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Wilma's Wrath on Florida; White House On Edge; Wilma's Wrath on Ft. Lauderdale; Minding Your Business

Aired October 25, 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: Good morning. Miles O'Brien reporting live from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Take a look at the scene here. I'm on Third at Sixth, OK, and look at this debris that's just been dumped here. And what you'll see as you look very closely in here, there's all kinds of insulation and glass and blinds and pieces of buildings. And, look, do not enter sign just got totally up-ended there. Look, it got bent off. You can see how it just kind of got bent off there.

And take a look -- Jerry, follow me around the corner here. Take a look down this street here. This is Sixth. Look at all the glass here. Looks like there were about, you know, 20 automobile accident here. What it is, I'll tell you the source of it. If you look up to the right, that is the school administration building here. They call it the crystal palace. Sort of a little bit of a local controversy. It's an office building. Kind of a fancy office building that ultimately became the home of the school board. And now it's a crystal mess this morning as they try to clean this thing up. It's going to take quite some time. Documents relating to the school board and the school system all over this city as the west wind came through here when Wilma came through yesterday, blew out the windows and took all kinds of detretus (ph) with it, leaving quite a mess.

This city is pretty much on its knees this morning. Closed down. No power. Folks being told to boil their water here and that is a very similar story as Wilma, in many respects, caused much more damage on the east side of Florida as opposed to the west.

Zain.

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: Miles in Ft. Lauderdale, thank you so much. Really giving us a good sense there, Carol, of the situation there on the ground. I'm Zain Verjee in for Soledad O'Brien. And I don't know how she does it every morning. I don't know how do you it, Carol Costello.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We ply (ph) Soledad with coffee and, luckily, she has those four children, so she's up at all hours of the day and night.

VERJEE: I'm plying (ph) myself with a lot of tea, so (INAUDIBLE).

COSTELLO: Well, you know, I'll bring you out some of the really strong stuff later. VERJEE: OK.

COSTELLO: Nice to see you here.

Let's talk about Rosa Parks now. The woman credited with starting the civil rights movement has died. Rosa Parks died from natural causes on Monday. She died in her Detroit, Michigan, home. In 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. She was arrested. She was put in jail and it sparked a boycott of the city bus system and helped bring the Reverend Martin Luther King to prominence. Tributes to Miss Parks pouring in from across the country today. Rosa Parks dead at the age of 92.

Hurricane Wilma being blamed for at least six deaths in Florida. The storm's heavy winds and rains destroyed mobile homes and caused extensive roof damage across the state. Nearly six million people without power this morning. You heard Miles say that. Officials say it could be a month before all service is restored. And three major airports, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach remain closed until at least later today.

Ben Bernanke, Ben Bernanke, Ben Bernanke, get used to saying that name because you're going to hear a lot of that name in the future. He's getting a warm reception from Wall Street. Bernanke was nominated Monday to take over for the Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who retires officially in January. Bernanke has promised to follow Greenspan's lead, which put investors in a really good buying mood on Monday.

Indonesia confirming it's found two more human cases of the bird flu. And one of them, a 23-year-old man died after being hospitalized while a four-year-old boy who developed symptoms earlier this month has since recovered. Officials say it's likely both were exposed through infected poultry. Indonesia has had seven confirmed cases of Avian flu since 2003.

Of course, the start of flu season here in the United States. Not the Avian flu, none of that, just the common, everyday flu.

Are you going to get your flu shot?

VERJEE: Yes, I have to do that yet. I've slacked off.

What was the name again?

COSTELLO: What?

VERJEE: Ben Bernanke?

COSTELLO: Bernanke, Bernanke, Bernanke.

VERJEE: Yes. Carol, thank you.

COSTELLO: Sure.

VERJEE: Iraq now is just one part of what they're calling a perfect storm for the White House this week. There's also the possibility of charges in the CIA leak case and the shaky nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. David Gergen has advised two administrations. He is also an editor with "U.S. News and World Report" and he'll tell us something new. The magazine has picked America's best leaders. David Gergen joins us now from Washington.

David, good morning. It's good to see you.

DAVID GERGEN, HARVARD'S SCHOOL OF GOVT.: Good morning, Zain.

VERJEE: It's a pleasure to have you on the program.

GERGEN: Thank you.

VERJEE: First of all, the CIA leak investigation. There could be an indictment this week. What would be the implications for the White House?

GERGEN: Well, if indictments come, of course, those implications are quite dark for the White House. We still don't know. There's a major story in "The New York Times" today for the first time says that Vice President Cheney was in the chain of information. That he was the one that told Scooter Libby, his chief of staff, about Joe Wilson's wife at the CIA. There's nothing illegal about any of that.

But the question arises, was it an obstruction of justice for Scooter Libby to possibly tell the grand jury, no, I heard this from reporters, not from the vice president. We'll have to wait and see if the prosecutor believes that's an indictable offense. But if indictments come, it's going to -- this story will explode. And the country will turn its eyes to a criminal investigation not only of the Bush administration, first major criminal investigation of an administration that's been amazingly scandal-free.

But it will also amount to an indictment on how we got into the war itself and that could be dangerous at a very time, as you say, where we're sadly about to pass the 2,000 mark in fatalities in Iraq and the violence continues. Civil war. We may be on the front edges of civil war. And we've also got pressure escalating from conservatives on the president. Escalated dramatically yesterday with the opening of a website, a variety of grassroots conservative organizations now coming together to tell the president, please withdraw Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court.

VERJEE: What about what you just mentioned then, the U.S. death toll in Iraq? CNN's numbers actually confirm, according to our records, that it's actually reached 2,000. A big disaster this week also for the Bush administration and perhaps the public to would perceive it. What do you think?

GERGEN: Well, we'll see. There's a fuzziness about the counting, of course, so we're not -- no one's quite sure what the number is. But there are a number of organizations that are planning candlelight vigils. I think you're going to see the press focus in on this. The president himself wants to address Iraq here in the next day or two. So this is a -- this continued violence is a serious, serious problem. You know, on one hand, we got progress on the political front. But at the same time, the violence seems to only get -- only deepen and the divisions in Iraq deepen.

That's why, I must say, it does come back, if I may steer this conversation this way, it does come back to the question of leadership. And the president's leadership is now in question. The reason "U.S. News and World Report" has devoted the whole issue to the leadership question this week is that so many Americans -- we found in a survey that about two-thirds of Americans believe there's a leadership crisis in the country across the board. And about three- quarters believe that unless we improve the quality of our leadership, that America's headed for decline.

VERJEE: But let's talk about that leadership then.

GERGEN: Sure.

VERJEE: And, I mean, two of the people on there, for example, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates. How did you select them? What was some of the criteria you used and what qualities these people share?

GERGEN: Well, we assembled a group of about three dozen prominent Americans, the first time that's ever been done, to make those decisions. And we used a set of criteria that went to what kind of accomplishments has the leader had over the last five years? What kind of values does a leader represent? Or is this a person who is -- represents integrity and caring, compassion? What kind of team has this person built? How durable are these achievements?

And in the case of Bill and Melinda Gates, we saluted them, the groups saluted them really, independent of both, "U.S. News" and of "Harvard" where that the Center for Public Leadership, we organized the group. This independent, nonpartisan group said, listen, we're not selecting Bill Gates for his leadership of Microsoft. Everybody's known for a long time he's been very successful at that. But how he and Melinda Gates have come together to build a foundation that is focusing on improving education here at home and improving the quality of health around the world. And they have done a marvelous job of focusing and bringing real change. They're just not doling out dollars, these people who are in the foundation are trying to figure out, what are the root causes of bad educational performance in the United States and how can we get at them.

VERJEE: OK. All right, David Gergen, editor at large for "U.S. News and World Report," thank you so much for joining us.

GERGEN: Zain, thank you very much.

VERJEE: Appreciate it.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Zain, take a look at this scene right here on Third in Ft. Lauderdale -- downtown Ft. Lauderdale. This is one case where you sort of don't need the newspapers to tell the story, just the news boxes to tell the story. At 10:30 yesterday morning, when the wind started coming through here, a category two strength Wilma came through, it hit in just the right way to cause a lot of damage down here, break a lot of windows out and put this city in a difficult situation, lack of power, lack of water. Let's talk about what happened to Wilma and how Wilma affected Florida before that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, (voice over): Conditions starting going downhill late Sunday evening, beginning in the Keys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a serious situation. It's one of the reasons we're out here.

MILES O'BRIEN: And it would only get worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What may be an issue is standing here. I weigh about 170 pounds. It's not so easy right now. If think if you weighed any less, you might be flying down the street.

MILES O'BRIEN: From the Keys to the peninsula, the battering went on and on. Around 6:30 in the morning, the center of the storm made landfall near Marco Island on Florida's west coast.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is probably the worst that we have seen, really even in the last minute or so. This is really bad. I think this is the worst it's been.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, definitely, this is the worst it's been. We were just saying that this sand will just peel the skin off you it's blowing so hard.

MILES O'BRIEN: In Naples, about 25 miles north, winds exceeded 125 miles an hour and six inches of rain fell in a matter of hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at all this water. This down here was driveways and roadways and now it is a river. For a while out here, it looked like Moses parting the Red Sea. There was just a wall of water.

MILES O'BRIEN: As it comes in, I just keep seeing the Gulf of Mexico rising and rising.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is downtown Naples and you can see this is a strip mall and how far the water has come here.

MILES O'BRIEN: From west to east, Wilma whipped across Florida. In Hollywood, cars levitated courtesy of powerful winds. A crane was also toppled.

ROBERT GLASS, HOLLYWOOD RESIDENT: I just was eerie and neighbors were like, oh my God, look, and it was just spinning and spinning and spinning. And it spun too much.

MILES O'BRIEN: In Miami, Wilma could prove to be the most devastating storm since Andrew in 1992. CARL BENZ, MIAMI RESIDENT: And we were watching all the devastation here. You see this. We're watching docks ripped out. We're watching boats sinking. This is our community, our friends and we've lost it all. It's all gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: Now that we've had first light this morning, another opportunity to get a look and assess the damage. Helicopters in the air right now. Our affiliate WPLG and WSEN giving us a sense of what's going on in Eastern Florida, Southeastern Florida. Roofs off, lots of damage to the sand and the dunes and the beaches and that assessment still growing. It could be $8 billion, $9 billion, $10 billion worth of damage.

I want to take a -- look at this one thing here. We're in this courthouse facility in downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Take a look at what shatter-proof glass does. And I want -- I want to point out one thing. Have you seen this stuff? This is the hurricane film. You've heard about it before. People down here put this stuff on to do just what you're seeing right now. This glass shattered like that and then stayed mostly attached to that film.

I don't think anybody's going to be having a conference inside that room there. Jerry, take a look at that in there. As you can see, downtown Ft. Lauderdale is definitely got a way to go before they'll be back to business.

Jacqui Jeras, you know, I'll tell you, it's amazing how, first of all, some buildings did so well and then some, just out of the blue, an entire sheet of windows can be down. I don't know whether that's a function of the wind and a wind tunnel effect or just the way those buildings were designed.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Probably a little bit of both, actually, Miles, too. And the other thing, you know, you see those high-rise buildings with all those windows blown out and we talk about that vertical evacuation to escape the storm surge. But when you go up, say 10 stories or so, you can just go ahead and add another category of intensity on to the storm and that's why we're seeing all those windows blown out. You've got to be in an interior room when the storm is coming on through if you haven't evacuated.

Wilma still packing a punch at this hour. It's a category three storm still, 115 miles per hour winds but way away from the coast line. Some of the moisture is getting caught up with the storm system into the nation's northeastern section and that's just going to add to the heavy rainfall that we're expecting. But the two systems not expected to merge and become that perfect storm scenario that happened with Hurricane Grace (ph) about 14 years ago.

Heavy rain all across the northeast at this time. We also have some snow coming down. A little bit of a mix in the Pittsburgh area. Boston very gusty winds, up to 55 miles per hour. High wind warning in effect there today.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Jacqui Jeras.

Jacqui, by the way, it's rather chilly here this morning. I'm wearing this fleece top. It's amazing what a cold front will do on the backside of a hurricane. I don't think I ever remember it being this chilly after a hurricane.

JERAS: Yes, unseasonably cool. The cold front came through, in addition to the hurricane, Miles, and you'll be lucky to hit the 70 this afternoon.

MILES O'BRIEN: Jacqui Jeras, thank you very much.

We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk to that man right there. He just finished a news conference. The mayor of Ft. Lauderdale will be our guest. We'll ask him how long it will take to clean things up and get things back to normal here. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Welcome back to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It's quite a scene here this morning. And I've got to say, I think it took us all a little bit by surprise. We thought that Wilma was going to weaken as it went across the Florida peninsula. But it's amazing what, you know, a few degrees one way or another can make a huge difference. And one of the keys is that it went across the Everglades.

Now here's where I am just to give you a sense of where we are on the planet as we use our Google map technology to zoom in on the school administration building here for Broward County. One of half dozen or so high-rises really hard-hit as those category two winds, upwards of 110 miles an hour, came through Ft. Lauderdale and literally, if you think about it, it is the blind side. Because when you think about a hurricane on this side, on the east coast, you would think the east side would be the one to be protected because that's generally where the storms come from. This came from the backside and caught a lot of people by surprise.

I'm joined now by the mayor, Jim Naugle.

Mr. Mayor, you were out in the S.W.A.T. vehicle, an armored vehicle, in the midst of all of this. What was that like?

MAYOR JIM NAUGLE, FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA: Well, we went out when the wind stopped coming from the south. We went out in the S.W.A.T. vehicle. And after the eye came through and that eye wall from the west side started coming into the city, it was unbelievable. Roofs were ripping off. And we were over on Broward Boulevard and I think the wind power was much stronger. And if you look at the buildings like this one, this is the west side of the building where all the glass is gone. And certainly it was hit the worst.

MILES O'BRIEN: You know, you said, and as you look at that building, and, gee, I don't know if you can actually make it out. You can see the blinds just hanging down there. As the wind through and exposed all the things that were left on everybody's desk and the blinds and the curtains, it went all over the city, didn't it?

NAUGLE: I live five blocks east of here and I had memos from the school board in my front lawn. So, yes, the contents of the building were just emptied out into the street.

MILES O'BRIEN: I suspect there are probably some intrepid reporters out there looking for a scoop right now this morning. Mr. Mayor, tell us about -- give us a situation right now. Most everybody's without power. Don't drink the water. Give us a sense of how long it might take to get that all back.

NAUGLE: Well, I'm so impressed with our residents in Ft. Lauderdale. We've trained 350 of our residents in a program called CERTs, Citizens Emergency Response Team. It's done by the fire department. And yesterday, right after the storm, people started clearing the streets of debris where there wasn't power lines and that's going to help us resume garbage collection this morning. The power's out in the entire city and people are having to throw away a lot of food. You don't want rotting garbage. So those citizen efforts are helping us.

We're getting water back up this morning. There's low pressure right now and we'll get the pressure up later on in the day so that people can take cold showers again. The power is going to be the toughest thing, restoring power. And the utility company is out there.

You can see here, there's many intersections that are guarded. The last storm we had, it was a matter of powering the intersections so that the lights could work. Well, this time, there are no lights. The lights are all blown away. So it's going to take a long time. We're going to start with a major intersections first and then the minor intersections. So we're asking people not to drive at night. The roads are very unsafe. We have a curfew from 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. until further notice. And try to stay off the streets and limit travel to a necessary trip.

MILES O'BRIEN: Have you gotten the level of support you need, state and federal?

NAUGLE: Absolutely. The state government -- we were on the phone with the White House during the storm and the state government has been very responsive. We've heard from our congressman. They're delivering pods throughout the county today and those pods contain water and ice and MREs. We're going to have a lot of -- the need for a lot of those blue tarps for people that have roof damage.

The residents in condominiums, if you have an elderly resident in a condominium and the elevator isn't working, it could be life- threatening. So the power restoration is our biggest concern as we get water and other services up in the city.

MILES O'BRIEN: Right. And you're doing your best to take care of those elderly folks who might be trapped on higher floors right now?

NAUGLE: That's right. And we're asking, you know, everyone in the neighborhood, if you're in a single family neighborhood, find out, you know, you know who in the neighborhood needs extra help. Maybe, you know, you can invite them into your home and look after them and similarly, in the condominium, residents pretty much know who needs additional assistance. So we're asking people to help your neighbor.

MILES O'BRIEN: Mayor Jim Naugle, city of Ft. Lauderdale, good luck coming back. You've got a long road ahead but you're making the right steps this morning.

And I'm actually impressed with people's ability to get through uncontrolled intersections.

NAUGLE: We're going to rebuild the city. It's still a tropical paradise and we're going to get things straightened up. It may take a couple of months but we'll be back on track and Ft. Lauderdale will be better than ever.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Jim Naugle.

And we're back with more in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VERJEE: It's been weeks since Katrina and Rita smashed through the Gulf Coast and some small businesses are getting really desperate for help. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." He never minds his own business. He's "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm minding both. I'm minding everyone's business, Zain.

Let's talk about this a little bit because the Small Business Administration is at it again, or should I say is not at it again. Over the past couple of weeks we've been telling you what a terrible time individuals and businesses have had trying to get aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Now a new story by the Associated Press says the same is now true for victims of Hurricane Rita. Thousands of people trying to get help from the federal government. Look here, 9,500 applications filed. Only six loans approved. When did Hurricane Rita hit? September 24th. That was 31 days ago. And they say that the average wait should be seven to 21 days. They have far exceeded that.

VERJEE: Only six?

SERWER: Yes.

VERJEE: That's amazing. And, you know, they're blaming it on faulty computer systems, right?

SERWER: It's always the computer's fault. I mean they're saying that it's the compute's fault. A rejection rate of 95 percent for Katrina victims, 70 percent for Rita victims. That's much, much higher than normal. They're saying, well, there are a lot of low income people involved. Those are the people who need help.

The other point is, is the paper work is so onerous and people don't have the paper work. They don't have their tax returns, so it's very difficult. The government, again, needs to step up here and they're not doing it.

VERJEE: Andy Serwer, thank you.

SERWER: You're welcome.

VERJEE: In a moment, we'll bring your our top stories, including more on the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma after it slammed into South Florida. Stay with us. This is AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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