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Storm Tears through St. Louis; Six Days to Royal "I Do's"; Betting on Shrimp Lovers in Las Vegas; Rebels Claim Victory in Misrata; Miami Dolphins Player Stabbed
Aired April 23, 2011 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: We are at the top of the hour here, 11:00 Eastern Time from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, this is your CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm T.J. Holmes.
We are following three major breaking news stories right now. The first happening in St. Louis -- take a look at that. The city's main airport is in shambles after an apparent tornado rips through and moves airplanes, vehicles, you name it. We have unbelievable pictures, new ones that continue to come in to us.
Also, this morning the U.S. carries out its first drone attack in Libya as rebels gain serious ground in the besieged town of Misrata.
Also Syrian protesters begin burying their dead one day after security forces staged a fierce crackdown on demonstrators.
We'll have all of those for you.
But we need to start this hour at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. Right now it is closed indefinitely after an apparent tornado slammed into that airport last night.
We are waiting right now for a press conference. It looks like they might be getting under way. We'll keep a close eye here and a listen on this microphone.
You know what, he looks like he's about to start talking. Let's me listen in to who is talking here.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
MAYOR FRANCIS SLAY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: -- for being here today. First of all, I want to say when I was here last night and took a tour of the airport, I was stunned by the condition that it was in, the damage that the airport sustained, particularly in the "C" concourse.
And I'm back here this morning, and I'm stunned the condition the airport is in. It looks a whole lot better than it did last night, and that was because of the wonderful work, the hard work, of so many people here at the airport. I know the airport employees, the maintenance workers, the chief of the airport, the other workers here at the airport, worked around the clock. Many of them did not get any sleep last night to make sure we get this airport up and running as soon as possible and in the best condition it can be in.
As you know, the airport is closed. It is still closed indefinitely, but we are working around the clock to see if we can -- we are working toward a 70 percent capacity for the airport by tomorrow, and that will depend on a couple things. It will depend on getting the power back as soon as possible. And it will also depend on the airlines themselves. Of course, they're going to have to do some things and rearrange some things and move some facilities.
The other thing is we have, of course, Terminal One sustained the most damage, particularly Concourse "C". As I said, it's going to take some time to get Concourse "C" back up and running.
And the terminal two is -- has some limited damage. We're going to hear from Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge on the specifics of the airport. But we will -- we are confident that we will make this airport as good as it's ever been in terms of its conditions, as soon as we're all finished with all these things but -- and hope to have this airport up and running 100 percent capacity -- not all the facilities open, but 100 percent capacity by the middle of the week, again, depending on the power being back on, the electricity, and also depending on the airports themselves.
This effort is going to take the cooperation and involvement of people from all levels of government, the federal, the state, and the local as well. We have the support and the involvement of all those different levels, from federal, state, and local. And it is -- it's going to take a team effort, the city and the county working, the state and the federal government working together, to address this. We are all working together. We're doing everything we can as we move forward to make sure that -- that no problem is left undealt with.
And so I'm going to be introducing this morning the team of people, part of the team of people, the leadership, that's working with us here today.
First, I'd like to introduce Congressman Clay. The Congressman is the Second District -- First District who is the congressman representing this area. Congressman Lacy Clay.
REP. WILLIAM LACY CLAY (D), MISSOURI: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor and County Executive Dooley, for such a quick response. As you can see, this landmark building has taken a direct hit from a -- from a natural disaster. I've reached out this morning to President Obama and the administration and will be briefing them later today when I get the call back.
I -- I will also be assisting the city and the county with helping to focus the federal resources that are needed to respond to a disaster such as this, and we will have -- we will focus the full force of those resources on this airport and the surrounding neighborhoods.
And let me also thank the first responders, the emergency crews, the fire departments that responded so quickly in this surrounding area to this disaster. Am I supposed to bring someone else up?
SLAY: Well, I'll bring them up.
CLAY: OK. You'll bring them up. OK, and -- and I'm here for questions. Thank you.
SLAY: All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Congressman Clay, we really appreciate your leadership and look forward to working with you.
Next we'll hear from County Executive Charlie Dooley. Before he speaks, I just want to let Charlie know that our hearts and our thoughts are out to all his residents. I know there was a significant amount of damage as well in various parts of St. Louis County.
Be assured the city and the county are working together to address not only the issues here in -- at the airport, but I've also offered the help of city government to St. Louis County to help with whatever issues they have there as well -- Charlie.
CHARLIE DOOLEY, ST. LOUIS COUNTY EXECUTIVE: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. For Congressman Clay, to all of you, I want to say good morning to you.
I got a couple of good news. The first good news is no one in St. Louis County lost their life. That's the most important thing. Nobody lost their life.
The second good news, the first responders did an excellent job, on the ground; municipalities, everybody got involved. It was a team effort and lessened the damage as best as we possibly could.
So I want to thank the St. Louis police department and all our -- fire department of St. Louis County. Everybody did a fantastic job last night. There's a lot of work yet to be done. There are nine municipalities impacted by this. Hundreds of houses was impacted. Treasures in some families, as you just saw this morning on the news, devastation across St. Louis County.
You think about the horror and you think about the Channel Rock Bridge, draw a straight line, then a half mile on either side, that's where the devastation was in St. Louis County. It was horrific. And for that much damage to be done and no one lost their life, it is simply a blessing.
The thing I want to -- I also want to talk about is, as we move forward, we've got teams that are in the area now as we speak assessing the damage, what needs to be done. We're actually -- each of our municipalities, and most of them are Bridgton, Molly Acres, Berkeley, Ferguson, I guess Maryland Heights, Dellwood, a number of (INAUDIBLE) St. Louis County were hit last night, there are still 22 streets that are closed right now. We're still working with that issue. We're asking everyone, please stay out of those areas so we can get the work done and get the power restored back to those areas. It's my understanding at the height of this was 47,000 (INAUDIBLE) without power. Right now we believe it's about 36,000 still remaining without power. And we are still working with that process as we speak right now as well in St. Louis County.
And one of the other things we want to talk about is the damage. As we go forward, we're going to be having our teams at each of the municipalities that was impacted to inspect the houses and residences as you go through the day to make sure that no structural damage, to make sure people when they come back to their houses it can be a safe environment.
Also, the Red Cross is going to be centered in Maryland Heights, so that number is 211 if anyone needs shelter, it will be in Maryland Heights with the Red Cross. So, that's very, very important.
Also, we have assessed the damage with helicopter. They're doing an outstanding job, making sure that we get all the assessed damage. We don't know the extent of the damage at this point, how it impacts St. Louis County. But like I say, again, the best news is no one lost their life, and we're still going to move forward.
But we realize that some families are devastated. There's no question about it. And our hearts go out to those individuals, and there will be individual effort or volunteers. EOC in St. Louis County is open and operational, so we're going to do whatever we can to make this happen and go away.
But the most thing is the city and the county, the metro, the state, everybody's working together to get past this devastation.
So, I want to thank all of you that are here this morning and help us as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
SLAY: Thank you so much, Charlie.
Governor Jay Nixon telephoned me last night and assured me that the state was going to do everything it can to help with the effort. He indicated that they were working on a disaster declaration. We have us -- with us this morning John Brit, the director of public safety for the state of Missouri -- John.
JOHN BRIT, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC SAFETY: Thank you, Mayor. Good morning.
As the Mayor mentioned, the governor was briefed on this most of all last evening, as late as 1:00 a.m. He has declared a disaster for the state. He will be traveling over here this afternoon, weather permitting, to tour the damage and to meet with the officials. He has offered all the assets that the state can throw at this.
So, I would also like to commend Paul Mason from the airport police; Tim Fitch, everyone else that's been around in this; Captain Sam Dodson, et cetera, for their continued cooperation. It is a team effort; all the resources of the state. Obviously the highway patrol has been on this since the onset, so anything we can do, we will provide it. Thank you, Mayor.
SLAY: Well, thank you so much, John, for the state's help and support.
Now we'll hear from Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, the airport director. She's going to tell us everything that she knows about the operational -- the conditions of the operations and can answer a lot of questions as well about that -- Rhonda.
RHONDA HAMM-NIEBRUEGGE, AIRPORT DIRECTOR, LAMBERT-ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Thank you, Mayor. Good morning, everyone.
As you look around and see some of the devastation that's still around, there are a number of things that we can be very grateful for here at the airport.
The first is I think we've reported to you last night that we had taken four passengers to the emergency room. We actually ended up taking five. There were three passengers who were in the terminal. There were two passengers in a vehicle. All of those have been released -- treated and released from the hospital, so very minor damage.
So, when you look at the devastation around, it really is a miracle that there were no fatalities and certainly just minor injuries. So, we're grateful for that. The other piece I think if you take a look around, and for those of you who were here -- who are here last night and saw the debris and saw all of the rain pouring in and the glass everywhere and look at it ten hours later, we have a lot to be thankful for, the employees, who spent all night here last night, both from the airport, from the county, from the city, from multiple organizations, helping us to get prepared this morning just to at least be able to come and start preparing for reopening.
So, we are grateful for those. As you heard the Mayor say earlier, we believe, based on where we are now with the assessment, that if the power is back up and running -- and we'll hear AMRON (ph) shortly -- that we can be at about a 70 percent capacity tomorrow. Terminal Two is fully functional right now. The airfield is fully functional.
As far as Terminal One, obviously, this is where the majority of the damage has been sustained. But we believe that the "A" concourse, if the power is back up, can be fully functioning tomorrow. Between Terminal Two and the "A" concourse, that's about 70 percent of our total capacity here at the airport.
Where we're going to have a little more of a struggle is with the "C" concourse, the carriers on the "C" concourse are American, Frontier, Cape Air -- I'm missing one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AirTran.
HAMM-NIEBRUEGGE: AIRTRAN, thank you. And with those carriers, we're going to be working here after this press conference to try and relocate them. It's going to take a while before the "C" Concourse can be functional. A good portion of the roof is absolutely gone. Every window is out of that as well as extensive damage to a number of the actual restaurants and stuff on the concourse.
So, we'll be working with all of the station managers after this briefing to try and look at how we can relocate those carriers to either the "B" Concourse or to a part in Terminal Two or to the "A" Concourse so that we can get them up and running as well.
We will have to talk to the individual carriers about their flight crew availability and their aircraft availability. We do have the airfield open to be able to have aircraft start coming in on a ferry basis so that the airlines can get situated with having aircraft here.
But we'll have to work with them to see what their flexibilities are in getting that completed. We hope that by this afternoon at 2:00 we'll be able to report, once we've talked with the airlines on just how well we'll be tomorrow in terms of the number of operations.
Again, we ask that everybody call the airline. Do not call the airport. The airlines will have the flight information that's specific to themselves. We will not have any departures out of here today, but we certainly hope to have a good number of departures out of here tomorrow.
So, from a passenger perspective, call your airline, not the airport. We also have been working with the TSA and they're fully prepared and ready to start the screening process, so no difficulties on that end. So, that's good. We'll be consolidating and relocating the TSA employees obviously to where the need is on the Terminal Two and the "A" Concourse and if we reopen the "B" Concourse.
The -- I'm just trying to think if there's anything else. Oh, we will continue to put tweets out throughout the day. We'll continue to try and update you as much as possible on where we're at and where we hope to be tomorrow.
But, again, just a great deal of thanks to all of the people who came out through the night and helped us to be able to get to where we're at this morning. Certainly a much better place to be than where we thought we were going to be last night. Thank you.
SLAY: Thank you, Rhonda. Thank you for your leadership, and again, thanks to all the airlines --
(END OF LIVE COVERAGE)
HOLMES: All right. You're listening to the mayor. He's back up now. But he started. We got a few developments out of this. Again, to our viewers, if you are just joining us we're keeping an eye as strong storms hit St. Louis last night, in particular hit the airport and neighborhoods just north-northwest of downtown St. Louis.
Tornadoes presumably struck last night but you're seeing a roof of a part of the terminal there at Lambert International. You're seeing much more than the roof gone from many homes in some of the neighborhoods. But from that we just heard and kind of the mayor in that press conference started out with kind of some surprising news when he used the word he's stunned at how the airport looks. I was assuming he was talking about how bad the damage is. But no, he was actually talking about the difference in how it looked last night to how it looks this morning.
They've been working around the clock at the airport, trying to get it cleaned up. And he says it doesn't look like how it looked yesterday. Now, the upside and surprising and even shocking to hear that of all the damage and the issues they're having at the airport today, that in fact, they hope to be up to 70 percent capacity by tomorrow as far as their flight schedules go. Because as we know right now the airport has been closed indefinitely.
Also getting word from the county executive that right now -- the county executive Mr. Dooley, who was speaking there as well, 47 percent -- excuse me -- 47,000 people were without power at the height of the electricity being out last night. But now he's saying that just some 36,000 still need their power back on. Called this a flat- out blessing that no one was killed; saying no one has been killed in these storms from last night. It's hard to believe looking at some of this damage.
The airport administrator also telling us five people had to be taken to the hospital from the airport last night, three of them were in the terminal; two of them were actually in cars outside of the airport. And would you believe already that those folks have all been released from the hospital?
It is stunning to hear this news after seeing these daytime pictures coming in to us for the past several hours now that the utter devastation that we have watched and that at this point we're talking about no one in the hospital and only minor injuries to report. We can only hope that it stays that way.
We'll keep a close eye on this. It's 17 past the hour.
When we come back, there's still going to be a need there in St. Louis, and it is going to be great. The Red Cross is on the ground. They have mobilized and they're helping out now. We're speaking to one of the Red Cross officials who's helping out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, 19 minutes past the hour now. We are going to talk to the Red Cross now.
Again, to our viewers, we have been watching what is happening in St. Louis. St. Louis devastated last night by storms, tornadoes. It's amazing now from the pictures we have been seeing that no one was seriously injured, no reports of it thus far, and also no reports of anyone being killed. That is the word we just got from one of the county officials there in St. Louis in that live press conference that you saw right here. But, again, to look at the pictures, it's amazing to think only a few people were injured, but this is still so heartbreaking. This picture has been getting to us all morning, and we're seeing more of these; people walking through the rubble of their homes, trying to pluck out anything and to salvage.
I want to bring back in Jessica Willingham; she's with the Red Cross there. Jessica, you and I have been talking here on the air the past couple of several hours now.
How has your perspective of this situation and of this devastation changed just in the few short hours from what you've been able to collect?
JESSICA WILLINGHAM, RED CROSS (via telephone): Well, we've -- while we continue -- the Red Cross, continues to provide shelter and food and clothing and basic need for folks, and that started last night, what we're seeing now is more and more people realizing the extent of the damage for their homes.
So, the Red Cross is working with emergency responders and all the folks that you just heard on the press conference to make sure that everybody has a safe place to stay and that their emergency needs are met. We're teaming up with the emergency responders and the city and the county to do damage assessment and to help people move on to the next step.
HOLMES: And as we continue to watch these pictures for our viewers, these pictures, again, these daytime pictures, just unbelievable. And this I believe is what you were referring to, Jessica. A lot of people last night knew it might have been bad, but as the daylight comes people starting to get a handle on just how bad it is.
How many are you preparing for at this point? It might be some time before you know how many families need help, but I guess how are you kind of preparing?
WILLINGHAM: Well, you know, that's a really good point. Preparing is the key to what the Red Cross does. And we do that because we have thousands of volunteers. We have 600 volunteers in St. Louis that are already trained before a disaster strikes who are working right now or who are standing by to help as more help is needed. So, preparing for that is critical.
And, again, that goes back to why -- that really speaks to why people, you know, when county executive Dooley was talking about the blessing that no one was killed --
HOLMES: Yes.
WILLINGHAM: -- that's true, too, the folks in St. Louis heeded the warnings, took cover, took care of themselves and their families so --
HOLMES: That has been unbelievable, certainly as we see some of these pictures. And to our viewers, you see a van there dangling off the side there. This is at the airport.
And, Jessica, something else to you, I heard the county executive Dooley mentioned this, he spoke of Maryland Heights, I believe that is where the Red Cross is set up. Give us an idea of where that is, and is that right in the center, the thick of things, if you will, where all of this damage is taking place?
WILLINGHAM: It sure is. We really try to open a shelter right where people need it in a place that has power and full capacity. So it's right in the center of the north county of St. Louis, the hardest-hit areas include Bridgton, Berkeley, Dellwood, Maryland Heights and then other locations.
So people are coming in to Red Cross, more coming in; we expect a pretty big crowd tonight at that shelter and the Red Cross will open other shelters as needed.
HOLMES: Jessica Willingham, again, thank you so much. I know it's a busy morning for you all, but thank you very much for being willing to come on with us throughout the morning and give us the update and get the word out. I really do appreciate it.
I want our viewers to know as well; Jessica has been giving me this number, 1-800-Red Cross, I believe I still have that right. But it's 1-800-Red-Cross; that's for people, who would actually like to call and help out, but also you can get information specific to St. Louis about shelters, about the effort going on there. But again, that's 1-800-Red Cross if you want to help or you need some help right now.
Turn right over to Karen Maginnis, I feel silly at times this morning because I keep having to say "this alleged tornado". And there's a reason we have to say that but who are we kidding here?
KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it looked like tornadic damage and tornadic super cells on the radar. And St. Louis got hit not once but twice by a squall line, a severe line of storms. Here's St. Louis, it was along the northern edge of the metro region.
Now, I want to put this into motion and just show you what happened. We go about 10:00, 11:30 in the morning, one line. All right, producing the rainfall; here comes the system and the cells that produced the tornadic damage that we saw. Here's one cell that we think that this is the culprit right here. There's one to the north and there's a huge embedded super cell just to the northwest.
Now, we also are looking at -- this was at 8:15 last night, a couple of these cells that were running behind it. The big threat now -- there's rain. There's more rain. And the next five to seven days, T.J., they could see as much as 10 inches of rainfall. This is going to be the next threat for this St. Louis region and Missouri in general.
HOLMES: OK. It's amazing to think here we go again. You and I were watching these pictures earlier, and your heart goes out. They are getting rained on now as they are in the thick of thing. Karen, we appreciate you this morning.
MAGINNIS: Thank you T.J.
HOLMES: Thank you so, so much.
We're 24 minutes past the hour. Again, we are getting constant updates about what's happening in St. Louis and the very important key here is for a lot of folks who are flying need to know that Lambert International is shut down, closed indefinitely. So you need to check with your airline if you are flying anywhere in that vicinity, even if you're not flying directly to St. Louis.
Some of these planes are having to change. These airlines making some adjustments right now, so you need to check with your airline before you head to the airport, because what happened there could affect you as well.
But, again, the key word this morning I will allow county executive Dooley to have the word of the morning and that is "blessing". After all of this we're seeing, folks, no word of any injuries and only -- only -- no serious injuries. Word of no deaths either only a couple of minor injuries. Yes, folks, a blessing this morning out of St. Louis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. It is getting close to the bottom of the hour.
You know the royal wedding is less than a week away, but the party has already started apparently. Our Zain Verjee is at Westminster Abbey for us this morning. Zain good to see you once again; I see you still getting adjusted. I assume you were part of the party there and you're late coming over to get to work here.
No, I'm teasing. No, you and I were talking about this earlier. This morning a few hours ago, essentially a book was released that gave us a lot of details about the wedding next week, including the guest list.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It sure did, T.J., Clarence House issued it. We were just going through it, you know, they've do the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Lord and Lady Windsor. And then I found Duke T.J. of Holmes and Duchess Zain of Verjee so, I thought you'd be very happy (INAUDIBLE). But no, we wish, right.
HOLMES: Yes.
VERJEE: Well, here's who else was actually on that list. Elton John, a close friend of late Princess Diana, is coming. Rowan Atkinson -- Mr. Bean, Black Adder, he'll be here. The Beckhams are on their way from L.A. -- David and Victoria will be at the wedding. Guy Ritchie, film director of "Sherlock Holmes" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", Madonna's ex is invited, too. And the Olympic Swimmer Ian Thorpe, you may know him as "Thorpedo", T.J., he'll be here as well. He has a charity that Prince William supports.
So, quite a celebrity group here; there will be there 1,900 guests. If you're lucky, you're invited. If you're luckier you get to the queen's lunch reception, there are about 650 guests. And if you're the luckiest you also get invited to a 300-people reception that Prince Charles is hosting at the end of the day at Buckingham Palace with dancing and a good time for the bride and groom.
HOLMES: All right. Well, all that, it sounds like a pain. Who wants to be invited anyway? But before I let you go -- and Zain I need you to do this for me --
(CROSSTALK)
VERJEE: Yes. I'm busy -- I'm busy that day.
HOLMES: I need you to do this for me about 30 seconds. I guess there is a security element here, and you were telling me it's kind of a dry-run to something else coming up in London.
VERJEE: Yes. The Olympics 2012, next year, are going to be here in London, and there's a lot of pressure, and it's a pretty tough operation here.
They've got about 5,000 police officers for the week fanned out around the city, aerial helicopter sweeps. They'll be monitoring crowds. They're going to be looking at railways and rooftops, things like that. And also, what they're all doing already is going through drains and lamps down different streets to make sure there are no explosives.
HOLMES: All right. Well, Zain, you enjoy. We'll talk to you again soon.
VERJEE: I will. OK.
HOLMES: Our Zain Verjee, there at Westminster Abbey.
Thank you so much.
Well, CNN counting down to the most anticipated wedding in decades. Tomorrow, 8:00 Eastern Time, we take you behind the scenes with "CNN Presents: The Women Who Would be Queen." And then, on Friday, April 29th, tune in for CNN's royal wedding experience. You can DVR this thing as well. That begins 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
Is there a such thing as a safe bet in Las Vegas? From my experience, no. But one company says it knows, and it's putting a lot on the line to see that bet pay off.
Exactly what is this? I'll let you know in just a couple of minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, 32 minutes past the hour now. Making a safe bet in Vegas. Yes, right. That's exactly, though, what one company says it's doing by investing time and money into a secret process to raise locally grown shrimp.
Here now, CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Las Vegas, tourists love big spectacles and little shrimp, eating 22 million pounds a year. The problem is, in this landlocked state, shrimp are often frozen and from far away. But this year, that could change.
FRANK DELUCA, GANIX BIO TECHNOLOGIES, INC.: The size of this building is a 36,000 square foot fabricated structure.
FOREMAN: A half-hour north, Blue Oasis is building a plant to grow shrimp in the desert and take on the foreign companies which dominate the American market.
Scott McManus is the CEO.
SCOTT MCMANUS, GANIX BIO TECHNOLOGIES, INC.: I mean, it's 1.4 billion pounds that was brought into the U.S. last year, approximately, and 90 percent of that comes from overseas.
FOREMAN: Each of these tanks can hold 100,000 shrimp, and they hope to harvest a half-million pounds a year.
(on camera): Why hasn't this been done before?
MCMANUS: Well, the big issue is, is how do you deal with the affluent (ph) within the system?
FOREMAN: The waste?
MCMANUS: The waste, exactly.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Here, each tank is an ecosystem unto itself. Wastewater is naturally recycled in what they say is a chemical-free process and never dumped into the environment. But they won't say much more about how the system works. That's their secret developed at a remote lab in North Dakota over the past eight years.
(on camera): So where are we now?
MCMANUS: Right now, we're in what we call our sort and ship facility.
FOREMAN (voice-over): They will say they hope to take the idea far beyond Vegas, putting these fresh shrimp farms and new jobs near every major city.
(on camera): Do you think that will sell?
MCMANUS: Absolutely. FOREMAN: You're counting on it?
MCMANUS: Exactly. I'm counting on it big time.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Tom Foreman, CNN, Apex, Nevada.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: All right. Thirty-five minutes past the hour now. A terrifying storm has now shut down the international airport in St. Louis. Homes, businesses, even a church, hard hit. But would you believe there is good, even great, news to come out of this?
An update straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. Thirty-seven minutes past the hour now.
Missouri's governor has declared a state of emergency after a fierce storm tore through St. Louis overnight. The National Weather Service experts there on the ground now, they are going to be looking at whether or not it was actually a tornado that hit. They have to go out and do their assessments before saying officially. But for all intents and purposes, from some of the damage we're seeing, this was a tornado last night.
Winds blew out about half the windows at the main terminal of the international airport there, ripped off part of the roof at one concourse. Passengers waiting for flights were hit with flying glasses and debris. Others took cover, even inside a plane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CURRAN HENNESSEY, PASSENGER: We were completely pelted with all kinds of wood and debris, and at this point I realized that I was concerned that we would have debris coming through the window in the airplane. And so I ducked for cover, I got down. I was right next to the window, and I was concerned that blowing glass or something would be a reality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well, this was just an amazing statistic to hear today. Twenty -- fewer than 20 people were hurt. All these described as minor injuries. The county executive telling us a short time ago in a live press conference that no one was killed.
Now, the airport is closed today, closed indefinitely, what they say. But they're hoping to have part of it operating tomorrow. They say they want to be back to 70 percent capacity even by tomorrow, maybe 100 percent capacity by the middle of next week.
Look at the neighborhoods, though. It's going to be a long time before these folks are up to their capacity once again, folks. Police are now going door to door, looking for anyone who might be trapped under all that rubble.
Again, no reports -- just amazing to say this -- after the damage we're seeing, no reports of anyone killed. Now, the winds even blew the steeple right off a church. Take a look at this here. This happened during Good Friday services. Again, no one here hurt either.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HOLMES: I want to turn to some international news here now and some major developments we're getting out of Libya today. After weeks of fighting there, Libyan rebels say they have pushed Moammar Gadhafi's forces out of Misrata.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen joining us live this morning.
Fred, hello to you. What do we know? Are we able to get anything close to accurate counts of what exactly is happening in Misrata?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, both sides seem to be saying that at least Gadhafi's forces are making a substantial withdrawal from that area. We spoke earlier to a spokesman for the Libyan government who says that the Libyan forces are "on their last stages" of their withdrawal from Misrata.
Now, the rebels obviously have a very different take on all of this. They say that the forces of Moammar Gadhafi are not withdrawing, they're retreating, because the rebels are kicking them out of that area.
Now, what we are hearing from the rebels as well is that Gadhafi still does have forces in Misrata, however, and there has been some artillery shelling going on as well. They say they are sort of on the western fringes of that city of Misrata, but they say that they're going to take care of those forces as well.
The Libyan government, of course, has also said that they now want to call in local tribes of that area to try and come to terms with the situation. They say the tribes are on the side of Gadhafi, that they're going to try to negotiate with the rebels. And if there's no conclusion to these negotiations, then the tribes would, in fact, fight the rebels.
They, of course, the rebels, have a very different take on that as well. They don't see these tribes coming, and they say they've in no way been contacted at all.
And one interesting little tidbit as well, T.J. The rebels are also saying that the fact that they've been able to make the gains is in large part due to the fact that NATO has been using more air power in Misrata -- T.J.
HOLMES: All right.
Our Fred Pleitgen, reporting for us live from Libya.
Fred, we appreciate the update. We appreciate you, as always. Thanks so much.
Well, to our viewers, we are about 17 minutes until the top of the hour now. And you may have heard this week that "TIME" magazine has released its annual list of the "World's Most Influential People."
Included on that list this year are, yes, those two, Prince William and Kate Middleton. Also on the list though, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who has made the "100 Most Influential List."
But who would you believe has made it the most times? Maybe you can guess. I'll tell you in a couple of minutes.
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HOLMES: All right. Forty-six minutes past the hour.
We are getting some developments, some disturbing developments, this morning about one of the NFL's stars, Brandon Marshall. You may not know the name, but this young man is a star athlete.
He is a star, not just because he's in the NFL, but a leading receiver. A Pro Bowler as well. But he has been stabbed and, reportedly, he was in intensive care this morning.
There he is there. You're seeing his picture, but stabbed. And according to authorities, CNN has confirmed, his wife has now been charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. CNN has confirmed this.
Reports had been out a little earlier this morning, but we can confirm that Brandon Marshall has been stabbed. Not sure of his condition right now, but other outlets reporting that he would be OK. But he was reportedly in intensive care this morning, but stabbed by his wife.
The details of the incident are unknown at this point. But his wife, 26-year-old Michi Nogami-Marshall, now charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
He is now on the -- after finishing his first season with the Miami Dolphins, did play for the Denver Broncos for quite some time, where he was a Pro Bowler, but he was able to get out of there. He has had some trouble in his past, trouble with the law as well, but kind of some -- kind of some unfortunate circumstances to where he left Denver, ended up in Miami, but did have a good year in Miami this past year, led that team in receiving.
But once again, Brandon Marshall making headlines for unfortunate reasons. Stabbed, was in intensive care at some point this morning. Team officials reportedly, some outlets saying, that he's going to be OK. But his wife, 26-year-old Michi Nogami-Marshall, has been charged in that crime.
We'll get more details on that, we'll pass those along to you.
Some other news now.
We did ask you before the break -- we've been talking about -- a lot of people have been talking about this list, the 100 -- the "TIME" "100 Most Influential People." Well, some people make it year after year, it seems. One of those seems to be Oprah Winfrey.
And she is currently winding down her talk show. She's been named one of "TIME" magazines "Most Influential People" every years since 2004. That's more than any other "TIME" 100 designee.
Winfrey is followed by President Barack Obama. He's actually made the list the past six times.
Well, starting a restaurant, pretty expensive, as you can imagine. It uses a lot of resources as well. In today's "Green Solutions in Focus," CNN photojournalist Bethany Swain shows us a new experiment in Washington -- two restaurants in the same place, but at different times.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do we (ph) have to go at 3:00?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we have until midnight.
We leased out an ice cream shop and started selling tacos. It's a space that isn't use during the winter, so it's just closed for about four to five months a year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were fortunate that this wasn't just an ice cream shop. They sold Philadelphia cheesesteaks. So that's why there was cooking equipment in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A couple hundred bucks to buy ingredients, and then we just went day by day after that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we only offer three things: taco (INAUDIBLE) taco and vegetarian taco with beans and cheese.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, as long as we made, like, you know, enough money to buy ingredients every day, we could stay open.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, we tried to run it right on the edge and make sure we were using everything we had.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like anything else. You get a better deal in volume if you buy in volume, so it's tempting to go out and buy cases of everything. But definitely, nothing goes to waste, that's for sure. I mean, if you don't use it, you're going to throw it away, and that's -- I mean, it kills me.
We came in here and we figured out what needs to change, what doesn't. You know, we've been tippy-toeing around ice cream machines this whole time because, really, they didn't need to go anywhere. I mean, is it ideal to look in the window and see ice cream machines in a taco shop with red and white walls? Not really. But does it really need to change?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we just threw our sign up. It worked. We didn't have to tear anything down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very good. And the people at 2:00 in the morning are definitely going to be sad to see them go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that everything?
Just planning out our last few orders and making sure we didn't have a lot of food that was going to go to waste. Pretty much everything here can go and be used someplace else.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will be sad to see them go tomorrow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All we have to do is clean and take, like, the five things that we brought in, and ice cream will be available tomorrow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go. Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have a good evening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a lot of work, but it's been a lot of fun.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: All right. Let me bring in Bethany Swain. She's a photojournalist who shot that piece.
Bethany, good morning to you.
So, when I first heard about that, I'm like, can this really work? But in the end, was this successful?
BETHANY SWAIN, PHOTOJOURNALIST: Absolutely. Troy and Eric we met in that story were very happy with how their pop-up restaurant experiment went. And those tacos really were delicious.
HOLMES: They really were delicious? Is this something that can possibly spread? They're hoping it can? Because you could save some space here.
SWAIN: It does. But at the same time, all the customers that they created -- I was there on their last night when they were closing up -- they were really disappointed that there wasn't another place that they could get tacos the next day.
So, it's a great model to test something to see if it's going to work. And then, from there, you can figure out, you know, is this is a restaurant that we want to do? So they're now looking for a place, trying to figure out what to do next.
HOLMES: Well, that is very interesting. And I am starving this morning. I have not had breakfast.
But, Bethany Swain, good stuff, as always. We appreciate seeing these year after year. You've been doing these for a little while now. So congratulations on this one as well.
Bethany, good to see you.
And to our viewers, don't forget to watch today at 3:00 Eastern, when Tom Foreman hosts a special "Green Solutions in Focus," Eatocracy edition.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. You don't have long to wait, folks. Fredricka is almost here.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: No, you don't have long to wait.
HOLMES: No.
WHITFIELD: Your day is almost over.
HOLMES: No, no, no.
WHITFIELD: Or the other part of your day about to begin. That's one way to look at it.
HOLMES: Yes, about to begin.
WHITFIELD: Good to see you.
HOLMES: But it has been an interesting morning. A lot of news going on.
WHITFIELD: I know. I know. We're going to continue along with that, severe weather, and we've got other matters as well.
You know our legal guys are always with us. Avery and Richard always bring a lot of humor and great intelligence to these legal cases.
HOLMES: Of course.
WHITFIELD: So I know this is something that you don't have to worry about, dating services, those Web sites.
HOLMES: No.
WHITFIELD: Well, Match.com is now at the center of a legal case. We're talking about allegations now that this service, and perhaps others, need to do their due diligence about finding out more about the prospective dating clientele.
HOLMES: Fascinated by this. Whose responsibility? The onus is on who to actually check the person out?
WHITFIELD: That's right.
HOLMES: Should you check them out yourselves?
WHITFIELD: That's the big old question. Our legal guys are going to delve in on that one.
HOLMES: OK.
WHITFIELD: One young lady at issue here is alleging that an alleged assault that took place. You know, Match.com could have prevented it had they divulged a little bit more information. We'll see about that.
And "Happy Days" not so happy for at least four former cast members and the estate of one.
HOLMES: I've heard (ph) about this. Yes.
WHITFIELD: Lots of merchandise. You probably saw a lot of it growing up. I'm not going to say that you're out buying the lunchboxes right now, but --
HOLMES: No.
WHITFIELD: -- but maybe when you were a wee one, maybe buying a lunchbox or a T-shirt with the "Happy Days" logo, their images. Well, these former cast members say they are owed millions by CBS, and so they're taking them to court.
HOLMES: They're just figuring it out after all these years?
WHITFIELD: Thirty-seven years after the fact.
HOLMES: Yes, OK.
WHITFIELD: I know. It's pretty fascinating.
HOLMES: OK.
WHITFIELD: OK. Speaking of millions, who doesn't want to be a millionaire?
HOLMES: Yes.
WHITFIELD: OK. Well, a financial expert, Karen Lee, is going to be along with us to say, it's actually rather simple. She has got some tips.
HOLMES: Oh, stop.
(CROSSTALK) WHITFIELD: Yes. She says, OK, your car, for one, just drive it into the ground.
HOLMES: Stop. And I'll be a millionaire?
WHITFIELD: Well, that's one of the things to do.
HOLMES: OK.
WHITFIELD: Just drive it in the ground. And there are also some real estate, I guess, tips that she's got about staying in your home, paying it off. And there are other things. Simple --
HOLMES: Simple stuff.
WHITFIELD: -- things that you can do to accumulate your wealth and one day become a millionaire.
HOLMES: All right. I'm going to hand this over to Fredricka and I'm going to go work on being a millionaire. OK?
WHITFIELD: OK. Very good.
HOLMES: All right.
But thank you all for being with me this morning on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Fredricka takes over in just a couple of minutes.
WHITFIELD: Awesome. Have a good one.
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