Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Snow pounds Midwest, Plane Delays, as Holiday Travel Day Progresses; More Than 6,000 People Still on Missing Persons Rolls Post-Katrina; Georgia Aquarium Opens, Rescued Whales Ham It Up For Crowds

Aired November 23, 2005 - 13:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR, LIVE FROM: Well, over the river and through the wood and through security and baggage claim and interstate insanity and depending on where you're going, through driving snow. It's Thanksgiving Eve and CNN's Dave Hennen and Bonnie Schneider are all over it. Who is going to begin? Bonnie?
(WEATHER FORECAST)

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Dave Hennen joins me now. He can take a look at some airport delays.

DAVID HENNEN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We're looking at our Flight Explorer Program. Literally, looking at every airplane that is in the air at the present time. Notice a couple of congested areas, back down here around Los Angeles, you know, lots of flights in the air there around San Francisco, further north, lots of flights in the air as well.

When I walked in this morning, about 5:00 a.m., there were about 1,000 a airplanes in the air. Right now about 7,000 airplanes in North America alone, up over North American airspace.

Let's take a look now, at flight delays. If you could switch the map for me, Bonnie. We'll take a look behind it. Similar to the FAA site, showing you where we have the -- and I'll get my space bar here.

Where you see the green dots, that is where we currently have not delays. That encompasses most of the U.S. Yesterday in the Northeast, which was a busy travel day as well, we saw numerous delays, one to three hours yesterday around La Guardia.

We have delays now at La Guardia as well. Bonnie, what's going on in New York to give us delays this afternoon?

SCHNEIDER: Well, we don't have snow at this moment but we do have some strong winds. The winds are as strong as 27 miles per hour with wind gusts higher than that, Dave. And as you know, it doesn't take a lot wind to cause airport delays. I understand there are some other delays others areas in the country.

HENNEN: We've got several delays. Northeast, not near as impacted as it was yesterday. We still have delays New York La Guardia, hour-plus. Bonnie just mentioned that, 15 to 30 minutes as well around Phoenix and couple of other delays to share as well. Seattle about 15 to 30 minutes.

Let me walk over here real quick and take one last look -- yes, Newark on the list now, 48 minutes at Newark, that is the very latest so we can add that to the list as well.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Dave Hennen, Bonnie Schneider, thank you.

It's been nearly three months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. Yet nearly 6,000 people are still missing. It's an astounding number in this age of communication. CNN's Ed Lavandera reports on this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's slow and tedious work. New Orleans Fire Department search and rescue team hunts for a missing person possibly still left behind in this home. The dogs pick up on a scent but it's not clear what might be under the rubble.

STEVE GLYNN, NEW ORLEANS FIRE DEPT.: There's just so much here that the dogs tend to get a little confused sometimes.

LAVANDERA: The rescue teams will return and continue their search, removing the debris one piece at a time. This is what it takes to find the missing in Katrina's wake, searching one street, one house, one room at a time.

GLYNN: We're going to try to account for every person that we have listed as missing. And we'll do whatever -- whatever we can. We're going to clear everyone of those houses if that's what it takes.

LAVANDERA (on camera): The number of people still missing is staggering. Just look at the Web sites for the National Centers for Missing Adult and Missing Children. These groups report that there are 6,627 people still unaccounted for in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast region; 1,400 of these cases are considered high risk.

(Voice over): Those kinds of numbers are exactly why St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens and other officials were angered when the federal government called off active searches for bodies earlier this month. Teams are now back on streets looking for victims but not before many people returned home to make gruesome discoveries.

JACK STEPHENS, SHERIFF, ST. BERNARD PARISH: Unfortunately, my worst fears were proven true in that people were coming home and discovering casualties. In some cases, they were family members. In some case, people didn't even know, that just sought refuge in a house.

LAVANDERA: The hope is a vast majority of people on the missing person's list are alive and well just scattered around the country.

KYM PASQUALILINI, NAT'L. CENTER FOR MISSING ADULTS: If they made a report and they have sense located their loved one, if they could just give us a call back and let us know that their loved one has been located. I am certain that we would close out many of these cases.

LAVANDERA: There is reason to be hopeful as Mary Margaret Mouledous just discovered. For the last three months she's been looking for her friend Janette Drury. She just found out she evacuated to Texas.

MARY MARGARET MOULEDOUS, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: When she left, she didn't think to even bring her phone book with her, with all the phone number and everything on it. But she said, I've been thinking about you ever since it happened.

LAVANDERA: A phone call to her friend.

MOULEDOUS: Tell her this is Margaret.

LAVANDERA: And with that discovery, one more missing person is crossed off the list. But there are still 6,626 other names to go. Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And there's this. To give you an idea of how slow and how painstaking this search is, New Orleans' firefighters say they found 30 bodies since October 10 and that it usually takes half a day to officially clear just one house.

Straight ahead, gay men need not apply. The Catholic Church comes out with its long-awaited policy on sexuality in seminaries. The details are come up on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It's a history making day in Liberia. And for once not for a needless war or more horrific tragedy. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf officially declared the winner of the nation's presidential vote. That makes her the first woman ever elected to lead an African nation. It won't be a cakewalk for her though. Liberia has long been divided by tribal conflict and three of the past four heads of state have either been killed or gone into exile. Liberia's inauguration day is January 16.

Former Dictator Augusto Pinochet indicted and put under house arrest again in Chile. This time, on tax fraud, passport forgery and other charges. Court official tells CNN the charges are relate to $27 million he allegedly stashed in overseas bank accounts. The retired general who turns 90 on Friday, has been indicted twice on human rights charges. Both times he was able to avoid trial on health grounds.

It's given rise to whispers, rumors, hints, concerns, and we can only assume, prayers, for months now. It's a Vatican document spelling out the Catholic Church's delicate position on gays in the priesthood. In essence, gay men need not apply. The policy won't be officially unveiled for a week, but it's already shaking some Catholic's faith. CNN's Delia Gallagher explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REV. FRED DALEY, GAY PRIEST: It took me a long time in my spiritual journey to accept myself as a gay person.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH & RELIGION EDITOR (voice over): Father Fred Daley knows all too well what this document means to men like him.

DALEY: I'm afraid this sort of, trying to gleam out homosexuals and whatever is going to put that whole area back in the closet. And will keep folks from being able to work those issues out in the seminary, which I'm afraid the direction we're going is going to move us into, once again, an unhealthy situation.

GALLAGHER: Last year, Father Daly came out, announcing to his congregation, his community, and his bishop that he is gay. He says he didn't realize he was gay until after his ordination in 1974, in part, because the seminary system in the '60s and '70s discouraged discussion about sexuality, which he believes may lie at the heart of the church's recent sex abuse scandals.

DALEY: My fear is there are a number of folks in high places in the church that are scapegoating gay priests, rather than facing the root issues of this tragic sexual abuse crises. The issue should be focused on, are men capable and responsible to make a healthy decision concerning celibacy and human sexuality in their lives.

GALLAGHER: His reason for speak out now, this document, set to be released by the Vatican next week, but leaked to the press. It reiterates the church's stance that homosexual acts are, quote, "intrinsically disordered" and calls homosexual tendencies, quote, "objectively disordered".

The document is designed to prevent gay men from entering the priesthood, stopping them before they start their seminary training. It says, in part, "If a candidate practices homosexuality or presents deeply rooted homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director, like his confessor, have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding to ordination." Monsignor Steve Rolfs is the director of a Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland, one of the men charged with enforcing the rules written into the document, rules that he says are not only right, but necessary.

MSGR. STEVE ROLFS, MT. ST. MARY'S SEMINARY: Obviously we didn't do a good job at educating men to be confident and happy celibates. We didn't do a good enough job of it.

GALLAGHER: But Monsignor Rolfs also acknowledges that the rules are subject to interpretation.

ROLFS: It's a nuance document, in which those who want gays admitted will be upset and those who want gays completely ostracized will also be upset.

GALLAGHER: Seminarians we met at Mt. St. Mary's said they don't disagree with the document. In fact, they say it simply follows God's law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Therefore, just as in the nature a priest who takes on that alter-Christos (ph), being another Christ, he is seen as the bride to the church, who is the bridegroom, which is an inordinate relationship between two men.

GALLAGHER: You won't find agreement from this Father Daley, a man who dedicated his life to the church, a church, he thinks this time, got it wrong.

DALEY: There's wonderful things in the Catholic family but we're dysfunctional in some areas and one area we're very dysfunctional on is the whole area of human sexuality. When push comes to shove, we react to most of those issues like the earth is still flat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: That was, once again, our Delia Gallagher.

President Bush says as Iraqis step up, American troops can stand down. How are the Iraqi forces coming along? We'll have a progress report straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: One of the most popular exhibits at the newly opened Georgia Aquarium is turning out to be the whales. Yes, you have one guess where our own Chad Myers is.

Hi, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Kyra, how are you?

I want to introduce you to the guy responsible for this project behind me. This is Tim Binder. And, in fact, a lot of people spent a lot of money to make this happen. But we want to talk about the relocation, the recovery, the rescue. This guy back here this little Gasper guy, he's so amazing. Interacting with the kids.

Obviously knows we're here, right?

TIM BINDER, BELUGA WHALE CURATOR, GEORGIA AQUARIUM: Oh, he does. He's been interacting with the guests quite a lot these last few days.

MYERS: This guy came from Mexico, in kind of it almost seems like a holding tank now that we look at where he is now. Rescued from under a roller coaster in Mexico somewhere, right? And now he's here and he's a permanent part of the Georgia Aquarium, right?

BINDER: That's right, here as part of our four "R" program. It's rescue, relocation, rehabilitation and research. Many people here in Atlanta and in Georgia donated money to get this animal here. He clearly would not have survived if he would have been left at that park.

MYERS: They said he put on about 150 pounds in about a couple of weeks so far? Five weeks, whatever it is?

BINDER: He has. An animal this age would normally be eating about 24,000 calories a day. He's eating 38,000 calories a day. He's packed on 150 pounds and probably has 200 or 300 more to go.

MYERS: That's a lot of turkeys. Even for us at home tomorrow. I don't think I can do 38,000 calories. Tell me about what you're going to do with him and with the other three whales that are on loan from New York. How is all this going to happen?

BINDER: We are one of nine institutions in North America that work cooperatively to breed the species. Once the two males arrived here, the New York Aquarium choose to send three females here. They have long-term relationships. Those three females will be here for quite sometime. Once offspring is realized, then we take a look at the other facilities and determine how to place animals to have the best breeding groups around the country.

MYERS: Tell me about the way the mating ritual goes, about the gestation, how long does it take. How long before you really know a female's pregnant?

BINDER: They typically will go into escasus (ph), or into heat sometime late winter, early spring.

MYERS: They'll know that? Inside, they'll know when spring is?

BINDER: Yes, oh, yes. And so they'll go through a mating process that will, over the course of several months, will see courtship occur. We would not really know that we have a pregnancy for probably four to six months. Gestation is around 14 1/2, 15 months.

MYERS: So do they like each other?

BINDER: They seem to be going through the proper relationships. They have a social structure is very similar to a wolf pack. When we introduce them, they went through a pecking order situation. Now they're getting along swimmingly, if you will.

MYERS: So, this is Gasper. The other male is?

BINDER: The other male is Niko.

MYERS: And he is the dominant male?

BINDER: He was the dominant male, but one of the females from New York, Marina, she looks like she might be the top of the pack here.

MYERS: I see. Tell us a little bit about the development of this tank. You had a lot to do with it. You had a lot of 80-hour days getting it all ready. What are we seeing behind us? Really does look like the bottom of the ocean.

BINDER: It really does. There's 800,000 gallons. It's a three pool system. So the animals have the opportunity to move in and out of the system. We have a beautifully designed medical channel. If we need to access an animal, we swim it into the medical channel. It has a hydraulic floor that lifts up so that we can give the veterinarians access to these animals.

MYERS: The females aren't in here right now, they're in a different pen?

BINDER: We have the gates open between all of the pools, so they can freely go where they want to go. They'll be back here maybe in five minutes or in 20 minutes. They can do whatever they would like.

MYERS: This is a fantastic exhibit, Tim, thank you so much for your time.

BINDER: Thank you.

MYERS: This really is going to be a phenomenal exhibit, not only for Georgia, not only for Atlanta, but for the United States, I think. You really have to be proud of what you've done here.

BINDER: We really are. Just one quick story. Yesterday, I was watching a seven-year-old girl sitting on a rock down here, all by herself for about 10 minutes. Finally her parents came out of the crowd. They'd been at the window. They walked up to the little girl and the little girl said, mom, can we go now? It's not just the kids that are awed, it's the adults as well.

MYERS: And to see the eyes of the children as they come into the thing and see the big reef out there, it's really amazing. The kids have a really good time. The fish are great to see, but the kids are great to see, too.

Tim, again, thank you very much. We'll send it back to Atlanta. Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Chad, quick question for Tim, if you don't mind?

MYERS: No, go ahead. Hold on, Tim.

PHILLIPS: He said the whales have been interacting with the visitors all day. How does he know that?

MYERS: You said the whales are interacting with us and with the visitors down here. We're far away many not glass but the people down there are not. How is he interacting?

BINDER: He's coming -- actually he likes to go upside down a lot. But he's getting mouthfuls of air. He'll come down and blow bubble rings at the windows and suck it back in his mouth, blow it back out, so he's interacting just inches away from the faces.

MYERS: We also see a couple of scars on this guy. Is that going to get better?

BINDER: He's already showing significant improvement. Those are viral lesions. The virus is caused by the stress of being in that roller coaster. He'd sit there, in a 30 minute period the roller coaster car would go by 39 times. So there was a lot of noise being dumped into that pool. He's already showing tremendous improvement. The skin is probably 60 percent better than it was three weeks ago.

MYERS: Very proud of the effort. Thank you very much, Tim.

BINDER: Thank you.

MYERS: Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Well, the news keeps coming. We're going to keep bringing it to you, more LIVE FROM straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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