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CNN Sunday Morning
Ariel Sharon Surgery; Another Alabama Church Fire; East Coast Under the Weather; Hussein Trial Problems
Aired February 12, 2006 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, what a morning. Winter weather grips the Northeast this morning as a massive storm prompts snow warnings from Kentucky to New England. Some may see up to a foot of snow in what the National Weather Service is calling a major snowstorm.
Airlines are canceling a number of flights in and out of the Northeast. The snarled air traffic in the Northeast is having a domino effect on other airports. This was the scene late last night in south Florida as would-be travelers found their flights weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
We will bring you the latest in a series of live weather reports just ahead.
Investigators are looking into a 10th Alabama church hit by fire just this month. The latest fire happened yesterday in northwest Alabama. Authorities are calling it suspicious. Nine other churches in rural areas of the state have also been burned.
Coming up, we will talk to a minister from one of the burned churches to see how his congregation is coping on this Sunday morning.
A British military investigation is under way after this videotape shot in 2004 has surfaced from southern Iraq. The tapes shows up to eight British soldiers beating three Iraqis. British military officials say the images are extremely disturbing. A London- based newspaper released the amateur video.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in critical but stable condition this morning. Surgeons removed nearly two feet of his large intestine during a four-hour emergency procedure yesterday. Sharon's doctors say his key problem is lack of consciousness. The 77-year-old has been comatose since a January 4 stroke.
Saying she has no regrets, American figure skater Michelle Kwan's quest for Olympic gold is over. Just hours ago Kwan withdrew after aggravating a groin injury in practice. The U.S. Olympic Committee is requesting Emily Hughes replace Kwan. Hughes finished third at last month's national championships and she is the sister of gold medallist Sarah Hughes.
But it is Olympic gold for former in-line skater Chad Hedrick. He blew away the field in the 5,000-meter speedskating race. Afterwards, Hedric said, "I didn't come here to win just one gold medal."
That's the spirit.
And 76 hours, 45 minutes later, Steve Fossett breaks the world nonstop flight distance record. Low on fuel and battered by turbulence, the American millionaire made an emergency landing on the English coast. Fossett flew nonstop 26,389 miles.
HARRIS: OK. Much to get to.
From the CNN Center, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. February 12 -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Cold February 12.
HARRIS: Yes.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Tony Harris.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen.
We thank you for joining us.
It is 7:00 a.m. here in Atlanta and New York, 6:00 a.m. in Beaverton, Alabama. We'll be talking about the church fires there.
We appreciate you joining us this morning. We've got a lot to tell you about.
Coming up, another rural Alabama church goes up in flames. It is the 10th church to burn in the past nine days. But why?
Morning Star Baptist was one of the targets. Their pastor, termined to rebuild, he joins us live to talk about it.
Also, days of protest, fires and violence drawn from cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Next hour, in our "Faces of Faith," does Islam condone this behavior? An Islamic scholar sheds some light on that.
And love is in the air.
HARRIS: Sure.
NGUYEN: Or is it? Just in time for Valentine's Day, why are people waiting longer to tie the knot? And what are the signs that a marriage will go sour? You don't want to miss it. The state of love in America, that's coming up at 9:00 Eastern.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN, your severe weather headquarters.
HARRIS: Well, millions of you might get a nasty surprise if you head out the door today.
NGUYEN: Oh yes.
HARRIS: There's bad weather -- you think -- In a big chunk of the nation.
NGUYEN: A big chunk. From Kentucky to New York, winter storm warnings, even blizzard warnings are out. CNN is your severe weather headquarters, of course, and we do have crews along the East Coast this morning.
In Washington, we have Gary Nurenberg, freezing it out there in the capital city.
HARRIS: Wow.
NGUYEN: Chris Huntington is in New York, where the snow is falling there as well.
And Chief National Correspondent John King is braving the winds off the cape of Massachusetts.
HARRIS: Oh, man!
NGUYEN: Look at that!
Plus, our severe weather team is in the weather center, of course. And we start with meteorologist Bonnie Schneider.
Boy, Bonnie, you've got a lot on your hands today.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Betty.
We still have very heavy snow across New York City and, of course, to Boston as well. Blizzard warnings are in effect. For New York City, you're looking at it until about 4:00 today, and then for Boston, until 7:00 p.m.
That means really awful travel conditions. A good idea to stay inside until the storm moves away.
The winds are absolutely fierce. Atlantic City sustained winds 34 miles per hour. Gusts are higher than that. And as we work our way through the afternoon, we're expecting those wind gusts where John King is in Chatham, Massachusetts, to climb all the way to near 50 or 60 miles per hour.
So we are looking at very strong winds. Blizzard conditions, meaning blowing snow for at least three hours. And, of course, temperatures right now are only in the 20s.
All this snow is still blowing about, and it's still falling. But we can show you some of the latest accumulations that we have so far.
In the Bronx, in New York City, on the Pelham Parkway, 8 inches of snow. Hicksville, in Nassau County, 6.3 inches. At JFK airport, about 5 inches. The snow is still falling there.
Up toward southern Connecticut, we're looking at 4.5 inches for Darien. But New London, only an inch and a half. Don't think that's the way it's going to shape up. We're expecting a lot more snow for New London and up towards Massachusetts.
And with this powerful storm, one of the things we're noting right now are frequent lightning strikes. It's called thunder snow.
And joining me now is CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers to talk about that -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Hi, Bonnie.
Pretty rare for that to happen, but there's enough snowfall. The rates are so fast that we can get thunder snow.
Now, typically, we show you the snow in white. But I want to change colors back to a real radar perspective because it's hard to tell where the real heavy snow is. White is white is white.
But here I've turned it back into green. And you notice that from Hartford to Danbury, back in to New Jersey, Ridgewood here, picking up some of the heaviest green here, some of the convection of the storm.
We'll come back over to this machine here and I'll slide you down this convective band from New York, right through New Jersey, Ridgewood, Paramus, right on down in to Levittown and even into Philadelphia itself. Many of these areas are going to pick up in the neighborhood of three to four inches of snow in just a couple of hours. This band of green right through Philadelphia right now.
Now, I'm going to slide you over to another machine where it should be full of airplanes. This is our tracker of all the airplanes in the sky. We'll turn on the radar so you can see it. Turn it on, turn it off, so you can see where it is.
The snow from Boston, right on down through Newark and LaGuardia, this area should be full of airplanes. In fact, there are just two in there right now, one JetBlue plane and that's about it. That one right there is landing.
This area through here not closed down for airports yet, but so many airports, so many planes are canceled this morning that we don't have airports really moving at all until this heavy, heavy snow stops. And that will be quite a few hours.
Back to you guys.
NGUYEN: Goodness. That is quite a sight to see. And we're going to stay on top of it all morning long.
Thank you Chad and Bonnie.
Snow, cold, and wind, those are the key words for New Yorkers this morning as they hunker down for this storm.
Chris Huntington is braving the elements. He joins us now from New York, where there is fear that high winds could take down some power lines -- Chris. CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Betty, as we like to say in New York in the summer, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. This time of year, of course, the concern is the wind. Any effort to remove snow is almost in vain because the wind's just going to blow it right back out there.
You mentioned power lines. Thankfully, in the city, at least, power liens are not so much of an issue, because, of course, the power is mostly underground. But around the greater metro New York area, you're going to have wind problems that are going to be vexing throughout the day. And, of course, as Chad's been telling you, the snowfall is expected to remain heavy through the middle of the day.
Chad was talking about the flying situation around here. Not happening. I think we can show you some pictures of LaGuardia airport, which, as many of you probably know, is right on the shore of Long Island Sound. So you sort of get the additional problem of probably additional humidity and certainly more wind right there. LaGuardia is going to have a tough time clearing its runways for quite some time.
We're here in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. It's an absolutely gorgeous park. In fact, designed by the same team that designed Central Park in New York. I would say there's about eight to 10 inches in areas where it hasn't been blown away or blown -- blown to greater depths.
Back to you, Betty.
NGUYEN: Looking at some pictures right now, Chris, of trucks out on the roadways. It looks like they may be sanding or salting crews.
Are you seeing many people out and about? Or are they pretty taking the warning to heart and staying inside, out of the white stuff?
HUNTINGTON: You know, it's still early in the morning. We've seen folks here in the park with their dogs. I think that Sunday you're going to see people out and about.
NGUYEN: Well, it's a beautiful sight. And you definitely want to take advantage of it. Hopefully you don't have to work today like we do.
But stay warm, Chris. We'll be talking to you soon.
HARRIS: I tell you what, Deidre (ph), put John King's shot up so everyone can see this. Look at John King's shot.
John King.
Hey, John, good morning to you.
Our Chief National Correspondent John King is in Massachusetts. And he -- we've been watching his shot in one of our monitors. John, you have been getting buffetted by this heavy wind that's in your area. And I understand the National Weather Service is advising folks to just sort of ride this thing out at home.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a beautiful spring day here in New England, Tony.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: This is -- we're here on Cape Cod. As Bonnie noted at the top of the show, the winds are already gusting in the 40s. The gusts -- they say the gusts could go as high in the 60s. That's the main worry here right now, is these heavy winds along the coastal areas.
There is a blizzard warning, pretty obvious, in effect here. Also, a coastal flooding warning in effect.
High tide is about three and a half hours from now. That's one of the concerns. As you look out, it's a little windy here.
The shores -- it's actually pretty right now. There's not much accumulation on the shore. But as you come more inland, the snow is beginning to accumulate a couple of inches so far. It's these drifts people are worried about.
And if you look up, you see the wind conditions. We have the warning flags right here at the Chatham Light. And if you're familiar with Cape Cod -- most people come here in the summertime -- we can show you the Chatham Light. It's quite a beautiful scene, but the winds are swirling and gusting.
The road conditions are pretty good right now. This is a summer resort, obviously, but there's a pretty hearty local community here. The Chatham Village Cafe was open at 6:00 a.m., as normal on a Sunday morning. But they're worried about later in the day.
They're worried about as much as 18 inches of snow, and the winds are going to cause some problems here, especially the snow drifts. We're already seeing that.
HARRIS: Oh, that is insane! As much as 18 inches of snow is in the forecast.
All right. John King, if you can, try to get somewhere safe and warm. And we'll talk to you -- put a hat on.
NGUYEN: Yes, put a hat on, John. You look cold.
HARRIS: All right, John. We appreciate it.
KING: Come on out.
HARRIS: Come on out.
KING: Come on out and play. NGUYEN: Yes, let's play. Sure.
HARRIS: The weather is fine, yes.
Since this severe weather affects so many of you, we want to see what you're seeing. If you would, send us your winter weather pictures. Here's the address: weekends@cnn.com, and we'll be showing some of those photos throughout the morning.
Also, meteorologist Bonnie Schneider has your cold and flu forecast in just a couple of minutes. And you can rely on CNN to bring you severe weather coverage with live reports throughout the day.
Wow.
NGUYEN: Yes, including Gary Nurenberg, who is in Washington. We'll try get to him in a little bit.
This morning, though, there is other news to tell you about.
In Alabama, a congregation is trying to figure out how and where to worship. Ten churches -- count them, 10 -- in rural areas of Alabama have now been hit by fire in the past nine days. Five have been found to be arson. Four are suspected arson cases.
Now, yesterday's fire at Free Will Baptist is suspicious, so what do you do when your church burns down? The Reverend James Posey from Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church is trying to answer that question, and the pastor joins us now to talk about that.
Pastor, are you with us?
JAMES POSEY, PASTOR: Yes.
NGUYEN: Great. We appreciate your time this morning.
We're looking at video of people sifting through what's left of their church homes. And I have to ask you, how is your congregation doing after all of this?
POSEY: Oh, they're doing pretty good. I've had prayer with them the other night -- well, really the night after the fire, and told them to be strong and to keep faith in god.
NGUYEN: Yes, it really can strengthen one's faith. How bad is the damage?
POSEY: It's totaled. There's nothing left. I think we saved a table and a chair.
NGUYEN: Oh, my.
So what do you do today? It's Sunday. Obviously you want to have worship. You want to come together, talk about what's happened and where you go from here and how faith is going to carry you through.
Where are you having service today?
POSEY: At -- I have another church, Cedar Grove in Knoxville, Alabama, and we will join with them.
NGUYEN: It sounds like the church community is reaching out. Looking at the numbers, though -- and as you just heard, another fire overnight -- that makes 10 fires over the past week, just nine days. Five African-American churches, five white churches.
What do you make of all of this?
POSEY: It's sickening. Anybody that would inflict harm and damage on the house of god is a -- well, first of all, he's an unsaved individual, and he is a person that does not know god, because god is love. He's not hate. He doesn't have anything else to do with his time, and I could go on and on and on.
NGUYEN: Well, do you feel like this is an attack on religion, or is it a hate crime?
POSEY: Oh, it could be a mixture of both. It could be a hate monger or hate mongers. He could be someone who has a hate for organized religion. It could be satanic believers. It could be coming from a mixture of possibilities.
NGUYEN: Bottom line, I know the church community, as well as law enforcement, want to find the individual or individuals responsible for these church fires, if indeed they are connected. Even if they're not, they want to find those responsible.
Reverend James Posey we appreciate your time today. Thank you for spending a little bit of it with us. I know you've got a big day ahead of you.
POSEY: Thank you.
HARRIS: Well, the U.S. gets its first gold medal, but a potential medal winner bids farewell to the winter games. We give you -- actually gave you a hint of this yesterday during "CNN SATURDAY MORNING."
Ooh, a live picture of Torino. It looks wonderful.
NGUYEN: That's a pretty sight.
HARRIS: Can we transplant that for the East Coast?
NGUYEN: Where there's no snow?
HARRIS: Oh, man. We travel -- although you need snow for the winter games, don't you?
NGUYEN: Yes.
HARRIS: We travel to...
NGUYEN: I think the East Coast -- they should just flip it.
HARRIS: Yes. Yes.
Straight to Torino next for a live update on the Olympics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Well, Michelle Kwan's quest for gold is over. The veteran U.S. figure skater has dropped out of the winter Olympics.
CNN Sports' Larry Smith is live in Torino, Italy, and he has the latest for us.
Larry, good morning.
LARRY SMITH, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony.
Michelle Kwan, no question, will go down as one of the greatest figure skaters of all time. However, that one glaring omission on her resume, no Olympic gold medal. As you mentioned, she withdraws from the games today.
Now, Kwan cut her practice short on Saturday after suffering a groin injury. Now, this was a different groin injury than the one that kept her out of the U.S. nationals competition last month. And in fact, after that, she needed to perform in a private workout for the figure skating committee, who then decided to give her a medical exemption to allow her to be on the team.
Kwan today said as soon as she suffered the injury she knew she would be out. And so now she will probably go away from the sport without having any Olympic gold medal. She did everything else, five time world champion, nine time U.S. champion.
Now, with Michelle Kwan out of these Olympics, Bode Miller is arguably the most recognizable name on this U.S. team here in Torino. He is a men's downhill skier. And if you have not heard of him, well, chances are you will very soon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH (voice over): There used to be two Bode Millers. There was the one who dominated both the European ski racing and party (ph) surfing and the one who would only be recognized in the U.S. in his native New Hampshire wearing two Olympic silver medals around his neck.
BODE MILLER, OLYMPIC SKIER: I almost can't go out over there anymore simply because everybody wants an autograph or a picture. And that really ruins a night out on the town when you can't go and do anything. Here, nobody knows who I am. They don't treat me any different than anybody else.
SMITH: That may soon change, if it hasn't already since a controversial "60 Minutes" interview where Miller admitted to sometimes being badly hung over while skiing. He apologized for those remarks, just the latest in a line of non-conformist declarations, including calling for athletes to be allowed to use performance- enhancing drugs.
MILLER: Not at any point in my life have I ever advocated legalizing steroids. And I don't even take vitamins or any medicine for headaches or anything like that. But my point is essentially that the system is really busted up right now. It's just not an effective system.
SMITH: Miller seems to charge at most controversial topics the way he attacks a downhill run, hard and fast.
MILLER: There's drugs like alcohol and cigarettes that one of them kills you outright and they have to put a label on the box. And the other one is, you know, the cause of most of the car crashes and, you know, birth defects and, you know, all kinds of horrible consequences, and the government just taxes those and ships them out to everybody as hard as they can.
SMITH: Those are not the kinds of statements usually coming from a Olympic athletes, but Miller is not the typical Olympian. Besides being the first American to win the overall World Cup skiing title in 22 years, he has his own television show following him around Europe. Ironic since he grew up in a home with no television or electricity, or plumbing for that matter.
And the biggest surprise is he may be the only Olympian who isn't sure he wants to win.
MILLER: The U.S. makes -- it's all about winning, it's all about the trophy, it's all about the championship or the ring or the yellow jersey. But the moment you win it, it's all gone. And that's a tiny moment in time, where as the process leading up to that is years and years and years.
SMITH: When criticized for his occasional all-or-nothing runs, Miller counters that he excels at risk management on the slopes.
MILLER: It's a tactical battle every turn. It's constantly a decision-making process about how much to slow down. If you just went all out all the time, you would just detonate every run, I think.
SMITH: Maybe that's why there needs to be two Bode Millers, so there's always one left whenever the other one detonates.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: Well, the men's downhill was just completed a couple of minutes ago. Frances Antoine Denaria (ph) getting the gold. Bode Miller finished fifth, and his teammate, Darren Rahlves, 10th in this competition. So we'll see if they can get medals later on as the games continue here in Torino.
Tony, let's go back to you. HARRIS: All right, Larry. That's disappointing, no gold medal for Bode in the downhill. OK.
Larry Smith reporting from Torino, Italy, for us.
Betty, back to you.
NGUYEN: All right.
Well, good morning to those of you along the Eastern Seaboard. You are waking up to very cold temperatures and snow, lots of it.
Stay tuned to CNN, your severe weather headquarter, as we track the warnings and watches to keep you safe this weekend. And don't forget to send your snow pictures to weekends@cnn.com.
We'll be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Perhaps the saving grace of all of this is that it's happening on a Sunday.
NGUYEN: Right.
HARRIS: OK? Because, look, we're looking at power outages.
What did I say?
NGUYEN: Well, no, I was just laughing at the fact that we haven't even begun to talk about the Monday morning commute.
HARRIS: Yes. Yes. Yes.
NGUYEN: I mean, this is causing major problems today.
SCHNEIDER: Absolutely.
NGUYEN: Travelers trying to get, you know, here and there.
HARRIS: right.
NGUYEN: And weather delays. Lightning strikes you've been picking up?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, there's lightning associated to such a powerful storm. It's unusual to see lightning or thunder snow in a winter storm...
NGUYEN: Right.
HARRIS: Yes, thunder snow.
SCHNEIDER: ... but we're seeing that because this is an intense Nor'easter. And you can see it on the radar picture now as the snow spreads all the way to the north, up towards Maine at this hour. We're getting still plenty of heavy snow and snowfall rates of one to two inches per hour, and it has been snowing since yesterday. That's why we're seeing such substantial accumulations even at this hour.
Note the winds are fierce and the snow is blowing, so we're likely to see these snowfall amounts kind of fluctuate throughout the day today.
Well, this is a Nor'easter. And you're probably wondering, what is a Nor'easter?
It's a strong low pressure system that affects the Mid Atlantic and New England states. And there's a reason why it's called Nor'easter.
It gets its name from the steady, strong northeasterly winds blowing in from the ocean. That's exactly what we're seeing right now with this powerful storm that is just bringing snow and strong wind from Long Island down through New Jersey.
We've had winds reported to 40 miles per hour. That's just the beginning. This storm will intensify and strengthen and bring even more strong wind to the New England area.
There's a blizzard warning in effect for Boston until 7:00 tonight. That means the worst is not over yet.
In New York City, the blizzard warning goes until 4:00 today.
Looking at temperatures, cold enough for this to be all snow. No more rain, no more warm weather, at least not for today. We're looking at very frigid conditions.
Here's a look at those snowfall totals I was mentioning.
This is still kind of being tallied up right now, but for now we have at least 8 inches of snow in to New York City and the Bronx on the Pelham Parkway, and Nassau County about 6.3. JFK airport reporting 5 inches.
And incidentally, in York County, in Pennsylvania, we're looking at even more snow. We have had reports of up to 18 inches of snow there.
So that's kind of when the snow is kind of wrapping up. You can just imagine what's ahead for the rest of the day today and into tonight -- Betty, Tony.
NGUYEN: It's serious when you say 18, 18, 1-8 inches of snow.
HARRIS: Yes. Yes.
NGUYEN: My goodness.
OK. We're going to stay on top of it all morning long. You'll want to stay here for your severe weather forecast.
HARRIS: And CNN SUNDAY MORNING returns in just a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR, CNN SUNDAY MORNING: Take a look at these pictures, the upper left Boston, then you've got Washington and Philly in the middle of the screen at the bottom. Millions of you are waking up to this, what you see right there, yep, lots of white snow.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR, CNN SUNDAY MORNING:
NGUYEN: That's what I'm told. Snow can be seen all the way though and we're talking about Philly but snow can be seen all the way from Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, to New Jersey and Massachusetts. I mean, the eastern sea -- there's somebody in Philly. Yeah. Was that a taped shot?
HARRIS: From earlier. Wait a minute, sun's up everywhere else and it's dark in Philly?
NGUYEN: All right. We're talking severe weather nonetheless this morning and what you should expect before you venture outside into all of that snow. Chad Myers and Bonnie Schneider are in our weather center and they've been covering this all morning long following the white stuff. Bonnie, is this causing a huge mess for travelers? I can imagine that it is.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. We are definitely looking at some major delays certainly in travel for today and most of the flights have already been canceled. You're looking at snowfall totals right now and as you can see already quite a bit of snow on the ground and we're expecting a lot more. Chad Myers is going to have that in just a moment. We're just kind of tallying in these new reports because they're coming in between 7:00 and 7:30 and we're going to give you those in just a moment.
Now let's take a look at the radar now to show you the bigger picture. What you'll find is, this storm is really getting cranking. It's already producing some very strong winds and heavy downpours of snow only because temperatures are just too cold for anything else. So as we take a look at this nor'easter, we've got the winds wrapping around coming in from the northeast and most of these winds are pretty strong, strong enough to produce gusts as high as 40 miles per hour. So this is a powerful storm, unfortunately that we're not said and done with. We're looking at a blizzard warning continuing for New York City until 4:00 today and for Boston, we'll look for the blizzard warning to continue until 7:00 later this evening. That means we will see a blinding situation with visibility less than a quarter of a mile. We're already getting reports of that in many of the locations across New England and down through New Jersey as well, so this is the day to stay inside and not do any traveling.
Severe weather expert Chad Myers joins me now. And Chad, we've just been getting these incredible numbers of snowfall totals.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: 7:00 is always the time that all the weather service employees, all of the co-op observers go up and tally up what they've had overnight. Wayne, New Jersey now 15 inches, Ridgewood, New Jersey, 13.7. One of the bigger numbers though from south of there where it has been snowing all night, from Columbia, Maryland 21.3, even Towson at 13, BWI shoveling out 11.2 and still snowing.
A lot of very heavy snow is right here from Philadelphia on up toward Trenton and Levittown, even back up even into New York City and into New Jersey. We have what's called the deformation zone going on, the heaviest snow, I'll slide this whole map up for you here, the whole area here just to the west of the city right through from White Plains through Yonkers, down into Ridgewood and Wayne, down to Paramus and all the way down to the Amboys, that's where the heaviest snow is coming in right now. Islip, 8.4, Central Park, Central Park itself now, 11.8 inches, La Guardia at 7.2, even Rockaway at 6 inches. That's a little closer to the water so probably got a little bit of mixing going on there, Hastings on the Hudson at 9.5.
We get you back up into West Virginia, even Hedgesville at 11 inches there. Harper's Ferry at 10.5, so you are not alone. If you're going out to shovel this is very heavy snow, plus you also want to wait for the wind to die down anyway. What you're going to be shoveling is going to be blowing back in. Some of these wind gusts now making snow drifts two to three feet deep around Millersville and Lancaster, into York, Pennsylvania. Tony?
HARRIS: Wow, wow, so Chad, I'm from Baltimore. So you're talking 10 plus inches in parts of Towson and Baltimore itself probably.
MYERS: Timonium, right downtown, absolutely, yeah, 11 to 12 inches and this is heavy snow. This is very high water content snow, too. So the back-breaking kind of snow we always used to get about $1 an inch to shovel the entire driveway. Kids will be making some money today I hope.
HARRIS: And hat's the kind of snow that sits on the power lines and can snap those off, right.
MYERS: Right. The good news is at least all of the leaves are gone. This could have happened months ago when there were still some leaves on the trees bringing down more branches but that doesn't seem to be happening yet, but the winds are still picking up.
HARRIS: What an event this is, all right, Chad, thank you.
Let's head now to the mid-Atlantic where people are bracing for the first big storm of the season. CNN's Gary Nurenberg is in Washington where as much as we just heard from Chad as a foot of snow could fall today. Gary?
GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony. They say somewhere between five inches and a foot in the immediate Washington area so far, but it continues to fall at about two inches an hour. We are under a heavy storm warning until 10:00 this morning. Interesting that you should talk about how heavy the snow is because it is causing a problem. Snow's heavy on the branches of the trees, branches of the trees under that weight come down on power lines. Right now about 60,000 customers without power in the Washington area. Another 50,000 customers without power in the Baltimore area, exactly because of the problem you were discussing a moment ago.
Dozens of flights into and out of the Washington Baltimore area have been canceled so far, but dozens of flights are also getting through. It's expected to get better in the late afternoon, so the best advice is check with your airline. Washington, DC is under a snow emergency. That means that taxi cabs can charge double the fare. It means a $250 fine if your car is on a snow emergency route and good luck finding it in the past. The history has been they just want to get it out of the way. They'll put it on a side street. It could be days before you find out where your car is. Anyway, heavy storm warning, heavy snow warning until 10:00. We'll be back with you throughout the morning.
HARRIS: All right Gary, all right, so once again, 60,000 without power in DC, another 50,000 without power in Baltimore so far.
NURENBERG: So far.
HARRIS: All right, Gary Nurenberg in Washington for us. Gary, thank you.
NGUYEN: Well, let's hope those numbers don't climb, but more snow is headed that way. While you're still in your pajamas this morning, we want you to grab the camera, that digital camera and get us that shot of your front lawn, then send it to weekends@cnn.com. That's our address here and we can show it to everybody so grab a cup of coffee, that hot chocolate and bundle up. But first if you can, grab a snapshot for us and watch our severe weather coverage all morning long right here on CNN.
HARRIS: Betty, it is back to the courtroom in Baghdad. Judges, lawyers and reporters will be there but will the defendants?
NGUYEN: That's the question. Coming up next, the legal wrangling in the Saddam Hussein trial. Will there be a conviction out of all this chaos? One expert is going to chime in. That's next.
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NGUYEN: Are you celebrating Valentine's Day early this weekend, whether it's flowers, candy or a special night out? This Tuesday brings in big bucks for some businesses. What does it say about romance and relationships? After all that's what it's all about, right? We're going to explore the state of love in America in about two hours from now so you want to stay tuned for that.
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NGUYEN: Unbelievably, today begins the fourth year for the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobadan (ph) Milosevic. Milosevic is charged with 66 counts of war crimes stemming from the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s. The proceeding has been disrupted and delayed by Milosevic's political grandstanding and his health problems.
HARRIS: You don't have to speak the language to understand there was dissention the last time Saddam Hussein appeared in court. Since last month's court proceedings which turned into a shouting match, you're out of order, no, you're out of order. His attorneys as well as some of the other defendants have refused to return to the courtroom. The trial resumes tomorrow, but will Saddam show up this time and can this trial have legitimacy under these circumstances? Michael Scharf is a law professor from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and he joins me with some insights and Michael, let's repeat again, you helped to train the judges presiding over this case, correct?.
MICHAEL SCHARF, LAW PROFESSOR: That's right Tony.
HARRIS: OK, let's do a bit of a reset here. Two defense lawyers killed, three of five presiding judges replaced, an administrative judge killed, six breaks in the trial, twice for over a month. It is certainly chaotic. Is it out of control?
SCHARF: It's bordering on losing control. You know, it's interesting, at the top of your segment you mentioned...
HARRIS: Milosevic, yeah.
SCHARF: Milosevic case. In that case, I wrote a book called "Slobodan Milosevic on Trial" where I identified the three main lessons from that case and one of those is, you've got to maintain the appearance of fairness. Another is you've got to keep the trial short and going forward, and the third is you've got to keep control of the courtroom and on all three of those, when we were trying to train the judges for the Saddam Hussein trial, we tried to engrain these lessons and yet in practice, they're having a lot of difficulties. Now A lot of that also has to do with the defense tactics and we can get into that.
HARRIS: Yeah, but that could have been anticipated. I'm sure it was anticipated by you and the other folks training these judges, correct?
SCHARF: Right. Well, in fact what Judge Raoul (ph) did in the last session is he tried to regain control of the courtroom. The defense counsel said we're walking out. He said to the defense counsel, if you walk out, you relinquish the right to represent Saddam and we have these new court-appointed public defenders who will step in and things will run more smoothly. The problem is the press and the public think that this looks very unfair.
HARRIS: Right, OK, well let's -- maybe this would be helpful as we sort of maybe chart a course here to get this back on track. Would it be helpful in your mind to have sort of an official spokesperson who would tell all of us what is going on, what has happened in court on that particular day, from the court's perspective? SCHARF: Absolutely, and Judge Raad (ph), who was the very first investigative judge that the world saw about a year ago, has now taken on that role. So we're going to be seeing a lot more of Judge Raad as the face and spokesperson of the tribunal explaining the process to the press.
HARRIS: OK. Would it be helpful for the court to put down in writing its rationale for removing the defendants and the counsel, just something official so that appearances are appearances?
SCHARF: Yeah. I'm not sure if they'll put it down in writing although I think that would be a good idea. But that's a little bit different than what they're used to doing in Iraq until the end of the trial. But I'm sure what's going to happen tomorrow is that Judge Raoul is going to begin the process by trying to bring Saddam and the other co-defendants back into the courtroom and explaining to them very carefully what their rights are, what the rules are and he's going to give them the, this is your last chance, this is your last warning speech.
HARRIS: OK. So how about this, as just another suggestion. Maybe assign international monitors, international law experts who aren't Iraqis, who aren't Americans to just sort of be there in an advisory capacity?
SCHARF: Well, there are international monitors watching the trial. Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch is in the courtroom and reporting every day and they are following some of the things that he has to say. In addition, there are international experts like myself who, from various parts of the world are giving them feedback and advice.
HARRIS: Yeah but you're American. You're American. You can't be a part of any team that's giving this tribunal any advice. You know that.
SCHARF: Well you know the people who are interested in helping, unfortunately, are mostly people from the United Kingdom and the United States but they should really try to widen the net of advisers and people that are assisting so that it looks as fair as possible.
HARRIS: Let me ask you this. Again, we go back to this idea of impartiality. To your knowledge, this is something I just read, was this new presiding judge convicted in absentia of some charge under Saddam Hussein's regime and sentenced to life in prison?
SCHARF: There are charges going back and forth about all of the judges, and what we're hearing now in the press is that Judge Raoul in 1977 apparently ran afoul of some legal proceedings. He denies that he was convicted in absentia. He's denying these charges. We'll have to look at how it all plays out, but I can tell you that he is a Kurd rather than a Shiite and his choice of being a judge is as fair as they possibly can under the circumstances.
HARRIS: Michael, we need this to come off smoothly. We need this to be perceived as a fair trial. It is part of the reason that coalition forces are there fighting and dying in country. It is to see Iraq proceeding as a democracy and embracing the rule of law.
SCHARF: Democracy is a little bit messy. War crimes trials are always messy. The international trial at the Hague, which is seen as the model for Milosevic was much worse than this. So I think we have to have reasonable expectations. It's going to be chaotic tomorrow but they will soldier through. The evidence is starting to mount. At the end of the day, that's what people will focus on, is whether the facts were proven.
HARRIS: Michael Scharf, good to talk to you as always.
SCHARF: Good to talk to you.
NGUYEN: Tony, we are monitoring the severe winter weather in the northeast. Ronald Reagan Washington National airport is closed at this hour because of all that weather. We're going to give you an update next. You want to keep is here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
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NGUYEN: If you are just joining us, here's a look at today's top stories. We got a lot of them and many of them include this, severe winter weather. It continues to make its way up the east coast. Look at these pictures. Blizzard warnings have been posted for parts of New York and Boston, Boston that is, forcing some airlines to close and some airports, I should say. We'll have a live report in just a moment.
State and Federal agents are investigating another church fire in rural Alabama. This latest happened yesterday at the Free Will Baptist church in Beaverton. Officials haven't released the cause or whether the blaze is linked to nine other Alabama church fires over the past week or so.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remains in critical condition following emergency surgery yesterday. Doctors removed nearly two feet of Sharon's damaged intestine, but they say Sharon's main medical problem continues to be his coma. He's been unconscious since suffering a massive stroke last month.
HARRIS: Well, we certainly hope the beans are hot to fend off a cold and snow in Boston. It is a winter storm warning for New England. Can Janet hear me? I see her there in the picture. Janet Woo (ph) I believe is going to join us in just a moment from CNN affiliate WHDH. When she's up and ready we'll take her, bring her report to you. We'll take a break now and come back with more CNN SUNDAY MORNING right after this.
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HARRIS: Another check of weather.
NGUYEN: A lot of weather to tell you about this morning.
HARRIS: ... weather all day, couldn't we? NGUYEN: We could. We could go 24/7 on weather today Bonnie because more is expected to come the way of many folks who really have seen a lot of snow already.
SCHNEIDER: You're right and then of course, Tomorrow we'll be talking about the commute after all (INAUDIBLE) on the ground. And as Chad was mentioning earlier this morning, this is a wet, heavy snow. So if you haven't been exercising, this is not the time to start because shoveling out all the snow is definitely going to be detrimental to your health because we are really looking, not only at a lot of snow but some super cold temperatures.
Current temperatures right now are in the 20s but it feels so much colder with that strong wind we have blowing outside. It feels like it's only nine degrees in New York City and right now it feels like it's only 11 in Boston. Buffalo's wind chill factor right at six degrees and we're getting a lot of snow across a good portion of the northeast for today.
Let's take a closer look at that snow as we zoom into the region. We can show you that we're not only getting snow, but we're getting strong, strong winds. These are sustained winds. Gusts will be higher than this, and right now, classifying this as a blizzard in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Right now the winds are at about 34-35 miles per hour. Up towards Bellport in Suffolk County on the east end of Long Island, the winds are as strong as 30 miles per hour and Nantucket, the winds have definitely picked up just over the past 30 minutes. Currently, sustained winds are at 32 miles per hour. Boston also the storm is really cranking now. This blizzard warning for Boston will go until 7:00 tonight.
Now New York City, the blizzard warning ends at 4:00. The snow may not shut off but we're looking at least the blizzard warning will shut down by then. See a closer look at some snowfall totals. We're still tallying these in because the wind is so fierce it's blowing about the snow making it tough to measure. Here's what we have so far, Columbia, Maryland, 21.3 inches. All the way down to Wayne, New Jersey, at 15 inches. That's on the low end. Ridgewood, New Jersey at 13.7, Danbury, Connecticut, 12 inches of snow, still snowing there and in Central Park, right smack in the middle of Manhattan, 11.8 inches. Still continuing to snow right in New York City at this hour. It must make for a pretty picture. I guess it's good it's happening on a Sunday.
Now as we take a look across the country, the big focus of course is our nor'easter that will continue to work its way to the north and east producing heavy snow. We are not done with the snow by any means. Looking at total accumulations all the way up to near 15 inches in some areas, one foot plus, so that's a lot of snow and a lot of wind. Treacherous travel. The best advice is stay inside. Wait until the storm passes. Certainly don't go outside when there's a blizzard warning by any means. There's no reason to be out and about. It's too dangerous. Betty, Tony?
HARRIS: All right. Bonnie, thank you. NGUYEN: Bonnie, we're trying to gather some of these pictures that we've been getting from folks watching morning. We've been asking to you send us your winter weather photos. Here's our e-mail address one more time, weekends@cnn.com. But here's a couple of the pictures that we've already gotten so far this morning. These are town homes in the snow. This is coming from Alexandria, Virginia. That's a pretty shot. That could almost be on a postcard, Tony from Keith Tashima (ph).
HARRIS: Take a look at this. This is - well, it's thunder snow. We get a sense of the thunder, you know but there it is, just thunder snow as described by Peter in Pennsylvania. And look at this.
NGUYEN: This next one, puppies in the snow.
HARRIS: This is Columbia, Maryland.
NGUYEN: The back end of a puppy.
HARRIS: 21 inches of snow in Columbia. I know that area.
NGUYEN: That dog is almost covered in snow right there as thick as it is, it appears that may be in the back yard of someone's home. But keep those pictures coming for us this morning. They give us a great idea of what it's like in your area. E-mail us weekends@cnn.com and we'll show those pictures on the air.
HARRIS: The next hour of CNN SUNDAY MORNING begins right after this break.
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HARRIS: Grab your snow suit if you have one.
NGUYEN: Long johns, whatever it takes.
HARRIS: Add a shovel. A winter storm is pounding the northeast and it is going to get worse before it gets better.
NGUYEN: This is just a glimpse of what's happening right now. Planes are already grounded. You can see the cancellations there on the bottom part of the screen. It's changed to snow and forecasters warn this storm could threaten lives. That's a serious (INAUDIBLE) this morning.
HARRIS: Look, this is a nor'easter and it's a big one and we're keeping close tabs on it. From our CNN weather center, Chad Myers and Bonnie Schneider are closely monitoring the storm.
NGUYEN: We have a team of reporters on storm watch as well.
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