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Stories From the Storms; Slain U.S. Troops Killed by Afghan Pilot Return Home; Wide Swath of Destruction; Tornadoes Kill 249 in Alabama; Tuscaloosa Terrorized by Tornado; Endeavour's Final Launch Delayed; West Virginia Mine to be Sealed; Republicans Court Gun Lobby

Aired April 30, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting a lot of pictures right now showing you tornado damage from our iReports. Take a look.

This is what Tabitha Hawk of Nashville, Tennessee, sent us on Wednesday, this out of Coleman, Alabama. She says she had been to the area before the storm, and it was just a normal small town. Well, this trip, she says, it looks like the end of the world.

The destruction from this week's tornado outbreak is so massive, it's easy to miss the small stuff. Rainsville, Alabama, is a small rural town in the northeast corner of the state. Barely 5,000 people live there, but the county where it's located has the second highest death toll in Alabama; only Tuscaloosa has more.

Our photojournalist found determination amid the destruction in Rainsville.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREN OWENS, TEACHER PLAINVIEW SCHOOL: I went to school here and graduated from here. So you know, it's kind of emotional, but I think we're just going to do the best we can, and we can overcome it.

It's just a shock. Just a shock to see just what devastation has done to the school campus and not only that, but with the communities around us.

DANNY JOHNSON, SCHOOL CUSTODIAN. I've never seen anything like this in my life, never. I don't know what to expect one day to the next. No power for weeks, they said. No gas everywhere. A great big mess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wake up, and it's just gone. Everything's just completely vanished. Everything you knew your whole life.

OWENS: We're a real close community. You know, everybody's good to each other. We try to help out as much as we can and as far as I know, when we get done, you know, with some of our own stuff, we're going to help others. We're getting it all done as much as we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It brings a lot of people together. It's something that -- it's just a disaster now any way you look at it. A lot of communities have gone through this all over the United States. And you've got a lot of help coming in from all over the south so we're going to make it. We're going to do fine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Take a look right now.

Dover Air Force Base this Delaware. Early this morning, the remains of eight Air Force personnel killed Wednesday in Afghanistan returned to the United States.

The wife of one slain officer says it was important for her to just be nearby when her husband's casket arrived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUZANNA AUSBORN, HUSBAND KILLED WEDNESDAY IN AFGHANISTAN: I wanted to come to Dover last night to see my husband or feel his presence one last time. I wanted to salute him one last time.

I wanted -- what I really wanted was for it to be a mistake and for them to say no, that's not your husband there. Sorry. Let's undo this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The eight airmen and an American contractor died Wednesday when an Afghan military pilot opened fire inside the Kabul International Airport.

An American general in Afghanistan insists that the shooting was an isolated incident and not part of any pattern of violence against NATO forces there.

Let's bring in our Chris Lawrence. So Chris, no pattern of violence, yet in the past two years, 36 NATO deaths have been attributed to persons believed to be Afghan soldiers or police.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Fredericka. Some of these are impersonators. You know, some of these are infiltrators from the Taliban who get dressed up like policemen or Afghan army soldiers.

But others are actual Afghan forces who turn on the Americans. Now, NATO will tell you that a lot of this is battlefield stress, that many of them turn out not to be linked to the Taliban, that these are isolated incidents.

And for right now that's what they're saying about this one as well, that there apparently was no links to the Taliban. The man carried two guns, but he was acting alone.

But that really does nothing to really, you know, ease the pain of some of these families, especially when they think that their husbands, their wives are going to a job in which they're trying to actually help the Afghans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUSBORN: We also felt like this assignment, he was going to be safe. He was going to instruct pilots how to fly their airplane. He wasn't -- he wasn't in a job where he was out shooting at people. He was training them and he enjoyed it. And so we really felt that he was safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: Again, this all took place in a room in Kabul. Apparently, the Americans trusted the Afghans that they were working with at the time. So we're still trying to piece together and work through the investigation that the military is doing to find out, you know, how he pulled these guns, how he was able to shoot eight troops and an American contractor before he was shot, wounded and later died just a short time later.

WHITFIELD: And I wonder, Chris, if there's going to be any correlation drawn between that incident on Wednesday and what could be an impending Taliban offensive about to begin.

LAWRENCE: Yes. The Taliban did take credit for this shooting, but they do that a lot. They'll take credit for things they had nothing to do with. Right now it doesn't look like there's any link to the Taliban in this case.

But yes, they have planned to launch a major offensive starting tomorrow, saying that they're going to attack bases, convoys, even go after some afghan officials who have been working with NATO forces.

NATO is saying we expect this wave of violence to really kick off. But they say this is the Taliban's way of sort of getting propaganda out there, to try to appear stronger than they really are.

But if you look back on the ground over the last month or two, the Taliban are still very, very capable of launching some really explosive attacks.

WHITFIELD: All right, Chris Lawrence in Washington. Thanks so much for that.

LAWRENCE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, turning now to those southern storms of historic proportions. From the Mississippi River all the way up to Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Look at that line sliced across the country by tornadoes this week. Here's the latest official death toll, 337 people. That's the second deadliest single day for tornadoes in U.S. history.

And here's a look at the devastation in Ringgold, Georgia, with trucks and chain saws. Residents are starting the long and very difficult process of clearing away debris there. 15 people were killed in Georgia. President Barack Obama has declared a federal disaster in parts of that state, freeing up federal relief funds for the victims.

And look at this, amazing picture. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a few weeks before the tornadoes, and then after that wipe, what it looks like now.

Same place, same angle taken yesterday. A look at the path of destruction right there where you can just see that line of tornadic activity that swept through. At least 39 people died in Tuscaloosa County alone Wednesday.

And that's where we also find CNN's Rob Marciano. Rob, it is an unbelievable sight that we've seen over and over again across six states now.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is and you mentioned that death toll, Fredericka. I never thought that in this day and age with the advent of Doppler radar and the amount of lead time that we have for giving warnings that we would ever see that sort of death toll.

But when you get those powerful storms and this populated an area, and that's really what it comes down to, you know, mother nature's going to do what it does. As you see behind me, you see all those pictures we've been showing you for the past several days, it's absolutely, absolutely devastating.

This morning we spent the day up in Pleasant Grove, which is just to the west of Birmingham, which is where this same twister ended up going through after it demolished most of -- much of Tuscaloosa.

And search and rescue crews on day three still trying to get out there and get it done, especially in that Pleasant Grove area. These pictures showing that that area nearly demolished as well. The very, very few structures left standing in those areas and there were numerous fatalities.

And as of yesterday, they were still pulling deceased victims out of the rubble. This morning we tagged along with those folks. They are still having problems getting to where they need to go. The advantage, Fredricka, you know, the area is so wide, so big and there's so many structures and homes that they have to go through.

Normally by day three, they would be done with this task and search and rescue and most likely had a recovery now, but they're not complete with that. Nowhere near it, as a matter of fact. That's one more way this event is so extraordinary.

WHITFIELD: And, in fact, you went out with search and rescue crews in the Birmingham area, right?

MARCIANO: I did. And they had cadaver dogs, and they had rescue dogs with them as well in order to pounce on areas that were deemed to be suspect. We did get on one call where there was a strong odor coming from an area. We ran there with the dogs, and as a matter of fact, there were other dogs that were trapped and they were able to release some of those dogs. The other issue we're seeing now that people are getting out and clearing the mess. Now, a lot of the roadways are beginning to get cleared up now because, you know, they've got to get the vehicles and the support vehicles back to where they need to be. But private homes like this one, well, you know, that's kind of your responsibility.

So you either have to go hire help or you've got to get out here and clean it up yourself. And that means for a lot of cases taking a chain saw. And if you take a chain saw to something like that, you don't know what you're doing, you can get hurt real bad. We're getting a lot of reports of people who are getting injured and injured badly.

Not necessarily slipping with the chain saw, but maybe cutting a branch that can snap off and hit you pretty good. We are starting to see, though, more resources poured into the area as far as, you know, surviving type of stuff, food and water.

That certainly has been pouring in for the past day and a half now. But as far as the scene of private residents, I don't think that's going to change for several weeks, if not several months.

WHITFIELD: It's a terrible situation. Rob Marciano, thanks so much. Appreciate that.

So how do you recover from a disaster when your tiny town has been destroyed? Our Martin Savidge is joining us right now. Martin, what are you seeing from your vantage point? It doesn't look like there's much of a structure at all in sight from your vantage point.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, in many places here in Hackleburg, there is absolutely nothing left, houses taken right down to the foundation.

In some cases houses -- this debris, by the way, didn't come from the house next to us. It came from across the street. So that's the real question.

People here grateful to be alive, but now how do they pick up their lives when all you have left is what you see out there? We'll have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Back to our storm coverage. Recovery efforts are under way in Alabama after this week's horrible tornado outbreak. Crews are still looking for victims in the town of Hackleburg, Alabama, and that's where we find our Martin Savidge -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: Well, Fredericka, this was a storm that really just took the stuffing out of a very small town. It's really only about 1,600 people that live here, but Hackleburg was devastated on Wednesday night.

They have a death toll now of 29. It was a death toll that actually started very low, but yesterday almost exploded. That's not quite the good word to use, but the reason for that was the fact that so many people had been buried amongst the debris.

And now because of that explosive growth as far as fatalities, they are grappling to deal with it at the morgue, which they have set up. And it's a very makeshift building that's on the outskirts of town that's been donated.

They had to bring in refrigerator trucks to act as a storage place so they could take care of their own here in this town until proper burial arrangements could be arranged.

And then you talk about the toll on the town. The police station destroyed. The fire station's been heavily damaged. City hall is about the only structure that still exists. Most of the businesses have been wiped out.

Three schools, the elementary school, the middle school and the high school all heavily damaged. The good news there was they let school out early before this storm struck.

I took a ride with the police chief today. He's clearly still very, very traumatized by what he saw in his community and what he himself went through. Here's what he described.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF KENNY HALLMARK, HACKLEBURG POLICE: We're pretty much everybody's running on adrenaline right now. It's such a travesty to our community that we're just trying to do everything we can do to help people. I mean, we're tired. We've been blessed with help, but we're still -- we're tired. But we're going to work and get through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Let me show you something real quick here, Fred. This foundation here, that's really what was left of a trailer that had been sitting there. And you follow the path that would go off in this direction and this is the debris field.

But what you see here is not the debris from the trailer. That is long gone. What you're looking at here is debris from another home that came from across the roadway over here, a home that had people in it.

Shattered, scattered, thrown about here. The people inside survived. They are seriously injured, but at least they're alive. And today some of them came back to try to pick through to see what they could find.

You're looking for the jewelry. You're for the mementos. You're looking for the purses, the credit cards. You're looking for the basic things that will help you get started again someday, somehow.

But this house, of course, like many others here, completely gone. Fredericka -- WHITFIELD: Wow! So what more do we know perhaps about those people who were injured whose home was tossed about, which ended up somewhere behind you? What kind of injuries did they suffer from, and were they among the ones who were able to come back out and try and sift through and find some belongings?

SAVIDGE: The wife is the one who I spoke to briefly. She's got cuts and scratches and stitches. She says her husband's in the hospital. I believe she said he has a broken back. Her two children are well.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my.

SAVIDGE: Which is good and her mother-in-law, I believe also suffered injuries. The amazing thing is you will hear stories like this over and over again. This is another reason why the death toll exploded so much in this town.

A lot of people went to hospital and unfortunately many of them died. Sixteen at least that were transported later died because of the injuries they suffered.

And these are people who took shelter in the basements of their homes that did all the things you are supposed to do. This storm just really was one you couldn't avoid. And if you weren't underground, you probably didn't survive.

WHITFIELD: Not really a good chance. Yes, Marty Savidge, thanks so much. Appreciate that.

All right, well, the devastation certainly seems to be endless over six states. We want to share some of the photos that we've been receiving from I-reporters and they've been sent to us.

We're turning them out to you. These are from Thomas Carroll who says over 60 percent of his hometown of Smithville, Mississippi, was leveled. At least a dozen people were killed there. His parents are OK, but he worries that this little town of just 900 will never be the same.

And John Remspot shot these pictures Thursday in Madison, Georgia. He says there is one specific stretch where there is a lot of damaged to the homes and the businesses there, aluminum roofs laying on the road, but this historic downtown appears to be OK.

The people of Tuscaloosa need a whole lot of help. Find out what relief organizations are doing to bring relief to the hard-hit areas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The pictures certainly tell the story. These pictures from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where a monster tornado measuring about one mile wide terrorized the city and went on to terrorize many more. At least 39 people died there in Tuscaloosa. So the city has a long road to the recovery, of course. Franklin Graham is the president of Samaritan's Purse, one of the groups sending disaster relief, experts to help out in towns like Tuscaloosa and elsewhere. He's also the son of the reverend Billy Graham joining us now from Tuscaloosa.

So Reverend Graham, give me an idea, you all are based in Charlotte, North Carolina. How did you make the decision that it was Tuscaloosa where you need to start heading?

REV. FRANKLIN GRAHAM, PRESIDENT, SAMARITAN'S PURSE: Well, Fredericka, we are in Birmingham as well as Tuscaloosa. And as you can see, we're in this little community. It looks like an atomic bomb has gone off here.

We have got this morning we had about 450 volunteers this morning and about the same amount this afternoon working in this community and several others around us.

You know, just trying to help these homeowners go through their belongings and try to salvage what they can salvage. It's almost impossible for a homeowner to go through a house like this by themselves and try to salvage it. You look at the damage and a homeowner --

WHITFIELD: Yes, where do you begin?

GRAHAM: What do you do? So what we are doing is we've got volunteers and they come in. And they just volunteer to help them. Some of them, we've been cutting trees off houses, the ones that can be saved, to tarps on the roof so if it rains, the houses don't get wet.

But these volunteers are the key, Fredericka. We couldn't do it without volunteers. If I could put a plug in for them, if you want to be a part of it, go to samaritanspurse.org and click on volunteers because we need an army of them, especially in the next few weeks to come. It's going to be even more critical two or three weeks from now.

WHITFIELD: Yes, you could use the volunteers. The people living in these devastated towns could certainly use the help. So when you talk about helping to descend upon a property, helping homeowner or a resident, you know, kind of begin.

What are they expressing to you, if anything, about their greatest worries this day forward if they were lucky enough to have survived this storm?

GRAHAM: Well, Fredericka, what we do, we go into a community. We talk to the homeowner and tell them what we have to offer. If a homeowner wants our help, they fill out a work order. When they fill out a work order, we then send the volunteers in to work on their house.

We don't go on anybody's property unless we've gotten permission. Right now about everybody down here wants your help so the volunteers are the key. We can't do this kind of work without the volunteers.

I was with the mayor this morning. He wants our help. He says this is going to be the key for recovery is getting people to volunteer. A lot of these communities are poor, Fredericka.

And I'm not sure how much insurance, if any, some of these people have. And for them to try to rebuild is going to be really a tough thing.

WHITFIELD: Yes. I know how gratifying it must be, knowing that you're helping, but there has to be a moment too. For you and many of your volunteers where you kind of throw up your hands and say, gosh, I'm really sorry, but I don't know if there's anything I can do to help your situation.

GRAHAM: No, you know what you do, Fredericka? You pray for them. And you let them know that God has not forgotten them, that God does love him and that his son, Jesus Christ, died for their sins and rose from the grave.

I want every to know that God has not abandoned them. And what happens in things like this, people question, why did this happen to me? Why did God allow it?

I don't have the answers, Fredericka, but I do know that God loves us because the bible tells us so and I just want to reassure people that God has not forgotten.

And I believe out of a storm like this and out of all of this destruction, goodwill come out of it. I pray that this community will be stronger and more united than it's ever been in the aftermath of this storm.

WHITFIELD: Franklin, Reverend Franklin Graham, thanks so much for your time. I know the people there are very grateful that you and Samaritan's Purse is there to help out so many folks.

Of course, you heard from him. You can go to their web site to find out if there's a way you could volunteer because they could use the volunteers.

Perhaps there are other ways that you can help out. You can make a difference for the victims of this path of tornadoes. Visit our impact your world page. That's at cnn.com/impact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at our top stories right now.

NASA says Endeavour will launch Monday at the earliest. They're repairing a glitch with the heaters. Gabrielle Giffords' status is equally uncertain.

She flew to Florida to watch her husband, shuttle command Mark Kelly take off. Now it's unclear if the recovering congresswoman will have to return to rehabilitation before the launch. The West Virginia mine where 29 workers were killed last year will be sealed. Massey Energy is scheduled to meet next week with state and federal safety regulators to discuss a plan for sealing it. The explosion at the mine was one of the country's worst mining disasters.

Potential Republican presidential candidates are courting the gun lobby this weekend. The National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention in Pittsburgh. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused President Obama of being the most anti-gun president ever.

And the storm that swept through the south this week left a path of destruction across six states. A lot of attention has focused on hard-hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which seemed to take the brunt of the storm.

But now I want to turn to Apison, Tennessee. It is a small town near the Georgia border and it got hit pretty hard, too. CNN's Susan Candiotti is there and brings us this incredible story of a father and son who survived.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN POE, SURVIVED TORNADO IN A DITCH: I was laying on the couch watching TV about asleep and my neighbor called me. He's in College Dale and he told me that it's coming. Get out of the trailer. It's coming.

We kind of walked out and then I heard it coming. So we took off running. I said, Tanner, I guess the safest place for us to be is over in that ditch. That's the only thing I could think of. My son, I had to save him.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You ran out here by this pole? Now where?

TANNER POE, SURVIVED TORNADO IN A DITCH: We were laying right there, right in there. Me and dad were hugging each other, laying face down. It was lifting us off the ground. A tree fell on us and the wind pulled it off of us. And when that happened, I saw everything.

POE: We went up here on the hill to see if I could find my nephew or any of them, which they were gone. I knew it. I mean, I knew they were gone.

They found his body back over here in a field and Adam was down here by the railroad tracks. Brenda, back over by where the car is and her mother right down here in this ditch right here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: That was Susan Candiotti reporting.

All right, a tornado's path of destruction can be terribly random. The town of Ringgold, Georgia, learned that painful lesson when a tornado tore some homes down to the foundations while leaving others almost untouched. And CNN's Rafael Romo visited Ringgold and spoke to survivors of that storm.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The business district looks like a war zone. But it was not a bomb that hit it. It was a tornado.

MAYOR JOE BARGER, RINGGOLD, GEORGIA: Many heard like a freight train coming through. When the lights went out, I come back up. I saw all of the debris in my yard.

ROMO: Buildings that used to be thriving businesses only a few days ago are now in ruins.

VICE MAYOR TERRY CRAWFORD, RINGGOLD, GEORGIA: We have businesses that are a total loss. We have homes that are just down to the foundation.

ROMO: A series of powerful tornadoes and devastating storms left at least seven people dead in Ringgold. Survivors say this is the worst catastrophe this community in north Georgia has ever seen.

Janet Hamill, the owner of a Mexican restaurant, says she saw the tornado coming. There were moments of panic, she says, as people in the restaurant tried to decide their next course of action.

JANET HAMILL, RESTAURANT OWNER: At that point, you really don't know what to do. Do you run for cover? You know, what do you do? You don't know how far it is, how close it is because it's all new to us. We don't see stuff like that around here.

ROMO: In one of the most devastated neighborhoods in Ringgold, residents were still assessing the damage.

(on camera): The tornado was so powerful that it lifted up a trailer. Here you see part of a window. And it dropped it on top of cars parked here in the middle of the driveway. As you can see, it also left a trail of debris all the way up until that house.

(voice-over): Winds of more than 100 miles an hour destroyed frame homes with such force that pieces of wood ended up piercing a roof like nails.

JAMES SMIDDY, RINGGOLD RESIDENT: It sounded like a bunch of trains just coming together all at once, you know? And I said, oh, my God, here it is. It's on us.

ROMO: Many of the houses that were left standing are so badly damaged, they will have to be demolished.

Rafael Romo, CNN, Ringgold, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WHITFIELD: Among the victims in that same area of Ringgold, Ray Nixon. He was actually in a Waffle House restaurant when the tornado hit there. His quick thinking helped to save several people in the restaurant.

He's joining us right now by phone with more.

So, Ray, tell me more about this quick thinking. What did you do when you realized a tornado is bearing down on your restaurant where you were?

RAY NIXON, TORNADO SURVIVOR (via telephone): Well, my first thought was to survive. I never thought that at any time that I was going to die or the people in the restaurant was going to die. I guess it goes back to the many years of grammar school tornado drills where the girls went to the girls' restroom, and the boys went to the boys' restroom.

When I saw this thing from across the interstate and came across the bridge, maybe 10 seconds, 15 seconds to -- had to be done. And I kind of herded the people into the restroom.

WHITFIELD: So, everyone took you seriously right away? You reached for the waitress, you know, the cook --

NIXON: Right.

WHITFIELD: -- everybody that was in that restaurant. And they all could tell from your urgency that this was for real.

NIXON: Yes. Nobody really saw it but me. I was sitting facing the northwest. And I knew that they did not realize what was happening. And I just screamed for them to get in the restroom immediately. And we got in there. And just about time the door closed, the full brunt of the tornado hit the Waffle House.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness! So, everything was destroyed around that bathroom at that waffle house, and you were all unscathed?

NIXON: The walls are standing, but it completely ripped the fixtures out, all the glass with projectiles coming through the air in the whirling tornado where it was like a bomb went off.

WHITFIELD: So, Ray, have you lived through a tornado before?

NIXON: Years ago. Years ago when I was a small kid, we had several down in Warner Robins, Georgia. There again, I thank those teachers that, you know, at Westside Elementary School for giving us all those tornado drills because my immediate thought was, get to the bathroom.

WHITFIELD: So, despite those drills, you know, and your instincts, you know, tell me how frightened you were during all of this.

NIXON: Well, I really didn't have time to be frightened. I didn't have time to think about that. My instinct was for survival. Fear never entered my mind until it was over and I walked out. And I thought, how did we live through this?

And -- but we did. We survived and walked out.

WHITFIELD: And we're so glad that you did and others survived and walked out as well.

Ray Nixon, extraordinary. We're looking at some pictures there of the damage and destruction there in Ringgold, Georgia. And we know a lot of folks are awfully thankful, and sadly, many lives in that entire region were lost as well. Appreciate your time.

NIXON: Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: We'll get back to much more of our storm coverage momentarily. But this is something you don't want to miss. You don't want to miss our legal guys and what they have to say about that on and off-again NFL lockout.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: OK. So that NFL lockout has been one big legal roller-coaster ride all week long. One minute, there's a ruling in favor of the pro football players. The next it's in favor of the owners.

It's enough to get our legal guys all fired up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think we're in a 30-second time-out right now, Fred. I think that on Monday, this temporary restraint is going to be lifted. And then all the training facilities will be opened up again on Monday.

And then in about a week or so, there'll be another determination that they're not going to decide the appeal. So, everything's going to stay the way it is.

Ultimately, an 89-page carefully drafted decision is not going to be overturned line by line. It's just not going to happen. There is going to be football this fall, absolutely.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So, Avery, in the middle of draft right now, coaches, players allowed to talk to one another or not?

AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, if you read this decision that came down late Friday night, some are arguing no. But you know, what are you going to do? You've got new draftees, you got camps open. Are 32 owners really going to shut down camp for this small window?

The fact is that Judge Nelson who is the trial judge in Minnesota wrote actually two opinions, about 110 pages, brilliantly written. This two-to-one opinion, this emergency procedure, Fredericka, is used like if they're going to put somebody to death. It is so perverse, so wrong that it will be very short-lived.

And the bottom line is it forces everybody to get to the bargaining table, bargaining table. They've got to get this thing resolved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: I told you they'd be fired up. Don't mess with people's football. You can catch our legal guys right here every Saturday noon Eastern Time.

All right. Our CNN hero of the week lost the use of his legs, and now, he has found a way to help others with disabilities get moving.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD ST. DENIS, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: In Mexico, people with disabilities who can't get around have no options. Their world is the four walls of their house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's really hard for me to go very hard with my crutches.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It makes me really sad to see my son this way. He is 19.

ST. DENIS: When someone has a disability, the whole family has to pitch in to help them. If they don't have the money, the care that they provide for them is the very basic care.

My name is Richard St. Denis. I take wheelchairs to people in Mexico who can't afford them but really need them.

In 1976, I broke my back skiing and severed my spinal cord. I see what happened to me as an opportunity to help other people with disabilities.

We collect used wheelchairs from the United States to help us distribute the wheelchairs. A lot of people with disabilities work with us.

I think this chair we have for him might be perfect.

We make sure the wheelchairs meet the needs of the person who receives it.

A race car, no? A hotrod.

We teach them how to use it.

Mobility means being independent and more active.

Someone said, Richard, I want to thank you for giving up your legs so we could have a better quality of life. When I see them happy, seeing their self-confidence, I know people's lives are getting better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wow! What an inspiration.

We always want to hear from you as well. Tell us about the heroes in your community. Send your nominations to CNN.com/Heroes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Our correspondent in Libya's capital says at least three explosions shook the city a short time ago and seemed to come from the part of Tripoli where Moammar Gadhafi has a compound. He also said that jets were flying over the city at the time. It is the same day that Gadhafi took to the airwaves, pleading with NATO to end the airstrikes and negotiate. He also accused the international coalition of killing civilians and destroying Libya's infrastructure.

Before this appearance, Moammar Gadhafi had not been seen in public for several weeks.

Ralitsa Vassileva with CNN International with us now. We're going to talk about Libya, how it correlates with Syria because there's a bubbling up of activity there.

And, you know, this entire region, it seems like a domino effect. When one thing happens in one country, it may have something to do with a new unrest in another.

RALISTA VASSILEVA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. But Syria and Libya are different in the way the international community is responding. We see they are condemning what's happening in Syria. But there is no international consensus on doing what they did for Libya to come up with a resolution, to take action, to protect civilians.

There is much more fear and concern about what could happen in Syria if President Assad falls. They're still hoping they can influence him to stop this crackdown. The United States announced sanctions yesterday. The European Union is considering an arms embargo.

But analysts say this could have very limited impact.

I just wanted to bring you a statement by a Professor Fouad Ajami with John Hopkins University who knows this region very well. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROF. FOUAD AJAMI, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: So, you can sanction them. You can sanction the barons, the intelligence barons. You can hold the property that they have in Bethesda or Chevy Chase, but it is of no consequence. In the long run, what this is about, it's about a regime fighting for its privileges and for its power. And it's about Washington waking up to the fact that the belief in the ultimate redemption and the ultimate moderation of Bashar Assad was always an illusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VASSILEVA: And that has been the U.S. policy up to now. They were hoping that they could influence President Assad, peel him away from his alliance with Iran, have him sign a peace treaty with Israel and push him away from the influence of Iran, from supporting extremist groups like Hamas in Gaza and also Hezbollah in Lebanon. But that hasn't happened as the professor was saying, that he hasn't introduced reforms, he's been playing both sides in a way.

WHITFIELD: And while currently that's where the unrest is now, the roots stretch back into the unrest of Tunisia and then eventually Egypt. Hosni Mubarak, it's been said that he has, you know, been transferred from one unit to another in terms of getting hospital care. What is the latest on what's happening with him and what's happening politically in that country?

VASSILEVA: Well, with President Mubarak, just this week, a prosecutor ordered him to be transferred from hospital in Sharm el- Sheikh where he is right now to a hospital -- a prison hospital in Cairo. However, his medical team said that that's too risky. He is in very bad health.

So, for now, they have postponed this. They want to question him in connection with the deaths of hundreds of activists while the Egyptian revolution was going on, and also with corruption. His two sons are in a prison in Cairo. They are detained there. They're being questioned on corruption and involvement in certain deals.

But, for now, he has avoided being arrested or put into even a prison hospital because of his deteriorating health.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. Very touch and go for him and for the nation of --

VASSILEVA: Yes.

WHITFIELD: -- Egypt.

VASSILEVA: There's another interesting development that we just have been reporting that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, has decided that it's going to contest half of the parliamentary election seats in the upcoming elections. They were supposed to do it one-third, but it shows that they are growing more confident. However, analysts say that the likelihood that they will win more than 20 percent is very slim.

So, it's an interesting development. They're not going to contest the presidential elections as they have said. But they have increased the seats that they're going to contest.

WHITFIELD: All right. Fascinating stuff. Ralitsa Vassileva, always good to see you, every weekend.

VASSILEVA: It's good to be here. WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much.

All right. A former NFL player is doing his part to make sure no one forgets the destruction in Alabama. He's going to be joining us with a look at his photographs of the destruction.

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WHITFIELD: All right. The tornadoes that tore through Forestdale, Alabama, transformed parts of the town into a wasteland. People simply can't believe what's happened there. Homes that were ripped from their foundations, trees that were knocked down, cars strewn around everywhere. And many now are picking through the rubble of their homes, looking for anything they might be able to salvage.

But some know that they'll have to rebuild from scratch. And that is indeed the hard part.

Touched by the devastation he's seeing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a former NFL football player is documenting the disaster.

Daniel Pope spent three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs and now he works as a sales rep in the areas that were hard hit by the storm. He's joining us right now from Tuscaloosa.

Good to see you. I know folks are really glad to see you and others who are there to help and help pick up pieces. What's your first order of business there?

DANIEL POPE, FORMER NFL FOOTBALL PLAYER: Well, right now, we're just trying to get everything organized and get the relief and rescue under way and really just make sure we can get all those who are still alive out, and then the clean-up begins.

WHITFIELD: And you've been taking pictures along the way. Describe for me what you've been seeing.

POPE: Well, the first night when it happened, I live just north of where it happened and I came to the hospital to see if we could help out and if there's anything they needed from a wound care perspective.

From what I understand, the hospital had treated over 1,000 patients at night. They had five triages there. It was just mass chaos. I left the backside of the hospital and came down 15th Street and just -- it was total shock.

Everything we had seen here for years was just totally just gone. People were walking around. It was just complete silence.

I was telling a colleague here that, you know, I was able to go play with the Jets right after 9/11, and I was fortunate enough in that way, a historic way, to see 9/11 up close, and it really had the same eerie feeling, the silence of destruction here.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And so, how are people coping in general, those you have come across? I mean, what can you say, what can you do? How are people coping?

POPE: Well, you know, people are just trying to put it back together and seeing what they have. There's nothing left. I mean, the magnitude of this tornado that came through here flattened everything.

You know, you see tornadoes all the time on the TV and you'll see a few houses destroyed or some trees down, but this is complete destruction. Alberta City, which is to my left here, you can't see here yet, is completely flat. There is no Alberta City anymore.

And the fact that this tornado was so wide and so destructive and it lasted for so many miles, when I came down the first night after it happened, what you saw was a lot of people walking around taking a look and everything, but really, it was hard to have the police departments, they were doing the best they can, but because of the length of this thing, they were kind of like a skeleton force, so to speak. You had a few construction workers, few police officers, and people trapped. It was just -- it was just mass chaos in the beginning, and they've really done a really good job now to get it under control.

WHITFIELD: Daniel Pope, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it, and all the best to all your friends and family in the Tuscaloosa area.

POPE: Thank you. We're just picking it up now and we've been working hard and we appreciate everybody being here covering this because this is a true disaster. And I hope that everybody understands and their prayers go out to the city of Tuscaloosa and the people who have lost loved ones and property here, and we will rebuild.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Daniel. Appreciate it.

And, of course, CNN will bring you an in-depth look at the deadly weather that rocked Alabama and five other states. Plus, a look at the flooding in the Midwest and the wildfires in Texas. The special report, "EXTREME WEATHER," airs tonight, 7:00 Eastern Time.

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WHITFIELD: NASA engineers are trying to fix a glitch with Endeavour's heaters this weekend and hope the shuttle will take off on Monday.

President Obama was there when Friday's launch was scrubbed. And as our John Zarrella reports, he visited with the shuttle's commander's recovering wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The van carrying the Endeavour astronauts to the launch pad stopped and turned around. No reason to continue on. They weren't going anywhere. Heaters essentially to the steering system failed. NASA is hoping it's just a bad thermostat.

MIKE LEINBACH, SHUTTLE LAUNCH DIRECTOR: We can go down the easy path, we're still on track for Monday morning.

ZARRELLA: Anything more complicated would mean a longer delay. President Obama and his family planning to attend the launch still showed up. The president and first lady met with the crew. At one point, someone coughed.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who is coughing over there, by the way? Stay away from my astronauts. Don't think I didn't hear that.

ZARRELLA: Endeavour commander Mark Kelly also met privately with the Obamas and the three spent three minutes with Kelly's wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Less than four months removed from a near-fatal gunshot, she was here to watch her husband's launch.

She was far from alone. With just two launches left, hundreds of thousands of people packed the space coast.

ANGELA PERES, VISITING FROM BOGOTA, COLOMBIA: Many people say it's better to see it on TV. I don't think so because we're going to feel, we're going to hear, and we're going to follow it step by step what is going on here.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): All that is on hold for at least a few days. Once Endeavour does get off the ground, it's headed to the International Space Station, on a 14-day delivery and resupply mission.

John Zarrella, CNN, at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.

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