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Clinton Resting After Successful Surgery; Crews Work to Restore Power to Millions in Florida; 7 Marines Killed in Car Bombing in Iraq

Aired September 06, 2004 - 14:30   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to the CNN Center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what's all new this half hour.
What will the next few hours after surgery be like for former President Clinton? Well, a heart surgeon joins me to talk about the critical moments ahead.

But first, here's what's happening in the news now.

The wrath of Frances, Part II. Within the past hour Tropical Storm Frances has come ashore in the Florida Panhandle near St. Marks.

Residents in the rest of Florida are just beginning to cleanup from Frances, Part I. The hurricane has left some 3.2 million utility customers without power.

We'll have the latest on the storm's position in just a few minutes.

The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, weathered the storm fairly well, but apparently not without damage. A NASA source tells CNN the vehicle assembly building has a 50-foot hole on one side. There are no reports of major damage anywhere else. NASA's three shuttles were secured in the orbiter processing facility.

Shipping out early. The navy now says the USS Abraham Lincoln will be deployed in the middle of next month instead of early next year, as planned. You'll recall President Bush landed on the carrier in May 2003, announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

This time the USS Abraham Lincoln will head to the western Pacific. No words yet on whether it's returning to the Persian Gulf.

Well, President Clinton is said to be resting comfortably after undergoing successful heart bypass surgery in New York. It's been just over an hour since we learned the president is out of surgery.

Joining us now to talk about the surgery and Clinton's expected recovery is cardiovascular surgeon John Gott.

Once again, thanks for being with us.

JOHN GOTT, CARDIOVASCULAR SURGERY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: You were with us from the very beginning. Now the surgery is over. Put into perspective how critical the minutes, the hours, the days are right now.

GOTT: They -- they usually move the patient directly from the operating room back to the intensive care unit, bypassing the traditional recovery room.

The first few hours will be spent watching how the patient wakes up from the anesthetic. And usually, that is within a couple of hours. And depending on how the brain function is, simply following commands: move your arms, legs, that will be very reassuring.

Another critical stage is how the drainage from -- the drainage tubes goes. Every patient bleeds to a certain degree after an open heart operation. Tubes are left in place for that. And few of them, one out of one 100 patients would have any trouble with that.

They'll be watching for his cardiovascular stability, the heart rhythm, the heart pumping function vital signs. And usually within an hour or two they know things are OK and start the process of moving towards taking the breathing tube out.

PHILLIPS: Wow. So right now he's still got a breathing tube in?

GOTT: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK. Now, we were talking about what type of method they could be using during the surgery, if you stop the heart or you don't stop the heart. I don't think we've been able to confirm which method yet. I don't know if you know, by chance. But maybe you could layout both.

GOTT: Sure. I've got the impression from stories earlier in the day that they were doing the traditional type operation, which would involve the heart-lung machine, placing the patient on a machine that supports the heart and lung function while the heart is stopped to be operated on.

And that, in terms of technical ease, is best for the surgeon and not bad for the patient. The very limited time on the heart-lung machine is tolerated well.

The -- A bit of a new and old approach. In the early days of cardiac surgery before the heart-lung machine was perfected, some operations were done on the beating heart. And that has sort of returned lately, and the effort is to try to take away some of the injurious effects of time on the heart-lung machine.

And to date it's been difficult to show that there is a great advantage of one technique over the other. They seem to be very similar, and both have good results.

PHILLIPS: All right. We once again brought up a little heart model here. If you want to grab it over, and just a quick review. Basically, what happened was they took the diseased vessels out and put in healthy ones, right?

GOTT: Many people think that. It's really not like that. It's -- the title of the operation is bypass surgery or bypass operation, and that's literally what is done.

The blockage is usually at the very beginning of one of these arteries before it courses over the surface of the heart to supply blood to the muscle. The angioplasty, or stenting procedure, the effort is to open the blockage up at the site with a balloon and place a stent to allow blood through.

With the bypass operation, as former President Clinton had, blood vessels are taken from the leg or from behind the breast bone, typically, and take the blood from an area of good blood supply, bypass around the blockage to an area that is in poor supply, literally bypassing the blockage.

PHILLIPS: OK. So it doesn't really replace it, then?

GOTT: Exactly.

PHILLIPS: OK.

GOTT: Exactly. The blockage stays in place. It will be there forever.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

GOTT: And they actually progress. But because you have a route of blood around the blockage, the heart muscle is well nourished.

PHILLIPS: How many times can someone go through that type of -- I mean, eventually, you don't have any other places to bypass, right?

GOTT: That is a real concern. A lot of patients and families are concerned about that early after the operation.

Former President Clinton's surgeon have given him since a second chance. Very young man, 58 years of age, with a very life limiting illness, potentially. They've given him a second chance.

And if need be down the line, additional medicines can be taken, angioplasty could be done and another operation could be done. A third chance, in a sense.

And maybe at -- after a decade 10 to 15 percent of patients who in this current era have had coronary bypass can have it again, will have had it again. The vast majority do well past that decade. But with the modern methods we have for protecting these new graphs, the statin drugs for example, the future is really bright for patients such as former President Clinton.

PHILLIPS: OK. Because basically, he is a pretty healthy guy. It's just -- we've been talking about his cholesterol levels.

How is life going to change now that he's actually had this type of surgery? I mean, is it absolutely no more fast food, and he's got to watch everything he eats and keep up the exercise?

GOTT: I think with such a landmark event in his life, and it sounds like he was waking up to this well before the operation, in terms of trying to get his nutrition under control, exercise, taking the proper drugs, statin drugs.

He was aware of his family history, working on the risk factors prior to operation.

But a lot of this probably began to develop in his teens, particularly with the strong genetic predisposition that he had. So I think there won't be much change in his life, because he's begun to do it already.

PHILLIPS: What about post-op depression? Some folks have talked about that over a surgery like this.

GOTT: I think, after having taken care of thousands of patients, this -- this is my perspective.

Ten to 15, maybe 20 percent of the population of all people at some point in their life will experience a significant depression, which may need to be treated with psychotherapy or even medication.

And if there is a predilection or predisposition to that, that can rear its ugly head during a postoperative period and sometimes family counseling, the clergy, psychotherapy and even a new class of drugs called the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can get the patient over that hump and back to themselves.

PHILLIPS: Can you repeat that one more time? Could put that in layman's terms?

GOTT: He -- there's a small chance that he could have significant depression. In a sense it's a reaction to a big wake-up call.

PHILLIPS: OK.

GOTT: He's a fairly young man, a life threatening illness, big operation to take care of it. And there are things to do about it. And he's likely to get right back in the saddle.

PHILLIPS: Dr. John Gott, thank you very much.

GOTT: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Hopefully, we'll be talking again. Hopefully, it will all be good news in about an hour or so, once we know that breathing tube is out, and we'll move forward.

GOTT: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Thank you very much.

All right. Four p.m. we are expecting a news conference. The doctors are expected to take to the mic. Hopefully, we'll hear from President Clinton's cardiologist on why that surgery was so successful and the status of the former first president. We'll take it live as soon as it happens.

Now let's get an update on our other big story of the day, Tropical Storm Frances. And for that we turn to meteorologist Jacqui Jeras -- Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right, Jacqui, thanks.

Well, utility crews, as you can imagine, are out in full force today, assessing the hurricane damage that's left millions of Floridians in the dark. What's the situation right now?

Joining us on the phone, Bill Swank, spokesperson for Florida Power and Light.

Bill, what's the latest?

BILL SWANK, SPOKESPERSON, FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT: Good afternoon.

We've got still over a million customers who are out of service in the entire east coast of Florida. We are working to get restoration going to them.

We -- we are now bringing in approximately 6,000 additional line and tree personnel to come down and give us a hand so that we can get restoration started.

PHILLIPS: Tell me how the restoration does begin and the process. Are certain crews sent out to certain neighborhoods and they get right up on the pole and start working on the wires? How does it go down?

SWANK: Well, our first process is assessment. As I heard you mention, we do spend a considerable amount of time assessing the damage, both from the air, as well as on the ground.

We have people who actually walk the lines, taking note of damage to polls to wire down to transformers, et cetera. They come back then. And based upon those reports, we determine where we need to go in order to first get the most essential customers back in service.

By essential customers, I'm meaning hospitals, police and fire departments, communication organizations, even the water and sewage facilities. Anything we need to do to get the infrastructure of the community back in.

Then we start working on the lines that bring the most customers back in the fastest.

PHILLIPS: And what do those critical places do in the meantime, until you get it up and running? Do you help provide with generators, or is this something that hospitals and other businesses need to be responsible for? Do residents have backup generators? SWANK: Living here in Florida they are pretty much accustomed to -- to the kind of weather that we do experience. Most of the facilities have generators. The problem is they only -- they'll only be able to run on them for limited periods of time.

In many cases fuel becomes an issue for some of them. So we have to work on them first.

PHILLIPS: Has fuel become an issue yet?

SWANK: Not yet, no.

PHILLIPS: OK. So, Bill, tell me about, do you have areas that are say, within the hour, do you believe that will be up and running that at least we could update folks in certain areas? Can you give us any specifics on areas and when power and light will be in full force again?

SWANK: Well, we're able to get our crews out and have been out working, in fact, in the southern part of the state, in Miami Dade and Broward, on into Palm Beach County, and from the north down.

So we're able to get our crews out there. Those will be the areas probably that get back on line the soonest.

In fact, here in Miami-Dade County, we've already out of approximately 423 customers who have been initially affected by this storm since it began way back Friday when the first bands came through, we've been able to restore 341,000 of those. So we're down to about 81,000 in Miami-Dade. And we would expect those would be some of the ones who will be coming back on first.

Then we would progress on up the state certainly in Broward County and into Palm Beach County, where most of the damage has taken place.

PHILLIPS: Are you working 24/7? Do you have enough crews to do that?

SWANK: We work our people 16 hours a day. And then during the nighttime hours, we're really, unless we're working critical reconnection, then what we're doing is planning our strategy to get out for the following day, identifying the packages for the crews to work from so that they know where they are going to be going, what kind of jobs they're doing.

It gives them an opportunity that we have the trucks refueled, to have resupplied, put all the new wires, whole hardware and so forth onboard so that when they go out in the morning, they're ready to go for the day.

PHILLIPS: Final question, Bill, is this in any way going to affect, once everything is up and running, going to affect power and light bills, say, for the next month?

SWANK: it will have no effect for the next month. In fact, we have a large storm reserve fund just for this purpose that we've been working on. We also have a good deal of insurance.

So we're not concerned at this point about -- about the impact of the financial cost. We want to get people back in service.

PHILLIPS: Bill Swank, spokesperson for the Florida Power and Light. Thank you, sir.

And if you...

SWANK: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Pleasure. If you'd like to help Frances' victims, the Salvation Army can take donations over the phone, 1-800-SAL-ARMY. Or on line. Here's the e-mail right here.

And the Red Cross would also love for you to call, 1-800-HELP- NOW. Or if you just need information, 1-866-get info.

Flooding is the problem in Frances' wake. The scene in Tampa next as the big storm makes its second landfall on the other side of Florida. Seven Marines down in Fallujah. The news from Iraq coming up.

More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A massive car bomb kills seven U.S. Marines on a road north of Fallujah today. It's the deadliest attack on U.S. Forces in months.

CNN's Walter Rodgers has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With this latest tragedy the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is now nudging right up around 1,000 since the war began.

Seven U.S. Marines killed, three Iraqi National Guardsmen, at least, killed. Traveling on a highway just north of Fallujah. Fallujah in the Sunni Triangle is a volcano of hatred toward the United States.

(voice-over) Suddenly a driver pulled up along as if to pass the military vehicles. He detonated a huge explosion, again killing the seven Marines. That's the largest single number of Americans killed in a single incident since last May 2.

It, again, underlines the fact that the guerrillas and the insurgents in Iraq are operating rather freely in a target-rich environment. Still, the commander of the -- of theater operations here, General John Abizaid, denies that the Americans are losing the fight in Iraq.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ: The truth of the matter is that we've been fighting in this part of the world now for nearly three years, and we haven't lost a single military engagement at the platoon level and above anywhere, ever.

And so it's difficult for me to give any credence to the notion that we're losing militarily, because we're not and we can't be defeated militarily.

RODGERS (on camera): The difficulty, of course, for the Americans is that a single incident like this can create the perception that the Americans are stumbling in Iraq. Seven Marines killed; a reporter kidnapped; contract workers having their throats slit; others being held hostages.

It is the perception here which shapes reality as much as the facts on the ground.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, sailing to safety. Flood-ravaged Floridians of all species doing what they have to do to stay dry. More coverage of Frances right after this.

And TV's favorite mobster, Tony Soprano, takes a hit in real life. Get the details next hour. There's more LIVE FROM coming your way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: About the only one cruising Cocoa Beach now in Florida is a helicopter for WFTV television, giving us sort of a bird's eye view of what it looks like along the beaches there.

Obviously, no one out on the beach and a little bit of damage to report. We've noticed some gazebo damage in other parts of these resorts. Otherwise, looking pretty good on that part of Florida.

Well, Tampa Bay is finally on Frances's good side, meaning the storm is finally moving away. But the rain is still falling, the wind is still blowing, and the floods will be around for days to come.

More on that from reporter Dave Rausberger (ph), CNN affiliate WTET. He sent us this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're actually in a place called Shore Acres Boulevard, northeast. When the storm actually went to our west, the southwest winds push all that water from Tampa Bay all the way up into Shore Acres.

They're used to it. They're actually below sea level here, and the residents are completely taking it all in stride. But the problem is, is that we've got almost this entire area stranded. Nobody can get out by car. The only way they can get out is either by canoe, those big huge water rescue trucks. Or they just have to walk out.

But the problem is this, is that the power is still on in Shore Acres. So what the residents and the officials are very afraid of is the fact that these lines might come down and perhaps electrocute somebody, because we have all these residents walking around in this.

You know, I'm in knee-deep water, but in some cases as you go out closer and closer to the bay. I'm about 10 to 12 blocks from Tampa Bay itself. You're looking at waist-high water in people's homes.

The good news is there have been no injuries thus far in this Shore Acres area and northeast St. Petersburg, which is in Pinellas County. But the storm which Rob was just telling you about, sitting out there in Apalachee Bay, continues to just churn these rain bands around.

And we're so far away from the center but still experiencing 30 to 35 mile per hour winds.

So we weren't expecting this much in St. Petersburg but the residents are taking it in stride, because they've been through many, many of these storms, most notable back in 1985, and that was Hurricane Elena.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired September 6, 2004 - 14:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to the CNN Center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what's all new this half hour.
What will the next few hours after surgery be like for former President Clinton? Well, a heart surgeon joins me to talk about the critical moments ahead.

But first, here's what's happening in the news now.

The wrath of Frances, Part II. Within the past hour Tropical Storm Frances has come ashore in the Florida Panhandle near St. Marks.

Residents in the rest of Florida are just beginning to cleanup from Frances, Part I. The hurricane has left some 3.2 million utility customers without power.

We'll have the latest on the storm's position in just a few minutes.

The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, weathered the storm fairly well, but apparently not without damage. A NASA source tells CNN the vehicle assembly building has a 50-foot hole on one side. There are no reports of major damage anywhere else. NASA's three shuttles were secured in the orbiter processing facility.

Shipping out early. The navy now says the USS Abraham Lincoln will be deployed in the middle of next month instead of early next year, as planned. You'll recall President Bush landed on the carrier in May 2003, announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

This time the USS Abraham Lincoln will head to the western Pacific. No words yet on whether it's returning to the Persian Gulf.

Well, President Clinton is said to be resting comfortably after undergoing successful heart bypass surgery in New York. It's been just over an hour since we learned the president is out of surgery.

Joining us now to talk about the surgery and Clinton's expected recovery is cardiovascular surgeon John Gott.

Once again, thanks for being with us.

JOHN GOTT, CARDIOVASCULAR SURGERY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: You were with us from the very beginning. Now the surgery is over. Put into perspective how critical the minutes, the hours, the days are right now.

GOTT: They -- they usually move the patient directly from the operating room back to the intensive care unit, bypassing the traditional recovery room.

The first few hours will be spent watching how the patient wakes up from the anesthetic. And usually, that is within a couple of hours. And depending on how the brain function is, simply following commands: move your arms, legs, that will be very reassuring.

Another critical stage is how the drainage from -- the drainage tubes goes. Every patient bleeds to a certain degree after an open heart operation. Tubes are left in place for that. And few of them, one out of one 100 patients would have any trouble with that.

They'll be watching for his cardiovascular stability, the heart rhythm, the heart pumping function vital signs. And usually within an hour or two they know things are OK and start the process of moving towards taking the breathing tube out.

PHILLIPS: Wow. So right now he's still got a breathing tube in?

GOTT: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK. Now, we were talking about what type of method they could be using during the surgery, if you stop the heart or you don't stop the heart. I don't think we've been able to confirm which method yet. I don't know if you know, by chance. But maybe you could layout both.

GOTT: Sure. I've got the impression from stories earlier in the day that they were doing the traditional type operation, which would involve the heart-lung machine, placing the patient on a machine that supports the heart and lung function while the heart is stopped to be operated on.

And that, in terms of technical ease, is best for the surgeon and not bad for the patient. The very limited time on the heart-lung machine is tolerated well.

The -- A bit of a new and old approach. In the early days of cardiac surgery before the heart-lung machine was perfected, some operations were done on the beating heart. And that has sort of returned lately, and the effort is to try to take away some of the injurious effects of time on the heart-lung machine.

And to date it's been difficult to show that there is a great advantage of one technique over the other. They seem to be very similar, and both have good results.

PHILLIPS: All right. We once again brought up a little heart model here. If you want to grab it over, and just a quick review. Basically, what happened was they took the diseased vessels out and put in healthy ones, right?

GOTT: Many people think that. It's really not like that. It's -- the title of the operation is bypass surgery or bypass operation, and that's literally what is done.

The blockage is usually at the very beginning of one of these arteries before it courses over the surface of the heart to supply blood to the muscle. The angioplasty, or stenting procedure, the effort is to open the blockage up at the site with a balloon and place a stent to allow blood through.

With the bypass operation, as former President Clinton had, blood vessels are taken from the leg or from behind the breast bone, typically, and take the blood from an area of good blood supply, bypass around the blockage to an area that is in poor supply, literally bypassing the blockage.

PHILLIPS: OK. So it doesn't really replace it, then?

GOTT: Exactly.

PHILLIPS: OK.

GOTT: Exactly. The blockage stays in place. It will be there forever.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

GOTT: And they actually progress. But because you have a route of blood around the blockage, the heart muscle is well nourished.

PHILLIPS: How many times can someone go through that type of -- I mean, eventually, you don't have any other places to bypass, right?

GOTT: That is a real concern. A lot of patients and families are concerned about that early after the operation.

Former President Clinton's surgeon have given him since a second chance. Very young man, 58 years of age, with a very life limiting illness, potentially. They've given him a second chance.

And if need be down the line, additional medicines can be taken, angioplasty could be done and another operation could be done. A third chance, in a sense.

And maybe at -- after a decade 10 to 15 percent of patients who in this current era have had coronary bypass can have it again, will have had it again. The vast majority do well past that decade. But with the modern methods we have for protecting these new graphs, the statin drugs for example, the future is really bright for patients such as former President Clinton.

PHILLIPS: OK. Because basically, he is a pretty healthy guy. It's just -- we've been talking about his cholesterol levels.

How is life going to change now that he's actually had this type of surgery? I mean, is it absolutely no more fast food, and he's got to watch everything he eats and keep up the exercise?

GOTT: I think with such a landmark event in his life, and it sounds like he was waking up to this well before the operation, in terms of trying to get his nutrition under control, exercise, taking the proper drugs, statin drugs.

He was aware of his family history, working on the risk factors prior to operation.

But a lot of this probably began to develop in his teens, particularly with the strong genetic predisposition that he had. So I think there won't be much change in his life, because he's begun to do it already.

PHILLIPS: What about post-op depression? Some folks have talked about that over a surgery like this.

GOTT: I think, after having taken care of thousands of patients, this -- this is my perspective.

Ten to 15, maybe 20 percent of the population of all people at some point in their life will experience a significant depression, which may need to be treated with psychotherapy or even medication.

And if there is a predilection or predisposition to that, that can rear its ugly head during a postoperative period and sometimes family counseling, the clergy, psychotherapy and even a new class of drugs called the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can get the patient over that hump and back to themselves.

PHILLIPS: Can you repeat that one more time? Could put that in layman's terms?

GOTT: He -- there's a small chance that he could have significant depression. In a sense it's a reaction to a big wake-up call.

PHILLIPS: OK.

GOTT: He's a fairly young man, a life threatening illness, big operation to take care of it. And there are things to do about it. And he's likely to get right back in the saddle.

PHILLIPS: Dr. John Gott, thank you very much.

GOTT: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Hopefully, we'll be talking again. Hopefully, it will all be good news in about an hour or so, once we know that breathing tube is out, and we'll move forward.

GOTT: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Thank you very much.

All right. Four p.m. we are expecting a news conference. The doctors are expected to take to the mic. Hopefully, we'll hear from President Clinton's cardiologist on why that surgery was so successful and the status of the former first president. We'll take it live as soon as it happens.

Now let's get an update on our other big story of the day, Tropical Storm Frances. And for that we turn to meteorologist Jacqui Jeras -- Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right, Jacqui, thanks.

Well, utility crews, as you can imagine, are out in full force today, assessing the hurricane damage that's left millions of Floridians in the dark. What's the situation right now?

Joining us on the phone, Bill Swank, spokesperson for Florida Power and Light.

Bill, what's the latest?

BILL SWANK, SPOKESPERSON, FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT: Good afternoon.

We've got still over a million customers who are out of service in the entire east coast of Florida. We are working to get restoration going to them.

We -- we are now bringing in approximately 6,000 additional line and tree personnel to come down and give us a hand so that we can get restoration started.

PHILLIPS: Tell me how the restoration does begin and the process. Are certain crews sent out to certain neighborhoods and they get right up on the pole and start working on the wires? How does it go down?

SWANK: Well, our first process is assessment. As I heard you mention, we do spend a considerable amount of time assessing the damage, both from the air, as well as on the ground.

We have people who actually walk the lines, taking note of damage to polls to wire down to transformers, et cetera. They come back then. And based upon those reports, we determine where we need to go in order to first get the most essential customers back in service.

By essential customers, I'm meaning hospitals, police and fire departments, communication organizations, even the water and sewage facilities. Anything we need to do to get the infrastructure of the community back in.

Then we start working on the lines that bring the most customers back in the fastest.

PHILLIPS: And what do those critical places do in the meantime, until you get it up and running? Do you help provide with generators, or is this something that hospitals and other businesses need to be responsible for? Do residents have backup generators? SWANK: Living here in Florida they are pretty much accustomed to -- to the kind of weather that we do experience. Most of the facilities have generators. The problem is they only -- they'll only be able to run on them for limited periods of time.

In many cases fuel becomes an issue for some of them. So we have to work on them first.

PHILLIPS: Has fuel become an issue yet?

SWANK: Not yet, no.

PHILLIPS: OK. So, Bill, tell me about, do you have areas that are say, within the hour, do you believe that will be up and running that at least we could update folks in certain areas? Can you give us any specifics on areas and when power and light will be in full force again?

SWANK: Well, we're able to get our crews out and have been out working, in fact, in the southern part of the state, in Miami Dade and Broward, on into Palm Beach County, and from the north down.

So we're able to get our crews out there. Those will be the areas probably that get back on line the soonest.

In fact, here in Miami-Dade County, we've already out of approximately 423 customers who have been initially affected by this storm since it began way back Friday when the first bands came through, we've been able to restore 341,000 of those. So we're down to about 81,000 in Miami-Dade. And we would expect those would be some of the ones who will be coming back on first.

Then we would progress on up the state certainly in Broward County and into Palm Beach County, where most of the damage has taken place.

PHILLIPS: Are you working 24/7? Do you have enough crews to do that?

SWANK: We work our people 16 hours a day. And then during the nighttime hours, we're really, unless we're working critical reconnection, then what we're doing is planning our strategy to get out for the following day, identifying the packages for the crews to work from so that they know where they are going to be going, what kind of jobs they're doing.

It gives them an opportunity that we have the trucks refueled, to have resupplied, put all the new wires, whole hardware and so forth onboard so that when they go out in the morning, they're ready to go for the day.

PHILLIPS: Final question, Bill, is this in any way going to affect, once everything is up and running, going to affect power and light bills, say, for the next month?

SWANK: it will have no effect for the next month. In fact, we have a large storm reserve fund just for this purpose that we've been working on. We also have a good deal of insurance.

So we're not concerned at this point about -- about the impact of the financial cost. We want to get people back in service.

PHILLIPS: Bill Swank, spokesperson for the Florida Power and Light. Thank you, sir.

And if you...

SWANK: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Pleasure. If you'd like to help Frances' victims, the Salvation Army can take donations over the phone, 1-800-SAL-ARMY. Or on line. Here's the e-mail right here.

And the Red Cross would also love for you to call, 1-800-HELP- NOW. Or if you just need information, 1-866-get info.

Flooding is the problem in Frances' wake. The scene in Tampa next as the big storm makes its second landfall on the other side of Florida. Seven Marines down in Fallujah. The news from Iraq coming up.

More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A massive car bomb kills seven U.S. Marines on a road north of Fallujah today. It's the deadliest attack on U.S. Forces in months.

CNN's Walter Rodgers has more.

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WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With this latest tragedy the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is now nudging right up around 1,000 since the war began.

Seven U.S. Marines killed, three Iraqi National Guardsmen, at least, killed. Traveling on a highway just north of Fallujah. Fallujah in the Sunni Triangle is a volcano of hatred toward the United States.

(voice-over) Suddenly a driver pulled up along as if to pass the military vehicles. He detonated a huge explosion, again killing the seven Marines. That's the largest single number of Americans killed in a single incident since last May 2.

It, again, underlines the fact that the guerrillas and the insurgents in Iraq are operating rather freely in a target-rich environment. Still, the commander of the -- of theater operations here, General John Abizaid, denies that the Americans are losing the fight in Iraq.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ: The truth of the matter is that we've been fighting in this part of the world now for nearly three years, and we haven't lost a single military engagement at the platoon level and above anywhere, ever.

And so it's difficult for me to give any credence to the notion that we're losing militarily, because we're not and we can't be defeated militarily.

RODGERS (on camera): The difficulty, of course, for the Americans is that a single incident like this can create the perception that the Americans are stumbling in Iraq. Seven Marines killed; a reporter kidnapped; contract workers having their throats slit; others being held hostages.

It is the perception here which shapes reality as much as the facts on the ground.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

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PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, sailing to safety. Flood-ravaged Floridians of all species doing what they have to do to stay dry. More coverage of Frances right after this.

And TV's favorite mobster, Tony Soprano, takes a hit in real life. Get the details next hour. There's more LIVE FROM coming your way.

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PHILLIPS: About the only one cruising Cocoa Beach now in Florida is a helicopter for WFTV television, giving us sort of a bird's eye view of what it looks like along the beaches there.

Obviously, no one out on the beach and a little bit of damage to report. We've noticed some gazebo damage in other parts of these resorts. Otherwise, looking pretty good on that part of Florida.

Well, Tampa Bay is finally on Frances's good side, meaning the storm is finally moving away. But the rain is still falling, the wind is still blowing, and the floods will be around for days to come.

More on that from reporter Dave Rausberger (ph), CNN affiliate WTET. He sent us this report.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're actually in a place called Shore Acres Boulevard, northeast. When the storm actually went to our west, the southwest winds push all that water from Tampa Bay all the way up into Shore Acres.

They're used to it. They're actually below sea level here, and the residents are completely taking it all in stride. But the problem is, is that we've got almost this entire area stranded. Nobody can get out by car. The only way they can get out is either by canoe, those big huge water rescue trucks. Or they just have to walk out.

But the problem is this, is that the power is still on in Shore Acres. So what the residents and the officials are very afraid of is the fact that these lines might come down and perhaps electrocute somebody, because we have all these residents walking around in this.

You know, I'm in knee-deep water, but in some cases as you go out closer and closer to the bay. I'm about 10 to 12 blocks from Tampa Bay itself. You're looking at waist-high water in people's homes.

The good news is there have been no injuries thus far in this Shore Acres area and northeast St. Petersburg, which is in Pinellas County. But the storm which Rob was just telling you about, sitting out there in Apalachee Bay, continues to just churn these rain bands around.

And we're so far away from the center but still experiencing 30 to 35 mile per hour winds.

So we weren't expecting this much in St. Petersburg but the residents are taking it in stride, because they've been through many, many of these storms, most notable back in 1985, and that was Hurricane Elena.

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