents died in the quake and even like little Monley who we introduced you to at the top of the program. You know he has an uncle who is caring for him right now but the uncle essentially is looking for some place to put Monley because he's too poor. He doesn't feel he can take care of him properly.
How is Alexander dealing with all this? I mean, he's suddenly gone from one world to another. And how is he doing?
HASKELL: He's doing pretty well.
You know, Jean was supposed to be with me this evening. She apologizes that she could not do that, but Alexander really needs us right now. She's upstairs with him right now putting him to sleep, comforting him.
He started to show some signs of being scared, especially when airplanes would fly over our house, but he's still a happy kid. He's still engaging with us, looking us in the eye, smiling, laughing. We just need to make him our top priority and that is what we're doing. COOPER: Well, you made the right choice. I'm certainly glad that Jean's not here because what she's doing is far more important than being on TV.
But I know your story, you know, gives hope to a lot of people who are in the same situations, who are trying to get their kids from Haiti back into the United States.
I'm so glad things worked out for you and we'll keep in touch with you. And please give our best to Alexander and to Jean. Ross, thank you so much.
HASKELL: Thank you, thank you very much.
COOPER: Well, coming up, some amazing stories of survival. What we have seen during our ten days on the ground here in Haiti. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER (on camera): You know, when you first come here it seems like it's just out of control, like its complete chaos. But when your eyes kind of adjust to it after you've spent a little bit of time here you realize there is an order to it. There are lanes, there is organization.
And people have respect for one another. You don't see a lot of fights. You don't see pushing. Short tempers may flare from time to time; it's an extraordinarily stressful situation. But there are kind of unwritten rules and people, you know, are forced to live very close together. And so far, at least in this area, they seem to be getting along.
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COOPER: That's some of what we saw in Leogane, again, it's about 20 miles from here. It takes about an hour to get here. Roads are kind of crowded. People are living outside in tent cities. They have nowhere else to go. A lot of the buildings there have been destroyed.
I want to talk to some of our correspondents who've been covering this crisis now for ten days; stories of heartbreak and hope. I'm joined by my colleagues Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Gary Tuchman and by Ivan Watson.
That is one of the things I think that when you first get here things seemed chaotic. But there is really an order here. There are unwritten rules. And even in these tent cities, you know, even if some aid organization hasn't come in and organized things there's kind of little markets sprout up. People selling goods, kind of a life finds a way to move forward.
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We saw this yesterday, bazaars have set up; impromptu bazaars and people who even rigged up car batteries and they charge people the equivalent of 50 cents to charge their phones in the middle of a refugee camp.
COOPER: Yes, you saw -- what did you see today? What...
WATSON: We traveled a little bit past Leogane to a place that was called Petit Paradis (ph), that means "little paradise." And it was actually hit by a tsunami -- a localized tsunami...
COOPER: Yes.
WATSON: ...tragically on top of the earthquake that killed by our count at least seven locals there. There had been a tsunami warning on the day of the earthquake...
COOPER: Right.
WATSON: ...but it was withdrawn. But we've since talked with experts and it is possible to have localized tsunamis like that in areas very close to the epicenter.
COOPER: And how are things in these towns which are farther away from Port-au-Prince. I mean, so much focus has been on Port-au-Prince, these little towns have they gotten any attention?
WATSON: No aid whatsoever. There was a nun trying to distribute some rice and pop tarts. They flocked to her car. She had to drive away and they chased her car but we did see Marines and U.S. Navy CV's (ph) arriving in amphibious boats, ships and they said they're going to start distributing aid this weekend.
COOPER: And Gary, what did you do today?
TUCHMAN: I had a meeting with a woman I will never forget the rest of my life. Her name is Pricilla Setut (ph) and this was at a tent city on a soccer field, thousands of people living on a soccer field and tents.
And Pricilla is into her second century of life. She is 109 years old.
COOPER: 109?
TUCHCMAN: ...109; she was born in 1900. She's always had a roof over her head. Her house was destroyed. Her 17-year-old great granddaughter carried her out of the house after it came down.
The whole family's now in a tent: daughter, great granddaughter, cousins, eight people in this tiny tent. And asked her how she was feeling.
And she said, "I'm sad because I'm blind and I lived in my house for so long I knew where I was going and now in the tent I don't know where I'm going anymore."
Nevertheless, she was smiling the whole time and laughing. She laughed at a joke when I asked her what year she was born. And she didn't remember at first and I said, "Don't -- don't worry I don't remember what year I was born, I was so young when I was born and I didn't remember it either." And she laughed which I appreciate of course.
But she was smiling so much. And I said, how can you smile so much? And she said that, "If I don't laugh, I'll cry."
COOPER: Sanjay do you know how long you're going to stay? I mean, have you...
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's funny. I don't know the exact day that we're going to leave.
But I'd been thinking to myself sort of all along, I'd like to be able to report some good stories. I'd like to be able to report some stories of recovery of the things that we've been talking about for some time.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: It was nice today in some ways; I had a similar experience I think to Gary's. I went out to one of these tent cities and I wasn't sure what to expect. But first thing that we saw when we got there was a kid who was flying a kite that he sort of made out of a paper plate...
COOPER: Yes.
GUPTA: ...and he was flying that and everyone around him was laughing. It was very clean as well; people sweeping up the area.
COOPER: Yes.
GUPTA: There wasn't the squalor that I sort of expected and there was also some of the sort of commerce that I think that you're alluding to.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: People trying to sell things and including water being distributed and all of that.
I mean, it's not permanent settlements but it seemed like a pretty good sort of temporary housing and also one that would probably not be one that would be at risk for disease.
COOPER: And I mean, life really does move forward here even amidst the rubble. People are -- I mean, figuring out new ways to survive. And I mean, it's not -- it's painful and there is sorrow everywhere and everybody seems to have lost somebody.
And that's the thing I think, you know, maybe that doesn't come across on television is that just the loss infuses everybody's life here.
I mean, and, you know -- they're not crying about it openly on the streets but it's got to just change everything about everybody's life.
TUCHMAN: Very different situations, but it reminds me of September 11th and the days after in New York City...
GUPTA: Yes.
TUCHMAN: ...3,000 people died in 9/11 but when you went throughout New York City everyone knew someone or knew someone who knew someone.
Here it's obviously a much bigger toll, but it's the same kind of feeling that there's no one who's escaped unscathed.
COOPER: Yes, do you-- what -- explain, Ivan, how you work every day? I mean, we all basically just kind of go out and we have a destination in mind but you don't always make it to the destination because something else kind of comes up.
WATSON: It is really is pretty random. You -- sometimes you have a goal in mind, oh, we're going to go and talk to this person somewhere and along the way and you see something that just blows your mind or you see a gathering. And we just plan to drive out west because nobody -- I'd never been out there.
And we saw a cluster of people on the side of the road and it was a nun trying to give out food. And she had to hide in her car to get away from the hungry crowd. And that things lead from there.
And it was a -- and then we started talking to a fisherman there and they said our boats got destroyed. And I thought it was from the earthquake, it turned out it was from a giant wave that swept a lot of their relatives out to sea.
And that's what happens in a situation like this.
COOPER: Do you see -- do you see improvement? I mean do you see that today was better than yesterday?
WATSON: I think in Port-au-Prince we see some signs of improvement, but what really came home to me was out in the provinces. It's -- there has been little to no change.
COOPER: Yes. Well, we...
TUCHMAN: I think that one thing our viewers want to know is how we live. They've been asking me a lot on e-mails and on Twitter. And I think one thing that's really interesting, before I came to this earthquake, we always hear a lot during earthquakes about how people stay outside even if they have homes because they're scared of the aftershocks. I think a lot of us wonder, why don't you go in your house if it's good?
Well, what our viewers should know is that all of us CNNers are staying at this hotel and other journalists are staying here, too. I'm not going to name any names but there are a number of people who decided among the journalist corps to sleep outside. They're not comfortable because we've had so many aftershocks including two this morning.
COOPER: Yes. Well, I sleep inside because I figure like, you know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
GUPTA: You see all the people coming out in the hallways are often in their boxer shorts and their...
TUCHMAN: I was. I was.
COOPER: I will say when one of the aftershocks hit I put on a pair of jeans and stood in the doorway and I kind of thought to myself, is this how I would want to be found? You know, like, so anyway. I guess that shows how vain I am.
Ivan, thank you very much, Gary as well and Dr. Gupta as well, Sanjay.
A lot to report on here; lot of stories to tell. We've been here a week and a half now; a photographer has been traveling with us helping to capture all the images.
We're going to show you some behind the scenes images you haven't seen, in our Reporters' Notebook. We'll be right back.
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COOPER: In the ten days that we've been here with my photographer, Neil Hallsworth (ph); my producer, Charlie Moore (ph), Marion Fox (ph), and Vlad Duthiers (ph) have been traveling around with this guy. Jonathan -- and I always mess up his last name.
JONATHAN TORGOVNIK, PHOTOGRAPHER: Torgovnik.
COOPER: Torgovnik who's our still photographer from Getty Images. He's been taking pictures -- really remarkable pictures behind the scenes while we've been working putting together stories. We wanted to show you some of his pictures with some of kind of my random thoughts in my Reporter's Notebook.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): It's been ten days now. Ten days. Ups still down, night still day; nothing is fair.
At first it's the dead. That's what we all saw; the bodies on streets, crushed under rubble. Hands reaching out as if imploring for help.
Now it's the living. They stare right at you. No words. No speech. Some still are on the doorstep of death.
There's a risk it can all start to blend together. The pain and the need and the sadness you see. You can't let that happen, though, not yet, not now. Each person's pain deserves to be known.
At General Hospital the screaming is constant. But some of the kids just sit there and listen. Their bodies are broken. There's not enough help to be had. There has been some violence; some looting and fighting.
(on camera): It's become kind of a free for all.
(voice-over): Earlier this week we got caught up in it all. A boy was bleeding, collapsed on the ground. I grabbed him and ran, blood poured from his head. He was stunned and in shock. It all happened so fast.
The violence is limited, however, most people are calm. They pick through the rubble and save what they can. They sweep up their past. They find solutions to live. They're strong and resilient. Their spirits still soar.
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COOPER: I want to thank Jonathan for all his hard work with us. Not all those pictures were his but most of them were.
A quick reminder about what you're seeing at the bottom of your screen. It's from tonight's telethon, "Hope for Haiti" now. Shows exactly how you can help make a difference to the people here.
And next, Haiti's new orphans. That story ahead.
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COOPER: You saw Alexander David a few moments ago adapting to his new American home. He was orphaned before the earthquake. But for every Alexander David there are many, many more Haitian kids who are orphaned by the quake. There's really no system at this point in place to care for them.
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COOPER (voice-over): Outside the crumbling pediatric ward at General Hospital a nurse sings of God and grace.
You can't hear the singing inside the pediatric tent because Wanda Smiley (ph) can't stop screaming. She's 11 years old. Her legs are broken. No one's sure exactly what else is wrong.
Nearby a little boy with a broken leg sits silently, watching it all. His name is Johnny. He doesn't know his last name. His parents are dead. He has no clothes and nowhere else to go.
DR. MARIE FRANCE CONDE: Right now he has a broken leg, a femur as well as a broken -- he has several fractures on that leg. But no one is here for him.
COOPER (on camera): What will happen to him?
CONDE: Last night I did not sleep thinking about Johnny because I got up. I said, maybe I should take Johnny home. I said, I know it's not going to be possible.
COOPER (voice-over): For kids whose parents are dead, there is no clear system. That's part of the planning that needs to be done.
CONDE: We don't have much. That's all we have.
COOPER: Dominique Toussaint, a Haitian-American nurse from Harlem, doesn't cry in front of the children. But outside the tent she's overcome by it all.
DOMINIQUE TOUSSAINT, HAITIAN-AMERICAN NURSE: Everybody has infections. It seems as though, to me, like they're going to eventually die. I don't even have some place to wash my hands. I have one bottle of hand sanitizer. We can't do anything under sterile technique. It's impossible not to have, you know, horrible infections.
You know, the medications we're giving them; we could use some stronger medications. We don't have them.
COOPER (on camera): It also seems like a lot of the medication -- the supplies you do have are not built for children. They're not geared for children.
TOUSSAINT: They're not. Like I just went to get an oxygen tank; it took forever to get the tank, it took forever to get a mask. The mask we have is probably too big to even fit on my face, it looks like.
We have no -- the needles on our syringes are too long. We have nothing for the kids. It's like the kids are forgotten almost.
COOPER: Like the kids are forgotten?
TOUSSAINT: Yes. So -- we're just doing the best we can. I mean, it's frustrating. I just -- I'm overwhelmed.
COOPER (voice-over): It is overwhelming for nurses and children. The injured keep coming. There's no space to be had.
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COOPER: We'll have more from Haiti in a moment.
We're following some other important stories though for you. Joe Johns has the "360 News and Business Bulletin" -- Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, Britain has raised its national terror threat level from substantial to severe, indicating an attack is highly likely. But British officials say there's no intelligence to suggest an attack is imminent.
Here in the U.S. a Los Angeles judge has ruled Roman Polanski must return to the U.S. to be sentenced for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. The director's attorneys argued their client should be sentenced in absentia. An appeal is likely. Polanski is under house arrest at a Swiss chalet.
On Wall Street, stocks tumbled for the third day in a row. The Dow shed 216 points, the biggest drop since October. For the week, blue chips lost more than 430 points. The decline fueled by uncertainty over whether the Senate will approve a second term for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and worries over President Obama's plan to get tougher on big banks.
The president talked about the economy at a town hall meeting in Ohio today. President Obama said he will never stop fighting for jobs and health care reform.
Back to you, Anderson.
COOPER: Joe thanks very much.
I hope you have a good weekend. We're going to be here tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. We're going to be here all next week if we can.
Hey, that's it for 360. Thanks for watching.
"LARRY KING" starts right now.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": An earthquake ravages Haiti; 3 million of its people desperate for food and water and nowhere...
