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Hurricane Season 2006 Starts Today; Nagin Inaugurated in New Orleans; Dixie Chicks Back on Track

Aired June 01, 2006 - 14:30   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Prepare and protect -- after last year's devastating storms, that's becoming the motto of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. Today is day one and experts predict we're going to be in for a busy time of it. They're right because I'm going to be talking a lot to this man this season, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center.
Max, thanks so much for joining us. You haven't had much time off, have you, because you've been touring around trying to tell people you've got to prepare?

MAX MAYFIELD, DIR., NATL. HURRICANE CENTER: Carol, the battle against the hurricane is absolutely one outside of the hurricane season. We did a tremendous amount of outreach up and down the coastline, and even within the region, down in the Caribbean.

And the message has been very, very consistent, urging every individual, every family, every business, every community to have that hurricane plan and have it in place before the season gets here.

LIN: So how do you account for a majority of people surveyed along the Gulf Coast don't have a plan? They don't have a plan.

MAYFIELD: Well, you know, I asked for that survey to be done, and the Mason-Dixon Poll who really surveyed people within the coastal areas, Texas to Maine, is really shocking, to tell you the truth -- I mean, after the last two hurricane seasons to find out that 60 percent of the people did not have a hurricane plan. And if you look at this one graphic behind me here, I hope you can see the outline of the coastline.

LIN: What is it?

MAYFIELD: That's the track -- that shows the tracks of all of the tropical storms and hurricanes going back to 1851. I think most reasonable people would look that the one graphic there and understand that our nation indeed has a hurricane problem.

LIN: Anywhere along the Gulf Coast all the way up to New York and Maine is what it looks like.

MAYFIELD: That's absolutely correct.

LIN: All right. So there are some states, like Florida, all right, in the path of many of these storms, that is going to what some people might consider extremes. They have an ad campaign to try to convince people to get ready, airing 911 calls from the last storm season. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Water is all in the house. The roof is completely caved in on us. We need emergency assistance, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, ma'am we can't respond right now because of the condition of the hurricane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of our neighbors evacuated and everyone is gone. Please tell me what to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm in a wheelchair and water's coming in. Is there any way I might be able to get an ambulance to help me?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The roof is coming down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Max, those are real calls from last season. That's how seriously Florida is taking it, urging people to have a plan.

MAYFIELD: Right. Carol, those were from the 2004 season and Hurricane Ivan. But I've heard very, similar calls from Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, the 911 calls. You know, this is really terrifying to listen to some of these. But if it wakes people up and helps motivate them to get prepared I'm all for that.

LIN: All right, well, Dr. Gray's, you know, predictor is indicating 81 percent chance of a major storm hitting the southern United States. Today is the first day of hurricane season, but is there a pattern to these major storms as to when one might strike the U.S.?

MAYFIELD: We've looked at that very carefully. And sometimes you can see a pattern, for example the 1940s, most of the major hurricanes hit the Florida Peninsula. The '50s, most of the major hurricanes hit the East Coast. The '60s, central or western Gulf. The last couple of years it's been Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

You might think that will continue, but sometimes it just doesn't work. You go back to 1930s, we had major hurricanes, Texas all the way up in to New England, so it's just not that simple.

LIN: Not as simple as saying most major storms might likely hit the U.S., say, in August or October.

MAYFIELD: Well, the peak of the season is indeed from the middle of August to near the end of October, but we have had something, actually, in every other month of the year, but we definitely need to be prepared for the peak.

LIN: All right, Max Mayfield, thank you so much. It's going to be a busy season. And it's always reassuring and great to have you on hand.

MAYFIELD: Thank you very much.

LIN: Appreciate it.

Well, destruction and frustration and apprehension, Bay St. Louis, just one Gulf Coast community still trying to get on its feet months after Katrina washed over it. And here we are on the first day of another hurricane season. So, how do people there feel about it?

CNN's Kathleen Koch who knows better than most, it's her hometown. Kathleen, you've spent a lot of time with your hometown. How are people viewing the hurricane season coming up?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Carol, I was back there just a couple of weeks ago and the tension in the air is so thick you could literally cut it with a knife. The town was just so heavily damaged by Katrina, 95 percent underwater. So many homes, like the one where I grew up, simply just erased and people can't bear the thought that it could happen all over again.

So many of them like a couple we interviewed Monte and Danielle Strong, and their three children, they've been working so hard to rebuild their home. It was gutted by the storm. And they're wondering as hurricane season starts again whether they made the right decision to stay. Especially with this looking like it will be such a rough season ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELLE STRONG, BAY ST. LOUIS RESIDENT: Just a lot of fear. Just not knowing, just I hope it's an every year, I mean an every 30- year flood, that it's not, that we won't have a bad hurricane season. You just don't know. It's scary. It's just scary. It's scary all around.

KOCH (voice-over): A major change this hurricane season is what first responders like Monte Strong, he's a firefighter, what they plan to do. Now, in the past, they would, like many town residents, stay and ride out the storm, but this time they say they're going to take the fire engines, take chain saws, take gasoline, and head for high ground.

MONTE STRONG, BAY ST. LOUIS FIREMAN: Category 3 or worse, we're leaving. You know, we told our department heads, you know, we'll go where they want us to go or we'll evacuate with our families and the shift may all go the same direction.

You know, and once the eye's passing we'll leave our families at hotels and, you know, that way we know they're OK and they know we're okay and then we'll start working our way back in to town and start our job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Frightening thought though Carol is that would leave the city entirely without first responders. But they say the hope is that perhaps next time everyone will evacuate. LIN: Boy, if I see the first responders leaving, Kathleen, I'm going with them, or I'm ahead of them. You know, sometimes the best indication of the mind-set of a community is often its children. How are they dealing with the stress of the on-coming hurricane season?

KOCH: You know, they have held up really well, Carol. But I'll tell you one example of how traumatized these kids are by hurricane season starting is a few weeks ago they had a really severe thunderstorm and kids came to school so upset.

I spoke to teachers who said they got calls from parents whose children did not want to even leave their homes they were so upset by the high winds, by the hail.

A 4-year-old boy who we interviewed, he said he told his mom, he said; "mommy, is that Hurricane Katrina? Is she coming back to blow our house down again?" So it's going to be a rough hurricane season for everyone along the Gulf Coast.

LIN: Well just look at some of the sweet faces you met Kathleen. God bless those kids. Thank you so much. We're going to be looking forward to your reporting during this hurricane season.

All right, up next, in the next hour of LIVE FROM, we're going to check in with CNN's Anderson Cooper in New Orleans. That city better prepared for the 2006 hurricane season. We're going to find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: There has been a rescue, but there's still a mystery. Thirty-four-year-old Sandra Eubank Gregory, a family law attorney, was abducted from a Birmingham, Alabama, parking lot yesterday. Well, nine hours later, police found her at a local motel, bound with rope but apparently unhurt. They arrested a suspect at the motel, but there's still no word on what motivated that abduction. A Birmingham judge has given authorities more time to investigate before filing charges.

And bizarre news now out of central Florida. An alleged murder- for-hire plan busted by undercover police work, and you won't believe who's in jail today. And you won't believe who they allegedly wanted to kill.

Louis Bolden from Orlando affiliate WKMG is on the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREN JACKSON, TARGET OF DEATH PLOT: I'm just a nervous wreck. I don't -- I think anyone would be in my position.

LOUIS BOLDEN, WKMG REPORTER (voice-over): Karen Jackson says that she is still in shock that her incarcerated husband allegedly hired a hitman to have her and her three children killed.

JACKSON: Like Ted Bundy, charmer. Because he has to be a psychopath. I mean, because he's two different people. BOLDEN: And Lake County detectives say not only did Jackson's husband turn on her; her in-laws did, too.

CHRISTIE MYSINGER, LAKE CO., FLA. SHERIFF'S DEPT: Jason's parents also became involved in this solicitation for murder, and actually worked as the outside money persons.

BOLDEN: Deputy arrested 59-year-old Versie Jackson and 60-year- old Robert Jackson for conspiracy to murder. The couple's son, 31- year-old Jason Jackson, allegedly hired a hitman behind bars and asked his parents to deliver the cash to have his wife and children killed.

JACKSON: Because I knew they could arrange something crazy.

BOLDEN: Jason Jackson is in jail facing 43 counts of sexual battery. His wife and children were scheduled to testify against him in an upcoming trial.

MYSINGER: Of course with the family being witnesses against him in that -- or in those charges, apparently he felt that by eliminating them it would better his case.

BOLDEN: Detectives say Jackson's parents met an undercover agent at this Best Western Hotel and paid him a $100 downpayment to kill them all.

JACKSON: This is a man that I never saw this coming. Loved with all my heart, you know, was good to me, was good to the kids.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Well, the two grandparents, Robert and Versie Jackson, remain in jail today without bond.

Well, a federal grand jury has indicted two elderly California women suspected of killing homeless men for money. Investigators believe Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt collected more than $2 million in life insurance they took out on two men who later died in unsolved hit and runs. Now, neither women has been charged in the actual deaths, but Feds say they impounded a car that may have struck one of the victims. They say they're still investigating whether other men were targeted. Golay, who's 75, and Rutterschmidt, 73, are scheduled for arraignment on Monday. For now, they're jailed without bond.

Straight to Fredricka Whitfield, who's got some news for us from the CNN news room -- Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hello, Carol.

Let's go to New Orleans, Louisiana. And here it is, inauguration for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and preceding his comments, you're looking right now, words from Senator Mary Landrieu, whose brother, Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, ran very vigorously against Ray Nagin before Ray Nagin won his second four-year term. Also preceding what we're expecting to hear,Ray Nagin's comments there at the Morial Convention Center, we also heard from Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. Now, of course, Blanco and Nagin haven't always seen eye-to-eye immediately following Hurricane Katrina, but the governor just moments ago said in order to help the Gulf Coast region rebuild, everyone has to put their differences aside.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO (D), LOUISIANA: Today is a new beginning for the city of New Orleans. It's inauguration day. Mayor, you picked a mighty powerful day to begin your new term, June 1st, the opening of hurricane season. Defying the powers.

This is a critical day to renew our spirits in prayer. It's a day I greet with confidence. There's never been a better day for us start anew and work together, to get it right. And this date has never been more prepared and this city has never been more prepared for hurricane season.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And while many people in the New Orleans area say this inauguration may be quite subdued compared to the first inauguration of Mayor Nagin, all are in great agreement that today's proceedings will certainly have a lot of the New Orleans flavor. In addition to the speakers that you just saw, they're also going to have a lot of music, a lot of fanfare, including some of the Mardi Gras Indians and a lot of familiar faces and voices and tunes from a lot of the musicians in that area, before hearing from Ray Nagin himself.

LIN: All right, thanks very much, Fred.

Speaking of musicians, the Dixie Chicks are back and talking to Larry King about the dust-up that knocked them off the radio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIE MAGUIRE, SINGER: I heard her say it, but to me it didn't resonate as something that would get us in trouble.

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: Did not?

MAGUIRE: No.

KING: So therefore you were surprised by the reaction?

MAGUIRE: Yes, yes. I was surprised that it went on so long.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Natalie Maines said she was ashamed of the president a few years ago. So straight ahead, why the Chicks may be more in sync with fans these days. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIE MAINES, SINGER: When you're over in London everyone is talking about Americans like we're all one and we all think the same. And that bothered me. And so by saying, you know the Texas thing, I was just sort of pointing out we're American and we're even from Texas and we don't agree with the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Well they were shunned, their C.D. stomped on, and now three years after the Dixie Chicks' controversial comments about the Iraq war, they may get the last word. Here's CNN's entertainment correspondent Sibila Vargas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those were fighting words and the Dixie Chicks came out swinging. Round one, a "Time" magazine cover story. Round two, a TV media blitz. Round three, putting out their new CD at a fan friendly $10. And the winner of a public showdown between the Dixie Chicks and the country music community, according to "Billboard" magazine, it's the Chicks.

MAINES: Everyone called me unpatriotic and said I didn't support the troops because I didn't support the war, but to me I am patriotic because I didn't want people to die without a reason.

GEOFF MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR OF CHARTS, BILLBOARD MAGAZINE: As we expected, Dixie Chicks album debuted at number one in the "Billboard" 200 and of course on our country album chart as well.

VARGAS: That makes the Chicks the first female group in history to notch three number one albums. It's a far cry from 2003, since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when lead singer Natalie Maines told London concert goers she was quote, "embarrassed to be from the same state as George Bush."

EMILY ROBISON, SINGER: Being a musician doesn't take away your right as a citizen to speak your mind.

VARGAS: But outcry from the conservative country community was loud and clear. There were C.D. smashings, picketing, even death threats. Many radio stations refused to play their music.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course she was wrong for what she said.

VARGAS: Now it may seem that radio's boycott has backfired, driving consumers to purchase the music they aren't hearing on the air waves.

MAINES: I think a lot of people bought it not hearing our music from the past.

VARGAS: Indeed, somebody is buying the record, half a million somebodies. MAYFIELD: There could be people who either are opposed to the war in Iraq or opposed to Bush, who might feel sorry for some of the negative attention that's been accorded the Dixie Chicks and they may have run out and bought their very first country album.

VARGAS: This leaves one to ponder with President Bush's approval rating at an all-time low, maybe more folks agree more with the Dixie Chicks in 2006 than in 2003.

MAINES: You can't just call us Americans like we have one voice and one opinion, and I have no regrets.

VARGAS: Sibila Vargas, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: As you saw in Sibila's report, the Dixie Chicks were on "LARRY KING LIVE" last night. For more provocative interviews with the world's newsmakers, tune in weeknights at 9:00 Eastern. Tonight, CNN's Anderson Cooper sits down with Larry to reveal family secrets and his private heartbreak. How his dad and brother's deaths affected his life. Don't miss this emotional hour, right here on CNN.

What if you found out your dad was really a prince? It's no fairy tale for a California teenager whose family tree turns out to have a branch in Monaco. Coming up a report from Palm Desert, a town in a total tizzy. The third hour of LIVE FROM straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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