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New Orleans Mayor Talks Storm Preps; RNC Shuffles Some Big Events; Quakes Hit California; Quake Swarm Hits California; Isaac Threatens Gulf Coast; Isaac Threatens Gas Prices; Health Care Under Romney/Ryan

Aired August 27, 2012 - 13:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL, taking you around the world in 60 minutes. Here's what's trending on Twitter.

Right now, police in Essex, England, have called off their search for what they believe was a lion on the loose. Yes. Now they believe it was a wild cat or even a large domestic cat. But it didn't stop some folks from tweeting about it. My favorite tweet. Check this one out. "A lion has been spotted in Essex? Has he no pride?"

I'm Suzanne Malveaux and in this hour of the "CNN NEWSROOM," cities along the Gulf Coast bracing for Tropical Storm Isaac and we will expect the mayor of New Orleans to update us on preps for the storm and we will bring it to you live as it happens.

Meanwhile, areas from Morgan City, Louisiana to Destin, Florida are now under a hurricane watch. FEMA says that the storm could bring very high storm surge, heavy rain. Mississippi has called about 1,500 national guard troops into active duty in anticipation of Isaac's landfall on or near the Mississippi Gulf coast, and that is later this week.

Well, just within the last hour, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal says that 23 parishes have declared states of emergencies ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Isaac. Strangely enough, Isaac is on the same path that Hurricane Katrina took seven years ago. Officials are urging residents to remember the lessons learned from that time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GENERAL RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): People need to be cautious, because anything built by man can be destroyed by mother nature. People still need to listen to the local officials, and if you are outside of the levee system, you need to be evacuated today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Our Rob Marciano is in New Orleans, and Rob, talking to a lot of my relatives in New Orleans and they are worried, frustrate and scared. What are we looking at behind you in terms of how they are preparing this go around?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, what they have built in the last seven years should make your relatives and people who live in New Orleans feel at least a little bit better. They are much more protected now than they were seven years ago. What is behind me was not here seven years ago. This massive structure, and the floodgates here basically at the 17th Street Canal, and then on either side of those 11 floodgates, each of which weighs 20 tons by the way, are eight massive pipes connected to pumps that each have the ability to pump out water over 8,000 gallons per second from the other side of that into Lake Pontchartrain where it should be, because this is where the surge came because Katrina missed New Orleans to the east and the surge came this way into the canals and that is what made the levee breach.

That is what they have done here and three stations here aligned along the lake and then they have 140 miles of beefed up levees around the surrounding city, and basically, Suzanne, unless we get to a strong forecast of 2 or 3, they won't most likely make it a mandatory evacuation here in the city of New Orleans, but that being said of the voluntary evacuation, a lot of people are on edge and high anxiety and the lines are around the block to get gas. Many of the filling stations have periodically run out of fuel in anticipation of people wanting to be ready if they get the call the have to evacuate.

And then the surrounding areas and the lower lying parishes that you have been reporting on, a number of those parishes have mandatory evacuation, because they are outside of the walls and at or below sea level, and even a mild storm surge is going to flood the area, and those people are on the move right now.

MALVEAUX: And Rob talking to the folks there, and it is hard to understand, but some people, Katrina, they stayed in their homes and they didn't believe it is that bad and maybe they are listening to the reports and saying, hey, they have the walls and everything is okay, and we're not going the comply with these evacuations. Are people actually saying, okay, we are going to move if we have to move? What is the mood there?

MARCIANO: You know, it is hard to say. Everybody you talk to has a different answer for that, so I can't give you a percentage wise of who says what, but I can tell you this, they had a dry run in 2008 when Gustav came through and hit to the south and I believe it was a category 1 if my memory serves, but that tested the structures which are now even more heavily built. But, you know, if there's an area in the country that respects the power of a hurricane, it is right here in New Orleans, and certainly up across the Mississippi coastline as well. I think that most of the residents are taking the threat pretty seriously even though it is a phenomenal day today with the sun shining and barely a breeze, but they have seen it before. And they are ready for it this go around. Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Well, I echo that. Thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. I want to bring in Chad Myers to talk about the track of the storm and how quickly New Orleans and some of the other areas could see what you are talking about the heavy winds and the slow churning of the big storm.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, and a surge that is going to push up from the Gulf of Mexico. It is a salt water surge. And then 20 inches of rainfall north of that, and that is doing the be a freshwater surge that may clash. You have to understand that the people are taking precautions, because they know that a chain is as good as the weakest link and there may be a weak link in there for people who are not thinking about it and you don't understand what the weak link is going to be until it happens. Didn't think about it until Katrina hit New Orleans, but basically the eye missed.

It was the flooding that got into the Pontchartrain that became the real issue, so something to focus on today because we are not talking too much about Florida, but it is pouring down rain in south Florida all of the way from Melbourne down to Miami and flash flood warnings are going on about everywhere. Road closures in some spots. It is still raining and continued to rain for at least the next six hours. So you may get to a point today where you can't get somewhere because the water has not really run off yet. It is going to be moving up and all of the rainfall will continue all of the way up to the Appalachia and Pensacola and that white spot there is over 10 inches of rainfall in the next 48 hours. There is New Orleans and the river and the surge coming this way, and the rain wanting to go the other way. Here's the forecast path --

MALVEAUX: Sorry to cut you off here, because the mayor of New Orleans is speaking. We will listen in and back to you.

MYERS: Okay.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

MAYOR MITCH LANDRIEU (D), NEW ORLEANS: -- fully engaged in working with us through the Department of Homeland Security and through FEMA, and we have FEMA personnel embedded with us. I wanted to thank President Obama for that.

Also, for those of you who just witnessed the governor's press conference, we have engaged with the governor on a minute-to-minute basis. Paul Rainwater, who is the governor's commissioner of administration, is embedded with us as well. So Paul, thank you so much for being here.

As you are all see, I have been in communication with all of the parish presidents in the metropolitan area of New Orleans for the last many, many hours. We continue to speak on a regular basis and to coordinate our activities and to stay in place. And of course you see around me a representative group of individuals who represent all areas of federal, state and city government who are responsible for making sure that New Orleans and the people of New Orleans are secure. So I thank all of you for being here. I thank all of you for being engaged.

I also want to address what is patently obvious to the people of New Orleans and the people of the rest of the world. It is quite ironic that we have a hurricane that is threatening us on the seventh anniversary of Katrina. It is worth noting that that brings a high level of anxiety to the people of New Orleans, but I want to assure you all that there is nothing that this storm is going to bring us that we do not believe we are prepared to handle. The people of New Orleans have been incredibly resilient, and the people of the metropolitan area and the people of Louisiana have been through many, many storms. We are very well prepared, and we feel very good about our ability, if we do the things that we know we can do to weather this storm.

And so, I want to tell everybody now that I believe that everything is going to be okay. That does not mean this you can let the guard down and does not mean that you can do everything that you had planned to do, but it means that you have to execute the plans that you have been working on for a very, very long time, and that at the end of the day, the success of these events will be driven by the people taking responsibility for themselves and their families so that the emergency responders behind us can be free to take care of those people who cannot take care of themselves.

As the governor indicated during his press conference and I will talk specifically about that, we are staged. We are battle ready. We're in battle rhythm. And we will be prepared to handle what comes our way.

So the good news that has occurred between yesterday and when we last met and today is that we have more clarity and the storm slowed down a little bit. It is now traveling 14 miles per hour, and we were concerned yesterday that if that happened in the Gulf at night with warm water, that it would strengthen, but at this point, it did not. Everybody knows that is subject to change. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the cone of discomfort did not change very much. Every storm brings new nomenclature. We have spaghetti models now, and all of the spaghetti models trend that storm to New Orleans, and so as a consequence of that, what we believe that we know now based on the latest information which is of course always subject to change is that we are going to have a hurricane that is going to hit New Orleans, and we are going to prepare. And we have prepared as though that is an eventuality.

We are expecting tropical storm force winds in the city starting tonight around midnight. Or as they say early Tuesday morning at 1:00 a.m. We could start to see hurricane force winds somewhere between 20 hours later than that, and that would be 11:00 p.m. --

(END LIVE FEED)

MALVEAUX: You are listening to Mayor Mitch Landrieu out of New Orleans. We will be following this closely, tracking the storm, the hurricane which is going to be hitting New Orleans.

Now to Baltimore, Maryland, where the police tell us that a suspect is in custody after a shooting at a high school. One student was shot. Now is at a local hospital and we don't have any details on the student's condition just yet. Today is the first day of classes at Perry Hall high school, and the school was evacuated after that shooting.

Here is what we are working on for this hour. The Republican national convention officially convenes in less than an hour in Tampa, but most of the events are delayed because of the storm. We'll take a look at what Mitt Romney has to do to give an effective speech.

New details coming out about the suspect in the shooting of the front of the Empire State Building and why he had no plans to return home.

And not one, or two, but several hundred earthquakes hit California's border with Mexico. It is called a swarm. We will look at what that means and how it affected the people there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor. Let's skip in and listen a little bit more about the preparations for the hurricane's arrival.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

MAYOR MITCH LANDRIEU (D), NEW ORLEANS: If you decide to go outside just to experience what it feels like in gusts of wind, you could be hit with flying debris, and that will either hurt you or kill you or you could get hit with a downed power line that will electrocute you. If you improperly use generators and/or candles and you're not careful with that, that can cause a fire and, of course, cause loss of life to you and to neighbors as well.

These are just some of the things that can happen if you let your guard down and you don't follow rules of common sense. So simply because it is a category one does not mean that we are not in danger. We are well prepared to handle it. I believe everybody knows what steps they have to do. And I'm going to ask everybody to use extra caution.

The city, of course, is taking all necessary precautions. Again, yesterday, I declared a state of emergency. Today, I'm asking the residents in the New Orleans outside of the levee protection to very strongly consider leaving Vanishian Isles and Hours Bayou. As I said, there are 900 to 950 people that we have outside of levee protection in Orleans. If you do stay, you need to take extra precautions.

We are coordinating with regional parish presidents and the governor's office of homeland security. And as I've said, we are working with Secretary Napolitano, the FTA, the FAA, all of the federal agencies, to make sure that all of the supplies are available on an as-needed basis.

I would reiterate that every storm is different. We have never had two that have been the same. And so, like with Katrina, we expected a wind event. We got a broken levee event. This time it's a wind/water event. It could turn into an electrical outage event. And Charles Rice is here from Entergy to speak about that.

We are completely staffed up and we are prepared, as we have been all weekend, to continue working around the clock. Public safety units are fully staffed and prepare. All pump stations are 100 percent operational and generators are in place to make sure that they stay so.

311 is 24/7. So if there are any needs, our residents can get updated information and recent reports on -- and they can report problems. You, the citizens, are our eyes and ears. And so it will be helpful if you see an emergency to call. If there is a major emergency, please call 911, not 311. Both are up and operating 24/7.

Dr. Karen Desalvo will speak directly to the issues of hospitals, nursing homes and medical need evacuations for the elderly and those that are in significant need of medical attention. As many of you know now, city hall is closed today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Until further notice, the schools are closed as per the directions of Patrick Dobart with the RSD and the OPSB. And I believe Archbishop Amin did the same with Catholic schools and I believe the private schools have followed suit.

Trash pickup will cease today. So please bring in your garbage cans and secure your refuge until further notice. Today at 2:00 p.m., the regional transit will stop streetcar service and bus service. As I said yesterday, that once that happens, people can begin, at the appropriate times, parking on the neutral grounds. Please do so in an appropriate manner. We've been through this many, many times before. Don't take up more space than you need. And just follow common sense guidelines in making sure that you work with your neighbors to make sure that everybody is protected.

Buses will run until winds reach 25 to 30 miles per hour. We will keep you informed about when that's going to be. The airport will remain operational until the individual airlines decide to stop flying. They will do that sometime around 35 to 40 miles per hour. Ifticar is here from the airport to speak to those issues. Those are generally decisions that are made by the individual airlines. But that usually is the trigger point to them. And, again, as I said, we'll start seeing the impacts once winds sustain over 40 miles per hour.

We have coordinated very closely with the tourism industry. We have a small convention in town with 7,000 individuals that were coming this week. They will decide sometime later today whether to come or not. We have another major convention in town this weekend. They are in touch -- we are in touch with them. We're also in touch with all the general managers for the hotels for all of our guests that are in town and continuing to coordinate with them about what their needs and their wants are.

So, I will come back up in a minute, but let me reiterate, this team is very, very well prepared and very well organized, both on the local level, the state level and the federal level. Many of us have worked well together. We now have $10 million -- $10 billion worth of levee improvements. We have coordination that has not happened in the past beginning to happen again.

(END LIVE FEED)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: It's expected to be a category one hurricane, Hurricane Isaac, but life will change in dramatic ways for people in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The mayor already talking about the fact that schools are closed, trash collection will stop, streetcar service will also be shut down and a lot of people could be losing their power as well. Some mandatory evacuations are being called as well. This is something that is going to be serious, and we'll be following it every step of the way.

Now, minutes from now, at 2:00 Eastern, the Republican National Convention is going to officially be opened by the party chairman, Reince Priebus, and then, just about 10 minutes afterwards, it's going to shut down until tomorrow. Some there are going to be some big speeches ahead at the convention. Reality right now is that folks are not talking about that necessarily. They're talking about the weather.

John Avlon, he's a CNN contributor, a senior political editor at "The Daily Beast" and "Newsweek."

So, John, let's start off with you because, you know, the Republicans are going to be basically faced here with the next couple of days of a split screen at the very least. You've got the RNC, but you have this huge weather event that's taking place. How are they dealing with this now, realizing that the rollout of Mitt Romney, people might not necessarily be paying all that much attention?

JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I'll tell you, Suzanne, I mean, they are rolling with the storm, as they need to do, pretty effectively. Obviously, canceling the first day. This has been a minor distraction in terms of derailing the best laid plans. But at the end of the day, I think Hurricane Isaac is less of a distraction than say hurricane Akin. And I should say, there's a method to the madness to putting the convention here in Tampa. People might not fully appreciate that in Florida, the all important swing state with 29 electoral delegates, Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, this Tampa Bay area, is the key swing district in this swing state. So that was part of the logic of putting the Republican Convention here in Tampa, even in August, even in hurricane season.

MALVEAUX: All right. So Team Romney needs to do this in three days as opposed to four. Now Donald Trump got the boot, since he was supposed to speak. No time for him. But you do have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, keynote for tomorrow. Expected to go after President Obama pretty hard here. What is his role? Is his role going to be to throwing the red meat to the base or potential a try-out for becoming a presidential candidate himself?

AVLON: Well, you know, certainly the keynote is a major position.

MALVEAUX: Oh, we lost him. That's too bad. John Avlon, we'll try to bring him back up. But again, we're watching the RNC, obviously. And, well, in about 40 minutes or so is when the -- it will officially begin with a gavel. And then, shortly afterwards, they will wrap things up and start in earnest tomorrow.

Well, he was a support of President Obama's stimulus plan. Well now he's officially a support of the president himself. Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist, he endorsed the president in an op- ed yesterday in the "Tampa Bay Times." And Crist criticized his former party, the Republican Party, saying that Republicans have become, quote, "so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they have proven incapable of governing for the people." Crist is scheduled to speak at next week's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

So, what is it like to experience the Republican National Convention from the inside? Well, tomorrow, join the CNN election roundtable with Wolf Blitzer, my colleague, and CNN's political team. You've got to submit your questions and then you'll get answers real time. This is a live virtual chat. You don't want to miss the CNN election roundtable. That is tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. noon Eastern by logging into cnn.com/roundtable.

And a reminder, tonight, 8:00 Eastern, as part of CNN's Republican National Convention coverage, join us for a profile of the presumptive presidential nominee. "Romney Revealed: Family, Faith and the Road to Power." Followed at 9:30 Eastern by a preview of the convention. That is tonight right here on CNN.

Another story. Amish men held down, had their beards cut off. Now the men accused of attacking them are on trial for a hate crime.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: An odd crime with some unlikely suspects. You might remember the story. Sixteen Amish people charged with hate crimes, accused of forcibly cutting the beards and hair of their fellow Amish. Well, the trial got started today in Cleveland. And prosecutors, they're expected to argue that the sect leader was operating the cult out of his family compound in rural Ohio.

We're now hearing that the Empire State Building gunman gave his landlord his keys and told him he wouldn't be back before Friday's shooting. Now Reuters cites a police source who said he left the keys in an envelope for the landlord with no intention of ever coming back. Police say that 58-year-old Jeffrey Johnson killed his former co- worker, Steven Ercolino. The police commissioner says the nine bystanders who were wounded were all injured by police gunfire. Three by bullets and six by ricocheted fragments. A woman who worked with the victim talked about how she was walking down the street with him on Friday when she saw Johnson who then started shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IRENE TIMAN, VICTIM'S CO-WORKER: And I was like, he's going to kill him. He's going to kill hill. I know he's going to kill him. And then he pulled out a gun and he shot Steve right next to me. Right next to me.

And I keep replaying it over and over and over in my mind and I thought, well maybe you could have kicked the gun out of his hand and then Steve would have only gotten shot once instead of five or six times. But I just ran. I didn't know what else to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: What experts call a swarm of earthquakes has hit southern California. Hundreds of them, including an aftershock that just happened within the last hour. The largest one measured 5.5 near Brawley, California, outside San Diego. Casey Wian, he's joining us live from there.

Casey, talk a little bit about what we can expect for the next couple of days.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, seismologist, Suzanne, are saying that they could see this swarm of earthquake continue for several days, although they do say, we just spoke with a representative from CAL Tech, says it appears that this swarm is starting to slow down.

Some numbers for you. In just the last day, 439 separate earthquakes. Fifty-four of those have been above magnitude 3.0, which means you can feel them. And the biggest one, as you mentioned, 5.3 and a 5.5 magnitude earthquake. Those did do some damage.

We can show you now that the cleanup is now very much underway. This pharmacy, when we came here last night, much of the contents of these shelf were spilled all over the ground here. The pharmacy has been cleaning up all morning and now things look pretty much back to normal. Until you look up on the wall there and you can see a crack that was not there one day ago. That crack caused by the most significant of those major earthquakes yesterday afternoon.

Now, some residents here in Brawley, California, have been displaced from their homes. Here's how one woman describes that experience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSANNA RAMOS, BRAWLEY, CALIFORNIA, RESIDENT: Freaky, crazy, scary and very -- I don't have my house anymore. And I want to come home. And I can't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN: Today was also supposed to be the first day of school here in Brawley. The schools have been closed as a precautionary measure. Architects and infrastructure experts are going through to make sure that the schools are safe. And we don't know when they will be reopened. The hospital here, the one hospital in town has been also partially closed as a precautionary measure. The E.R. and ICU remains open.

And if you wonder what it is like to be in the middle of an earthquake, one family got it recorded on tape with a camera rolling with the biggest of yesterday's shakers. And this is what it looked and sounded like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The house is coming down. The house is coming down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN: As you can image, Suzanne, that family is very shaken up by that experience. And they say that the youngest children had a very, very difficult, understandably, sleeping last night -- Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: I can only imagine.

Thank you, Casey. Appreciate it.

New Orleans preparing for a hurricane just two days before the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. We will have the very latest on the storm path for Tropical Storm Isaac.

And don't forget that you can watch CNN live on your computer at work. Head to CNN.com/tv.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Folks are just worried along the gulf coast, because the forecasters are announcing the Tropical Storm Isaac is going to become a hurricane later today. This storm is projected to make landfall on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, if you can believe that.

Chad Myers is watching all of this for us.

The irony, or cruelty, I don't know. But it is an odd thing that it is happening on the anniversary. I suspect it is different this go around.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it will, because Katrina was a category 3 by this time. We're not even to a category 1 yet. The storm is having a hard time organizing. It's not getting a center of circulation yet.

We are getting a couple of thing I want to talk to you about. This tiny storm right here, that one, has a tornado warning on it. So there is a potential today, if you are in Florida, any of these storms -- there's a lot up and down I95 and in the Seminole part of the country. Any of these could rotate enough to put down a small -- I want to say like a waterspout-type tornado. We're not talking about Kansas and Texas tornados. We're talking about small spout. If that's a small water spout over your house, that is a big deal. Keep your eyes and ears open. There's also tremendous amounts of lightning with some of the storms today, so stay inside if lightning threatens, because more people will be killed by lightning than anything else.

Here is the forecast track. Why people are kind of freaking out in New Orleans, because somewhere between there, there is a 30 percent chance it could be here or here. And then the rest, the 70 percent chance, is somewhere between that cone right there. That is how the probability now has shifted into this forecast cone, because the cone is getting smaller, because the storm is getting closer. And as it gets closer -- right here, as the storm is here, the cone is like this. It'll be smaller yet. Start to focus in on where it is coming in. It is going to be a storm surge and a rainfall problem. We are talking about tremendous amounts of rainfall, already in Florida. Some spots in Vero Beach, a little bit away from the beach, itself, and 13 inches of rainfall in the last 38 hours. and that is flooding some things as well. And that rain is up here.

And this is a problem, Suzanne, from here Tuesday night 8:00, to here, Wednesday night 8:00 -- that's only a couple of hundred miles. And the thing is going to go -- it'll take 24 hours to go couple of hundred of miles. The rain will pound the coast. The surge will be pushed into the bayous. and it will be whatever breaks first. Whatever -- and I'm not saying that the levee is going to break, but something going to happen that we didn't expect, because the same thing happened with Katrina we didn't expect. The storm was already gone by the time that the levees broke.

The storm is getting a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger. Still forecasted to be a 1, a strong 1 at landfall. If it gets an eye or stronger and it gets its act together, it could be stronger than that. But so far, it has not gotten its act together. When a storm has the eye and the inflow and the chimney and the outflow, it becomes an engine literally, up and around, up and around, up and around, down. And a tremendous amount of potential here, but it is not getting to the ground, and that is great.

MALVEAUX: That is some good news there. And the mayor -- it was interesting -- he noted -- he said that this is a wind and water event that could turn into a power event, meaning a lot of people could lose power as well. So they have to keep a close eye for this and watch out for each other, whether or not they are evacuating the homes or going to the shelter. people's lives are going to be impacted from this storm.

Chad, thank --

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: The governor mentioned, there could be 36 hours of tropical-storm force winds over Louisiana. So maybe the tree does not fall down in the 13th hour, but maybe in the 25th hour. There are a lot of things that will change in the storm.

MALVEAUX: It'll be a significant event.

Thank you, Chad. Really appreciate it.

Republicans are getting ready to define what they stand for at their convention. It is a different party than it was four years ago. We will show you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: As Tropical Storm Isaac moves through the Gulf of Mexico, that could send gas prices going high.

Maribel Aber is at New York Stock Exchange, telling us how Isaac is threatening oil production.

Give us a sense of how these companies are responding. We understand that some of the companies have evacuated their oil platforms.

MARIBEL ABER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Suzanne. You're right. Here's what's happening. One quarter of gulf oil production is suspended. 39 platforms have been evacuated and eight rigs.

Just to give you some perspective, 40 percent of the nation's petroleum refining capacity is located along the gulf coast. There is a huge network of pipelines that funnels the oil to other parts of the country. Oil prices are volatile today, jumping at first, now slipping. There is a little bit of a lag between the increases of crude oil and retail gas prices, roughly two weeks, but the prices have been rising. We have seen it here. The national average is $3.75 a gallon. It has gone up five days in a row. So, Suzanne, the bottom line here is that, if Isaac pushes the oil prices significantly higher, we will see that affect at the pump soon.

MALVEAUX: Let's talk about a little bit about the gas prices are going up, but we know that the stocks are falling for Samsung. This is after a jury decided that the company violated Apple's Smartphone patents. What does that mean for the consume consumers?

ABER: Well, it is a highly visible case between these tech titans. Apple won. The jury found that Samsung infringed on a majority of the patents at issue. As a result, so Samsung's shares plummeted 7.5 percent in Asia. Apple is up, more than 2 percent right now, at $677 a share, hitting a new all-time high earlier today. The ruling means Samsung could be forced to take infringing devices off of the market. And there is about 21 in all, including the Droid Charge, the Galaxy S and the Epic 4G. But if you have one, here is the point. It cannot be taken away from you.

But stay tuned, Suzanne, because it is possible that your phone could receive a software update that changes the way it looks and works. This ruling is more about the future though and how it can affect other Smartphones and tablets, and how they are designed.

MALVEAUX: All right, I'll be looking out for it.

Thank you, Maribel. Appreciate it.

Republicans are getting ready to define what they stand for at their convention. It is a different party than they were four years ago. We will show you how, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: So in about 15 minutes, the Republican National Convention is going to officially open. But not much happens until tomorrow because of Tropical Storm Isaac, which is still off of the coast of Florida. Delegates have already begun to pour in.

I want to bring in Paul Steinhauser, CNN's political editor. He is in Tampa right now.

So, folks are there. They are getting ready. You have seen some of the delegates. Describe for us, tell us, who are they? How has the party made gains, what kind of strides are they? Give us a sense of the group.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, you are absolutely right, Suzanne. In about 10 minutes, that is when the action begins. But it is quick today. The real action beginning tomorrow.

But who is this Republican Party? Who are the voters who make up the Republican Party? It seems a little bit more of a Caucasian party than it was four years ago.

Take a look at the numbers from the Pew Research Center. Interesting stuff. Recent polling. Back in 2008, 46 percent of white non-Hispanics said they were Republicans. That number now has jumped to 52 percent this year. And take a look at for the Democratic number of white non-Hispanics. It was 44 percent in 2008, down to 40 percent now. Interesting number -- Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: And, Paul, there's been a fierce battle going on right now for the middle-class. How are they represented in the Republican Party?

STEINHAUSER: Well, there is a big battle for the middle-class and specifically about those blue collar workers, those so-called non- college workers. Look at this numbers from Pew as well. You can see 54 percent of the non-college educated whites say they identify with the Republican Party. Either they vote Republican or they lean towards the Party. 37 percent for Democrats. That is a troubling number for the Democrats. They will try to rectify in their convention as they reach out. You've seen a lot of these ads and a lot of push from Obama campaign that they are for the middle class. It is a key, key battleground for this election -- Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: Paul, much has been made about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. We know that tomorrow, the invocation will be delivered by a Jewish rabbi. How prominently does religious play for the Republican Party?

STEINHAUSER: Well, it is a very important role for the Republican Party. It seems maybe more so than the Democratic Party. Although some may dispute that. Here's another number from the Pew Research Center that may be of help. When questioned, these are people who are not officiated with any religion. They don't identify with religion. Only one in 10 of the Republicans are made up of those people. Only about 11 percent of the Republicans are not affiliated with religion. On the Democratic side, it is almost one in four. So a little bit of a difference here. This is like a little taste, a little taste of who the Republican voters are.

MALVEAUX: We will see a lot of the delegates. We'll be following your coverage closely.

Thank you, Paul. Good to see you.

He says he wants the repeal Obama-care, but he has not given any details. We want to see what health care would look like under a Romney/Ryan plan.

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MALVEAUX: When the Republican convention gets into full swing tomorrow in Tampa, health care, of course, is going to be a hot topic.

Elizabeth Cohen is joining from New York to talk a little bit about it.

Elizabeth, Mitt Romney has said one of his first priorities as president, he would repeal Obama-care. There's a number of things in Obama-care, preventive health services that are now free. What does that mean? Are those services going to go away? Tell us how this would compare.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Let's look at what Mitt Romney has vowed to get rid of. Under Obama-care, these health services, these preventive health services are free to patients. The insurance has to cover them, 100 percent, no co-pays, no meeting your deductible. Things like cholesterol testing, immunizations, mammograms and contraception.

MALVEAUX: What would be Romney's plan for these types of services? What would happen?

COHEN: He has vowed to repeal Obama-care. I have to say, when we asked the campaign, what is he going to replace it with, we want details, they weren't so happy with us. They called our questions ridiculous and biased. But eventually they did give us some answers.

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COHEN: What he has said is he is planning on making preventive care more affordable to Americans. Let me give you the words of spokesman, Andrea Saul. "Mitt Romney does not believe it's the government's responsibility to provide people with free stuff. Mitt Romney will institute reforms that will control the cost of health care so that preventive care will be affordable to all Americans."

MALVEAUX: Elizabeth, those are legitimate questions you're asking. We appreciate what you are doing for us. The kind of reforms they are talking about that would drive down the cost of preventive care, make it more affordable, what are they talking about?

COHEN: A lot of it is -- the key word is competition. What his spokesperson said, and his web site said, is, if you do things like empower individuals and small businesses to group together to form purchasing pools, that will drive down the price. Allow consumers to purchase insurance across state lines, and encourage "Consumer Reports"-type ratings on insurance plans, that that will allow people to see the differences more clearly and competition will help get prices down. MALVEAUX: Elizabeth Cohen. Thank you, Elizabeth.

COHEN: Thanks.

MALVEAUX: For more of Mitt Romney's plan to fix and change health care, go to CNN.com/empoweredpatient. Elizabeth will be back with us tomorrow to take a look at people with pre-existing health conditions.

Might be an American past time, but the Japanese just dominated in the Little League World Series.

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MALVEAUX: We're talking about a surge as well as a tornado warning.

MYERS: Yes. Near the town of Duwett , in Florida, there's been a tornado warning. Some rotation with some of these storms. We talked about this a bit ago. You could see a water spout-sized tornado on land at any point today in Florida. That same area will translate up to the gulf coast in about 24 hours. There will be tornado watches and warnings along the gulf coast, along with the hurricane warnings and along with flash-flood warnings. This is not going away.

MALVEAUX: If you're in that region, what should you do?

MYERS: You should know that these are very small. If you hear the sirens or if your NOAA weather radio goes off, you should get inside your house. Stay away from the windows. The windows could break. That would be the worst thing that could happen to you because glass will fly. Don't open the windows. That's on old myth. Don't do that. Stay inside and get away from it. Get into a closet or something that doesn't have a window. These are small things though. These are not that big a deal.

Waiting for the 2:00 advisory. Still hasn't (INAUDIBLE).

MALVEAUX: Are we expecting more tornadoes as well?

MYERS: Absolutely. Hundreds.

MALVEAUX: Wow. We'll be playing close attention.

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Thank you, Chad. Appreciate it.

MYERS: All right.

MALVEAUX: Huge explosion at an oil refinery in Venezuela. At least 41 people died in the blast. The country's largest refinery. This happened on Saturday. That fire is still burning. President Hugo Chavez visited the site yesterday. He says a gas leak caused the explosion and the fire. They want a full investigation. Now, hospital workers said victims had burns covering 100 percent of their bodies.

Japan celebrating a championship today.

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MALVEAUX: His reaction, pure joy. Noriamuri Osaka hit his third home-run of the game as Japan won the Little League World Series, beating Tennessee, 12-2. Under the rules, the game is called when one team goes up by 10 runs. Osaka's run gave the Japanese team the margin.

Police in Essex, England, have called off their search for what they believe was a lion on the loose. Now they think it might have been a wildcat, even a large domestic cat. It didn't stop folks from tweeting about it. My favorite tweet: "A lion has been spotted in Essex? Has he no pride"? Good one.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.