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Hurricane Dennis: The Day After; Discovery Prepares to Launch

Aired July 11, 2005 - 11:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching a special extended edition of AMERICAN MORNING this morning. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: You know, you might live thousands of miles from the nearest ocean, but Hurricane Dennis, believe it or not, can still whack you in the wallet. CNN's Chris Huntington in New York with that story. Obviously, the weather not really affecting you there, but certainly financially it could, couldn't it?

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN ANCHOR: Potentially, Soledad, this could hit all of us. Probably not in a way that we feel immediately, but frankly now that the area struck by the Hurricane Dennis is a federal disaster area, that means that federal funds will come in in short order. In fact, they're already at work there now. But there will be billions of dollars, probably brought to bear. That's at least what the estimates say.

Now the good news is that overall, the damage not as bad as many had feared, and it doesn't stack up to some of the worst. But if you live in some of those coastal towns, basically between Panama City to the east, Pensacola to the west, you have absolutely been walloped. Here are the initial wave of insured damage estimates.

This one comes from the industry, a group called the Applied Insurance Research Group, saying $1 billion to $2.5 billion. The biggest reinsurance company in the business, and these are the companies that ultimately foot the bill because they insure the front- line retail insurers, a company called Munich Re is estimating that the damage would be somewhere between $3 billion to $5 billion. Again, these are preliminary estimates for insured damage only. There's an awful lot of damage that people have suffered that is not covered by insurance.

Now, how does Dennis currently stack up, at least in the estimates? Here's a tally of the top five. Take note of the fact that three of the top five, and, in fact, four of the top six, which we're not showing you, all occurred last year. Hurricane Andrew back in 1992 is still the big daddy. But you go down to number three, Hurricane Ivan, which hit in exactly in the same area, total damage there, $12 billion. So there are a lot of folks still suffering from Ivan. In fact, we're told by the Red Cross there are still thousands of families that are -- have been displaced, still from Ivan. Many, many more now.

Jeb Bush has toured the area. He's touring it with Michael Brown, the undersecretary for Homeland Security, who's in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Administration. FEMA will be at work there, and that's where your tax dollars will come to bear.

If there's any good news out of this, it's that none of the oil installations and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico or along the Gulf Coast there were damaged by the hurricane. There had been concerns to that effect. There had been many rigs and offshore platforms evacuated. Obvious precautionary measures there. But the word is, no damage, no interruption to refining ability, which, as we all know, is maxed out capacity. So the impact to the oil markets apparently not a problem. In fact, oil is trading lower right now -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, well, a little bit of good news there, I guess. Chris Huntington for us this morning. Chris, thanks -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: It's time for us take a break. When we return, we're going to tell you about a dramatic air show crash. Two veteran air show pilots, real pros, flying very fast, very close, this time too close. We'll tell you about it, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: An investigation is underway this morning after a mid-air collision Sunday at a Canadian air show. Two small biplanes -- this is the team "Masters of Disaster," they call it -- they were simulating a World War I dogfight when they slammed into each other over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at that airshow. The planes burst into flames, crashed to the ground. Both of the pilots, old airshow pros, were killed. The executive director of the airshow described what happened when I spoke with them just a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLIVE TOLLEY, SASKATCHEWAN CENTENNIAL AIRSHOW: The only thing that I saw, as a spectator, and I pay close attention to the Master of Disaster when they're in the air, because they're just so entertaining, is it was the kind of a day where their smoke oil kind of lay in a haze in the sky. And my personal opinion is, you know, there may have been vision problems. But we don't know anything really. And the National Safety Board will do an investigation and hopefully find out what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Both pilots were killed instantly, and they had family members in the crowd there at that airshow -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right to Kelly Wallace. She's got a look at some of the stories that are making headlines as well this morning.

Hey, Kelly, good morning again.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Soledad. And good morning to all of you.

Here are some of those other stories now in the news. President Bush giving a progress report on the war on terror. Mr. Bush just finished up a speech at the FBI Academy in Virginia, and you saw it live here on CNN. The president talked about the deadly bombings in London, and promised the United States would stand firm beside Britain in the aftermath of those attacks.

A weekend outing in Washington State for six climbers ends in tragedy. Three people in the group died yesterday, some 20 miles east of Marblemount. It reportedly happened on a popular peak called the Sharkfin Tower in the North Cascades National Park. Park officials say a fourth climber is seriously injured, but two others are not hurt.

Los Angeles police are defending their actions today after a shootout with a gunman. Police say they opened fire on the suspect, but only after he fired at them. He was holding a 19-month-old girl, apparently his daughter at the time. Both died from gunshot wounds. Police still aren't sure whose gun killed the toddler. They described the man as, quote, "despondent and crazed." The baby's mother said she pleaded with the officers to hold their fire.

And in Colorado, strong winds and high temperatures are fanning the flames of a wildfire that's burned through 8,000 acres so far. Hundreds of firefighters are trying to beat back the flames near the town of Beulah. That's about 25 miles southwest of Pueblo. A state of emergency is now in effect for that area. And some 5,000 people have been evacuated.

And a U.S. skateboard champion has cleared a very high hurdle. Daredevil Danny Way of California jumped 61 feet over China's Great Wall on Saturday. Take a look at that. That's the word from his sponsor Quicksilver. That makes him the first person to complete the leap without any motorized aid. On Way's first attempt he fell flat, but three other times he nailed it, which makes you say, if at first you don't succeed, wow, try, try again. Amazing stuff there.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. Let me see that one more time.

WALLACE: Queue it up, guys. Folks, don't try this at home.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh. I would say, no way.

WALLACE: For Danny Way.

M. O'BRIEN: This is the crash. OK, that's good enough. I mean, whatever. But I'm sure he's got a bigtime rug burn on that one. They've got all the pads, though.

Check this out. That is some altitude there. Whoa!

WALLACE: Incredible. Bravo for Danny Way.

M. O'BRIEN: Look at how much air he got at the other end of the half pike. I don't think he expected that. WALLACE: That had to hurt.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow, that is unbelievable. Congratulations to him. Thank you, Kelly, for showing that.

S. O'BRIEN: You do that, right, in your spare time?

M. O'BRIEN: yes, that's what I do in my spare time at home for fun. Tony Hawk and me, we hang 10. Not even close.

S. O'BRIEN: No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't.

Still to come, Dennis at its worst. CNN reporters were there to see it all, of course, the storm through their eyes. And we were everywhere, folks. That's still ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the countdown is under way. The countdown began as Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on Florida. There was some concern at one point that it might actually head over to Cape Canaveral, or head in that general direction. Of course you know you're geography, but I'll just remind you, that is the location of the space shuttle, the Kennedy Space Center. And of course, as you know by now, the hurricane came ashore right up in there, kind of went across. I'm sure Rob will be upset with that straight line, but that's more or less what it did.

And as a result, the decision to keep the space shuttle out there turned out to be a good one. Space shuttle's fine, looking good. And they're saying now, pretty good chance the weather will be OK on Wednesday for launch. But this launch is a very nerve-racking one. Of course, any launch is nerve-racking. It's a very risky business. But this is the first time since we lost Columbia two and a half years ago, and for some of the people, actually everybody on the team, but some in particular, it is a tough time to go through.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN (on camera): Is it hard to look at still?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I mean, it's tough. I mean, I've probably seen this picture 10,000 times.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): NASA engineer Armando Oliu looks at a lot of images like these. High-speed, high-resolution film of the space shuttle as it rockets towards orbit. His job is to look for trouble, anything unusual. And that is precisely what he saw on January 16, 2003, plain as day.

ARMANDO OLIU, NASA: It was obvious that we had the largest piece of debris come off the external tank that we'd ever had. And it was the largest piece of debris that we had ever seen strike the orbit.

M. O'BRIEN: So Oliu notified the shuttle management. But foam hitting an orbiter was old news for them. It had (INAUDIBLE) spacecraft from day one, a maintenance headache, but not seen as a real threat. NASA engineers held a series of meetings to try to guess how much damage the foam might have caused.

OLIU: And I knew some of those engineers -- I was confident that that data was valid. I was confident that the debris event wasn't going to catastrophic hit to the vehicle. It was going to be a damage site, but it was going to be survivable.

M. O'BRIEN (on camera): Over the years, shuttle managers convinced themselves the ever-so light foam that covers the shuttle's external fuel tank was essentially not a threat and that the piece that came off of Columbia's fuel tank was tantamount a styrofoam cooler blowing off of a truck on the interstate -- startling, perhaps, but essentially harmless.

(voice-over): And that is what Columbia flight director Leroy Cain had concluded on the morning of February 1st.

LEROY CAIN, NASA FLIGHT DIRECTOR: When we came in that morning, it was like any other entry that I've ever been associated with.

M. O'BRIEN: But then the troubling calls from his team began filling his headset. This one at 8:52, from the controller in charge of maintenance, mechanical and crew systems, or Max (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FYI, I've just lost four separate temperature transducers on the left side of the vehicle, hydraulic (INAUDIBLE) temperatures. Two of them on system one, and one in each system two and three.

M. O'BRIEN: Two minutes later Colombia's computers moved control (INAUDIBLE), then fired rockets to compensate for the added drag on the left wing. Temperature sensors went up or completely failed. Then at 8:59 and 13 seconds...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pressure on (INAUDIBLE) of both tires.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Colombia Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it instrumentation, Max (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out by Max, those are also...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger.

M. O'BRIEN: That was the last anyone heard from Columbia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colombia Houston, com check.

M. O'BRIEN: What began as data turned to raw emotion, sadness and grief.

CAIN: None of us wanted to personally or professionally fail. None of us wanted to personally fail a crew. These were friends and neighbors of ours. You know, their kids go to school with our kids, that kind of thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two, one, zero.

M. O'BRIEN: And as that subsided, the shuttle team went back to work, doing what engineers do, understanding the problem. Their assumptions were wrong. The foam blasted a huge hole in the leading edge of the wing. Despite all that, Leroy Cain will be back in flight director's seat when Discovery launches and lands.

(on camera): So you don't dread going back to it?

CAIN: I don't dread it at all, no. I couldn't have predicted it back then, but I had to get to a point, get myself to a point of being able to say, I'm still about doing this job and being in this business or I'm not. And if I am, is it for all of right reasons?

OLIU: This is the new digital and computer room.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): And Armando Oliu will be back as well, manning his new and improved post at the Cape, watching for trouble in ways he could only imagine before. NASA has spent millions to add new shuttle tracking cameras, many more images, much clearer, nothing out of focus.

(on camera): Can you say fairly categorically, if something falls off, one way or another, you're going to see it?

OLIU: Well, we'll definitely either see the event -- the debris coming off, or see the evidence of the debris coming off.

M. O'BRIEN: Look likes night and day.

OLIU: It's night and day. Night and day.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): The hope is everything at NASA is now like night and day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Weather forecasters say there is a 70 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time.

S. O'BRIEN: We're going to continue to track -- excuse me for interrupting there -- we continue to track the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis. Let's show you the damage on Pensacola Beach, because it looks as if that bridge to Pensacola Beach is now open. They closed it for awhile. We're getting our very first look of how it looks there today. An update on what's happening there and elsewhere in the path of the hurricane. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. You're looking at a shot as a car drives across the bridge to Pensacola Beach. The bridge finally opened and now it's really the first opportunity we've had to see some of the damage there. M. O'BRIEN: And so far, the initial reports, anyway -- although you can see a little bit of debris strewn about and so forth -- but, you know, the palm trees always do well, don't they? They are built to withstand such storms. And nevertheless, the initial indications are that, despite the fact that this storm did nothing but strengthen as it moved across the Gulf, that right as it reached shore, which is where it really counts, it basically collapsed. And we're glad to tell you that. So, anyway, we will be tracking the damage, nevertheless, because there is some out there, and keeping you posted every step of the way, of course.

S. O'BRIEN: The coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis continues at the top of the hour. We are done for the day with the this extended coverage. We'll hand it off now. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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