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American Morning

Hurricane Wilma Update; Problems For Republicans; Shark Attack In California; WWII Airman Found In Ice; 'Minding Your Business'

Aired October 20, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So it's Houston and the White Sox. So it will be a good series.
Who you going to root for in that one?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The White Sox.

MILES O'BRIEN: You're a big Chicago fan, aren't you?

COSTELLO: Well, they're such underdog and they have such interesting players on that team. Sort of people like maybe some teams didn't want but are now on Chicago and like . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Finally, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, the Astros have never won a World Series and Chicago what was it, 1917 kind of thing?

COSTELLO: I think 1959 was the last time they made the playoffs.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: If I remember my trivia right. I don't know.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I think there's something karmically good about the Astros winning. Houston took in all the Katrina victims. That's (INAUDIBLE) that be . . .

COSTELLO: Want to make a $100 bet?

MILES O'BRIEN: No.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, I'm such a cheapskate.

MILES O'BRIEN: No wager here, folks.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I've got four children I need to send to college, so I'll make a $3 bet.

COSTELLO: OK, you're on.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Other top stories this morning.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's talk Wilma.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes. MILES O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Wilma. Wilma is pounding Mexico now. The Yucatan Peninsula. And the same thing could happen to Florida this weekend. CNN, of course, your hurricane headquarters. And Jacqui Jeras, at the CNN Center, with the latest on all this.

Good morning, Jacqui. And welcome to the program for an extended stay while Chad takes a break.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, glad to be here.

What happens in Mexico, by the way, huge bearing on what's going to be happening in the United States. This storm just kind of starting to brush the Yucatan Peninsula at this time and getting a few showers to the south of Cancun, but that's about it.

It's a category four right now, 150-mile-per-hour winds. It's in the middle of what we call an eye wall replacement cycle, which basically means to you the storm is weakening a little bit right now. However, don't be fooled because this thing will likely ramp up once again later on today and very well could become a category five once again.

The storm system is forecast now to move over just kind of brushing the peninsula here. However, some of the computer model forecasts are keeping it over land for a while and stalling it out a little bit. If that happens, that will weaken the storm dramatically and have a big impact on how strong it would be once it heads towards Florida. That will probably happen later in the weekend now on Sunday.

Traveling today across the U.S., going to have some trouble across parts of the Midwest. St. Louis, a live picture there. Getting a few sprinkles in the St. Louis area. Expect some airport delays on and off throughout the afternoon.

We're also going to see some delays in Charlotte, in Atlanta today because of the low clouds and fog. Cincinnati could get in on some of that action as well as St. Louis and also towards Kansas City and that's where we'll see all the wet weather today.

The Southeast, very, very warm. Not feeling like fall here. And the Northeast, Carol, finally looking gorgeous. Lots of sunshine today. Temperatures in the 60s.

COSTELLO: I'm going outside.

JERAS: You do it. Run in Central Park.

COSTELLO: I certainly will. Thank you, Jacqui.

President Bush is hosting Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since Israel withdrew from Gaza. At their last meeting in May, the president praised Abbas as a courageous democratic reformer. Today he's likely to call on Abbas to take more action against militants in the region. CNN will have live coverage of a joint news conference this morning from the Rose Garden. It starts at 10:50 Eastern.

Officials searching for the bodies of three young children this morning, all under the age of 10. They've recovered one body so far from the San Francisco Bay. An empty stroller was seen on a pier as Coast Guard teams begin the search. They were tipped off by a witness who reported seeing a woman toss the children into the chilly waters of the bay. "The San Francisco Chronicle" is reporting that the children's mother has been booked on suspicion of three counts of murder. The search for the other children continues.

Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers is being asked to give more details. Many more details. Leading members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked Miers to revisit a questionnaire she submitted earlier this week calling her responses to eight of the 57 questions inadequate. Miers says she will try to complete the questionnaire as quickly as possible. That's a good thing because her confirmation hearings are set to begin on November 7th.

An update on a weakened dam in Taunton, Massachusetts. We've been following this story for the last couple of days. Officials say they'll begin pumping out some of the water behind the dam this morning. They want to relieve pressure on the 173-year-old structure before any more rain falls. State of emergency remains in effect in Taunton. Two thousand people still out of their homes this morning.

And new hope for breast cancer patients. Researchers are calling findings from the drug Herceptin revolutionary and stunning. The drug is suitable for only about 20 percent of patients but apparently cuts the chance of a relapse in half when given in the early stages. Herceptin does carry a risk of potential heart problems. More details are in the "New England Journal of Medicine" and we're going to ask Elizabeth Cohen more about this later on in the show.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Carol.

The White House dealing with a couple of stories that they're having a hard time getting control over. The Harriet Miers nomination embroiled in all sorts of difficulties as they try to lobby for her in what is being described as a rather chaotic fashion. And meanwhile, that CIA leak probe. More developments on that this morning. Add to that, an arrest warrant for Tom DeLay. Republican Strategists Ed Rollins might be able to help out.

Good to see you, Ed.

ED ROLLINS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good to see you, Miles. Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Tom DeLay and an arrest warrant. Just putting that sentence together is bad news for Republicans, right?

ROLLINS: No question about it. I don't know whether Tom is innocent or not. He's certainly been the spiritual leader, as well as the real leader of the Congress for the last 13 years. And when you attach things like fingerprints and warrants and arrests and all the rest of it, you know, the public gets a misconception. A very critical . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: A Tom DeLay mug shot is not something he's (INAUDIBLE).

ROLLINS: Is not something we want at the beginning of a campaign season.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. And, at this point, do you think he should you know, he's sort of stepped aside from his duties. He hasn't resigned his post as the number two Republican in the House. Do you think he should?

ROLLINS: I think at the end of the day, Tom needs to go focus on getting himself cleared. And I think someone else needs to step into that job and drive the agenda. They've got a very important agenda to get through in the next couple of months and, obviously, the rest of this is a distraction. MILES O'BRIEN: So he should resign?

ROLLINS: He should resign.

MILES O'BRIEN: OK. Let's talk about Harriet Miers. Yesterday things got even more curious. A couple of leading senators, I should say, a Republican and a Democrat, Specter and Leahy, got up and said they were very dissatisfied with her written responses to some of the questions they have on the Judiciary Committee. Let's listen, first of all, to Patrick Leahy as he talked to reporters yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) VERMONT: We have a responsibility to 98 other senators who then have a responsibility to every person in this country. We're working hard to carry out our responsibilities and not have this thing take it by winks and nods and quiet promises over conference calls. We'd actually like to know what the heck is going on. And I sure want to know before I vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN: Leahy also said the comments I have heard about these her response, inadequate and incomplete and even insulting. So the Miers' nomination seems to be in a bit of trouble. Has the White House mishandled this?

ROLLINS: Well, to a certain extent, she didn't live up to the expectations that they had out there who they were going to appoint. And you can expect Senator Leahy, a man I have great respect for, be on the opposite side. But the critical thing here is, how do you get Republicans back in line. This is a critical vote for the president. This is almost a vote of confidence in his government and he has to get this through and Republicans have to get back on track.

MILES O'BRIEN: So what would you do if you were orchestrating things at the White House right now?

ROLLINS: I would basically bring the leadership over to the White House and I'd just simply say, I desperately need this. This is a woman of imminent qualifications. She's my counsel. I vouch for her. I'm the one that got elected. We debated this in two presidential elections. It's my choice. Please understand she's a qualified person and get her through.

MILES O'BRIEN: Would you withdrawal her nomination?

ROLLINS: Absolutely not. I think if they withdraw her nomination it's a critical defeat for the president.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. A story out in "The Washington Post," AP this morning about Karl Rove, Scooter Libby. Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to the president. Scooter Libby, chief of staff to the vice president. Apparently had a conversation in advance of the leaking of the name of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. This is significant because they have said, well they heard about it from reporters. How does this one play and do you think it's inevitable there will be indictments?

ROLLINS: I don't know whether it's inevitable to be indicted. But certainly the whole thing has become a terrible distraction. You have two of the most significant people in the White House under scrutiny, and legal scrutiny. Until this thing is cleared up one way or the other, no one else can function. That's all anybody in Washington is talking about today is the CIA probe. I think, to a certain extent, there's a lot more out there today in the public than was a couple months ago and there certainly was some misleading statements made by all of these players and I think that's what they're going to pay a price for.

MILES O'BRIEN: But criminal?

ROLLINS: I have no idea whether it's criminal or not. I don't know what's gone before the grand jury and I don't know what people have said. But certainly this special prosecutor is a very tough guy and we'll find out in a couple weeks.

MILES O'BRIEN: Year six of an administration is a tough year, isn't it?

ROLLINS: Historically, it always has been. But, you know, you think one year ago this president won a big election. He's got 1,000 days to go and we've got to get our act together and start marching forward.

MILES O'BRIEN: Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, thanks for your time.

ROLLINS: My pleasure. Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Turning now to Bodega Bay in California. It's near Santa Rosa, California. A brutal shark attack to tell you about. It very nearly took the life of a young woman who was surfing when she was attacked by that shark. Her friend, David Bryant, was surfing at the time and he was there. And also Dr. David Hardin was the surgeon who treated her injuries.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for talking with us.

DR. DAVID HARDIN, TRAUMA SURGEON: Good morning, Soledad.

DAVID BRYANT, FRIEND OF SHARK VICTIM: Good morning.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: David, let's begin with you.

Were you on shore, David, or were you in the water?

BRYANT: No, I was about 20 feet from her in the water.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And what did you see?

BRYANT: I had just looked away from her and I heard a splashing sound, something odd that didn't sound normal, and I looked back over to see a huge dorsal fin pretty much dorfing (ph) her less than a foot away from her.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, my God, you must have been utterly shocked. What did you do?

BRYANT: Her boyfriend was right next to me at the time and we both started paddling towards the event, thinking that we would probably have to start beating on this shark if we had to, to get it to let go.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: There was no moment when you thought, we should all be getting out of the water? You just went right to rescue her?

BRYANT: Well, it's amazing how much dialog you can think in a quarter of a second. I mean, I probably thought two pages of dialog in a quarter to a half second and so I probably thought of everything in that moment. And all there was to do was to get to her and get her away from that thing.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Now at one point, I understand, the shark actually took her under, is that right, and then she resurfaced again and you could see her?

BRYANT: Yes. That was basically the most horrifying part of it. We were paddling to get to her and right when we get under 10 feet away, maybe five feet away, the shark pulled her under, out of sight, completely gone from the surface.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, that must have just been brutal for you to watch. What did you think? I mean you must have thought it was over?

BRYANT: That's exactly what I thought, Soledad. I thought we'd lost her. We were that close and we'd lost her. And now what are we going to do. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: She came back you.

BRYANT: And I started thinking, are we going to have to dive for her. I mean, you know, this is getting bad. And she resurfaced right next to us all of a sudden. And was able to crawl on her boyfriend's back and that was when I seen that she had a severe wound on her leg.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Now, was she conscious the whole time? I know you and other people who were in the water brought her to the shore and started giving first aid and then eventually were able to take her to the hospital. What was she saying? Did she understand what was happening?

BRYANT: She totally understood what was happening. She is one of the bravest, most stoic individuals I've ever encountered. She actually was totally calm in the water. She listened to my directions to get off of the back of her boyfriend and get on her board so we could move her through the water faster. I made the mistake of starting to give instructions to her boyfriend about pressure points for when he got on the beach and she overheard me and asked us if she was cut because she didn't know she was cut yet.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wow. Wow. Let's turn to doctor . . .

BRYANT: And I found that quite remarkable.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes, I bet.

David, let's turn to Dr. David Hardin, who was the trauma surgeon who worked on Megan. First of all, how is she doing right now and what kind of injuries does she have?

HARDIN: Megan's doing great. She suffered two pretty severe lacerations to her leg, one on her the outside or lateral portion of her thigh and then one down on her calf. But both of the bites went all the way down to the bone, came very close to her artery, but all of her blood vessels were spared. And I think Megan's going to do fantastic.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But if it had hit the artery, that would have been it, is that right?

HARDIN: She would have for sure lost her leg and most likely I think she probably would have bled to death before she go could have gotten to the hospital.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wow. So a really close call. What's her prognosis? When do you expect to have her up and will she walk again? And when will she be out of the hospital?

HARDIN: Absolutely she's going to walk again. Megan still has another surgery. We're going to have to take her back to the operating room. In order to prevent infection, we're going to have to wash it out again before we can do a definitive closure and then we'll start working on getting her walking again. But I expect her to make a full recovery. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Good. Well, we're glad to hear that. David Bryant and Dr. David Hardin, thanks, gentlemen, for telling us the story. She's lucky to have both of you the her life there. Thanks, guys.

Miles.

BRYANT: Thank you, Soledad.

MILES O'BRIEN: Can I ask David Bryant one question real quick?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Sure.

MILES O'BRIEN: David, do you consider yourself a hero?

BRYANT: You know, I had a couple friends call me up and they said that and I felt very it felt very out of place and I felt like, oh, you know, I'm going to have to face this question.

MILES O'BRIEN: And here I am with it.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Thanks, Miles.

BRYANT: Yes, and, you know, I think I have a . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: But, you know, what you did was heroic. You've got to say, to go up in that situation was pretty extraordinary.

BRYANT: It was a phenomenal thing to experience and I am sure the next few days I'm going to be feeling the rest of it. I just thank God that I could sleep and know that we did everything we could do to for a better outcome.

HARDIN: He did a great job.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: He did.

MILES O'BRIEN: I should say. I should say.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: A hero and modest hero. Thanks, gentlemen. We appreciate it.

MILES O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, the high price of gas puts the pinch on mass transit. Fare hikes and service cuts coming down the tracks as they say. Andy Serwer is back with that, "Minding Your Business" on AMERICAN MORNING.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And a 60-year-old mountain top mystery to tell you about in California. You'll never guess what they found frozen in the ice. We've got that story ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: A wild discovery in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains to tell you about. Climbers found a body encased in ice believed to be a U.S. military airman circa (ph) 1942. They made the discovery on Mount Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park. Thelma Gutierrez has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): A mystery in the mountains. Rangers chipped away to remove a frozen body, a man who may have been missing for more than 60 years, in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. But who is he? And how did he get here?

J.D. SWED, KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK RANGER: Good mysteries, we don't solve them overnight like we do on TV, of course.

GUTIERREZ: Two ice climbers made the discovery over the weekend at the foot of a glacier. Rangers say it takes days to reach the spot by foot. The man's skin, blonde hair and teeth are all preserved and it will help determine who he is.

ANNIE ESPERANZA, SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK RANGER: In the ice and snow, biological processes move really slow. And it's not unlike putting something in your refrigerator or freezer to preserve something.

GUTIERREZ: There are more clues. He's wearing army clothes and the numbers 1984 are visible on his parachute. Rangers believe he's a World War II soldier whose navigational training plane crashed in November 1942. The wreckage was discovered five years later and so were the bodies of four passengers. But there may have been more.

ESPERANZA: I think it's more the mystery that everyone is intrigued by the fact that here's this plane that crashed 63 years ago and there's still someone up there.

GUTIERREZ: But he's not up there any more. Last night the man's body, still encased in ice, was flown to Fresno and turned over to the county coroner's office where officials hope the mystery will be solved.

SWED: Only time and good science will be able to find the links to this.

GUTIERREZ: Helped by glues, preserved and frozen in time.

Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get you oriented. We'll use our Google map technology here. Ted Fine (ph) driving this morning to give you a sense of where in the world we are. We're going to zoom in on Mound Mendel or Mendel. Do you know which?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I thought she said Mendel.

MILES O'BRIEN: Mendel, it is. Thelma would know. These are 12,000 foot peaks here. OK. There's the top of the mountain, obviously. Let's zoom around and show you precisely where these guys were hiking. These are ice climbers up in that area right there. That's a glacier. And apparently the glacier had receded just enough to reveal the body.

Now this, of course, was it would be a very treacherous area to fly, particularly in 1942 given the technology there. There was a crash in around the scene there about that time. Putting two and two together, they think they'll be able to figure out who it is. Just a little while ago, I talked to the park ranger in charge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: J.D. Swed is the chief ranger for Kings Canyon National Park. You saw him in Thelma Gutierrez's piece. He supervised the recovery of that frozen body and he joins us now from Three Rivers, California.

Mr. Swed, good to have you with us. Tell us what the ice climbers told you about this discovery.

J.D. SWED, KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK RANGER: These were climbers that were enjoying the back country of King's Canyon National Park and they just came upon the remains of what appeared to be a body and, at closer look, showed them that they had were able to see the back of the head and some sandy colored blonde hair, a shoulder and a little bit of an elbow that was exposed with clothing on it. And that the most remarkable thing was that there was a parachute on this individual and it said U.S. Army on it. They took a little piece of that parachute and it appears to be silk, which indicates that it's quite old because they went to nylon several decades ago.

MILES O'BRIEN: What did they initially think they had discovered?

SWED: I don't think they were quite sure. They knew it was a body. They weren't sure how it would have gotten there. They looked around for as much information as they could. They took a GPS measurement off of it and looked to see if there's any dog tags or anything that they could find that was visible. But the individual is buried about 80 percent into ice, so most of it they weren't able to examine.

MILES O'BRIEN: Was the body well enough preserved that they could actually describe the features of the serviceman probably?

SWED: No. At this point, even from the video, you can see it's mostly clothing that you can see. There may be some skin visible, but it's been leatherized or mummified from being up at altitude and in the dry conditions in an arctic environment.

MILES O'BRIEN: So tell us about the recovery. The body is now at the coroner's office in Fresno. Must have been something you wanted to do very carefully, getting it off the mountain.

SWED: Exactly. This very possibly is a serviceman who died in the service of his country, so we were taking very due care with the remains. We sent an archaeologist from the park up with our specially trained mountaineering rangers and law enforcement rangers because it was on a glacier. It's about a 40 percent slope. And so there's some danger involved in that. And we were able to pedestal the individual out. In other words, we cut down about 3 « feet and then cut underneath that, chipped out underneath that through that heavy ice, making sure that we had everything encapsulated. We were able to break that pedestal off. And about 460 pounds of ice and the remains were flown out yesterday about 6:00 p.m.

MILES O'BRIEN: Are you pretty optimistic they'll be able to identify the remains?

SWED: Well, this is a very big mystery because the plane crash occurred, of course, in '42. It was discovered in 1947. We're not fully sure that this individual is associated with that plane. And it's only going to be through good science, a little patience and time that we're going to be able to put all the pieces of this puzzle together and solve the mystery. Should be interesting over the next month or so to have the developing information come forward so we might be able to contact this serviceman relatives and provide them a little bit more history in their lives.

MILES O'BRIEN: J.D. Swed is the chief ranger of the Kings Canyon National Park. Thanks for your time.

SWED: You're welcome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, mass transit may be the way to go to avoid high pump prices. But even the trains and the buses are feeling the pinch and that means we could be too. Andy's "Minding Your Business" coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We've been talking a lot about gas prices and how we're all paying for that and paying more. But even if you take mass transit, you could be feeling the pinch too. Andy's "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

High fuel costs taking their toll on the nation's transit systems. Hundred of millions of dollars in additional cost. It's all about diesel fuel. Albany, New York, for instance, says they're going to be spending about $1 million more this year because of high fuel costs. Denver is considering a 25 cent fare increase. Utah, a 25 cent fare surcharge. Both of these municipalities are anticipating multimillion-dollar deficits in their transit systems all because of high fuel costs.

And if you work in these places, of course, if you work in the transit systems, they're considering layoffs, they're considering cutting back on routes. So it's a situation that we're all going to be looking at in these big cities.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Extrapolated from the gas prices?.

SERWER: Exactly.

Now there's one exception to the rule, a biggie here in New York City. Believe it or not, the MTA, which is the transit system in New York, has a huge budget surplus. That's because of fare hikes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Because we were gouged last time around.

SERWER: That's right. Fare hikes and also because ridership is very high right now. So, in fact, they're looking to give back. They're going to have a fare cut for the holidays on weekends. A very controversial move. Some saying maybe we should save for next year, we're (ph) anticipating the dips.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: When we're talking about this again.

SERWER: Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, a look at the top stories, including Hurricane Wilma. We are watching it. Category four storm now expected to hit Florida. Forecasters say it's a tough storm to track, tough. We'll have an update just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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