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CNN Live Saturday

Weather Conditions Helping Firefighters In Southern California

Aired November 01, 2003 - 12:10   ET

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

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


JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: Weather conditions are now favoring firefighters as the new day unfolds in Southern California, and that's where we find CNN's Miguel Marquez in San Bernardino County at the Fire Evaluation Center -- Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, how are you there Jonathan?

We are here. 1800 to 2,000 people are also here, just a very, very busy place, just choked with people. If you pan around here, you can see the parking lot here, at this center. It looks to be more of a -- like a tailgate party at a stadium. Just, thousands of people who are staying here and then more come during the day, just to get some food. Inside, people are sort of fighting for any personal space they can get. I mean, not fighting literally, but they're kind of looking for whatever personal space they can get and try to make it as homey a place as possible, which is difficult to do. There's not a whole lot to do here other than wait, which is obviously driving people a little nuts. But, you know, there's some highlights. The L.A. Dodgers were here a couple of days ago. The Angels came here. It really helps the kids, there's tons of kids here and they had a huge boost out of that. November 8 is the day the Forest Service says they will have the old fire contained, and that's the date possible that a lot of these folks will be going home. And man, they just don't want to do anything more, right now, than get home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Well, I'm ready to get out as soon as we can. But, I understand they're not going to let us home for at least another week-and-a-half where I live. So, I'm just -- they're feeding us good and I -- so I can't complain, there's so many other people have the same problems

For me, it's really hard being a single mom. I didn't get any of his toys or any of his stuff, you know, I got a few clothes for him and that's it. You know, and we're tired and want our own beds and -- you know, just all those comforts -- you know, we know that there's no power where we're living right now, but -- candles, we live in the mountains we're used to power outages and stuff, so it -- no power would be fine if we could just be home right now.

Every day it's something different -- you know, it starts to -- one day you're OK, you're up, the next day you're down and today's my day to be down because I'm sick of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUEZ: Yeah, there's a lot of frustration out here with the weather, the rain here in San Bernardino, the snow up in the mountains. The firefighters are getting a hold of this thing, they say it's 45 percent contained, now. People are just really itching to get back home -- Jonathan.

KARL: Now Miguel, you were one of the first reporters on the scenes, out there in California at the forest fires, starting with some pretty frightening experiences that you personally had a week ago on this program, one of the first reports out there. What are your thoughts now, as you've seen all this unfold over one week's time, now?

MARQUEZ: It's -- it has been an absolute amazing story. We've been trying to keep up with the firefighters as much as possible, very early mornings, and then -- you know, last week we started off with seeing Rancho Cucamonga, we got caught in a fire swirl, which just kind of came out of the fire. We moved east to San Bernardino, and it -- we've gone through mud slides, rock slides, trees following. It's been an incredible story, and being hear today to see these people, it really puts a human face on all of it -- Jonathan.

KARL: All right. Miguel, great work this week. Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




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Aired November 1, 2003 - 12:10   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: Weather conditions are now favoring firefighters as the new day unfolds in Southern California, and that's where we find CNN's Miguel Marquez in San Bernardino County at the Fire Evaluation Center -- Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, how are you there Jonathan?

We are here. 1800 to 2,000 people are also here, just a very, very busy place, just choked with people. If you pan around here, you can see the parking lot here, at this center. It looks to be more of a -- like a tailgate party at a stadium. Just, thousands of people who are staying here and then more come during the day, just to get some food. Inside, people are sort of fighting for any personal space they can get. I mean, not fighting literally, but they're kind of looking for whatever personal space they can get and try to make it as homey a place as possible, which is difficult to do. There's not a whole lot to do here other than wait, which is obviously driving people a little nuts. But, you know, there's some highlights. The L.A. Dodgers were here a couple of days ago. The Angels came here. It really helps the kids, there's tons of kids here and they had a huge boost out of that. November 8 is the day the Forest Service says they will have the old fire contained, and that's the date possible that a lot of these folks will be going home. And man, they just don't want to do anything more, right now, than get home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Well, I'm ready to get out as soon as we can. But, I understand they're not going to let us home for at least another week-and-a-half where I live. So, I'm just -- they're feeding us good and I -- so I can't complain, there's so many other people have the same problems

For me, it's really hard being a single mom. I didn't get any of his toys or any of his stuff, you know, I got a few clothes for him and that's it. You know, and we're tired and want our own beds and -- you know, just all those comforts -- you know, we know that there's no power where we're living right now, but -- candles, we live in the mountains we're used to power outages and stuff, so it -- no power would be fine if we could just be home right now.

Every day it's something different -- you know, it starts to -- one day you're OK, you're up, the next day you're down and today's my day to be down because I'm sick of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUEZ: Yeah, there's a lot of frustration out here with the weather, the rain here in San Bernardino, the snow up in the mountains. The firefighters are getting a hold of this thing, they say it's 45 percent contained, now. People are just really itching to get back home -- Jonathan.

KARL: Now Miguel, you were one of the first reporters on the scenes, out there in California at the forest fires, starting with some pretty frightening experiences that you personally had a week ago on this program, one of the first reports out there. What are your thoughts now, as you've seen all this unfold over one week's time, now?

MARQUEZ: It's -- it has been an absolute amazing story. We've been trying to keep up with the firefighters as much as possible, very early mornings, and then -- you know, last week we started off with seeing Rancho Cucamonga, we got caught in a fire swirl, which just kind of came out of the fire. We moved east to San Bernardino, and it -- we've gone through mud slides, rock slides, trees following. It's been an incredible story, and being hear today to see these people, it really puts a human face on all of it -- Jonathan.

KARL: All right. Miguel, great work this week. Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




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