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Clean-Up Continues After Toxic South Carolina Train Accident

Aired January 11, 2005 - 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.


BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Checking stories "Now in the News." At least three people are dead in an enormous mudslide triggered by five days of heavy rain in La Conchita, California. Rescuers with sound-detecting devices are searching for anyone who might still be alive and trapped under mud and debris. A number of people are missing.
President Bush's nominee to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary is U.S. Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff. Among his credentials, Chertoff has been assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, a Supreme Court law clerk and a Republican counsel in the Whitewater investigation.

There's a new case of mad cow disease in Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the country's second case this year showed up in Alberta. Officials emphasize no part of the cow has entered the human or animal feed system.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: 19 days until the election in Iraq and insurgent attacks on security forces keep coming. A roadside bomb struck a U.S. military convoy south of Baghdad today. The army says the blast wounded a soldier. And a car bomb exploded near a police station in northern Tikrit. Authorities say it killed six Iraqi police officers and wounded four others.

Supplying troops in Iraq, still a very dangerous task. The route is often hundreds of miles long. Convoys generally travel from Kuwait to wherever supplies are needed. Let's follow along with one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Morning, everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED MALES: Morning, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name's Captain Jeff Schneider (ph). I'm from Rockwell, Texas, and I'm the company commander of the 227th transportation company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to be going up and down through the convoy. Don't worry about what I'm doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do line-haul transportation operations, moving all kinds of supplies from Kuwait all over Iraq. We've run everything from water to ammunition, repair parts, vehicles, whatever we get tasked with. First day, it's driving through a lot of open desert, not a whole lot around. Our biggest challenge was some of the loads, we were having problems with. We had to pull over a couple of times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can't send these crap clothes. You know, they've got to find a much better way to package this stuff. I'm almost at the point after this to say, you know, let it go. But I don't want to break one of our trucks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, come on. Give me a break.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm married. My wife's name is Meredith. We have two children. Benjamin, who's two and a half, and Rachel, who was born August 20th this year. I was home on R & R when she was born, which was probably the highlight of my year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's our fuel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been eight hours on the road, then we got to a camp where we spent the night, or a little bit of the night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I have 142 different personalities to deal with. And they're all great people. We've done things logistically that haven't been done before. You know, with this rotation. We had the largest rotation of troops since World War II. And we deal with a heck of a lot less trucks than they had in World War II.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Latest intel, no change. There's been a lot of small arms fire coming on that burning stretch lately, so everyone needs to be alert. Pay attention to your following distances. Rough Rider 9, this is Road Dog 6, over. Have all elements be alert, when we get in Baghdad, there have been two IEDs within the last 20 minutes that detonated, over. We missed the turn to go on the Tampa. They missed the turn. No MBGs. They don't know where [BLEEP] they're going.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The visibility was a little tough with some dust that was blowing around this morning. And that one turn is a tricky turn. So the lead vehicle, you know, right as he went past the turn said, oh, I missed the turn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're trying to find whether to go to the left or the right at this intersection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to go north, which would be to the right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Wolfpack, did you copy?

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. I'm right in behind y'all. Y'all just keep walking, we'll get around when we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, this is Road Dog 6. I'm not part of your convoy, I'm going the other way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up, Road Dog 6?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not a whole lot. Just taking a little trip. I'll see y'all at home in a few days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck, sir. We'll see you when we get back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: A new survey shows just over a fourth of Americans believe this year will bring peace to Iraq. Gallup Poll editor-in- chief Frank Newport joins us now with results on that and topics. Frank, how does the public rate President Bush at the start of the new year?

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP: Well, 52 percent is his overall job approval rating, Betty, but there is a spread of about, oh, 17, 18 points between his highest-rated dimension and his lowest- rated dimension. Let me give you some examples here. Terrorism, 58 percent of Americans say the president is doing a job that they approve of on that dimension. Then you go down the list that you see on your screen there, all the way down to Iraq, only 42 percent approve of his handling of Iraq. And Social Security, one of the big issues on president's agenda, only 41 percent approval rating at this point.

By the way, a couple approval ratings for members of the president's cabinet. Vice President Dick Cheney, 50 percent, almost the same as his boss, which is at 52 overall rating. Donald Rumsfeld on the right, secretary of defense, that's pretty meaningful, Betty, because that was at 41 percent in December, when Rumsfeld was in some trouble, but now he's come back up by 7 points, so he's back up to the same territory as the vice president and the president himself.

NGUYEN: Yes, seeing some changes there. Frank, Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the president on the tsunami relief efforts yesterday. How is the public viewing the relief effort itself?

NEWPORT: Well, no question about it. When we asked Americans to tell us how they think the president is doing, responding to the tsunami tragedy and how the U.S. is doing in general, the responses are fairly overwhelmingly positive. I pick one here as an example from our weekend CNN/"USA Today" poll, do you approve or disapprove of how the president and the administration is handling tsunami relief? Look at this. 75 percent of Americans approve. That's symptomatic of the generally positive reaction we get with these types of questions.

NGUYEN: Mmm hmm. The deaths and damage in Iraq, well, they are continuing. What is the latest on the public's views of the situation there in Iraq?

NEWPORT: Well, I've been reviewing the data for quite awhile now. New questions we asked on the weekend poll, put them together with everything we're monitoring here at Gallup, Betty, and I would say pessimistic. That's probably the best way to phrase how the American public is looking at the Iraqi situation.

Look on the left there. Only about a quarter of Americans think that within the next year, there will be peace and security in the country of Iraq. And even though we have the election up and coming planned for the 30th of January in Iraq, less than half, only 47 percent, say they think democracy will be established in the country. So all in all, probably a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the American public. But not a lot of optimism at this point.

NGUYEN: Yes, it looks just a little pessimistic with few weeks left before those elections. Frank Newport, we thank you.

NEWPORT: You bet.

O'BRIEN: Up next, you'll meet the South Carolina fire chief trying to help his town cope with that deadly chlorine train wreck. His friends were some of the first responders.

NGUYEN: Then, we're live from L.A. with today's Screen Actors Guild nominations. Are they paving the way to Oscar gold?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, so time now for an update on that toxic train accident in South Carolina. Cleanup crews continue to pump deadly chlorine from the damaged tanker cars. Contractors plan to replace a temporary patch on one tanker that leaked with a steel one. Our Heidi Collins talks with those who responded to the accident in the town of Graniteville.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family and my friends that are displaced our community I went through it the other night, it's like a ghost town. I haven't seen that in 53 years.

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If anyone can speak for his friends, family and an entire town for that matter, it would be Graniteville Fire Chief Phil Napier. He's been re-elected as chief every year for the past 24 years.

PHIL NAPIER, FIRE CHIEF: I've got to be tough. I've got to stand up and I'm not too proud to cry before them and I have.

COLLINS: There have been many tears since 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning. A 42-car Norfolk Southern freight train slammed into another train parked in the siding of the tracks. Three cars on the larger train were carrying deadly liquid chlorine.

Four of Chief Napier's men who lived close by the accident headed directly in to ground zero. They had no idea that chlorine was leaking and rushed in to a cloud concealing a toxic enemy with no protection at all. Chief Napier heard it on his radio.

NAPIER: One of the men started screaming "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I need help." And I started hollering for them to get out of there and I proceeded around in the opposite direction and not knowing that I was going right to the accident.

There was (sic) two men standing there. One was laying on the ground and I stopped and I rolled my window down and the gentleman says "We've had a head-on collision with the train. We've got a chemical leak. I can't breathe" and he went down.

And about the same time it hit me. I couldn't breathe and it was just like all I remember from that point was just like my life ended. I made a U-turn and I don't know where I went or how I got there. I mean it's just like there's a blank in my life like I was dead and I found out at a later time that the man I talked to was the engineer and the conductor of the train.

COLLINS: 28-year-old engineer Christopher Selig (ph) of West Columbia, South Carolina died moments after Chief Napier watched him fall to the ground. Leaving the men behind is not something the chief handles well.

NAPIER: It's rewarding to be able to help people but it's -- it's bad when there's incidents that you can't.

COLLINS: But in a community like this help comes in many ways, shelters for the more than 5,000 people ordered to leave their homes, food for hundreds of law enforcement officials and even financial help directly from Norfolk Southern Railroad.

LORIE BROWN, RESIDENT: She's my little 9-year-old's dog, you know.

COLLINS: Yes.

BROWN: And we love her and we want her to be alive.

COLLINS: Lorie Brown lives on the outskirts of the mandatory evacuation zone. She didn't expect to be gone so long.

BROWN: And we would have never left our dog. I feel so guilty for leaving her. I shouldn't have left her. I didn't know this was going to happen.

COLLINS: Many pets were left stranded in their homes. Others ran free through parts of town, happy to stop for food that sheriff's deputies started leaving out in fields.

BROWN: I'm sorry, sir. I haven't slept in several days. I just want to take her home.

COLLINS: Sheriff's deputies put the health rules aside and decided to go beyond the barricades. No one knew if the dog had survived.

BROWN: She's alive. Oh, my God. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with us (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Oh, God, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome. You're welcome.

NAPIER: Our community will recover. We have a strong community. We've got good people. We will pull together and we will be back where we were, as strong if not stronger. All this is going to be worked out. Material things don't matter. Life is what we're worried about and that's -- the main focus is to protect life, to get this hazard cleaned up and out of our community so we can get on with our lives.

COLLINS: Even for a chief who thought he'd seen it all.

Heidi Collins, CNN, near Graniteville, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Early call today in Los Angeles. Sibila, was it worth it?

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It was worth it for some people. I'll tell you why the casts of "Desperate Housewives" and "Sideways" are celebrating.

NGUYEN: And some beer brewers, well, they are feeling down. Where did all the customers go? Find out when we check Wall Street.

O'BRIEN: They should quit their whining, if you know what I mean.

NGUYEN: And the love message in the bottle. A note sent decades ago brings true love.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Well, Hollywood is abuzz today over the latest big award nominations. CNN entertainment correspondent Sibila Vargas is in Los Angeles. So you ready to name names?

VARGAS: Am I ready to name names? Of course I am. That's right, a big day in Tinseltown as nominations are announced for the Screen Actor Guilds Awards. And once again, "Sideways" leads the pack. The California wine country adventure film scored big with four nominations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSARIO DAWSON, ACTOR: For outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role in a motion picture, the nominees are...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VARGAS: And Jamie Foxx managed to walk away with four nominations including a nod for his work in "Ray." In the outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture category, the nominees are -- "The Aviator," "Finding Neverland," "Hotel Rwanda," "Million-Dollar Baby," "Ray" and "Sideways."

In the outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, "24" made the cut as well as "CSI: Crime Scene & Investigation", "Six Feet Under," "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing." And in the outstanding performance by an ensemble in the comedy category series, it was "Arrested Development," "Desperate Housewives," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Sex and the City," and "Will & Grace." Now "Desperate Housewives" cast member James Denton who also presented was thrilled about the recognition today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES DENTON, ACTOR: Good morning for "Desperate Housewives." I'm really happy for Teri (ph). We got nominated for best ensemble which I think is the perfect because it's so large and everybody has to work together so much. So, yes, I was really happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VARGAS: The SAG Awards air February 5 on TNT -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Looks like tough competition there. Every day it seems like another celebrity is generously donating to help tsunami victims. Who joins the club today?

VARGAS: You're absolutely right. It's been two weeks since the tsunami and since then, some celebrities have helped and definitely stepped up to the plate and donated massive amounts. Now you want to know who it is today? It's teen sensation Hillary Duff. She's also lending a hand. The singer announced that she'll donate a portion of ticket sales from her sold-out "Most Wanted" tour to help the tsunami survivors. The 17-year-old says she will give the money to a group called Kids With A Cause. The organization is assisting survivors of the tsunami and Duff will present her donation to the group in March. It's really good to know. She's 17, and she's giving. That's a really great role model and a good example of what we should do.

NGUYEN: Absolutely. Good for her. All right, Sibila, thank you.

VARGAS: Thanks, Betty.

O'BRIEN: Well, if you ordered a glass of wine or a -- some of the hard stuff...

NGUYEN: Stay away from the hard stuff.

O'BRIEN: Kind of a personal question isn't it? But if you ordered that, you're part of a big trend, and it's got those beer brewers hopping mad shall we say? Susan Lisovicz.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's continue the puns.

O'BRIEN: Shall we?

LISOVICZ: Sobering news for brewers. O'BRIEN: Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

LISOVICZ: Miles and Betty. Wine and spirits are slowly but surely stealing some of the market away from America's favorite alcoholic beverage. Beer still accounts for more than half of all alcoholic beverages sold, but mixed drinks and wine have been gaining popularity since the '90s. Good advertising, partly to blame, wine and spirit companies are successfully targeting younger drinkers with ads and promotions. As one analyst puts it -- beer has lost its sexiness. So brewers are fighting back. The makers of both Budweiser and Miller are increasing their budgets for advertising and promotional spending. The president of Miller says the single biggest threat to the American beer business today is that the American consumer will get bored with beer. Imagine that -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: I'm just trying to figure out when beer was sexy. But that's another question for another time.

LISOVICZ: Maybe when you were in college.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Hybrid cars, hot, hot, hot items.

LISOVICZ: Hot, hot, hot and especially with Japanese carmakers which are taking the lead so watch out GM and Chrysler. Toyota and Honda want to double the production of hybrid cars this year. The companies made the announcement at the big auto show taking place in Detroit. According to Bloomberg News, analysts expect demand for hybrids to go higher this year as consumers continue to confront high prices at the pump and carmakers face tighter pollution laws and oil prices are up today, by the way, up about 50 cents. But as for the market, stocks are lower after a profit warning from chipmaker Advanced Microdevices. There you see the Dow down about 48 points, the Nasdaq, meanwhile .5 percent lower. And that's the latest from Wall Street. Miles and Betty, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Susan.

LISOVICZ: Thank you.

NGUYEN: Well, now a tale of love, fate or perhaps bottled up emotion, shall we say. For all you hopeless romantics out there when a young girl tossed a bottle into the sea decades ago, little did she know that that message inside would find its way to her soulmate. ITN's Romilly Weeks brings us this Dutch treat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMILLY WEEKS, ITV NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's an age- old method of communication, but this must be the first time a message in a bottle has proved an effective dating service. It was over 40 years ago that this particular bottle was thrown overboard in the middle of the Channel and carried north by the currents to be washed up on a Dutch beach. Annie Rivet (ph) still has the message she wrote, age just 10.

ANNIE ELFFERS, SENT MESSAGE: At the time, I had been reading a lot of adventure stories and things about pirates and it seemed an exciting thing to do.

WEEKS: It wasn't a pirate who picked it up, but a 10-year-old Dutch boy.

NIELS ELFFERS, FOUND MESSAGE: We found lots of bottles on this beach. And most of them were from captains from ships, just requiring weather forecasts of the previous days and just general information.

WEEKS: The start of a relationship that took them all the way to the altar. So do you believe that it's fate that brought you together?

A. ELFFERS: Well, I don't really believe in fate, but it is extraordinary really. Anybody could have found a bottle. The bottle should have smashed. But yes, it gives our relationship that extra special something, really.

N. ELFFERS: Yes. My brother was only half a meter behind me.

WEEKS: The couple have been married now for 26 years. Proof that love can turn up in the most unexpected ways. Romilly Weeks, ITV News, in Norwich.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: That's a couple that was meant to be together.

O'BRIEN: They have a story to tell, don't they? Yes. Meant to be.

Well, there is a town in Alaska, about 500 miles to the cold side of the Arctic circle. It's about 20 below right now.

NGUYEN: And the whole town is without power. I'll talk with a man who braved the cold to take these pictures.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Now in the news -- a new case of mad cow disease. Canadian officials have confirmed it but they say no part of the animal has entered the human food system or infected animal feed.

The insurgency strikes again and again in Tikrit. At least six Iraqi police officers killed in a car bombing in Baghdad. Gunmen opened fire on a minibus. Eight killed there. Three survivors kidnapped. A U.S. soldier is wounded by yet another roadside bomb.

Seeking the Democrats' top spot, former presidential candidate Howard Dean officially launches a bid for the party chairmanship. He says the post is not a stepping stone to another presidential campaign. For more watch "INSIDE POLITICS" about 30 minutes from now.

Private Social Security accounts. Americans meeting with President Bush today say they like his idea of letting younger workers invest some of their Social Security payments. The president says it could be one way to save the ailing program. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-twenties, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt unless...

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Aired January 11, 2005 - 14:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Checking stories "Now in the News." At least three people are dead in an enormous mudslide triggered by five days of heavy rain in La Conchita, California. Rescuers with sound-detecting devices are searching for anyone who might still be alive and trapped under mud and debris. A number of people are missing.
President Bush's nominee to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary is U.S. Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff. Among his credentials, Chertoff has been assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, a Supreme Court law clerk and a Republican counsel in the Whitewater investigation.

There's a new case of mad cow disease in Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the country's second case this year showed up in Alberta. Officials emphasize no part of the cow has entered the human or animal feed system.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: 19 days until the election in Iraq and insurgent attacks on security forces keep coming. A roadside bomb struck a U.S. military convoy south of Baghdad today. The army says the blast wounded a soldier. And a car bomb exploded near a police station in northern Tikrit. Authorities say it killed six Iraqi police officers and wounded four others.

Supplying troops in Iraq, still a very dangerous task. The route is often hundreds of miles long. Convoys generally travel from Kuwait to wherever supplies are needed. Let's follow along with one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Morning, everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED MALES: Morning, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name's Captain Jeff Schneider (ph). I'm from Rockwell, Texas, and I'm the company commander of the 227th transportation company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to be going up and down through the convoy. Don't worry about what I'm doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do line-haul transportation operations, moving all kinds of supplies from Kuwait all over Iraq. We've run everything from water to ammunition, repair parts, vehicles, whatever we get tasked with. First day, it's driving through a lot of open desert, not a whole lot around. Our biggest challenge was some of the loads, we were having problems with. We had to pull over a couple of times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can't send these crap clothes. You know, they've got to find a much better way to package this stuff. I'm almost at the point after this to say, you know, let it go. But I don't want to break one of our trucks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, come on. Give me a break.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm married. My wife's name is Meredith. We have two children. Benjamin, who's two and a half, and Rachel, who was born August 20th this year. I was home on R & R when she was born, which was probably the highlight of my year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's our fuel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been eight hours on the road, then we got to a camp where we spent the night, or a little bit of the night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I have 142 different personalities to deal with. And they're all great people. We've done things logistically that haven't been done before. You know, with this rotation. We had the largest rotation of troops since World War II. And we deal with a heck of a lot less trucks than they had in World War II.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Latest intel, no change. There's been a lot of small arms fire coming on that burning stretch lately, so everyone needs to be alert. Pay attention to your following distances. Rough Rider 9, this is Road Dog 6, over. Have all elements be alert, when we get in Baghdad, there have been two IEDs within the last 20 minutes that detonated, over. We missed the turn to go on the Tampa. They missed the turn. No MBGs. They don't know where [BLEEP] they're going.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The visibility was a little tough with some dust that was blowing around this morning. And that one turn is a tricky turn. So the lead vehicle, you know, right as he went past the turn said, oh, I missed the turn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're trying to find whether to go to the left or the right at this intersection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to go north, which would be to the right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Wolfpack, did you copy?

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. I'm right in behind y'all. Y'all just keep walking, we'll get around when we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, this is Road Dog 6. I'm not part of your convoy, I'm going the other way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up, Road Dog 6?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not a whole lot. Just taking a little trip. I'll see y'all at home in a few days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck, sir. We'll see you when we get back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: A new survey shows just over a fourth of Americans believe this year will bring peace to Iraq. Gallup Poll editor-in- chief Frank Newport joins us now with results on that and topics. Frank, how does the public rate President Bush at the start of the new year?

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP: Well, 52 percent is his overall job approval rating, Betty, but there is a spread of about, oh, 17, 18 points between his highest-rated dimension and his lowest- rated dimension. Let me give you some examples here. Terrorism, 58 percent of Americans say the president is doing a job that they approve of on that dimension. Then you go down the list that you see on your screen there, all the way down to Iraq, only 42 percent approve of his handling of Iraq. And Social Security, one of the big issues on president's agenda, only 41 percent approval rating at this point.

By the way, a couple approval ratings for members of the president's cabinet. Vice President Dick Cheney, 50 percent, almost the same as his boss, which is at 52 overall rating. Donald Rumsfeld on the right, secretary of defense, that's pretty meaningful, Betty, because that was at 41 percent in December, when Rumsfeld was in some trouble, but now he's come back up by 7 points, so he's back up to the same territory as the vice president and the president himself.

NGUYEN: Yes, seeing some changes there. Frank, Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the president on the tsunami relief efforts yesterday. How is the public viewing the relief effort itself?

NEWPORT: Well, no question about it. When we asked Americans to tell us how they think the president is doing, responding to the tsunami tragedy and how the U.S. is doing in general, the responses are fairly overwhelmingly positive. I pick one here as an example from our weekend CNN/"USA Today" poll, do you approve or disapprove of how the president and the administration is handling tsunami relief? Look at this. 75 percent of Americans approve. That's symptomatic of the generally positive reaction we get with these types of questions.

NGUYEN: Mmm hmm. The deaths and damage in Iraq, well, they are continuing. What is the latest on the public's views of the situation there in Iraq?

NEWPORT: Well, I've been reviewing the data for quite awhile now. New questions we asked on the weekend poll, put them together with everything we're monitoring here at Gallup, Betty, and I would say pessimistic. That's probably the best way to phrase how the American public is looking at the Iraqi situation.

Look on the left there. Only about a quarter of Americans think that within the next year, there will be peace and security in the country of Iraq. And even though we have the election up and coming planned for the 30th of January in Iraq, less than half, only 47 percent, say they think democracy will be established in the country. So all in all, probably a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the American public. But not a lot of optimism at this point.

NGUYEN: Yes, it looks just a little pessimistic with few weeks left before those elections. Frank Newport, we thank you.

NEWPORT: You bet.

O'BRIEN: Up next, you'll meet the South Carolina fire chief trying to help his town cope with that deadly chlorine train wreck. His friends were some of the first responders.

NGUYEN: Then, we're live from L.A. with today's Screen Actors Guild nominations. Are they paving the way to Oscar gold?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, so time now for an update on that toxic train accident in South Carolina. Cleanup crews continue to pump deadly chlorine from the damaged tanker cars. Contractors plan to replace a temporary patch on one tanker that leaked with a steel one. Our Heidi Collins talks with those who responded to the accident in the town of Graniteville.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family and my friends that are displaced our community I went through it the other night, it's like a ghost town. I haven't seen that in 53 years.

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If anyone can speak for his friends, family and an entire town for that matter, it would be Graniteville Fire Chief Phil Napier. He's been re-elected as chief every year for the past 24 years.

PHIL NAPIER, FIRE CHIEF: I've got to be tough. I've got to stand up and I'm not too proud to cry before them and I have.

COLLINS: There have been many tears since 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning. A 42-car Norfolk Southern freight train slammed into another train parked in the siding of the tracks. Three cars on the larger train were carrying deadly liquid chlorine.

Four of Chief Napier's men who lived close by the accident headed directly in to ground zero. They had no idea that chlorine was leaking and rushed in to a cloud concealing a toxic enemy with no protection at all. Chief Napier heard it on his radio.

NAPIER: One of the men started screaming "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I need help." And I started hollering for them to get out of there and I proceeded around in the opposite direction and not knowing that I was going right to the accident.

There was (sic) two men standing there. One was laying on the ground and I stopped and I rolled my window down and the gentleman says "We've had a head-on collision with the train. We've got a chemical leak. I can't breathe" and he went down.

And about the same time it hit me. I couldn't breathe and it was just like all I remember from that point was just like my life ended. I made a U-turn and I don't know where I went or how I got there. I mean it's just like there's a blank in my life like I was dead and I found out at a later time that the man I talked to was the engineer and the conductor of the train.

COLLINS: 28-year-old engineer Christopher Selig (ph) of West Columbia, South Carolina died moments after Chief Napier watched him fall to the ground. Leaving the men behind is not something the chief handles well.

NAPIER: It's rewarding to be able to help people but it's -- it's bad when there's incidents that you can't.

COLLINS: But in a community like this help comes in many ways, shelters for the more than 5,000 people ordered to leave their homes, food for hundreds of law enforcement officials and even financial help directly from Norfolk Southern Railroad.

LORIE BROWN, RESIDENT: She's my little 9-year-old's dog, you know.

COLLINS: Yes.

BROWN: And we love her and we want her to be alive.

COLLINS: Lorie Brown lives on the outskirts of the mandatory evacuation zone. She didn't expect to be gone so long.

BROWN: And we would have never left our dog. I feel so guilty for leaving her. I shouldn't have left her. I didn't know this was going to happen.

COLLINS: Many pets were left stranded in their homes. Others ran free through parts of town, happy to stop for food that sheriff's deputies started leaving out in fields.

BROWN: I'm sorry, sir. I haven't slept in several days. I just want to take her home.

COLLINS: Sheriff's deputies put the health rules aside and decided to go beyond the barricades. No one knew if the dog had survived.

BROWN: She's alive. Oh, my God. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with us (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Oh, God, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome. You're welcome.

NAPIER: Our community will recover. We have a strong community. We've got good people. We will pull together and we will be back where we were, as strong if not stronger. All this is going to be worked out. Material things don't matter. Life is what we're worried about and that's -- the main focus is to protect life, to get this hazard cleaned up and out of our community so we can get on with our lives.

COLLINS: Even for a chief who thought he'd seen it all.

Heidi Collins, CNN, near Graniteville, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Early call today in Los Angeles. Sibila, was it worth it?

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It was worth it for some people. I'll tell you why the casts of "Desperate Housewives" and "Sideways" are celebrating.

NGUYEN: And some beer brewers, well, they are feeling down. Where did all the customers go? Find out when we check Wall Street.

O'BRIEN: They should quit their whining, if you know what I mean.

NGUYEN: And the love message in the bottle. A note sent decades ago brings true love.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Well, Hollywood is abuzz today over the latest big award nominations. CNN entertainment correspondent Sibila Vargas is in Los Angeles. So you ready to name names?

VARGAS: Am I ready to name names? Of course I am. That's right, a big day in Tinseltown as nominations are announced for the Screen Actor Guilds Awards. And once again, "Sideways" leads the pack. The California wine country adventure film scored big with four nominations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSARIO DAWSON, ACTOR: For outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role in a motion picture, the nominees are...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VARGAS: And Jamie Foxx managed to walk away with four nominations including a nod for his work in "Ray." In the outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture category, the nominees are -- "The Aviator," "Finding Neverland," "Hotel Rwanda," "Million-Dollar Baby," "Ray" and "Sideways."

In the outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, "24" made the cut as well as "CSI: Crime Scene & Investigation", "Six Feet Under," "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing." And in the outstanding performance by an ensemble in the comedy category series, it was "Arrested Development," "Desperate Housewives," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Sex and the City," and "Will & Grace." Now "Desperate Housewives" cast member James Denton who also presented was thrilled about the recognition today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES DENTON, ACTOR: Good morning for "Desperate Housewives." I'm really happy for Teri (ph). We got nominated for best ensemble which I think is the perfect because it's so large and everybody has to work together so much. So, yes, I was really happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VARGAS: The SAG Awards air February 5 on TNT -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Looks like tough competition there. Every day it seems like another celebrity is generously donating to help tsunami victims. Who joins the club today?

VARGAS: You're absolutely right. It's been two weeks since the tsunami and since then, some celebrities have helped and definitely stepped up to the plate and donated massive amounts. Now you want to know who it is today? It's teen sensation Hillary Duff. She's also lending a hand. The singer announced that she'll donate a portion of ticket sales from her sold-out "Most Wanted" tour to help the tsunami survivors. The 17-year-old says she will give the money to a group called Kids With A Cause. The organization is assisting survivors of the tsunami and Duff will present her donation to the group in March. It's really good to know. She's 17, and she's giving. That's a really great role model and a good example of what we should do.

NGUYEN: Absolutely. Good for her. All right, Sibila, thank you.

VARGAS: Thanks, Betty.

O'BRIEN: Well, if you ordered a glass of wine or a -- some of the hard stuff...

NGUYEN: Stay away from the hard stuff.

O'BRIEN: Kind of a personal question isn't it? But if you ordered that, you're part of a big trend, and it's got those beer brewers hopping mad shall we say? Susan Lisovicz.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's continue the puns.

O'BRIEN: Shall we?

LISOVICZ: Sobering news for brewers. O'BRIEN: Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

LISOVICZ: Miles and Betty. Wine and spirits are slowly but surely stealing some of the market away from America's favorite alcoholic beverage. Beer still accounts for more than half of all alcoholic beverages sold, but mixed drinks and wine have been gaining popularity since the '90s. Good advertising, partly to blame, wine and spirit companies are successfully targeting younger drinkers with ads and promotions. As one analyst puts it -- beer has lost its sexiness. So brewers are fighting back. The makers of both Budweiser and Miller are increasing their budgets for advertising and promotional spending. The president of Miller says the single biggest threat to the American beer business today is that the American consumer will get bored with beer. Imagine that -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: I'm just trying to figure out when beer was sexy. But that's another question for another time.

LISOVICZ: Maybe when you were in college.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Hybrid cars, hot, hot, hot items.

LISOVICZ: Hot, hot, hot and especially with Japanese carmakers which are taking the lead so watch out GM and Chrysler. Toyota and Honda want to double the production of hybrid cars this year. The companies made the announcement at the big auto show taking place in Detroit. According to Bloomberg News, analysts expect demand for hybrids to go higher this year as consumers continue to confront high prices at the pump and carmakers face tighter pollution laws and oil prices are up today, by the way, up about 50 cents. But as for the market, stocks are lower after a profit warning from chipmaker Advanced Microdevices. There you see the Dow down about 48 points, the Nasdaq, meanwhile .5 percent lower. And that's the latest from Wall Street. Miles and Betty, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Susan.

LISOVICZ: Thank you.

NGUYEN: Well, now a tale of love, fate or perhaps bottled up emotion, shall we say. For all you hopeless romantics out there when a young girl tossed a bottle into the sea decades ago, little did she know that that message inside would find its way to her soulmate. ITN's Romilly Weeks brings us this Dutch treat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMILLY WEEKS, ITV NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's an age- old method of communication, but this must be the first time a message in a bottle has proved an effective dating service. It was over 40 years ago that this particular bottle was thrown overboard in the middle of the Channel and carried north by the currents to be washed up on a Dutch beach. Annie Rivet (ph) still has the message she wrote, age just 10.

ANNIE ELFFERS, SENT MESSAGE: At the time, I had been reading a lot of adventure stories and things about pirates and it seemed an exciting thing to do.

WEEKS: It wasn't a pirate who picked it up, but a 10-year-old Dutch boy.

NIELS ELFFERS, FOUND MESSAGE: We found lots of bottles on this beach. And most of them were from captains from ships, just requiring weather forecasts of the previous days and just general information.

WEEKS: The start of a relationship that took them all the way to the altar. So do you believe that it's fate that brought you together?

A. ELFFERS: Well, I don't really believe in fate, but it is extraordinary really. Anybody could have found a bottle. The bottle should have smashed. But yes, it gives our relationship that extra special something, really.

N. ELFFERS: Yes. My brother was only half a meter behind me.

WEEKS: The couple have been married now for 26 years. Proof that love can turn up in the most unexpected ways. Romilly Weeks, ITV News, in Norwich.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: That's a couple that was meant to be together.

O'BRIEN: They have a story to tell, don't they? Yes. Meant to be.

Well, there is a town in Alaska, about 500 miles to the cold side of the Arctic circle. It's about 20 below right now.

NGUYEN: And the whole town is without power. I'll talk with a man who braved the cold to take these pictures.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Now in the news -- a new case of mad cow disease. Canadian officials have confirmed it but they say no part of the animal has entered the human food system or infected animal feed.

The insurgency strikes again and again in Tikrit. At least six Iraqi police officers killed in a car bombing in Baghdad. Gunmen opened fire on a minibus. Eight killed there. Three survivors kidnapped. A U.S. soldier is wounded by yet another roadside bomb.

Seeking the Democrats' top spot, former presidential candidate Howard Dean officially launches a bid for the party chairmanship. He says the post is not a stepping stone to another presidential campaign. For more watch "INSIDE POLITICS" about 30 minutes from now.

Private Social Security accounts. Americans meeting with President Bush today say they like his idea of letting younger workers invest some of their Social Security payments. The president says it could be one way to save the ailing program. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-twenties, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt unless...

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