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Assessing the Damage in the Aftermath of Hurricane Ike; Trouble on Wall Street Again; Deadly Car Bombs in Baghdad; General Petraeus Makes Way for Ray Odierno; Not All Women in Alaska Are For Palin; Republicans Want to Boycott Oprah

Aired September 15, 2008 - 14:00   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen, coming to you live from Galveston, Texas, where you can see damage is everywhere. We're going to have the latest on not only what was left behind, but the search and rescue operations here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And the financial landscape isn't much prettier. While Texas recovers, Wall Street mops up after two days that will forever change the landscape of the American financial system.

I'm Christine Romans in New York, in for Kyra Phillips. We'll go back to Betty Nguyen in just a few minutes.

First, we begin with the nightmare on Wall Street. There's been more drama in the financial district than the theater district. That's for sure. Lehman brothers, a rock for more than 150 years, filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The investment bank fell victim to bad bets on real estate and couldn't find a savior in its hour of need.

Another Wall Street icon, Merrill Lynch, will never be the same. Bank of American has agreed to buy the troubled company in a 50 billion dollar stock deal.

And the nation's biggest insurer, AIG, has gotten permission to loan itself 20 billion dollars in a restructuring, 20 billion. The company has posted billions in losses because of the sub prime mortgage crisis.

Let's go right to CNN personal finance Gerri Willis with what this means for you. Just an amazing weekend; a lot of people trying to sort it out this morning.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: An amazing weekend. Let's reset the stage here. I think a lot of folks, maybe you missed the news about Lehman Brothers this weekend. For a tense 48 hours, regulators, officials from Wall Street, high-level executives meeting, trying to find a resolution for Lehman Brothers, 48 hours of talks. What came out of it? Well, you saw it. Lehman in bankruptcy. Barkleys and Bank of America had been potential saviors for this company. It did not work out that way at the end of the day.

The company has to call it quits. That is big news for Wall Street. It brings down the number of independent broker dealers, large ones in this country, from about five earlier this year to only two, Morgan and Goldman Sachs. So big changes for Wall Street. You know, all of us watching amazed as this happened.

ROMANS: Absolutely. We heard about a weekend of high-level meetings, trying to figure out what to do with Lehman. In the end, government didn't step in again with another bail-out.

WILLIS: You know, I think that's going to make a lot of people really happy out there. You're probably wondering, what does this mean for my wallet? At the end of the day, will it make much difference at all that Lehman Brothers, the number nine ranked bank globally, is out of business? Well, the reality here is that it continues to destabilize markets. You see the stock market was down today almost 300 points right here.

People are concerned. They're worried. It's going to hit your 401-K, obviously. There could be more bank mergers in the -- in the works. We just don't know. The immediate reaction right now, stay put. Don't move your money. Now would be a bad time to start taking your money out of banks or out of stocks.

ROMANS: It's a lot for anybody to sort through, especially if you have a retirement coming up, retirement money in the market. Any one of these headlines is enough to really grab some attention. All of them at the same time makes it kind of nerve-racking.

WILLIS: It's nerve-racking and I think consumers, of course, have already felt the affects of a lot of this. Right? You know that housing prices are down and down hard. You know it's hard to get a loan. It's finally coming home to roost on Wall Street. And, of course, we're seeing the results right now.

ROMANS: All right, Gerri Willis. Thanks, Gerri.

On Merrill Lynch, battered by bad real estate deals, now being bought by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch posted net losses of 17 billion dollars over the last four quarters. In 2007, its stock price peaked above 98 dollars a share. The deal with Bank of America values the stock now at 29 dollars a share.

There's no doubt about it, it's a historic day. Just months ago, Wall Street had five big investment banks. Today there are two. Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange with the reaction among traders. Hi, Susan.

SUSAN LISOVICZ: Well, Christine, we're seeing a sharp sell-off. No doubt about it, let's clear the air there. We expected it. It's happened. It came right out in the open. And right now, with less than two hours to go in the session, the Dow is down nearly 300 points, or about 2.5 percent. That's the three major averages. But given the magnitude of these events, the fact that a lot of veterans are comparing this to either the collapse of long-term capital, the crash of 1987, or, in fact, the Great Depression, where you see the banking system under this much stress, it's actually pretty resilient.

Why is that? There could be a few reasons. First of all, we saw a collapse in Lehman's stock last week. So Lehman was -- basically got a vote of no confidence last week. The bombshell about Merrill Lynch is actually translating into a nice rally for Merrill Lynch shares. They're up 12.5 percent. They're one of the few stocks that is trading higher, the few financial stocks, for sure.

The real uncertainty is about AIG, the nation's largest insurance company. Yet to announce some sort of comprehensive restructuring plan. Yes, we you just talking about how AIG is going to loan itself 20 billion dollars from its subsidiaries. You know, that is hardly something that is giving the street a lot of confidence. AIG shares are down 52 percent, losing half their value this day alone, and they were battered last week.

Where are investors going? They are going into the safety of government bonds. We're seeing big moves in the two-year, five-year, ten-year, 30-year bond notes. We're seeing a lot of action there. We're seeing airlines move higher on the fact that oil is actually down more than four dollars today. For the first time in many months, we're seeing the price of a barrel of oil trade under 100 dollars a barrel.

No question about it, it's a big day. Another big day tomorrow that we know for sure, Christine, because tomorrow Goldman Sachs reports its earning and the Federal Reserve makes its decision on interest rates. Just a few days ago, it was a given that the Fed would just stay put, The events over the weekend are, you know, putting a little bit of some doubt on the street as to whether, in fact, that will happen. Christine?

ROMANS: Susan Lisovicz, thank you so much.

We're going to dissect the problems on Wall Street and talk about what it means to you. That's coming up at 2:30 Eastern. CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis comes back and Tammy Libby from CNNMoney.com will stop by to break it all down.

You know, it's a long road ahead for parts of the Texas and Louisiana coast. Cleanup and recovery from Hurricane Ike will take a lot of time and an awful lot of money. CNN's Betty Nguyen joins us now from Galveston, Texas. Betty?

NGUYEN: Hi there, Christine. Amid all of this devastation, desperation is, in fact, starting to set in. We have some pictures coming into CNN of Houston. The situation there, long lines outside of an area where they have started to really bring in supplies. And this is important because many people, thousands, millions, have ridden out this storm. And a lot of them are really relying on these supplies. They have gone for days without electricity. Some two million customers are still without electricity in the Houston area.

Here in Galveston, there is zero electricity, none whatsoever. So for the folks that have ridden out this storm, they are running out of the things necessary to stay alive, essentially. And so you're seeing those lines pile up.

Back here in Houston, though, what you've seen pile up is a whole lot of debris. We are here at Aunt Margie's Bait Shop. Aunt Margy, if you're watching, there's not much left. We see a pump right here where -- it looks like it's a swimming pool pump. It was probably used in one of the bait bins to keep the live bait alive. It's just an indication of the sheer amount of damage. One hundred fifty buildings have collapsed here in Galveston. Some 2,000 people have been evacuated, rescued, in fact. That's the good news.

In the interim, search and rescue operations are still going on as we speak. They're hoping to pluck some 10,000 people from this island and bring them to safety. Buses were loaded yesterday. Hundreds of people actually got on those buses, said forget about it. I can't stay here any longer. There's no supplies. There's electricity. There's no water. So they headed out of the area.

We are in a virtual place that is cut off from the rest of the world. The only people allowed in into Galveston right now are emergency medical services. We've also seen some of the military drive by as well because there is a lot of cleanup to do.

To give you the scope of this storm, this powerful category two hurricane that just slammed ashore, 27 people have been killed in six different states. So to show you the extent of that, just look at the numbers.

Chad Myers has been following the numbers. He's been following this storm. Chad, what is happening now?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, this thing kind of rolled through Kentucky and Ohio and Pennsylvania yesterday. I just checked. Duke Energy out of Cincinnati, they're still almost 600,000 customers in the Cincinnati metro area without power because of 70-mile-an-hour winds. But this is the area that had the 120-mile- an-hour wind gusts at least there, Galveston Island.

We tried to do this earlier. We're going to get it done now. This is Bermuda Beach right here. There are houses on both sides of the road. This is called the Second Tier. These are first-tier houses because they're directly on the beach.

If you go to Google Earth, you can see where someone has driven down the street and all of the cameras are where the pictures are and you can click on your own street. We'll click on one these pictures here, because it matches up to one of the i-Reporters.

This is right on Beverly Beach Road, right through here. We'll pan over to the right and we'll see this blue house right here. This blue house is still standing because, how do we know that? Because there's an i-Report that shows that. Let's go to that i-Report right now and show you that blue house. It's on the right. You see it right there. You see the banister.

And then you see there's not much left of any first-tier houses. You can see some pilings right here. But this is what you should be seeing. One, two, three, four houses before you get to the one that you can see in the picture there. So four of those homes actually gone. Here you go. This is what it looks like now. There's a road in the middle of that picture somewhere, but you certainly can't find it with all of the debris piled on it. Betty?

NGUYEN: Chad, I know you really understand the power of this storm. Just take a look at what it's done here in Galveston. These are two sail boats that have washed ashore and they're sitting now next to a roadway, a roadway where you will not see many cars come along anytime soon. As I mentioned, Galveston is really cut off from the rest of the world because they're not letting anyone in because of this danger zone.

As for the rest of these areas, hit hard by Hurricane Ike, the roadways are filled with debris. When is that going to get cleaned up and when can evacuees get back into their communities and look at the damage? We're going to talk with the Texas Department of Transportation to find out those answers coming up at the half hour. Christine?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: With four scheduled events, it's a bit of manic Monday for Senator John McCain. The Republican presidential hopeful working his way across Florida today. He started with a rally up in Jacksonville and wraps up with a fund-raiser down in Miami. Senator Barack Obama has a double-header in Colorado. Last hour, he stepped up to the podium in Grand Junction. From there, he travels to a rally in Pueblo. Both candidates spending a lot of time on Wall Street's woes and how they'd fix them.

The running mates are also running with that issue. Democratic VP hopeful Joe Biden is in Michigan today. He slammed Senator McCain's recent comments about economic progress under President Bush. Republican rival Sarah Palin referred to, quote, mismanagement and abuses in Washington and on Wall Street. In Colorado this morning, she said the McCain/Palin ticket is all about reform.

Meantime, some Palin supporters are called for an Oprah boycott. Our Kareen Wynters on that story later this hour.

But President Bush is getting ready for a trip to Texas. He'll visit with survivors of Hurricane Ike and check on relief efforts. Mr. Bush just got a briefing from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Chief David Paulison. But the president says he is really looking forward to hearing from local folks, and he wants them to know help is on the way.

Two days after Hurricane Ike slammed ashore, a lot of frustration at the pump. The storm has driven up gas prices across the United States, so what's ahead? Joining me now, Steve Hargreaves with CNNMoney.com. OK, so what about the damage from Ike to the Texas Gulf coast refining, the oil rigs? What do we know so far?

STEVE HARGREAVES, CNNMONEY.COM: The damage doesn't appear to be as bad as people thought. There were a few rigs that came off the moorings in the Gulf of Mexico. But other than that, things in the Gulf seem to be relatively OK. The big thing is the refineries. They don't appear to be damaged. They don't have any power down there. They're not making gasoline and, of course, that has driven up the price of gas. It's gone up at least 17 cents a gallon over the last couple of days.

ROMANS: After Katrina, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, did we have a real reassessment of the infrastructure of that region? I mean, presumably because it's in the path of storms, these companies really know what they have to do to batten down the hatches.

HARGREAVES: Yes. They made a lot of improvements on the infrastructure down there. They put more moorings on the production platforms and the drilling platforms. They took other measures at the refineries and the pipelines to make sure they were prepared for this type of thing.

ROMANS: Why are prices moving up?

HARGEAVES: Gasoline prices are moving up because the refineries are shut down. So a lot of gasoline production has been shut down in this country. Oil prices, of course, have fallen. That's largest due to the mess on Wall Street today. Traders are fearing this is all going to reverberate down to the rest of the economy and really hit demand.

ROMANS: So if we have trouble in the economy from the banking sector spilling down, that means people are use to going -- and companies and businesses are going to use less oil. So that's what they call demand destruction in economic textbooks, I guess.

HARGREAVES: Exactly.

ROMANS: What about the long-term impacts then, I guess, of this storm Ike on oil prices?

HARGREAVES: Well, it seems like -- Oil prices seem like they continued on the downward trend. The good news for motorists, gasoline prices also look like they're going to start falling. On the Nymex and the futures exchange, gasoline prices, today, fell 18 cents a gallon. Traders are looking forward. They're seeing that these refineries will come back on line. The economy remains at the forefront of their minds.

ROMANS: Prices now still a dollar more than they were last year for gasoline prices. So people can really tell a difference. All right, Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com, thanks Steve.

Change of command; a new leader for U.S. forces in Iraq. We'll have the latest from Baghdad.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Hello, everybody. Betty Nguyen coming to you live from Galveston Island. If you think the destruction here is bad, just wait until you see these live pictures coming to us now from the Bolivar Peninsula. This is an area that was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Ike, a category two that just wiped out large portions of the peninsula. I spoke with the sheriff's deputy yesterday who told me that 80 percent of Port Bolivar has been washed out.

This video will show you that indeed. The destruction is really -- it's hard to imagine what folks had gone through if they decided to stay and ride out the storm. Hopefully, we'll get more when those search and rescue team come back in and provide us with some additional information.

But in the meantime, a lot of evacuees want to know when are the roads going to be clear? When can they get back into their communities? Well, we're going try to find out right now. Christopher Lippincott is with the Texas Department of Transportation. He joins us now with the latest. Christopher, you know, we have been in and around the areas hit hard by Hurricane Ike. I will tell you, debris is everywhere. How extensive is the damage?

CHRISTOPHER LIPPINCOTT, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Well, Betty, the damage is pretty extensive statewide, all across -- in the region from Houston over to Beaumont and Port Arthur. We're seeing significant damage to Highway 87, which is down in the Bolivar Peninsula, that you were discussion.

Have we lost you? I'm sorry if we've lost you. Things are continuing to improve in the area. We've got some roads in the -- in the far Southeast Texas that are still under water. But debris clearance all over southeast Texas is continuing. We have over 500 staffers from across the state to add to over 1,200 people we had already on the ground.

NGUYEN: All right. We will have much more. Stay with us. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: We're continuing to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. We're having audio problems out here on Galveston Island. But you can understand there is a lot of debris, a lot of destruction, a lot of winds still whipping around. But I do believe we have Christopher Lipincott back with us from the Texas Department of Transportation. Chris, let me as ask you this, because this is what a lot of people want to know, especially those evacuees: when can they get back into their communities?

LIPINCOTT: Well, the decision about when to come home is going to be made by the local officials on the ground. Clearing the roads is one of the early steps that's necessary to get folks back in town. We have to get water and fuel supplies coming back online. The fuel is becoming more available, but that continues to be an issue. So there are a lot of different factors to go involved.

But we're doing our best to clear those roads. We have a bridge that's been significantly damaged, and some roads that are still underwater, but we're working as fast as we can.

NGUYEN: I lost him again.

LIPINCOTT: Betty, it sounds like I lost you again. NGUYEN: I'm having some audio difficulties out here. But obviously you're trying very hard to get things back in order so folks can go back into their communities and see what has caused -- what is left of their homes caused by Hurricane Ike. Christine Romans has the latest now in New York with another big news story that we're following today.

ROMANS: That's right. Thank you, Betty. We're watching Wall Street. It's 228 right now. Here's some of the other stories we're working on in the CNN NEWSROOM. After beating up on Texas and Louisiana, Hurricane Ike is long gone, but its impact is big. Homes and businesses flattened. Whole beach fronts washed away. This hour, hundreds of thousands of people are still without power. And tens of thousands of people who fled their homes still can't go back.

They're back on the trail today and taking swipes at each other. Barack Obama and John McCain take their campaigns to two big battleground states, Colorado and Florida. Election day draws closer.

And the investigation is under way into Friday's train collision in California that killed 25 people. Right now, investigators plan to check cell phone records amid reports that the train engineer may have been text messaging prior to that crash.

Lehman Brothers bankrupt after 158 years. There was no knight in shining armor for Lehman. Merrill Lynch, soon to be part of Bank of America. Bad real estate deals caused Merrill dearly and stocks suffered after the fall of these two icons.

We're going to break it all down right now. How could all of this happen? Is Wall Street's problem going to be your problem? CNN's personal finance editor Gerri Willis and Tammy Libby from CNNMoney.com are here. Gerri, first of all, set the table for us. It's been a dramatic day of headlines.

WILLIS: Absolutely. You know, what a day. I don't think anybody could have predicted it. Lehman Brothers, the object of discussions for a frantic 48 hours downtown New York at the New York Federal Reserve building. Who was on hand? You name it. People from the Treasury, the Fed, Chris Cox, who you just saw on our air, from the SEC talking about what to do with Lehman, the ninth largest global investment bank. An amazing story. Lehman Brothers finally having to call it quits after being in business for 158 years. I don't think anybody thought it would come to this at the end of the day. Of course, as you know, Christine, the Richard Fuld, the CEO of that company had been looking for a partner.

ROMANS: Right.

WILLIS: Very nearly shopping it around for some time. And now the dominoes are falling.

ROMANS: What about magnitude of this, Tammy? I mean, people at home are trying to figure out just what's going on Wall Street? We keep saying it's earth shaking, it's historic. But, what does it mean? TAMI LUHBY, CNNMONEY.COM SENIOR WRITER: Well, it's not going to be the end. That's going to be the problem. I mean, last week we had four companies that were falling apart. We had Lehman and Merrill. They're now gone. And we had AIG and WaMu and they're still out there and their stocks are suffering today. AIG is down 50 percent. WaMu is down almost 20 percent. So, even if you think you're not affected by Lehman or Merrill, if you're not a customer, you know, you may be --

ROMANS: Now, AIG is an insurance company.

LUHBY: Right.

ROMANS: So we've been talking about a brokerage, we've been talking about investment banks. But this is an insurance company.

What's happening there?

LUHBY: Well, insurance companies have other businesses, too. And they played in the mortgage market and they got burned. They also played in a market called credit default swaps, which are this insurance-type product that protects against if companies go against defaults and they've been going into default. So, there have been problems and they're getting burned.

WILLIS: Well you know, we've got to say here though, if you're an individual investor, you know, maybe you own some of these stocks. Clearly you probably have a bank account today. Today is not the time to get out of that bank account. You've got to be safe here, you got to think long-term.

You know, my big fear is, that people will see these headlines and at the end of the day they'll say, you know what? I don't really want to use a bank anymore. You know, they'll use these payday cash checking systems that are just so horrible. So, you've got to have some confidence in the system. This will be righted at some point. We don't know what the collateral damage will be though.

ROMANS: And we also don't know what is really facing the next president of the United States. Because you heard Chris Cox from the SEC, you heard Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary say, we need to have a revamp. Some more efficient and maybe smarter regulation. It sounds like they've got a lot of work to do in Washington.

WILLIS: The horse is out of the barn. That's for darn sure. I mean, this is the sad story about all of this, is that regulators were really off the job during this entire problem, starting with the mortgage meltdown. I think you've got to say at this point, there needs to be a total revamp.

LUHBY: Right. And I mean, you know, now they're talking about doing the regulation that if they had been before, then we may not have been in the problem that we're in now.

ROMANS: But we have to look forward.

LUHBY: Yes.

ROMANS: I mean, I guess we can draw lessons from the past. But it's already happened. And Henry Paulson said he was cleaning up a mess that had been the seeds of which had been sown years before, he said. So that's why it's so important what our elected officials do about these sorts of things.

All right. Gerri Willis, Tami Luhby, thank you so much.

LUHBY: Thank you.

ROMANS: And just when you thought it was getting a little less painful to go to the gas pump, well, $4 gas rears its ugly head in some spots. AAA says nationwide, the average price of regular unleaded jumped nearly a nickel overnight to $3.84 a gallon. That average has gone up 17 cents since hurricane Ike hit Texas. 11 states have prices above $4 a gallon. Most of them are in the south and Midwest.

Along with Texas/Louisiana coast, a long road to recovery after hurricane Ike. CNN's Betty Nguyen is with us now from Galveston.

Hi, Betty.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Christine. We are getting some live pictures coming to us of damaged houses. I mean, these are one of so many. Right now, there's not a number as to exactly how many because the damage is so extensive here in south Texas.

Here in Galveston Island alone, there is 150 buildings that have collapsed. And we are also getting word -- and the video hasn't come in just yet, maybe we can get it up for you -- but we have heard that there's been a collapsed bridge on Gilchrist Island. And to give you an idea of where that is, you have Galveston Island, then nearby you have the Bolivar Peninsula and then right to the east of that, you have Gilchrist Island.

These are three areas that were just pummeled by hurricane Ike and we are seeing the affects of it. Even today, several days after this storm roared a shore. A collapsed bridge on Gilchrist Island. We'll get more information on that for you, just as soon as it becomes available to us, we'll bring it straight to you.

In the meantime, though, Chad Myers has been following the storm. And Chad, it doesn't seem like it is over. It's long gone from this area, but they are still seeing the effects.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. We're finally getting some pictures here, from the Bolivar Peninsula, as well. And boy, these are just pretty amazing. That's the bridge you were talking about. Yes. That bridge obviously had water under it and the water pushed that bridge up and then down again and it disconnected the lanes there.

We saw a lot of that in Katrina on the I-12, 10. These are the live pictures now, Bolivar Peninsula, what I was talking about. And this is what the weather service was talking about when they said certain death. Betty, I don't think you can see these pictures. We're just showing them on the air. There is not a house left. This is Bolivar Peninsula, which is the other side of Galveston Bay, from Galveston Island. It's just a peninsula that sticks out here.

This was storm surge. The water just pushed all the way over this island, this peninsula and then into Galveston Island. And then it all just rolled all the way back out. And although some of these houses here, right there, they were on stilts. As we come farther down to the bottom here, you're going to see more houses that actually were not on stilts and all that's left are just the slabs. Literally, there's not even a stick left as the water washed in and the water washed out right here.

And this is kind of up toward High Island, if you want to get a map and you can kind of see it. There's A Galveston Chip channel that goes between Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula. Think about that, it's just a little hole where all the ships go in and go out. And then this is on the north side of that channel. And at least some of the houses there are still standing. But there were at least two more rows of homes that don't even exist there, right along the beach. Those houses are just completely gone as the water surged in.

And it's hard to tell. We've been trying to look on Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth to see how many houses were there. But the numbers I think, the numbers of the lost homes are just really going to be staggering. And now they're panning back out there on to the waterway.

But, this is what it should have looked like. Go ahead, Dave. Zoom in. We can take a look. This is Virtual Earth. And you can see how many rows of homes. I mean, how many rows are there? Is the 10 houses there from beach to bay? Well, clearly we were seeing maybe three or four, maybe five houses still back on the back. So, all these beach-front homes just completely gone -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Oh, I believe it, Chad. You know, yesterday when I was speaking with a sheriff's deputy from the Galveston County department here, he told me, quote, "80 percent of Bolivar Peninsula, washed out."

And that really was a frightening thing to hear. And obviously you're seeing pictures of that today. We have a lot coming up. Not only is there damage, is there death and destruction. Some 27 people have been killed in this storm in six states. But there are millions without power. We're going to get the latest on those power outages coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: It is going to take days, weeks, months to clean up all of the debris and put these lives back together after hurricane Ike just ripped ashore, especially here in Galveston Island.

Take a look at what's left of Aunt Margy's Bait Shop. A boat has already landed somewhere in this area. I don't even know what used to stand here. I see a little linoleum. And here's what's left of a computer next to a commode. The walls are missing in here. You have a couch on this side. I can literally walk through these walls because there's nothing left. Here's what's left of a sink in this area.

It really honestly, this is just a small glimpse of the miles and miles and miles of devastation that you will see here on Galveston Island along many of the other areas that line the shoreline here in Texas, Christine. And, you know, it just really shows you the power of hurricane Ike. We talked about it possibly being maybe a Category 3, possibly a Category 4 storm, but this was a Category 2 storm that did this kind of destruction, all the way into Houston.

Downtown Houston, I remember as the storm came through, Christine, we were clocking winds between 115 and 130 miles per hour. And the problem in that area was the wind gusts and breaking some of the windows in the many high rises that lined downtown Houston. And all of the debris that was flying about. I mean, there was just problem on top of problem. And right now folks are dealing with the fact that they have no power. No electricity. It's hot here.

It may be windy on Galveston Island, but back in Houston and many of the areas where there are millions without power, they are sweating it out if they don't have a generator. And if they do have a generator, Christine, as you well know, those lines are so long for gasoline if they can even find a gas station that's open.

So they are dealing with, again, problem after problem. And it's going to take a long time for folks down here to get back to normal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Betty's been walking us through the devastation in Galveston. Hundreds of thousands of people in the storm zone are still without power. We're going to go down to Tom Standish, the CenterPoint Energy in Houston.

Tell us, is there -- how many people are without power right now?

TOM STANDISH, CENTERPOINT ENERGY: Right now, we're looking at about 1.6 million of our customers that are still without power.

ROMANS: Some folks have been without power now for several days, since Friday, some of them at the very earliest.

How long can we expect these power outages to persist?

STANDISH: Well, what we think from our assessment, we've assessed about 30 percent of our system so far. And we've extrapolated that to the whole system. And we think that probably within a seven to 10 day period, we will have about 75 percent of our customers on. The remaining 25 percent of the customers will probably take anywhere from an additional one to two weeks, depending upon the level of destruction in those areas.

ROMANS: So that's tens of thousands of people could be without power for at least another seven to 10 days, maybe a couple of weeks?

STANDISH: That's correct. Yes. You just have to appreciate the tremendous level of destruction, the number of trees that are down, how much debris has to be removed before we can even get to the power line to begin putting it back together.

ROMANS: Tell me, sir, Tom, where we are in that process. I know that often there's a staging area where utility workers are waiting when a storm is coming. They're waiting to be deployed in their trucks, in their cherry pickers, and with all kinds of folks and equipment to survey the damage.

Where are you right now in that process?

STANDISH: OK. There are two parts to that. One being in terms of restoration, we have been working very hard with our own crews to get the critical infrastructure. The water system, sewer system, hospitals. And we've been very successful in that except those areas such as Galveston Island, which is just not accessible.

And so we've achieved that. We have today about 2,500 to 3,000 additional resources that are joining us. They're coming into Houston right now. They'll be being put to work tomorrow, probably another 2,000 on top of that that will arrive on Tuesday. And that will give us the bulk of the forces we need to really begin a sweep. And I think what you'll see out of that, Christine, is beginning tomorrow, these outage numbers to start dropping significantly because of all of these additional resources that are coming to bear on it.

ROMANS: All right. Tom Standish. Thank you so much for that. CenterPoint Energy, an awful lot of work to do. As you heard him say, 1.6 million customers without power right now. Some folks are not going to have power for at least the next seven to 10 days.

Sir, thank you for joining us.

Searching for clues now in the deaths of 25 people in a commuter train accident. Investigators look beyond the twisted wreckage. They want to know if text messaging played a role. A live report on the investigation.

O.J. Simpson is an uncomfortable, yet all too familiar spot. He's back in court and once again, his fate is in the hands of a jury.

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ROMANS: Betty, we just heard from Tom Standish, from CenterPoint Energy that 1.6 million people are without power. Tens of thousands will be without power for seven to 10 days. You're surveying all the damage there in Galveston.

It's really incredible, isn't it?

NGUYEN: It absolutely is. And you know what, they are zero power here on Galveston Island. I'm standing at Aunt Margie's Bait Shop. Hopefully aunt Margie made it through the storm. And if you're watching Aunt Margie, you're not going to like what you see.

Much of the debris is just scattered everywhere. This used to be probably a pretty nice place. But right now there is stuff all over. And what you can't see on TV, but I can definitely smell is the stench. Take a look at that fish over there. That's one of many dead fish all around this area. Obviously, because it is a bait shop, there's a lot of chum, there's a lot of bait around. So that's adding to it.

And really when you look at the damage here, Christine, it's just a small glimpse of the 150 buildings that have sustained extensive damage and even collapsed due to hurricane Ike. So, just take a look at this because folks are not going to be able to get on to Galveston Island anytime soon. They have locked it off from the rest of the world because of the dangers that are present here -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Betty.

Could cell phone records hold the key to the cause of a deadly train crash near Los Angeles? Investigators say they know the engineer ran a stop signal, but why, remains a mystery.

Let's go to our Thelma Guiterrez, in Chatsworth, California, for the latest on the investigation -- Thelma.

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, I can tell you that there are many questions that the NTSB is looking into right now. In fact, we were looking right down the track. There are a couple of federal investigators who are walking alongside this track looking for any clues. And that's one thing that they're going to be looking into.

Now, right now, the northern-most route of the MetroLink is open again. Commuters were bussed around the crash site, they were brought here to this train station so that they could continue their journey to downtown Los Angeles. Now, the big push by city officials today of course, was to let people know that this is a safe mode off transportation. That they should have no fears when climbing aboard those MetroLink trains. Some of the riders we talked to today say they have mixed feelings.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a little nervous. I was a little hesitant. Like I said, it's my first time. And obviously, after what happened on Friday, I think everyone's a little shaken up about it. But, you know, life has to go on and we have to do our thing. I'm a little nervous about it, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not nervous. We've ridden it many times. In fact, my mother and I have ridden the 111 many times from downtown. We go downtown and have lunch and we live in (INAUDIBLE) Valley.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I knew some of the people there. And because it's such a tragic accident. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No worries about taking the train again?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no. It's still safer than driving by far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUITIERREZ: Now, federal investigators are looking into the cause of this fatal accident that killed 25 people and injured 135. They're looking into whether or not the signals were working properly and also whether or not the engineer may have been sending Texas messages while he was riding on that train.

And they are looking into whether or not -- there are cell phone records that may spell out what exactly was going on at the time of this crash. They say that they looked through the wreckage. They did not find a cell phone that could have belonged to this engineer. So, lots of questions right now. And lots of investigation, lots of work to be done -- Christine.

ROMANS: Lots of work, indeed. Thanks, Thelma.

The man who was the focus of the so-called trial of the century 13 years ago, is back in court. Opening statements are under way in O.J. Simpson's robbery and kidnapping trial in Las Vegas.

Prosecutors argue Simpson and five others raided a Vegas hotel room and made off with hundreds of items largely related to Simpson's football career. His attorneys say Simpson was trying to recover personal property that had been stolen from him. Simpson and a co- defendant have pleaded not- guilty. Both could face life in prison.

Some international news now. A double car bombing hit a commercial district in Baghdad today. At least 12 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks in the Iraqi capital in weeks. More than 35 people were wounded. Iraqi officials say the cars blew up at almost the same time.

The blast came as Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad to preside over tomorrow's change of command of U.S. forces in Iraq. General David Petraeus is moving on.

Cal Perry is in Baghdad with more on Petraus and the man who's replacing him -- Cal.

CAL PERRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Christine. As you mentioned, David Petraeus will be stepping up as the new CENTCOM commander, handing things over to Raymond Odierno. Now, as you said, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is here on the ground in Baghdad.

I want to bring you back one week. He said to Congress last week that U.S. military commanders do not yet think quote, "our gains are necessarily enduring." And that is certainly the headlines here when you watch the Iraqi newscasts this evening. You mentioned the double car bombing in Baghdad. But we're just hearing in the past three hours, of a bloodier attack. At least 20 people killed when a female suicide bomber exploded herself, detonated her explosives at a gathering in (INAUDIBLE), as people were breaking fast.

This is the holy month of Ramadan. People were breaking fast at a police official's house. Apparently this police official had been detained by the U.S. military for about a year. People were welcoming him home when that attack took place. So, it's those gains that Ray Odierno is going to have to hold on to. It's a lot easier, of course, to stop the violence, it seems, but far more difficult to hold on to those gains. That's the challenge that he's going to be up against, certainly as we look to future, here in Iraq -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Cal Perry in Baghdad, Thanks for that, Cal.

A Florida group wants you to boycott Oprah. We'll tell you why they're turned off by the media queen.

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ROMANS: She may be their governor, but they say she doesn't speak for them. About 1,500 Alaskan women showed up for an anti-Sarah Palin rally over the weekend. The governor was making a swing through her home state at the time. Many of the protesters said Palin isn't the right woman to make history by making it to the White House.

Supporters of Governor Palin also mounting a protest. But, they hope to take theirs nationwide. The Republican Women's Group wants you to turn off and tune out Oprah Winfrey.

CNN's Kareen Wynter explains.

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All right. NEWSROOM with Rick Sanchez starts right now.