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Urgent Call for Food & Medicine to Haiti; Relief Aid Beginning to Arrive in Haiti

Aired January 14, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Kiran and John. And good morning to you, everyone. We will continue to follow the disaster that Haiti, and of course this morning the efforts to reach the victims. In fact, we're looking at some live pictures right now of those efforts.

This morning, though, it seems like there is a bit of a pause in the critical race against time. The supplies made their way into Port-au-Prince, but not yet to the people who need them most. We'll talk about those challenges for you.

And also this is the reality for many people in Haiti right now. Sleeping on the streets, searching for family members. Those who had very little before this happened, now obviously even less.

And also, we're going to be talking about how far from home but still out of touch. The Haitian community in the U.S. desperate to hear from their loved ones.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. It is Thursday, January 14th, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Rescues go on, recovery and relief still in the early stages in Haiti. Here is the very latest now on what we know. Haitian officials fear the death toll could climb above 100,000. But in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this morning it's way too early to estimate the number of deaths.

More planes are expected to land at Port-au-Prince airport today, as a number of nations send doctors, supplies and rescuers. The capital and other communities are still without water and power after Tuesday's 7.0 earthquake. And there's no word on when those basics will be restored.

We do have a team of correspondents on the ground in Haiti for you this morning. We're going to go live to Susan Candiotti and chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We're going to have a report next hour from Anderson Cooper.

Many bodies are piled on the streets of Haiti's capital and many survivors, their homes destroyed, are now living among the dead.

CNN's Susan Candiotti joining us live now from Port-au-Prince.

Susan, tell us a little bit more about the conditions that you are seeing at this hour.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, good morning. Well, you know, sights and sounds that we're seeing from our vantage point right here can be downright chilling at times.

Just a little while ago, as an example, just over this terrace in the street, right in front of the main plaza here in Port-au-Prince, we saw a man pushing someone along, a body that was covered by a sheet in a wheel barrel and just went along down the street.

And you have to stop and think who is it? Where is he going? What happened and what (INAUDIBLE)? Things like that. And just a little earlier than that, we saw someone -- actually almost like a parade of people, and they were carrying a wooden coffin, containing a body also going down the street.

But here people are in search of food and water. And (INAUDIBLE) here. Not long ago for several hours was -- they hotel strung a hose from their water supply to the street, and people are coming by with all type of water containers, jugs, (INAUDIBLE) bottles, filling up so they can have some water to use.

And then we can them washing their face, brushing their teeth, whatever they can do. So that's an example of people trying to help each other out until they get some of these long promised and waited aid into the country. Clearly...

COLLINS: Susan, I'm so sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt you. We're just having a terrible, terrible time hearing you this morning. I know that we're working very hard on all of our communications as we pull up these live reports that we are getting.

I am aware that you are at an area where they are trying to disperse water to the people that have gathered around there. I've watched you this morning, and I have seen you trying to talk with these people about how they are doing and trying to get a hold of that desperate basic of water to sustain themselves.

In fact, I believe you were able to speak with a nurse there. I want to go ahead and talk with her and hear that sound about the conditions right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: Tell me the extent of injuries that you have seen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've had body parts missing. We've had scalp lacerations that are down to the brain. We've had many, many, many people dying. Just things that I have not seen before in my nursing career. People with their, you know, faces half off. It's not a pleasant sight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: All right, our Susan Candiotti, again, we appreciate obviously the coverage and the job that you're doing there, and speaking with that woman along with many, many other people who are trying to help. Clearly some of the challenges this morning are getting that food and water directly to the victims as we continue to watch these rescue efforts and we so appreciate it.

We are going to check back in with you, Susan, once we can just plain hear you a little bit better. Thanks so much.

Meanwhile, CNN has obtained exclusive video of the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. I do want to warn you very carefully here that some of these images that we have been seeing all morning are very difficult to watch.

(VIDEO FROM HAITI)

COLLINS: As you can see, people running through the streets. You hear some yelling in the distance and seeing these large clouds of dust rising from the flat buildings, as you are well aware.

If you've been following this story with us, many, many aftershocks in all of this. Some of them extremely powerful. Again, this video was taken in Port-au-Prince right after that initial 7.0 earthquake hit on Tuesday afternoon.

We still don't know what happened to so many people in Haiti. Friends and relatives are turning to social networking sites hoping for any word they can possibly get help. And our Josh Levs is here now with more on their frantic search.

Josh, what are you finding out?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is frantic. I mean, Heidi, we're seeing so many people all over the world who are turning to the Web because they are so desperate to find their loved one.

And we're hearing all sorts of stories about people -- some people who have friends, some people who are fellow missionaries, some people who are hoping to reach out to people and start doing some volunteer work in Haiti, and now are worried about the people they've talking to there.

So many people with connections. What I'm going to do now is show you two ways that people are reaching out online. We're at the CNN International desk where we have people fielding calls from all over the world. And one thing that they're doing is looking for these stories all over the world, people trying to find missing loved ones.

Let's zoom in to the screen I have up here behind me. CNN.com obviously is packed with our coverage. This is at iReport.com, if you're looking for loved ones in Haiti.

Let's go ahead and take this video which has strung together some of the faces of people who are out there and are missing. Our folks at iReport.com have taken some of the photos that have been sent in to us. And what you're able to see are just a handful of pictures.

And what's happening on iReport, people are sending these photos and then they're also saying -- giving descriptions, they're saying the person's name, the last place they were known to be, what kind of clothes they had, any information they can think of at all, that might help people recognize this person or -- you know, not what you want to hear, but potentially a body.

People sending in pictures, so many. We have almost 20 pages full of different photos. And not only do we have that, but Facebook -- let's come back to me for a second. Facebook.com. Facebook set up a page yesterday that's doing something really similar, Earthquake Haiti.

It was set up in the wake of the quake. So checking it. Two nights ago, it already has 100,000 fans -- members on this group. And look at this, people sending the pictures like crazy as well here.

Once in a while, though, you do have some good news. I want to show an example here. This is a woman who was found. This is one of our iReporters who had written us saying he was looking for his sister. Franklin Dauphin has been looking for his sister Fadja. He has found her.

And the Internet has helped.

COLLINS: Yes.

LEVS: So we're getting these stories now, Heidi, of people who are actually managing to find relatives in some cases, friends and loved ones, via the Internet. It means a lot, obviously.

COLLINS: Yes, no question. And Josh, I'm just picturing you being one of these people here trying to locate a loved one and that agony of not knowing. Remind us, you say we have something like 20 pages ourselves here at CNN. Where do they go? How do they sort of take that information? And then maybe they're on Facebook already and see if, you know, they're getting a good representation of all the pictures that are out there.

LEVS: Exactly. All you need to do is have any photo at all, go to iReport.com. Ireport.com. It's the only thing you need to know. When you get there at the top of the screen, it's going to show you what to click, how to submit the photo. It's very easy to do. We talked you through it.

And part of what's so interesting here, Heidi, is that inside Haiti, people are still getting online.

COLLINS: I know.

LEVS: And seeing the iReport.

COLLINS: Yes, I heard that that many times.

LEVS: So we're getting -- exactly. So people are looking at iReport in Haiti and responding that way. It's all at iReport.com.

COLLINS: Yes, very good. All right, Josh, we'll check back in with you. Appreciate that.

LEVS: You've got it. Thanks.

COLLINS: You know, it's been about 40 hours now since the earthquake hit and as you can imagine, everyone is on edge. We talked so much about those critical first few hours. Seventy-two hours seems to be that magical number. So this morning, the slightest hint of another catastrophe sends them into a panic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're having to treat people out here in the street?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they come. Inside it's full so we treat them here. We treat them in cars. We treat them everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Yes, ever since the earthquake hit in Haiti, we've been talking for quite some time about how difficult it's going to be to actually get to the victims and get them the basic necessities in order to help them stay alive, quite frankly, at this point.

It's been 40 hours now, as we have been seeing, and so these first few hours so very critical. In fact, to illustrate just a bit more this challenge, our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is standing by in Ft. Lauderdale right now.

And Elizabeth, I know that you are actually trying to get into Haiti with an entire group of doctors from the university there, but not really having much luck. What is going on?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Heidi. It's supposed to be a humanitarian flight. Doctors from the University of Miami. I was about to start to board this flight and they said, you know what? We can't take off because people cannot land in Haiti.

They wanted to bring back about a dozen injured people from Haiti. And they said, look, we have another flight that left earlier this morning and that flight is just hovering in the air above Haiti for several hours waiting to land.

They are concerned that that flight is going to run out of gas and have to come home. Heidi?

COLLINS: And so is there any more information about that? Are we talking about issues of the traffic that's in the sky? The control tower we've been talking about for a long time and whether or not they're being able to guide these aircraft in using radar? Or...

(CROSSTALK) COHEN: I think there's an incredible irony here that so many different groups that are coming from around the world, wanting to land in Haiti and give help, but there's just not the infrastructure at the airport...

COLLINS: Yes.

COHEN: .... to land that many planes given the situation.

COLLINS: Yes. No question about it. All right, Elizabeth, keep us posted on that and we'll continue to follow all of these people trying to get in to help, actually.

Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent.

Meanwhile, President Obama promised swift action in helping Haiti, saying the days ahead need to be focused on search, rescue and of course the aid we continue to talk about.

CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry is joining us now live this morning.

So, Ed, when are we expecting to hear from the president again? He's going to speak again, right?

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning, Heidi. It's going to be 10:05 a.m. Eastern Time, the president coming out for a second day in the row, and he's really going to give the American people and people around the world a public update about what's really been happening privately here, some intense actions here behind the scenes at the White House over the last 24 hours.

The president late last night convening a secure meeting here in the White House situation room, had officials from various agencies at the State Department, Defense Department, trying to coordinate this relief effort.

We're told that behind closed doors the president has been saying that the administration has to be very aggressive. He wants to make sure that they're dealing and the government is moving quickly to deal with this desperate situation on the ground in Haiti.

Nevertheless, as you know, very few U.S. government assets have actually gotten to Haiti. A lot of it is still waiting to get there. And so I pressed one of the president's top aides, Valerie Jarrett, this morning about how long it's going to take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE JARRETT, SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: We do have some resources on the ground. Cutter (ph) -- there was a couple of (INAUDIBLE) over there yesterday.

It's going to take a while. This is a very difficult situation given the devastation of the earthquake. But we're committed. That's part of being a world power, is that we can move heaven on earth to help our neighbors and so the president is absolutely committed to do everything within our power to help Haiti as quickly as we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: And Valerie Jarrett said yesterday even as the president had these marathon meetings behind closed doors on health care -- by the way, they say they're making some progress there and talks with Democratic leaders on the Hill -- he was slipping out of those health care talks to talk to other aides and officials here to coordinate this Haiti relief efforts.

So you can see there's a lot of juggling going on right now -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Yes, it's so hard, Ed, obviously, when one of these horrific disaster happens and you'd still have to keep with domestic plan in place.

HENRY: Absolutely.

COLLINS: And obviously the two wars that we are fighting at this morning.

There's another issue that I know the president is saying that he's working on, getting back some of that money that was spent on the bank bailout. What's happening on that front?

HENRY: That's right. The president, in a couple of hours, are going to be proposing around here they're calling a fee on big banks and financial firms. They hope to use this fee to recoup more than $100 billion in bailout funds.

Valerie Jarrett telling me this is an effort to make the taxpayers whole. But Republicans already jumping on this, saying it's not really a fee, it's a tax on these banks and these financial firms.

Republicans don't think that's a good idea in the middle of a recession, with unemployment at 10 percent. The taxing banks and financial firms may backfire. And they're also noting a lot of these banks have actually repaid the taxpayers already -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Understood. All right, Ed Henry, covering it all for us. Thank you, Ed.

HENRY: Thanks, Heidi.

COLLINS: As we did say, we're expecting remarks next hour from President Obama on Haiti this morning. We're going to bring it to you live just as soon as it begins.

People who survived Tuesday's earthquake are living moment to moment now. Many of them fearing the worst is not over.

Take a look at what happened in Port-au-Prince last night. People just running everywhere, hearing rumors of more disaster coming their way, possible flooding, in fact, maybe even more aftershocks.

Want to get to our own Rob Marciano on that front. Rob, there had been something like -- initially I heard 32, now we're saying 28 aftershocks so far. I mean how unstable is it right now and is there any way to tell what the next few days will bring?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Tough to tell. But I can tell you this, from my count, there's been over 40. Some of those may be reprints on the USGS Web site, but let's just say, you know, 40 aftershocks. On average, they've been about 5.0.

So that's two down from the 7.0, but it's still enough to make things shake. And as brittle and as unstable as those buildings are now, even more so, obviously, with rescue workers in there. It's very, very dangerous.

And when you get a big quake like this, you can have aftershocks for days, weeks, months and sometimes even years. You think about how much energy was released when these huge land masses moved, and then they're just kind of settling in and just holding on, and it takes some time for that land to being to settle.

All right. Here's a look at some of the aftershocks in the last couple of days, and in the last hour. We have one -- the last two hours, this part not showing up. We have one right here, which is -- most of the aftershocks have been west of the epicenter. And west, father west of Port-au-Prince.

So that's certainly a good news, but they definitely feel the shaking. You know, rumors of more -- larger earthquakes, rumors of tsunamis certainly can ring through those streets. So it is an uneasy feeling both for survivors and for rescuers.

I want to show you a couple of things on Google Earth. There's the epicenter. We're going to zoom in and show you kind of a before- and-after picture.

GOI is a service that does this. This is -- and one is higher resolution than the other, but you can see all the roofs intact there. We go to the after, boom, and it's just a mess. So just an eye from the sky. You've seen some pictures from the ground. There will be more to come.

Good news here, Heidi, weather looks to be pretty good. It'll be warm during the day, kind of cool at night for folks who live in the tropics, and don't have a roof over their heads, but not a whole lot of rain or storminess. So rescue workers will have that going for them.

COLLINS: Yes, yes, very good. All right, Rob, thank you.

MARCIANO: You bet.

COLLINS: Haiti's president, like so many others, left homeless now. The palace in ruins, his home also toppled. He's talking to our Dr. Sanjay Gupta about his country's desperate situation. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What are you doing here at the airport?

RENE PEVAL, HAITIAN PRESIDENT: My palace collapsed.

GUPTA: So you don't have a home?

PEVAL: I came here to work, but they told me that I cannot work here because it's not safe. So I am going home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: We'll get back to our coverage of the devastation in Haiti in just a moment, but first here's a look at some of the top stories that we're following right now at the same time.

Sources tell CNN there is a, quote, "credible threat from al Qaeda in Yemen." And CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve joining us now live from Washington with more on this this morning.

Jeanne, what do we know?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, two senior officials are calling it a credible threat from al Qaeda in Yemen against the U.S. homeland. Although one official called the threat fairly general in nature, two sources said it related to aviation.

Since the Christmas day attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the U.S. has been intelligence looking for additional information. One source said the new information was developed during that process.

One official said that the U.S. had gleaned that al Qaeda is already adapting to new U.S. security measures and that has raised concerns. But at this point, according to one source, no additional protective measures have been taken. They are already very robust.

Although one official said this is not a case where the U.S. has connected the dots to something imminent, another source described the level of concern as measurable, adding there is more prickling of the neck hair.

Heidi, back to you.

COLLINS: So I guess that gives us a general idea, anyway, of how specific the information is on the threat.

MESERVE: Yes, according to one source, when it comes to timeframe, it's more definitive than it usually is. But another official called the threat fairly general in nature, without too specificity. I have to add, Heidi, that not many people are surprised about this. As one U.S. counterterrorism official put it, no one thought the threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ended on December 25th. The group, of course, continues to plot and to plan.

COLLINS: Certainly now. All right, Jeanne Meserve. Thank you.

Cries for help from the rubble. Desperate rescue efforts caught on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can hear them talk. OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Survivors buried under concrete and steel, waiting desperately to be saved.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Certainly some of the focus in Haiti today is on the airport. People, including hundreds of Americans, have gathered there waiting for help or just for a way out. The president of Haiti also there. In fact, that's where our Sanjay Gupta caught up with him for the president's first interview after the earthquake.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: What are you doing here at the airport?

PREVAL: My palace collapse.

GUPTA: So you don't have a home?

(LAUGHTER)

PREVAL: So I came here to work. But they told me that I cannot work here because it's not safe. So I'm going home.

GUPTA: You're going to go back to your home? Are you able to live in the palace, or is it completely destroyed?

PREVAL: I cannot live in the palace, I cannot live in my home -- in my house because the two collapsed.

GUPTA: Where are you going to go tonight?

PREVAL: I don't know.

GUPTA: It's striking, the president of this country doesn't know where he's going to sleep tonight.

PREVAL: No. I have plenty of time to look for a bed. But now I am working how to rescue the people. But sleeping is not a problem.

GUPTA: But what have you seen with your own eyes? How bad a situation is it?

PREVAL: It's incredible. You have to see it to believe it. A lot of house destroyed. Hospital, schools, the personal homes, a lot of people in the street dead.

GUPTA: You have seen this with your own eyes?

PREVAL: The earthquake took place yesterday at 5:00, and I am still...

GUPTA: In your same clothes.

PREVAL: I am looking to understand the magnitude of the event and how to manage it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Boy. A powerful interview with a man who just saw a major part of his country crumble.

Want to bring in our senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, live now from Port-au-Prince.

You know, Sanjay, when you listen to that, it becomes painfully clear that, you know, even heads of state when it comes down to it are people like everybody else.

GUPTA: Heidi, I'm sorry, I'm having a little bit of a hard time hearing you. There is a lot of static on the line here. But you know, I went on to ask the president specifically about safety issues and sort of moving forward over the next several days as well.

You know, over the last day, as we -- when we got here yesterday morning, there was sort of this look of people really feeling stunned by what had happened still, nearly 15 to 20 hours after the earthquake.

Last night it was the first time we started to see a shift. People becoming more anxious. We heard some gun shots behind us. People very, very emotionally distraught. As I know you've heard several times already, Heidi, this plaza right here behind me, at some point late into the night, around 11:00, 11:30 last night, there was a concern all of a sudden, somebody had shouted that maybe there was going to be a tsunami, water is coming in.

They started to run and it was just a totally chaotic scene.

Going forward, the big issue really seems to be this idea of needing to move these bodies out of the streets and trying to clean up the streets themselves so they can try and get some of this relief into the areas hardest hit.

The two best pieces of news, Heidi, are the airport is open. I landed there yesterday and there were relief planes bringing in supplies. Getting those supplies now to those areas that most needed it obviously. A very important goal. The second thing is that, you know, I've been to Port-au-Prince several times in the past, the area of destruction that's worse, it is a pretty localized area. So they have to really focus their attention on an area that's pretty well defined -- Heidi. COLLINS: Sanjay, I'm going to speak really loudly and hope that you can hear me now. I am just so curious about once they get that aid in -- I'm talking about the pallets of food and the water that we are hearing is getting into the airport -- how then do they dispersed it. I mean don't they need, I imagine, truck after truck after truck to navigate the landscape?

GUPTA: No question. They certainly need big vehicles of sorts. And we haven't seen many of those, certainly not big governmental vehicles. There have been a few foreign aid vehicles. But, Heidi, it's a little bit hard to describe. I mean, you just have to imagine what these small streets, a city that has very low infrastructure to begin with...

COLLINS: Right.

GUPTA: ...when big buildings collapse into the streets. How you navigate. You can't get there no matter how big the vehicle is unless you start to clean those streets first. And because there's very little state aid right now that we have seen, the streets are just still cluttered, not only with cement, but bodies as well. So that's got to be the first step here.

COLLINS: No question about it. All right, we'll stay in contact with you. Our senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, thank you.

ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Heidi Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN RODGERS, SENIOR EMERGENCY ADVISER, SAVE THE CHILDREN (via telephone): We need a significant amount of resources, significant amounts of people on the ground and funds to be able to turn around and respond.

It is very possible that the situation can go from dire to -- to absolutely catastrophic if we don't get enough food, medicines, and -- and work with -- with children and their families to -- to help them help themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: An urgent call for aid to Haiti from Ian Rodgers of Save the Children. Rodgers was in Haiti when the earthquake hit. He is still working to account for all of his staff.

Rescues going on as we speak. Recovery and relief still in the very early stages in Haiti. Here's what we know right now. Haitian officials fear the death toll could climb above 100,000. But in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this morning, it's just too early to estimate the number of deaths.

More planes are expected to land at Port-Au-Prince today. As we've just been talking to Sanjay Gupta that airport is open and functioning as a number of nations send doctors, supplies and rescue workers. Now the capital, other communities are still without power and water, though, after Tuesday's 7.0 earthquake. And there is no word on when those basics will be restored.

So we are seeing the pictures of the rescuers desperately digging through the debris. We wanted to share this video with you. It's Art Rascon of affiliate, KTRK, describing one of those rescue efforts to his station back in Houston.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ART RASCON, KTRK REPORTER: I can hear them talk. OK. But, good, we were connected now. Yes, we just -- yes, and we just came across this mob of people, and we are digging under this rubble. And you can hear the voices underneath all of this rubble. And there are at least two women who are way, way far under there. There is just no, no way. I mean, there is no equipment to get all of this rubble out of there, either way. But we have it all on tape, and us screaming to the person. Nick, you can hear them talking. Oh, so sad. So sad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Boy. We do have reporters throughout Port-Au-Prince as well, of course, talking to people as they wake up to yet another day of devastation.

Our Chris Lawrence, in fact, joining us now, live.

Chris, you normally our Pentagon correspondent. And we watch that piece just before. I'm not sure if you were able to listen. But one of the challenges, of course, is removing the debris to get to the people.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. Because here, you don't have a lot of that heavy machinery that you'll find in other countries, Heidi. The kind of heavy machinery that's needed to move some of this huge concrete slabs. I mean, walking through some of these streets, some of these homes are just completely pancake. I mean, the entire stories have just collapsed in on each other. And so human beings can dig, a jack hammer can help.

You saw this search and rescue team from Fairfax County use jack hammers to get a U.N. worker out. But they can only do so much. Some of this are just beyond human strength to try to move some of these huge pieces of concrete.

COLLINS: Yes. Normally, Chris, you know, if possible, the military plays a role in that because of all the equipment, obviously, that they use in very difficult terrain. And as we wait to hear more and more about that type of support, tell us personally for you, what it was like overnight and into this morning? LAWRENCE: Well, it was -- we're standing right outside a pretty large park with thousands of people massed up here to sleep outside last night. It's right by the main presidential palace. Everything was calm, everything was quiet. And then all of a sudden, you just heard thousands of people just screaming and yelling and running as fast as they can away from the shore, stampeding away from the shore.

So we ran outside, and we are running full speed to try to keep up. It's women carrying their children, people dropping things. And we asked a woman, you know, what's going on, what's going on. And she said, you know -- we heard the water is coming, the water is coming up. And what had happen was somebody had said a tsunami was coming in. And everybody just panicked and ran.

What we found out later was there was no tsunami. In fact, what we believe was somebody may have started that rumor to get people to drop their possessions so they could then go behind them and steal them. You know, that's the danger. You know, you've got -- you've heard that there is strength in numbers. There is also a greater fear or greater danger of mass panic when things like that happen.

We've now been told that the 82nd Airborne sitting about 3500 paratroopers here to Haiti. They are being destroyed. That may help, you know, restore a little bit, order and keep things like that from getting out of hand in the days to come.

COLLINS: Yes. And on that note, Chris, while we have you, do you have any information on the national penitentiary? Obviously, we know that the building has been seriously compromised, if not crumbled entirely. And those prisoners are on the loose. They are out there. I imagine this is part of that concern as well?

LAWRENCE: Yes. I spoke personally with the chief of police for Haiti, yesterday. We had him on our air live. And he told me, live on the air, he said, you know, that roof could come in, and that a lot of those prisoners escaped. And he was very honest in saying, you know, he just did not have the manpower to send people out into these neighborhoods and into the countryside trying to track down all of these prisoners.

Afterwards he told me, he was very worried. He said these are very dangerous men that were locked up in that penitentiary. And the fact that they are now running loose is something that concerns him. He made a plea on air to get more military, more law enforcement officials in here to give them some back up, you know, on things like that, situations like that.

COLLINS: Very understandably so.

All right, Chris Lawrence, appreciate it. We'll check back with you as much as possible here.

Meanwhile, so much information coming in to CNN, not only from Haiti, but all of the country's that are offering to help now. Everyone in their international desk working really hard to keep up with it. CNN's Jim Clancy is getting it all together for us. We'll check in with him in a moment.

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COLLINS: The main focus in Haiti at this very moment, finding, rescuing, and treating survivors. Searchers say they are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worse.

I want to get over to CNN's Jim Clancy now at our Haiti desk this morning that we have kind of put together, because we are getting so much information in, Jim. It's important to get what we can out there.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All of it comes through here, with what correspondents are telling us. We try to coordinate all these live shots that you're seeing from the field. Also trying to bring in new video. And I'm going to share some of that with you right now. Because, Heidi, you are so right. It's all about what aid can get in and how quickly.

Let me show you what U.S. aid workers coming in this day -- USAID. They were coming in to the airport in Haiti. This is Port-au- Prince. This video just came in about half an hour ago showing these people on the ground. Obviously an advanced team that's going to be assessing the situation, trying to tell what they can do to help, where the U.S. should put its resources. This arrival comes at a time when we heard the U.N. is putting in millions of dollars. The World Bank putting in $100 million. Britain, sending in teams, money. Australia. Everyone is trying to send something in.

This is a former French colony, of course. Haiti. The French also on the ground today with much-needed teams. This is also new video that just came in on the last hour or so.

Again, Port-Au-Prince, the airport there. One of the key things is going to be to get that airport back up and fully operational so that a sky bridge can be created to rush the aid in as quickly as possible.

Heidi, when we look at this disaster, 39 hours since this 7.0 earthquake hit. And we know that the window for saving many of those people that we know are trapped under those buildings, that window is closing and closing fast. Some of the most important donations and private companies like Digicel in Ireland is donating not only millions of dollars that's going to go in there and try to repair the phone networks in there. That's going to be crucial in the hours ahead. Back to you.

COLLINS: Yes, no question.

And, Jim, we keep talking about the airport. It is so critically important, because event though we do know that there are flights that are landing, and that it's operational, the question then becomes how long those large aircraft, which we have been seeing, some of the video we just saw, how long it takes to offload the supplies they have, the people they have and then get them back in the air so that others can come in. And that seems to be what we are hearing this morning. Really a tough traffic pattern at this point. So we'll continue to follow that and let us know if you have any more information, of course, as the morning continues.

Jim Clancy, thank you.

CLANCY: You bet.

COLLINS: CNN, of course, covering the disaster in Haiti from all angles all day. We are also watching some of the other top stories today.

This hour, day two now of a hearing by the House Oversight Committee. Members looking into what causes the financial crisis. The head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair and attorney general, who you see there, Eric Holder, are among those scheduled to testify.

In fact, these are live pictures coming in to us now here at CNN at the moment.

Yes, four top bank chief executives admitted they made mistakes taking out so much risk but didn't realize the gravity of it at the time.

Central Pakistan, at least 15 people are dead after a suicide bombing in a busy marketplace. Searchers fear they will find more bodies under the rubble. Nearby, tribal elders were meeting with NATO and local officials. They were not hurt.

Teddy Pendergrass is being remembered as one-of-a-kind artist with a powerful voice and a great magnetism. The R&B singer died at the age of 59 after a long illness. His family says the illness was related to a 1982 car crash that paralyzed him from the waist down. His friends say he became a role model encourage after that accident.

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COLLINS: Trying to get emergency supplies to areas cut off by this earthquake in Haiti. That is the challenge facing aid agencies and the U.S. military.

CNN's Tom Foreman taking a look now at all the road blocks.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're getting a very big picture right now. In fact, our first satellite images of the damage. This is the before picture from Digital Globe and Google Earth. I want you to watch as we slide this apart to this image now from GEOEYE. You can see how the Presidential Palace just cracked right in half.

And as we moved out across the city you can see block, after block, after block, where these buildings just collapsed into the road. This image from GEOEYE and others like it will prove very, very valuable because there's a big job happening right now.

Over the next 24 hours, I think what people have to look at very closely, is going to be the airport, which is right up here, and the harbor out here. And I'm going to tell you why. If we bring this up for a moment, I'll show you that essentially what they have now is an order of action that has to be followed right now.

They have to clear these roads and assess the damages. They have to launch these search-and-rescue teams throughout the city. They have to re-establish hospitals and aid centers and open supply lines. And that must happen across this whole big picture we just looked at here.

And when we talk about reopening the roads, again, difficult to see when you're right on top of it. From the wide picture you can't see it. We're going to bring up the roads here; many of the major arteries that people have to travel on throughout here are blocked in some fashion. Some of these roads may be blocked dozens of times. So the heavy equipment is going to have to hit the road.

The military is coming in here they're going to try to control the airport and get this all under control and stage much of the assault on this problem from there and also from out here.

Gradually, on the ground with heavy equipment, they will try to turn some of those red roads into green roads as they reach deeper into the population to try to help out all these people.

President Obama, he said he wants this to be the main focus for the next three days, the search and rescue thing; getting these teams out there to try to establish operational centers and look at the issue of refugees.

So the problem will be though, even as you clear on the ground, beyond this you're still going to have tremendous numbers of people way out here with all sorts of damage, where the ground approach will simply not be able to go far enough.

That's where again, you're going to see in the next few days, out here in the harbor, you'll see more of a military presence as we'll have an aircraft carrier there, there will be coast guard helicopters, heavy-lift helicopters, that sort of thing, they will be able to stage from here, from this area from the airport fly right over the roads they are able to open up and the closed roads to get to these very distant areas where they can drop off supplies. They can also pull out the people who are in the deepest amount of trouble. That's one of the way they're going to try to stabilize this.

Over the next few days you're going to see a tremendous effort aimed at just this: controlling the airport, controlling the harbor, beginning to open roads and establishing supply lines.

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COLLINS: Well, the recession hit his orphanage hard, but the earthquake delivered an even more devastating blow. Now the man who provides a home for 75 kids worries about that home and those kids.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COLLINS: Hell on earth in Haiti; the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake. Pictures tell the story; massive destruction, countless dead, a frantic search for survivors. Emergency relief supplies on the way.

Of course, an awful lot happening in the CNN NEWSROOM today from Haiti to D.C., our team of reporters are gathering all the details for you. We want to begin with senior White House correspondent Ed Henry now -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, just in a few moments the president will be addressing the world yet again about the situation in Haiti as he presses his administration to get aid there faster. In fact we are just getting new information that a second search-and-rescue team has arrived in Haiti from the U.S. government. We'll have more details at the top of the hour.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, in fact a crew from Virginia has now landed in Haiti. I'm Josh Levs, I'm at the International Desk. Take a look here, there they are at work. We're going to be telling you what U.S. crews are up to in Haiti at this hour.

Plus the latest from Southern Command, you can see crews there arriving with some supplies for people in Haiti. All that, plus new information on the search for missing loved ones, all coming up in the next hour.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And what are those rescue crews and survivors up against? We'll talk about the weather in Haiti and also the ongoing aftershocks. Total count over 40 now, Heidi. That's all in the next hour.

COLLINS: Yes, it's unbelievable. All right guys, thanks so much.

Also ahead this morning: the pain and fear of just not knowing. Haitian-Americans looking for relatives back home. We'll tell you where families are turning for help.

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