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American Morning

Eastern Cities Getting Hit Hard by Hurricane Wilma; Three Car Bombs Hit Palestine Hotel in Baghdad

Aired October 24, 2005 - 10:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I took a spill myself. The wind literally knocked me off my feet. I'm about 185 pounds, actually in my dreams I'm about 185 pounds. That's where I'm headed toward, anyhow. And I know -- I can understand. David, right now, things have dissipated somewhat I imagine there. Do you think it's safe to continue on?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are going continue on. It dissipated only momentarily. The wind is really beginning to pick up, getting hit with some very strong gusts again, suggesting that the eye, whatever lull we are standing under at the time is done with us, and it's moving out to sea.

The residents that we were here with have also recognized this, and they're going back into shelters. I have to tell you, Miles, that no matter how many hurricanes we've covered, there's absolutely no such thing as a routine hurricane. Everywhere we go there's always something different. You see a lot of what you consider run-of-the- mill damage, but every hurricane has its own signature, and this one will, too.

O'BRIEN: Boy, that's for sure, David Mattingly, never take any of it for granted. That is for sure, and that goes for people who have to evacuate. That goes for reporters covering the story. That goes for emergency officials making plans in advance. None of this can be taken for granted. No assumptions can be made. For instance, the assumption that just because a hurricane goes across the peninsula of Florida it can be greatly weakened at the other side, not necessarily so.

When things were really the worst here, a few hours ago, we spent a fair amount of time talking with CNN's John Zarrella and Anderson Cooper. Thirty miles to the south of where I stand in Naples, they were on Marco Island. Let's listen and watch to what they encountered as Wilma came ashore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Look that the surge. This is the worst it's been now. The water is coming up significantly. There's not much beach left right now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We were down there probably about 20 or 30 minutes ago. The entire beach now is gone.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's pouring in now. I can't even look to the north, because of the sand that's now in -- but the water is still coming up.

O'BRIEN: I really am having a hard time standing up, but I've got nothing to hang on to here. I'm going to stand near this sign. I think we have got to be close to 100 miles an hour here now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right, well, we're happy to be able to tell you about the replay in first-person terms here. We made it through John Zarrella. I've got to tell you, there was a time there when I was wondering if that was the wisest place to be, and that's, of course, when we retrenched. You did the same thing. How are things there now?

ZARRELLA: Well, you can see, it's still blowing tremendously here, Miles. I'm going step in just a step. It had subsided a bit, and now it's kicked up again. It's lighter out, much lighter. We can see a lot clearer. I can tell you that the palm trees, a lot of the tops of the palm trees are gone here. There is some minor structural damage here, and I can also tell you that I would bet on the East Coast it's significantly worse than what we've got over here. I know when you were talking to David Mattingly, and I talked to my wife a few minutes ago, and the screen enclosure is gone in the back porch. An enormous 50-foot pine tree is on top of my house. There are many, many shingles off of houses around. I've got roof tiles of, cars that are damaged in our neighborhood, and that's in Davey, which is west of Fort Lauderdale. So I can report somewhat firsthand and very personal of what these things can do.

Fortunately, we put up shutters. Everything was buttoned down tight, and structurally, the house is intact, but everything on the outside is pretty much destroyed.

So it's a mess over on the east coast, and I think probably worse than what we got here, because in the front side of the storm was so much worse on the east coast, and they're going to get just as bad a backside, but you can see it is still blowing and, Miles, we can see the beach now. The storm surge is certainly gone now, but it is still just absolutely blowing hard. I don't know when it's going let you up.

O'BRIEN: You know, John, I've got to ask you candidly, did you expect that there would be that much damage at your house? In other words, when you came over here, were you worried about your house, given the amount of damage that you just encountered?

ZARRELLA: No. I knew that there would be some damage. We went through Katrina earlier this year, a category-one hurricane. We kind of expected on the East Coast that we might see a category two, but maybe a weak category two. There was nobody -- my wife's talked to several of the neighbors there, nobody who expected what they got, and I would suspect that that's the opinion of just about anybody you talk to over on the East Coast. It's far more extensive.

We talked to people yesterday who said it's not going to be bad. We're not going to put up our shutters. I'm sure they are regretting that decision today, that they didn't bother, because one person that we know over there has lost his roof, because he didn't -- probably because he didn't put up shutters. The windows are gone. So, yes, I don't think that anybody on the East Coast expected the kind of damage that we are likely to see over there. It's certainly significant damage on the East Coast -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's John Zarrella in Marco Island, having weathered the storm there. He's got his work cut out for him when he heads back home to Davey, Florida, whenever he gets a chance to do that.

CNN's Jason Carroll, part of our team out here. He's one of our mobile members of the team. He's in Hurricane One. He joins us now from Interstate 75, somewhere between I stand in Naples and Miami -- Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, we are still trying to make our way east on I-75. In order to describe the conditions here, too unsafe for us to be outside. This reminds me -- we are still in the heart of the -- in the middle of the hurricane right now. It reminds me of a whiteout during the middle of a blizzard. The wind and the rain is so strong, it's completely a whiteout outside when you look out there. I mean, and that's what we've been driving in and that's why at this point we pulled over on the side of the road as our car is being rocked by the heavy winds that have been pummeling the area. In terms of the people that we've seen, we've seen very, very few. At one point, there was an overpass. We checked underneath. There were a few cars there were there, talked to a few folks who did like we did, decided it was just too unsafe to be out on the road and pulled over on the side.

In terms of the damage that we've seen along the way, not very much in the way of structural damage. While we were in Naples this morning, didn't see very much in the way of structural damage, did see some minor flooding in neighborhoods. As we pulled off U.S. 41, we also saw a lot of downed trees and power lines, things of that nature, as we were driving through that particular area.

Here in Hurricane One, we are well equipped here, that's why we're able to transmit our signal to you. We are being as safe as possible by now, pulling over. In terms of how powerful the wind is, we don't have a wind gauge out there, we're only judging it by just how much we're being moved as we're stationary here, and literally this heavy vehicle is being rocked back and forth, back and forth, even though we're parked here in a stationary position. We're going to keep making our way east. We are about midway through, I'd say, I- 75 at this point. We're just keep going to keep making our way to the east as we work our way into Hurricane Wilma, work our way east.

Back to you.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Jason Carroll in Hurricane One, somewhere on I- 75, making his way toward Miami.

CNN remains your hurricane headquarters. We are covering Wilma day and night. We will continue to cover its aftermath and the damage that is done. Stay with us for more after a short break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VERJEE: Wilma is pounding Florida's East Coast now. It's really taking the brunt of Hurricane Wilma's fury, some three hours after it made landfall on the West Coast.

Let's go to Jacqui Jeras at the Weather Center with more on that -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Zain, the eye of the storm, the center of the storm, is just about over West Palm Beach at this time. So it's about halfway across. The outer, the back side, the west side of the eyewall, is what's going to be blowing through now. And this could be some of the worst of the conditions.

I want to zoom in now, down towards Miami and into the Fort Lauderdale area. These winds are pushing in from the north into the west, and so you guys need to get prepared. You're starting to see it just north of Miami right now. But Fort Lauderdale, you're maybe 20 minute away from your winds kicking. We're likely going to see some hurricane force wind gusts very frequently. It even could go as high as 100 miles per hour. Fort Lauderdale right now reporting wind gusts at 92 miles per hour with sustained winds, just underneath hurricane strength, at 63 miles per hour.

Let's go ahead and query Miami and check in on what's going on there at this time. Expecting to see also those winds starting to push in from the northwest. There you can see a 76 mile per hour gust there. We'll take a trip on up to the north and there you can see the eye of the storm and you head on to the north side of the system, up towards Ford Pierce.

There's West Palm Beach. The calmer conditions are starting to pull in now from that storm. In fact, I was just checking on the Internet and the winds were down to about 30, 35 miles per hour. Now, you can see Fort Pierce, east, northeastly winds at 40, sustained gusts at 60 miles per hour. And Vero Beach gusting to 65.

We'll head to the West Coast of Florida, where the storm made landfall about 6:30 this morning, just near Everglades City. It was right about here, over Cape Romano. There you can see Naples. Naples not reporting, but Fort Myers getting very heavy rain. There's that north to northwesterly wind, 44 sustained, gusts to 55. They can expect (INAUDIBLE) tropical storm force conditions over the next several hours. Mid-afternoon, it should be all over and done with for the West Coast.

The East Coast, you're going to have to wait until the evening hours before your conditions start to improve. We're very concerned about Miami up towards Fort Lauderdale. In that quarter now over the next couple of hour, we'll be in during the back side of the storm and getting unbelievable winds, up to 100 miles per hour, and very heavy rain. Expecting to see the rain come down at a good one to two inches per hour. And there have already been numerous reports of flooding and damage and that is just going to get amplified here, so now's the time to hunker down. And I just want to remind those of you in those high-rise buildings., the higher you go up in elevation, the stronger those winds are. So if you're up there on the tenth, 11, 12th-plus floor, you need to get to an interior room right now, as this storm is getting very close to you. Again, some of those windows could be blowing out, and you could be experiencing some damage.

Look how wide this eye is, 60 miles across. Dave Hennen, running our radar here for us, and showing you how wide this eye is. And it's very nice and calm. West Palm Beach, you're thinking, hey, it's over and done with. No, it's not. Don't be caught offguard because you may be another hour away from the nasty conditions blowing back through.

Here you can see the tornado watch in effect. That's still going to be a threat today. But most tornadoes happen in this quadrant of the storm, and that part is now pulling offshore. So the tornado threat will start to be reduced. The National Hurricane Center, of course, will update us at 11:00. We'll bring you the updated winds at that time.

Back to you.

VERJEE: Jacqui Jeras at the Weather Center. Thank you so much, Jacqui.

This now just coming in to CNN. There is breaking news coming out of Baghdad in Iraq. This is tape that you're looking at. The Palestine Hotel coming under attack, journalists being forced to take refuge. These are powerful, big explosions we're seeing in Baghdad. Witnesses are saying that there were two initial car bombs. Police are saying that there was a third detonation as well. We're seeing billows of smoke rising from this scene in Baghdad. The Palestine Hotel coming under attack.

We want to join our sister network, CNN International, now for more coverage. .

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: ... would that have caused casualties irrespective of whether the police, as according to that unconfirmed report that you have, gathered around the sites of both two initial explosions?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT: From what we know, and I'm not able to see the same pictures you're seeing at the moment, Veronica, but from what you described, from what we know, from what I was able to see at the cloud rising up from the third explosion, the force of that explosion is something very, very strong, indeed.

We now have it confirmed from Iraqi police that it, indeed, was three car bombs that were used in this particular attack. Three car bombs. That now confirmed by the Iraqi police. But as yet, no casualty figures. And as yet, no word from the police on exactly the timing and exactly what took place on the ground there -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: And this coming at a very crucial time, politically, in Iraq. We're just in the middle of getting results from the Iraqi constitutional referendum.

ROBERTSON: Indeed. It's come at a very tense time. Attacks generally across Iraq had seemed to be down. It very much seems -- and this is certainly the analysis that has been given by U.S. military officials here, by Iraqi government officials here.

Their analysis is that insurgents want to make attacks when they think -- there's the explosion again -- when they think it's going cause most impact on the media. And this seems to fit exactly what U.S. and officials and Iraqi government officials have been saying, that insurgents will plant their bombs where there are a lot of media cameras, where they can guarantee coverage. Because what they are trying to do is to frighten, intimidate and scare people here.

And this does seem to be what's happened here, about as close as an insurgent could get to where are multiple international broadcast cameras in this city, is where they've chosen to attack. The proximity of the pictures telling you just how close they were to those particular hotel -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: Nic, you were talking about the foreign correspondents in the Palestine hotel, in the Sheraton Hotel. Is this in the green zone? How easy would it have been for these three car bombs to penetrate in the area and got away with what looks like a very coordinated attack.

ROBERTSON: These two hotels are not inside the green zone. Indeed, they're across the river from the green zone. They do have some form of protection. Again, one of the pictures we were looking at there showed a wide shot of the roundabout. And around the roundabout, you could see sort of a grayish barrier. There seemed to be a hole in that barrier. You can see it there. There's a vehicle parked by a truck moving away. Smoke pulling out, smoke rising up from where that gap in the barrier was.

It appears that if one of the explosions has gone off along the -- or close to the concrete barrier that would separate the residents of Baghdad from the secure area around those two hotels. And what we're learning from police now, Veronica, is that they do confirm -- police in Baghdad now confirm that there are casualties associated with these three car bombs that have gone off. Numbers not yet clear -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: Nic, can you sum up the viewers who are just joining us, what exactly we know happened here and orient our viewers, exactly where this is. I understand that the Palestine Hotel is actually the viewpoint -- one of the viewpoints from which we saw that -- those famous pictures of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down when U.S. forces arrived in Baghdad.

ROBERTSON: Indeed. Just as the sun was setting this evening, there were three explosions, two small explosions and then one huge explosion, which could be -- the flash of which could be seen from about a mile and a half away. Police say that three car bombs have gone off in Baghdad, that there are casualties. These car bombs have gone off outside two hotels used by many journalists and many international workers here in the city. The car bombs themselves have gone of right on that roundabout, where back on the Ninth of April 2003, U.S. troops, along with Iraqis, pulled down that statue of Saddam Hussein, pulled it down live on television. The camera positions that have captured this explosion are exactly the same camera positions used to capture that moment when Saddam Hussein's statue came down, and this is exactly what U.S. military commanders and Iraqi government officials have been saying they expect to happen. They expect insurgents to try and use the media to make their a attacks not so much bigger, but just perpetrate, because of the coverage, perpetrate more fear and more worry in the citizens of Iraq -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: And the trigger points for, or at least according to these jihadist Web sites, the trigger points for these kind of attacks, they're focusing on the constitutional referendum, but also what's recently coming from Tal Afar. I remember a specific threat coming out of that.

ROBERTSON: It does seem that the insurgents, and we know that they are still able, quite able, to choose the time and place of attack of their choosing. Certainly in the buildup to the referendum, in the voting just over a week ago, the roads were closed around the country for the two days around the referendum. That prevented people getting out on to the roads and perhaps driving car bombs into place.

Since then the situation, the security situation, has relaxed down from that. It has been heightened. During the middle of last week, during the trial of Saddam Hussein, there was a lot of concern that there could be efforts to interrupt and to stop that trial by acts of terrorism around the city of Baghdad, but what we have seen here is the insurgents choosing the place to strike, choosing to do it in front of television cameras, and they're coming after a relative lull in attacks. Again, taken in isolation, this is a very big attack. It's clearly done what the insurgents intended to do so far, which is create a huge amount of media attention and focus on it.

Taken perhaps across the number of attacks over the last week or so, if you average the number out, the number is not as it was earlier in the year. Nevertheless, having said that, in the space of just one hour yesterday, there were three roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops inside Baghdad between 11:00 in the morning and 12:00 noon, there were three different attacks. Five U.S. soldiers wounded in those attacks. The attacks throughout the country continue on a daily basis, an hourly basis even, but this by far, the biggest, and a real spike in terms of the size of bombing that we've seen over recent days and indeed recent weeks -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: Nic, who's in charge of security around here? Is there any chance that the U.S. forces were in this area?

ROBERTSON: It's not impossible, because they move around the city. It's -- we don't have clear details of what happened. Quite often insurgents will target coalition, U.S. troops patrolling as they drive down the street, set off car bombs. What appears to have happened here is it seems to have been these particular hotels, and causing a spectacular attack on camera that seems to have been, perhaps the motivation behind this location and the particular timing of this attack, but this is something that the insurgents are able to do, this type of attack is something that they're able to do, in many areas of the country, both in the west and both north of Baghdad as well -- Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: Nice, let me just summarize with you. What we're getting is actually reported from the Associated Press, whose camera position this actually is. They're saying that this is two rockets and a car bomb, at the Palestine Hotel. They're saying at least one person injured, and there is considerable damage to the window. Apparently shattered windows and caused heavy damage to the south side of the nineteen-story building, and that forced journalists, including those from the Associated Press to take refuge in the corridor.

Of course you've been to the Palestine Hotel many, many times over the years. Nice, what do you imagine the scene to be like there?

ROBERTSON: Well, certainly from what we saw from the distance we witnessed the explosion, there's very likely to be a lot of dust in the air, there's likely to be a lot of smoke, there's likely to be a degree of confusion. Certainly it seems by the very fact that those -- that the journalists there, that the cameraman, was operating his camera when the third explosion went off. It would seem very much that the first two explosions drew their attention, drew the cameraman's attention to the windows, to turn on the cameras to see what was happening, and that's when the third very big explosion went off. It is very typical with this type of attack that in the first few minutes that the...

VERJEE: Three blasts have rocked an area near a hotel in Baghdad housing international journalists. We're going to get back to that story in a moment.

President Bush is speaking.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These men and women are showing extraordinary leadership for the American people -- and I want to thank you for your continued service.

Secretary Chertoff briefed me and briefed the Cabinet about Hurricane Wilma. I also discussed Wilma with FEMA Director Paulison, as well as the governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush.

I signed a major disaster declaration today. We have prepositioned food, medicine, communications equipment, urban search- and-rescue teams.

We will work closely with local and state authorities to respond to this hurricane.

I urge local citizens to listen to the local authorities about returning back to your homes.

BUSH: Those folks are on the ground. They know what they're talking about. And it's important that you pay attention to the messages coming out of people that are helping in Florida.

We all ask for God's blessings on those who are in harm's way.

And secondly, we discussed responses to Katrina and Rita. We have a duty in the federal government to work with state and local authorities to help citizens in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama and Texas. There's more help to be done.

And we need to do so in a fiscally sound way. We can meet our obligations if we set priorities. We can meet our obligations if we in Washington show the courage to not fund programs that aren't working.

I look forward to working with Congress to make sure that the taxpayers understand that we can balance compassion with fiscal sanity and fiscal responsibility.

So I want to, again, thank the members of the Cabinet.

I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you said several weeks ago that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is handling the CIA leak investigation in a very dignified way. Yet some of your Republican supporters have recently suggested he may be an overzealous prosecutor, obsessing over legal technicalities.

Have you revised your thinking on this issue?

BUSH: I also said -- this may be the fourth time I've been asked about this, which I appreciate; you're doing your job -- I'm not going to comment about it.

This is a very serious investigation. And I haven't changed my mind about whether or not I'm going to comment on it publicly.

Fine-looking shades you've got there.

QUESTION: Thanks, Mr. President.

(INAUDIBLE) style.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: Wait a minute. You don't need to be endorsing any products here in the Cabinet.

QUESTION: Mr. President, as a newspaper reported on Saturday, is the White House working on a contingency plan for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination?

BUSH: Harriet Miers is an extraordinary woman. She was a legal pioneer in Texas. She was ranked one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States on a consistent basis.

BUSH: I understand that people want to know more about her, and that's the way the process should work.

Recently, requests, however, have been made by Democrats and Republicans about paperwork out of this White House that would make it impossible for me and other presidents to be able to make sound decisions.

In other words, they've asked for paperwork about the decision- making process, what her recommendations were. And that would breach very important confidentially, and it's a red line I'm not willing to cross.

People can learn about Harriet Miers through hearings, but we are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office and say, "Mr. President, here's my advice to you. Here's what I think is important."

And that's not only important for this president, it's important for future presidents.

Harriet Miers is a fine person, and I expect her to have a good, fair hearing on Capitol Hill.

Thank you all for coming.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) Federal Reserve chairman?

BUSH: We'll make an announcement soon.

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