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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Colorado Snowstorm; Pakistan Earthquake; Avian Flu; Police Beating in New Orleans; Rebuilding New Orleans; Jesse Jackson Interview
Aired October 10, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again. We're live for this second hour of NEWSNIGHT. I'm Aaron Brown in New York.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Say it with enthusiasm. I'm Anderson Cooper.
We have a lot to cover in this hour. Let's begin with a look at what's happening at this moment.
The videotape of police officers beating a (INAUDIBLE) man in New Orleans is now in the hands of the Justice Department. It opened a civil rights investigation today. The officers, of course, are white. The city's police chief says race was not a factor, in his opinion. We'll hear from him in just a moment.
It is Tuesday in Pakistan, and they are still counting the dead from Saturday's massive earthquake. More than 30,000 people have died, 30,000 people. Rescuers continue to find survivors, including today a mother and a 2-year-old girl. The U.S. tonight is promising its ally in the war on terror that help is on the way. Some U.S. relief arrived today.
Five days until Iraq votes on a new constitution, and the violence is increasing. Today insurgents' attacks in Baghdad claimed at least six lives, including two Iraqi police commandos, who died when their convoy was ambushed.
And tomorrow morning's subway commute will be a little less intrusive here in New York City. The city is scaling back its antiterror security measures, that after it was revealed that the threat of an attack was not corroborated. However, bags and backpacks are still subject to random searches.
BROWN: Well, we begin the hour with the beating in New Orleans, now a state, local, and federal case, and another moment in a long and often ugly national conservation, the one on race.
In a moment, the New Orleans police chief.
First, the latest tonight from CNN's Alina Cho. Good evening.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, good evening to you.
Late today, an FBI spokesman confirmed to CNN that indeed, the federal government has opened a civil rights investigation into the beating of a 64-year-old man by New Orleans police officers. Now, this will be handled jointly by the Justice Department, the FBI, and the New Orleans Police Department's Office of Internal Affairs.
The videotape of the incident shows the two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punching the suspect, identified as 64-year-old Robert Davis, who police say was drunk and who they say was resisting arrest.
Later on in the tape, a third officer was seen pushing an Associated Press producer, pinning him against a car, and then launching into a profanity-laced tirade, which included these words, "I've been here for six weeks trying to keep myself alive. Go home."
All of that can be seen and heard on this tape, which was provided to us by the Associated Press.
Now, soon after our own CNN photojournalist was at a nearby hotel, he was on his hotel balcony, said to me that he heard something going on outside that was not quite right, noticed that the street was cordoned off, noticed a man lying on the ground soaked in blood, and immediately began taping the incident.
And in my estimation, these are some of the most graphic pictures of the incident that we have seen.
On to what has happened today. The three New Orleans police officers allegedly involved in the incident were arraigned today on battery charges. They have all pleaded not guilty. They left the courthouse without making any comments, and currently they are suspended without pay.
The beating victim, 64-year-old Robert Davis, will have his day in court tomorrow. He is charged with, among other things, public intoxication. But late today, Davis's attorney spoke to CNN. He said to us that this is a sweet man, a retired teacher, who, interestingly enough, Aaron, is a reformed alcoholic and has not had a drink in years.
He also says that this was a man who was not drinking at all at the time of the beating, Aaron.
BROWN: (INAUDIBLE), excuse me. All that will get sorted out.
Has the -- have lawyers for the three officers, or the police union, the police guild, whatever it's called in New Orleans, have they said anything in the officers' defense as to -- there's no question they beat the guy into a bloody pulp, so we can let that part go.
CHO: Right.
BROWN: As to why this happened?
CHO: Well, we can tell you this. As for the lawyers, that part of the answer is no, Aaron. The police union, yes, they have spoken out to CNN, and they said that these officers used what they called appropriate force against this man, 64-year-old Robert Davis. But you will hear from the police chief later on in your program, I am sure, that this is not appropriate behavior, in his belief.
Of course, all of this will be worked out as the criminal investigation plays out in the coming weeks and months, Aaron.
BROWN: Well, just, Alina, thank you very much, remember, just in going back to Rodney King case, how each second to that tape, and each frame in that tape was shown to the jury as slowly, as carefully as they could, in an effort to show the jurors that, in the view of the police officers, at least, Mr. King was resisting arrest, and one presumes that that's pretty much what we'll see here too.
COOPER: It's interesting, though, because already you have the chief of police, or the acting chief of police, coming out and saying, it's excessive, that there's no doubt about it, given what he has seen on the tape. Of course, what stands up in a court of law is very different.
As I said, New Orleans police chief called the videotaped beating excessive. He says, though, that race was not a factor. I spoke with him, Police Superintendent Warren Riley, earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You know, Chief Riley, it hurts me to have to talk to you about the subjects. I know there are a lot of hard-working police officers in New Orleans who don't do this kind of stuff.
But when you saw this video, was it instantly apparent to you that this went overboard, this was excessive force?
ACTING SUPERINTENDENT WARREN RILEY, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Well, my initial reaction was, yes, that there was too much force used in this particular situation. What we base our physical actions on, in any confrontation, is that we use reasonable and necessary force.
COOPER: And in your opinion, from what you've seen on this tape, and again, there is an investigation, this was not reasonable or this was excessive force?
RILEY: It was beyond reasonable, yes.
COOPER: What has happened to the officers involved so far?
RILEY: Well, they have been suspended without pay. They have been charged. I know that those officers did, in fact, were scheduled to go to court, I believe today. And I don't know what the outcome of that was.
COOPER: They've been charged with battery?
RILEY: Yes.
COOPER: And do you know what's happened to the man involved, Mr. Davis?
RILEY: Well, I know that Mr. Davis was treated and released. I know he was also summoned to court. I believe he's scheduled to appear in court tomorrow.
COOPER: Obviously there, there -- some people will see this and see a racial component. The officers were white, Mr. Davis is African-American. It, did, did, did that enter your mind when you saw it?
RILEY: Well, let me just say, there is no evidence to prove that this was race related as it released -- related to, as it relates to this incident.
COOPER: Do you, do you feel your problem, your police department has, has a problem with, with race? There, I know, have been investigations in the past.
RILEY: No, I don't believe that we have that, that problem at all. Certainly, incidents may occur, but it's certainly not anything that's prevalent in this organization.
COOPER: You know, there's also in the video this, one of the police officers who grabs, I guess he was a reporter or a cameraman or something, with the camera crew, you know, grabs and pushes him against a car, is gesticulating to him, is yelling at him. Do you know what that's about?
RILEY: All I can tell you is that that officer has also been suspended for his actions, for physically -- or for grabbing the producer from that organization. I don't know what it was about. Obviously he overreacted. What caused it, I don't know.
COOPER: How concerned are you about the officers you have out on the beat? I mean, the men and women of your force have been through unspeakable things. Are you concerned about them?
RILEY: Well, certainly I'm concerned about our officers. I'm concerned because of the catastrophe that we went through. There are a hundred different variations of why officers feel the way that they do about certain things.
I mean, we're separated from our families, we're homeless, we have no cars, we've lost most of our personal possessions. Not me personally, I fared out relatively well. However, we have officers that have gone through an atrocity that few have experienced.
As it relates to the organization, we're functional, we're sound, we're progressing every day, and we're getting better and better and better. And there are many officers out there who are professional, who continue to be professional, who continue to do their job as a professional, who we are very, very proud of.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: But there's three who will defend themselves in court. We touched on race with the chief, and at the top of the program, we'll take it up with Jesse Jackson in a moment.
Over the years, the national conversation on race has taken many forms. This time, where the failures of the levees and plans and people are concerned, it is a conversation carried out in whispers, whispers that speak of conspiracy.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Gary Tuchman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The lower Ninth Ward is no longer under water, but nobody is under the illusion things are getting back to normal.
The absence of water makes the complete destruction of this New Orleans neighborhood more evident. The people who lived here aren't even allowed to visit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need other people to help us. We just can't do it by ourselves. We don't have the resources. Help!
TUCHMAN: Isaac Reyes (ph) in a shelter in Baton Rouge, still packed with people who lost their homes in the lower Ninth Ward.
They all know levee failure caused the flooding of their neighborhood, but the anger and frustration they feel has made the atmosphere ripe for talk of conspiracies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that that levee didn't break by itself.
TUCHMAN (on camera): What do you think happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe they let the water in. That's what I believe, to keep everybody out of the Ninth Ward.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Flooding the Ninth Ward in order to protect other neighborhoods. It's an extremely common belief among many in this shelter. The fact that many other neighborhoods were flooded doesn't diminish the array of vehement conspiracy theories about the levee break.
(on camera): Why would they want the levee to break?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're black people. That's all. Just poor black people they want to get rid of.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they blowed it up, man. I think they (INAUDIBLE) it up, I think they blow it up with explosive.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And while there's no evidence to support any of these theories, they go on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sabotage.
TUCHMAN (on camera): Sabotage by whom? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our enemies.
TUCHMAN: Which enemies are those?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ones who bombed New York.
TUCHMAN: Al Qaeda?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know his name.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And the theories are shared by some who don't live anywhere near the Ninth Ward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that there are probably people in power who are not above doing that.
TUCHMAN: The conspiracy talk saddens New Orleans political leaders and experts, who nevertheless see how past racial relations in this city foster such thinking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a combination of historically certain groups of people not feeling like they've had a voice in determining their fates.
TUCHMAN: The conspiracy issue was taken up in the October 3 "New Yorker" in an article written by magazine editor David Remnick (ph).
DAVID REMNICK, EDITOR, "THE NEW YORKER": Any natural disaster I've been involved in as a reporter, whether it's an earthquake in Armenia, the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and other situations, always have attached to it some sense that not everything was by chance or by act of God.
TUCHMAN (on camera): The mayor of New Orleans is an African- American, but that fact doesn't get in the way of the conspiracy theorists, who say things like, The mayor didn't know about the plot, or didn't care about it, or was powerless to stop it, all accusations that would never fly in a court of law but are very prevalent in this court of public opinion.
(voice-over): The lower Ninth Ward was destroyed on August 29, and with it, the trust of many of its residents.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: One thing that struck us in working this story is how absolutely effortless it's been to find people who believe in a conspiracy. We've spent a lot of time in that shelter in Baton Rouge, and we found many people who say they don't know what caused the levee to break. But it's been very difficult to find people who categorically say to us they believe it was an accident.
There is a lot of unhappiness out there, Aaron.
BROWN: Gary, thank you. What always, what always strikes me about these things, I mean, there's the -- you know, somebody's buying advertising time and basically arguing the U.S. government slammed planes into the Twin Tow...
TUCHMAN: Right.
BROWN: Is the degree of malevolence they assume, some people have in them, that they would kill thousands of people, just because?
COOPER: Well, it's also not just malevolence, it's degree, level of planning that they ascribe to the government or whatever that is sort of hard to imagine being capable of. I mean, on that 9/11 thing, it's planting explosives in this building, and that all these groups are in on the plots, and that somehow no one ever finds out about it. It's hard to imagine.l
BROWN: Yes.
COOPER: It's not just the flooding. We should say some people believe that New Orleans residents are getting a raw deal when it comes to the recovery process, getting the jobs, are upset that a lot of the jobs in the city are going to people who are not from New Orleans, or from Louisiana.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson is taking a stand. He's bussing dozens of residents from shelters around the country. They're headed for New Orleans right now. They should arrive tomorrow.
Earlier I spoke with Reverend Jackson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Reverend Jackson, as you see it, what is the problem with the rebuilding of New Orleans as it is now?
REV. JESSE JACKSON, PRESIDENT, RAINBOW COALITION: The displaced persons have been displaced again. You have outside contractors with low bid versus inside contracts with low bid, and the (INAUDIBLE) suspended prevailing wages and from the action and environmental laws, they're in fact recruiting workers from Central America, from (INAUDIBLE) and Honduras.
And so the displaced citizens are languishing in these rescue camps, and they should have priority on resources for reconstructions.
COOPER: I want to show you what our reporter, Gary Tuchman, he's been in the city a couple days, looking into this, trying to talk to people who are working there, just to hear what they have to say about the job opportunity. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN (voice-over): There is plenty of work to do in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. And these Latino men from south Texas have traveled here for jobs that pay up to $12 an hour. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They have a sad situation here. We are here to help them. We did not come here to take anyone's job. We just came here to work.
TUCHMAN: Help wanted signs can be seen all over the city. Also seen all over, Latinos who have come to New Orleans to pursue those jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There's plenty of work here. We come here with the will to work.
TUCHMAN: But what we found is that the new work force certainly does not just consist of Latinos. African-Americans have also come to New Orleans looking for work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's not much work in Michigan, and from what I gathered over the news, there was work here. You just have to be at the right place at the right time.
TUCHMAN: That's the way this white painter, also from Michigan, feels too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People want to work, definitely come down here. There's just tons of work.
TUCHMAN: This contractor, who is hiring people, says the jobs are open to all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're willing to take anybody. It don't matter the color, the race, nothing. It don't matter. They want to help, the more the merrier.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Now, Reverend Jackson, Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of HUD, said, and I quote, "I wish the so-called black leadership would stop running around this country like Jesse and the rest of them, making this a racial issue."
JACKSON: Mr. Alphonso said that New Orleans would never again be a majority black city. That's the kind of profile he projected. It would be maybe 17 to 35 percent African-American, and therefore should not be rebuilt.
If those are the new political demographics projected by Karl Rove, the director of the project, its impact upon the mayor, the congressmen, the senator, the governor.
So while we're fighting for jobs, there's a sinister plot, it seems, in fact, to reorder the political demographics of the city.
Karl Rove is about as qualified to build the reconstruction as Brown, the horse trainer, was to be over FEMA.
COOPER: Do you, do you believe...
JACKSON: It's more than political incompetence, it seems.
COOPER: Do you believe the White House is intentionally depopulating the city of New Orleans of African-Americans?
JACKSON: All I do know is, there was no plan for mass rescue. There was no orderly plan for mass relocation. Now there's no plan for the return of the displaced citizens. They've lost their homes and their lives, so they deserve (INAUDIBLE), whether they're white, black, or brown, displaced citizens deserve priority in housing, jobs, and reconstruction.
COOPER: We spoke to Alphonso Jackson, secretary of HUD, Housing and Urban Development, earlier today. He says he's been to a number of shelters, talked to evacuees. Here's what he, what he had to say about that experience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALPHONSO JACKSON, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: I have visited many shelters. Many of the persons in those shelters do not want to return. That has nothing to do with the president. That has nothing to do with any agenda. That has to do with reality. And the question becomes, if they don't want to move back, are we in the position to force them to move back? And we're saying no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Reverend Jackson, what do you think of what he said?
JACKSON: (INAUDIBLE) the person simply have, they're not accepting what they are. And so at some point, those who have been displaced, who were embraced with great emotions a month ago, are beginning to wear out welcome. The reality is, we do need a broader plan to restructure America's cities and place workers.
But I submit to you that the displaced victims or survivors of Katrina, from Pascagoula and Biloxi to New Orleans, should be first in line, and not last in line. They're being displaced again.
Tomorrow we're taking the workers back home where there's a surplus of jobs. They must find housing for these people. We've identified hotel rooms. FEMA ought to underwrite them.
COOPER: So the question really is, I mean, you seem to, the, the, I mean, the Bush White House has said, Yes, these people who have been displaced should have the first chance for jobs in the area. I think the governor wants that, the mayor wants that.
The question seems to be, where are they going to stay, and where are they going to be housed? And you're basically saying no one is really working to solve that problem, that they could open up local Army bases. That's your position.
JACKSON: Well, 3,000 acres at Amis (ph) Air Force Base in (INAUDIBLE) after Louisiana. There is the Algiers Air Force Base, unused and vast properties that have infrastructure of water. You could take a 90-mile radius of New Orleans and begin to rent out hotel rooms. And then send in (INAUDIBLE) people who are away to come home.
We don't want children to come back. There are no schools. That's not a good environment. And the sick should not come back because hospitals are being torn down. But the able-bodied citizens, victims and survivors of Katrina, ought come back home and have housing, job and contracts as a (INAUDIBLE). They should be first in line.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: The Reverend Jackson arrives in New Orleans tomorrow.
Coming up, sure, we are still in the midst of hurricane season, but tell that to the folks in Colorado now dealing with an early winter storm, nearly two feet of snow already.
And later, stories about the bird flu have you concerned? CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta's going to be here to answer all your questions. And give us a call, 1-866-853-1100. That's 866-853-1100. Or e-mail your questions to newsnight@cnn.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Colorado tonight, winter come early. (INAUDIBLE) that early, though. Up in the Rockies, they do get snow. A friend of mine who's at a place, a place, at a ranch way up in northern Colorado said they got some snow about two weeks ago, they got a lot of snow a whole lot lower overnight.
In Colorado, much snow. Some parts of the state buried under two feet of snow. It's not just pretty. No, this powerful snowstorm has already killed at least one person. Schools have been closed down, highways cut off, power for tens of thousands of people, trouble, and hundreds of flights already delayed.
Here comes winter, and CNN's Sean Callebs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Rocky Mountain region knew it was coming. But ask truckers forced to put on chains for traction, an early warning only helps so much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty horrible up here today.
CALLEBS: In the town of Breckenridge, as much as two feet of wet, heavy snow fell in 24 hours. It was enough to chase away most fair-weather tourists.
SCOTT MAGNUSON, STORE OWNER: The town itself, a lot of the people that were here visiting, I think, hit the road early yesterday to get out of town. And it's a little quiet around town.
CALLEBS: The emergency crews have been busy on the interstates and other snow-covered Colorado roads. Because of numerous accidents and dangerous conditions, I-70 has been closed along long stretches around Denver. Public work crews and police are trying to keep up with downed trees and power lines.
SGT. SCOTT JACKSON, BRECKENRIDGE POLICE: The snow that's falling is very heavy snow pack, which has caused the main issue with the power outages.
CALLEBS: As inviting as the mountain may appear, there won't be any skiing for weeks in Breckenridge. The resort doesn't have staff in place yet. But locals say once the first big snow hits, that's it, get used to it.
CHIEF RICK HOLMAN, BRECKENRIDGE POLICE: Once we start getting snow about this time of year, or in the next 30 days, once it stars coming, we're going to be looking at it until May of next year.
CALLEBS (on camera): It may seem a little bit early in the season to talk about the first winter storm. After all, we're still in hurricane season. But really, it isn't. The National Weather Service says in a typical year, the first winter storm hits Colorado on October 15.
Sean Callebs, CNN, in Breckenridge, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It is far too early.
Has Florida just made it easier to kill a human being? Coming up, we're going to take a hard, close look at the state's new gun law that some gun control groups say amounts to a shoot-first policy.
Also, the bird flu. It is spreading. A case now reported in Turkey. Dr. Sanjay Gupta stops by to answer your questions about this very real threat.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: If you live in Florida or are planning to go there for a visit, you really need to know about the state's new gun law. Trust me on this one. It involves the use of deadly force when it's allowed, when it's not. The law went into effect on the first of October, and there are those who insist it instantly raises the chance of someone pulling the trigger, taking a life, and not being prosecuted for it.
There are also those who disagree.
Here's CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FLORIDA TOURISM AD)
ANNOUNCER: Florida is tough to beat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the Florida tourism officials want you to see.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FLORIDA TOURISM AD)
ANNOUNCER: Seafood, nightlife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: But this flyer conjures up a different image.
KEN ELLIS, VISITOR: I'm wondering whether we're, you know, moving back to the Old West, and I don't mean west Florida, I mean the Old West.
ZARRELLA: The Brady Campaign, a gun control group, has taken aim at the state's new no-retreat law, called common sense by Governor Jeb Bush.
(on camera): It says any person can stand their ground, meet force with force, if he or she believes it's necessary to prevent death or bodily harm. There is no longer any obligation to try to retreat first, whether in your house, your car, or on the street.
(voice-over): Supporters say law-abiding citizens can now protect themselves without fear of prosecution. The Brady Campaign says the law may lead to the reckless use of guns. The group is handing out its flyer at Florida airports.
ZACK RAGBOURN, BRADY CAMPAIGN: The people who are most at risk in being in one of these tragic misunderstandings are the people who don't know that deadly force can now be used more often in Florida, those are the people who don't live in Florida.
ZARRELLA: State tourism officials fire back. It's scare tactics.
VANESSA WELTER, FLORIDA TOURISM BOARD: They're picking on Florida. That's because we're a top tourism destination, we're a global tourism destination.
ZARRELLA: The flyer warns tourists to take precautions saying, quote, "Do not argue unnecessarily with local people." At Miami Airport, Dana Brookes agrees with tourism officials.
DANA BROOKS, VISITOR: Why else would you distribute this at the airport knowing people are flying in for vacation or other reasons if you're not handing this out to scare people?
ZARRELLA: John Zarella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well some doubt it is a scare tactic. I mean, it is designed to -- to alarm people in a sense. To make them aware which will scare them. The question I suppose is, is it an appropriate thing to know if you're coming to Florida?
COOPER: Seems to be, or you know, I guess so.
The -- although how would you like to get off the airport and have the first thing you're handed that?
BROWN: Yeah.
COOPER: You're with your kids and...
BROWN: It's usually like a Hari Krishna thing. They may give you the...
COOPER: That was all right.
Coming up next on NewsNight, the latest from Pakistan and beyond, the victims and the scope of Saturday's catastrophic earthquake. And separating the fear from the facts, our expert Dr. Sanjay Gupta answers your questions about the bird flu.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back to NewsNight where we'll answer all your questions about the bird flu threat in just a moment. First here's what's happening right now.
Search teams are frantically trying to rescue victims believed to have survived Saturday's deadly earthquake in South Asia. The quake killed more than 30,000 in Pakistan alone, about 1,000 in India and at least one person in Afghanistan.
At least 500 people were killed in Guatemala from deadly mudslides there. Hundreds more are still missing. Authorities believe they were buried alive. Researchers are ending their searches. They may turn buried communities into mass graveyards.
The Justice Department and FBI have opened a civil rights investigation into a police beating caught on tape. The three officers charged in the case are white, the victim of the beating is black. The officers have been suspended.
And hundreds of Katrina victims in Louisiana remain unidentified. Of the 1,021 confirmed deaths in Louisiana, only about 200 bodies have been ID'd. And less than half of those have been released to their families.
BROWN: Over about the past hour or so we've asked you to e-mail or call us in with your questions about the bird flu deadly virus that officials here and around the world may be the next pandemic. A pandemic that could be even worse than the 1918 flu virus that killed 50 million people. We've talked a lot about it in the last week.
COOPER: Yeah and it's hard to believe those numbers, 50 million. The threat is very weal. What should we be afraid of? And how can we protect ourselves? There's a lot we know about the bird flu and a lot we don't.
Tonight we wanted to get the facts by asking our expert. It's a new segment here on NewsNight. It's called "Ask the Expert" funnily enough. There you go. Our expert this evening on the bird flu is CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta who joins us from Atlanta.
Sanjay thanks for staying up with us.
Our first caller is Lisa, from Michigan. Lisa, what's your question?
LISA, CALLER FROM MONROE, MICHIGAN: Hi, Dr. Gupta...
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi.
LISA: ... thanks for taking my call. And thanks for giving us all this latest updates on bird flu. My question is this. Our family lives on a farm. We live on a farm where we raise chickens and turkeys for the eggs and we also have them processed for our own consumption.
What do we need -- do we -- and do we need to be concerned about this probable epidemic and should we have them checked by a veterinarian before we get them butchered to make sure they have no signs of this? And how safe is it? Should we watch for them to be sick or anything like that? We're just really concerned about maybe eating the birds if they should become sick.
GUPTA: Yeah a couple of good points there. First of all I with regards to eating the chicken. A lot of people ask about that, really no different than the standard sort of advice for preparing chicken. You want to make sure the chicken is cooked until the meat is white. And if you have any pink meat you could be putting yourself at risk of different sorts of viruses including poss -- possibly the Avian Flu Virus as well.
Now there have been reported cases in chickens in the United States years ago. There haven't been any recent reports at this time although we know that the virus is spreading and could find its way to chicken farms in the United States as well. Of course, just to say that doesn't mean that humans are going to get it in the United States.
No one is saying that at this time, but chicken farms could become infected so if your -- if you do find chickens that are sick you might want to check with your veterinarian to have them checked out, Lisa.
COOPER: Thank you.
BROWN: Doc, thank you. This is like a house call.
Rebecca from Phoenix, Arizona, you're up.
REBECCA FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Yes, we're ready to go to Thailand on vacation in January and we're wondering whether, one, should we go? And two, are there inoculations that we could take to avoid getting it if we do go? GUPTA: Couple of things to keep in mind now with regard to Thailand. There are no specific travel advisories right now saying you shouldn't go to Thailand. You should probably use common sense and then maybe that common sense is becoming more obvious.
Stay away from chicken farms. Don't handle live chicken. Don't handle recently slaughtered chicken either. You can eat chicken, again, as long as it's cooked properly and that's something you're going to need to check to make sure the meat is white.
Now with regards to inoculations, there is not a vaccine available at this time. You are -- you are going to start to see some changes in the travel advisories possibly recommending that you take Tamaflu before you go.
I'll tell you as well, I -- I'm going to be going there at that part of the world myself in a couple of weeks and have been told that I should probably take Tamaflu before I go. That's a medication you may want to get your hands on.
COOPER: All right. We got another call from Andrea from Waynesville, Missouri. Andrea?
ANDREA FROM WAYNESVILLE, MISSOURI: Hi, how are you?
GUPTA: Hi.
ANDREA: I have a question about quarantine. If you have a town of 20,000 and 10,000 are infected, the other 10,000 may or may not be. You quarantine this town, what are the rights of these citizens? How will this slow down the rate of infection? And will a mask and glove -- latex gloves, will that save my life?
GUPTA: Yeah, you know, those are good questions. First of all there hasn't been a significant quarantine for medical reasons, you know, for -- for a very long time in this country so there aren't a lot of precedents nor are there a lot of rules and regulations that are known here but you bring up a couple of interesting points.
It's going to be hard to know, you know, if you have half a population of a town affected, who you're going to quarantine and where you're going to put them. But I think even more importantly at this point, quarantines make little sense unless you can somehow protect the people who are quarantining those, the first responders.
Being that there is no vaccine available, a quarantine is probably not going to do much. I know a lot of people are talking about it but it makes not really much sense no matter what the numbers are, unless you can somehow protect the people who are going to be enforcing that quarantine.
BROWN: Sanjay, we got an e-mail from Larry in Dallas. "If I wanted to wear a mask to help screen out the flu once it arrives, if it arrives in the United States, what size screen would I need to get?" GUPTA: Yeah, you know, it's so interesting, Aaron. I learned a lot about masks when I was over in Iraq. We talked about this with regards to biohazards and bioterrorism potentially.
There is a mask. It is colloquially known as the nano-mask. It is more formerly known as the N95 mask. What that basically means is that it screens out 95 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns in size. For those of you that are paying attention to that sort of thing, 0.3 microns is the magic number you want to look for. If you have a mask that filters out that size it's going to protect you to some extent.
COOPER: Man you know everything, Sanjay.
Catherine from Acampo, California, has an e-mail. She writes, "Are any companies actively working now to produce vaccine for Avian flu or is everyone just talking about this a lot and not doing anything about it?" Good question.
GUPTA: Yeah, it is a good question. There's -- and it's in a situation of flux right now. You know, President Bush met with six potential vaccine makers just a couple of days ago encouraging them to go ahead and make the vaccine.
The way that a vaccine is made is you just take some of the virus, you put that in chicken eggs and you let the virus grow and then you take that virus out, you inactivate it and that's your vaccine, essentially. It takes about six months, a long process; a lot of people concerned about that because the virus could change during those six months.
To answer your question, a lot of encouragement right now from the government to make the flu vaccine, the Avian Flu vaccine that is. But it is not a very economically wise decision for companies to make. You don't know if it's going to get used, you may lose money on it so other people are pushing to provide incentives so that it is a more profitable industry for these companies to get involved with; that those incentives don't really exist right now.
COOPER: You know somebody, you asked that I answer the question the woman from the chicken farm. How do you actually get this flu from -- from a bird? I mean is it just eating an uncooked bird or if -- if you're walking among, you know, birds and you get bird stuff on your shoe can you pick it up?
GUPTA: Yeah, you know...
COOPER: Don't look at me like that. I know it's a stupid question but I...
GUPTA: No it's not. You know a lot of people are asking that and you know, it's funny you ask different experts about that and they're going to tell you different things. Couple of things to keep in mind. There will be sick birds and there will be healthy looking birds who are just carriers of the virus. So a sick bird alone may not be your only indicator. And yes, Anderson, you can get it from the droppings...
COOPER: See.
GUPTA: ... the excrement of -- of a bird as well.
COOPER: I told you Aaron.
GUPTA: Cooking is a possibility but again -- undercooked meat I should say is a possibility -- but again, make sure you cook that meat until at least the meat is white. That's 70 degrees Celsius, by the way, for those of you that use those meat thermometers. Good idea.
BROWN: All right. Thank you.
COOPER: Thanks.
BROWN: Just -- I can think of at least 10 other reasons to keep birds stuffed up. Nobody has shoes as shiny as yours.
Still ahead on the program tonight, the heartache in one Pakistani town, the earthquake destroyed a school while classes were in session.
And how this quake compares with the very worst of all time.
We'll take a break first, on a Monday night, from New York and around the world this is NewsNight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: It's hard to imagine the scale of the tragedy in Pakistan, 30,000 deaths. I mean, how is it possible to visualize such a loss? It's too much. So for a moment we thought we'd just focus on the loss in one town on this one day. The town is Balakot. Saturday was a school day there. Hundreds of children were at their desks when the earthquake struck.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Surrounded by the men of Balakot, a deep hole where a school once was. These men are digging with small tools, even with their bare hands to find the heart of their town. The children. Out comes a small body. A little girl still in her school uniform. For her it is too late. They don't know her name or her age. They just pull her out and put her aside quickly. There's more digging to be done, more bodies to find.
Mothers wait nearby weeping, mourning, some still hopeful. Most of the children here are thought to be dead. At least 700 from 10 schools in this mountainside town flattened by the quake.
Out of the hole and amid the rubble there are backpacks and shoes, a school book, a clock that shows the time the quake hit, the time so many children died.
There is hope to be found in this hole. Some children, a few, are found alive. First a boy, stunned, then another child. Some water and some hope. The discovery of these children alive gives this tiny town something to keep digging for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Somini Sengupta is the southeast bureau chief -- South Asian bureau chief from the New York Times. She's in Islamabad tonight and she joins us by phone.
Is there any sense that there is organization now?
SOMINI SENGUPTA, SOUTH ASIAN BUREAU CHIEF, NEW YORK TIMES: They've just began to bring tents and rice and milk powder but that relief delivery was anything but organized and the desperation of the people affected by the quake was evident in the melee that broke out every time one of these army trucks pulled out.
They were practically, you know, fights brawls that broke out in the middle of the street. And men and women were trying to climb onto the truck to get their hands on something because since Saturday morning there -- there has been no food, no water, no shelter for people in Muzaffarabad and other towns that have been the hardest hit.
BROWN: What's the weather like at night? Is it cold?
SENGUPTA: The weather will get cold very soon which is why it's particularly important -- the aid workers are already saying it's particularly important for shelters to be set up right away. The problem now is the rain.
BROWN: Yeah.
SENGUPTA: It's not unusual for mid-October to -- to have these kind of flash rains and even last night, Monday night, as I was pulling out of Muzaffarabad, having seen people -- families just sitting and lying down on the their fields, there was lightening in the sky and they were expecting rain.
BROWN: Just briefly, are the aftershocks going on and on?
SENGUPTA: The aftershocks were certainly very powerful on Sunday. And, I was walking through the rubble of a village called Gari Habibullah that had been entirely leveled. There were probably two or three houses that were still standing, and yes, the aftershocks could be felt. Very, very powerful on Sunday afternoon at least and that was impeding some of the -- the rescue operations, such as they were.
I mean, it was basically villagers trying to lift with their bare hands and a couple of picks and shovels, picking through the rubble. So every time they felt a tremor they got scared and backed off.
Now the search and rescue operations on Monday were very, very intense in Muzaffarabad, that's the city in Pakistan that controls Kashmir which has been the hardest hit by the earthquake.
BROWN: Yeah.
SENGUPTA: There were several foreign search and rescue teams and they were, you know, trying to beat the clock because the first 72 hours, which essentially is now -- it's Tuesday morning Pakistani time and this is the 72 hour mark.
BROWN: Yeah.
SENGUPTA: After this it will become increasingly difficult to find survivors. So the search and rescue teams have been working overnight here to really try and get as many survivors out as possible.
BROWN: Somini, thank you.
Somini Sengupta is the South Asian Bureau Chief of the New York Times there. It's a horrible situation in a very remote and heavily populated part of the world.
When you hear about the tragedy in Southeast Asia, you see what we have been looking at. It's hard to imagine how this could have been any worse I suppose, but believe it or not there have been worse earthquakes in magnitude and in deaths. Here is how they looked.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The devastation is overwhelming, the numbers staggering. More than 30,000 dead, we believe. Two and a half million people homeless, villages flattened, no food, no power. This 7.6 magnitude earthquake certainly looks like the worst punishment nature provides but it is not; not nearly.
DR. JOHN ANDERSON, NEVADA SEISMOLOGICAL LABORATORIES: One of the worst-case types of earthquakes that I can imagine is a magnitude 8.5 or 9 earthquake along the same fault zone.
BROWN: Worst in earthquake terms can take on different meanings. The largest quake on record happened in Southern Chile in 1960. It measured 9.5 on the Richter scale, 33,000 people died. In Mexico City in 1985 a smaller quake, 8.1 on the Richter scale, killed more people, 40,000. In 1923 a quake in Tokyo measured 8.3, 140,000 died. A 9.2 quake in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1964 killed just 131.
ANDERSON: The number of people killed or the amount of destruction really depends on what is built close to the fault. And in the case of Alaska, fortunately the population density is very low near the faulting.
BROWN: In these days of 24-hour news coverage we sometimes see the destruction unfold before our eyes.
AL MICHAELS, ABC MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL ANNOUNCER: All I can say, very, very fortunately for some 60,000 at Candle Stick Park, the epicenter was not that close to the ballpark, but certainly as unnerving an experience as I can recall by far. BROWN: In 1989 a 7.1 quake struck San Francisco in the middle of the baseball playoffs at Candle Stick Park. Sixty-seven people died in that quake. And in 1990 Northwestern Iran was hit by a 7.7 earthquake, 70,000 people died. Another 70,000 died in Ismet, Turkey in 1999.
But the quake that turned out to be the deadliest, a 9.0, happened off the coast of Northern Sumatra in December of 2004. It is believed that 283,000 people died, not in the quake itself but in the tsunami that followed; the crushing tidal wave that forced onto the shores of Indonesia and Thailand and Sri Lanka.
The earthquake experts say thousands of quakes strike somewhere in the world everyday. We are all vulnerable
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All along the eastern seaboard from Boston down south to Charleston along the Appalachia Mountains, around the St. Louis/Memphis area we've had these large earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. And we see no reason why they couldn't recur.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And tonight it is Pakistan, 30,000 dead. That is the latest toll.
In a moment, snow in the Rockies. Imagine that? How about we take a look at the weather where you live.
This is NewsNight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Okay, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. I don't know why I feel so disorganized tonight but I am.
The Washington Post: "Overwhelmed at quakes ground zero. At least 10,000 estimated dead." Nobody really has a clue, honestly, but it's more than your heart can bear. That much we know.
The Daily News doesn't bother with such nonsense. They lead thusly -- this is the New York Daily News -- "I'm no ghoul." Something I've thought about myself. "Body snatch suspect gives his story, gives it to the Daily News."
"Devastated Pakistan Awaits Aid" is the lead in the Washington Times. They also play prominently the Supreme Court story. "White House Targets Doubts on Meyers Nod." You got to kind of get the feeling the White House is scrambling a little bit on this.
A wonderful picture on the Rocky Mountain News if you can get a shot of it. "October Knockout" the weather there.
And the weather in Chicago, if you're keeping track of such things, going into Sun Times is "Invigorating." But that's not nearly enough weather for tonight. COOPER: Invigorating. Hum. Let's check out what the weather is where you are. Galen Crader standing by at the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta. Gaylen.
GALEN CRADER, CNN WEATHER: Thank you very much, gentleman.
Yeah and the most obvious feature I think of the national radar picture has to be that disturbance that we're talking about right here. In fact I'm going to focus in on this area and show you what looks like to me to be rotation. Counterclockwise rotation. That kind of looks tropical doesn't it? Well it's not tropical. But it's a very powerful storm and it's running headlong into some very cold arctic air that was moving across the Central Rockies over the last 24 hours. That is making for heavy snow.
Almost a foot right now in Denver, three to -- three or more feet by tomorrow for the upper elevations up around 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 feet. Certainly going to get a pretty good start to your winter there. Whether it's enough to actually provide a base for your ski resorts, probably not. But a good omen of things to come.
Now off to the northeast where, boy this -- this disturbance here, this -- this cutoff stationary boundary has really just been pounding the Atlantic Coastline here. Flood warnings in fact going up all the way from New Jersey into New Hampshire. Watches still in effect back through portions of Pennsylvania and down into Maryland and Northern Virginia.
We always keep an eye on the tropics this time of year but it's not a bad looking scenario unfolding for us right now. None of this looks like it's really going to whip up into tropical storm strength or tropical depression strength anytime soon.
For tomorrow, expect those showers to continue here and down through your -- more snow for you headed into Kansas and back into the Rockies there for you.
Quick look at the temperatures because we're all out of time.
Let's go back to you guys.
COOPER: Galen, thanks very much. Nice to someone talks as fast as I do, as Aaron just pointed out to me.
We got a lot more news tonight ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So that's it for this edition of NewsNight. That's all I got. That's it.
BROWN: Whatever it is, you started and that's yours.
COOPER: And that's what I came up with.
BROWN: Brilliant. And it's only Monday. Good to have you with us. Where are you? You went over there. Good to have you with us. Larry King is next. Good night.
COOPER: See you tomorrow.
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