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CNN Saturday Morning News

Anguish in Alabama; President Bush Expected in Alabama to Survey Damage

Aired March 03, 2007 - 09:00   ET

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

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: T.J., Betty, we've been here at Grady Hospital. I really wanted to give people a sense of how a city deals with a disaster like this. This is the hub, a lot of activity going to continue to go on throughout the day. We'll keep you posted on it. Right now back to you guys in Atlanta.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you Sanjay, we appreciate it.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Right here from the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Good morning to you all, I'm T.J. Holmes.

NGUYEN: Hi everybody I'm Betty Nguyen. We want to thank you for being with us. And there is a lot of news to update you on. Let's get right to it.

HOLMES: Now first here the deadly tornados that raced across the south. We have anguish there, heartbreak, and now the cleanup. We're going to have a live report coming to us from Enterprise, Alabama, coming up in this hour.

NGUYEN: Also, tragedy before dawn. A bus full of college baseball players goes off of a bridge onto the interstate below, and now an Ohio community deals with the loss of four college students. We're going to have much more on that tragic bus crash in just a few minutes.

But first, President Bush is expected to land in Alabama any minute now. He is on his way to Enterprise to tour the damage there. He's also expected to meet with the families of some of those victims.

HOLMES: Alabama was the hardest hit by Thursday's deadly tornados. Ten people killed, eight were students at Enterprise High School. More than 100 other students were injured. Southern Georgia also badly battered by the storms, nine people killed there. President Bush is going to head to Americus, Georgia, later today to tour the damage to the city's main medical facility.

We're also going to take you to Americus in just a moment, but first to Enterprise, Alabama, where CNN's "American Morning's" Miles O'Brien standing by live, Miles has been there live for us all morning. Good morning to you again.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, T.J. Yes the president will be here in about an hour's time. To sum it all up, the message he will get from people is we need help, and that is what it will be seeing shortly. The president should be here in about an hour. We'll have a live report for you.

HOLMES: All right, Miles. Thank you so much. We'll see you here again shortly.

NGUYEN: Also, CNN's Allan Chernoff is outside Sumter Regional Hospital, ground zero for the tornado that hit that area, which is in Americus, Georgia. Allan, are you there?

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I certainly am, yes. And as you can see, the tornado really ripped open Sumter Regional Hospital, actually destroying parts of the roof, most of the windows, and, of course, the exterior structure of the building as well. This really just a devastating attacks on the town here in Americus, Georgia. Now, the outside damage is bad enough, but come with us inside to the building, where you can see where patients and members of the medical staff actually rode out the storm.

Sounds like we have some technical problems. Sounds like we have a technical problem with that package, but let me just describe to you what exactly was happening here during the storm. The third floor here is where the labor and delivery actually are, and there were four infants in the hospital, about 60 patients overall in the hospital when the tornado struck. The infants were moved out of the nursery. Those windows up there, that's the nursery right there. They were moved to the interior of the hospital to be with their moms. The nurses actually gathered in the inside hallway, and they rode out the storm. People described it just as a train running through the town, extremely scary. People really holding on for their life.

The inside, I was inside of the hospital yesterday, and inside you can see not only how the windows caved in, but also doors buckled in, knocked down by the winds, the roof actually just collapsing in certain areas. It must have been an absolutely horrific situation in there. Now let's switch around over here, and you can see the damage over here, the trees that were just toppled for really miles and miles. From an aerial view, it's 28 miles, we're told, by the sheriff's department here that the tornado struck.

And here the recovery is continuing. A lot of this, lumber being picked up, carted away. Of course, all the roads here were covered by the trees falling over. So now at least they've made a path away, and already the cleanup, the reconstruction is well under way. One very interesting aspect to all of this, right nearby is a Warehouser lumber facility. So some of this lumber, some of this stuff that's going to be carted away, this is actually going to be put to very good use right nearby because this Warehouser facility can actually take the pulp from the lumber and process it. And you know what it ends up with? It ends up actually in diapers. It's the material that absorbs urine in diapers. So at least some of this is going to be put to good use.

Back to you.

NGUYEN: But the damage, nonetheless, is just really extraordinary. I think the thing that is worth noting is the fact, Allan, that this is a hospital to your left, and that's a place that many people would go to seek shelter. That's a place that people would think would be safe from a storm like this.

CHERNOFF: Right. And this is the older wing of the hospital, which the engineers are still analyzing to determine whether or not it can be salvaged. The CEO told me a few minutes ago he's not optimistic. The newer wing, which was built in 1999, the engineers have already determined that this can be fixed, and they are planning to fix this up. Betty, as you say, certainly a hospital is the sort of place where you would expect to be able to seek shelter. But the winds were just so powerful here that, you know, there wasn't really any place that that was guaranteed to be safe. But the fact is everyone who was here at the hospital did survive, nobody died here at the hospital. Two people died in town, but they were in a private residence, not here at the hospital.

NGUYEN: CNN's Allan Chernoff. Thank you for that, Allan.

We can also learn more today about what caused a deadly bus crash early yesterday in Atlanta. Killed on that bus, four members of an Ohio college baseball team and two adults. CNN's Don Lemon joins us from the Atlanta hospital where many of those injured were taken yesterday. How are they doing today, Don?

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some are doing OK, Betty. As a matter of fact, we spoke to two of them just a short time ago. We want to get this new video and new interview in to you. Just a short time ago, I spoke with Curtis Schroeder and Greg Sigg. Greg Sigg is a junior, he is a first baseman and Curtis Schroeder is a sophomore at the university, he's a catcher. One of them told me how he woke up and all of a sudden saw the ground coming right towards him. And he also talked about his injuries and the outpouring from the community. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG SIGG: They're in critical condition.

LEMON: Anything you'd ask of people?

SIGG: Just continue to pray for us. The community, everyone around us has been extremely supportive and extremely kind. I can't thank them enough. When we were at the hospital, anything you need, they got it for you. You get here, and red cross, anything you need, they got it for you. They put us up in it a hotel for free and flew our families down for free. It's really helped the process and making it a lot better. We really appreciate it.

LEMON: Are these your teammates?

SIGG: Sure.

LEMON: Which one?

CURT SCHROEDER: Curt Schroeder. LEMON: Spell your last name.

SCHROEDER: S-c-h-r-o-e-d-e-r.

LEMON: How are you doing today?

SCHROEDER: I'm OK. Little bruised up, good as I can be, I guess.

LEMON: It's been a rough day, rough night for you.

SCHROEDER: Yes, a little bit. I mean, just overwhelming at this point. Really hasn't set in.

LEMON: What do you say to people around the country who are rooting for you guys and thinking about you guys.

SCHROEDER: We really appreciate it all and just thank everyone. It's just been great support. Just keep us in your prayers and continue to think about this. The next few weeks, keep us in your prayers.

LEMON: Do you feel like you're in a dream, or a nightmare?

SCHROEDER: I'm still waiting to wake up. I'm shocked. You don't expect something like that to happen, especially in small town Ohio.

LEMON: Feel like you want to cry, man?

SCHROEDER: I don't know. I'm all right.

LEMON: Yeah? What position do you play?

SCHROEDER: I'm a catcher.

LEMON: Did you have to, when you finally saw your family and talked to them -- have you seen them?

SCHROEDER: Yes. They're -- they caught a flight down here.

LEMON: Their reaction, your reaction?

SCHROEDER: Just tears and hugs and just not letting go. Showing our love for each other, great to see them.

LEMON: Yeah. Where's your jacket?

SCHROEDER: I left it. Well, my only sweatshirt that I brought down was cut off in the hospital because I had a neck brace on because neck injury. So going to Florida, I thought I wouldn't need a sweatshirt.

LEMON: Did you know any of the players who died?

SCHROEDER: Yes, all four of them. We were all pretty close. They're great people. I just want everyone to know that they're a joy to be around and they'd do anything for you. Great teammates. They're great people.

LEMON: Curt Schroeder. How old are you?

SCHROEDER: Twenty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And Greg Sigg, the guy who has the big gash and the bruise right over his eye, he was disoriented after that accident, but as soon as he sort of came to, he called his mother on the cell phone to tell her what happened, and that he was OK. So it appears that he's OK. He was released from the hospital yesterday. But some very emotional moments from those players, especially talking about being reunited with their families and also talking about the outpouring from people around the country and just how people have come together and helped them out.

The airlines flying them in there and just the outpouring they've had here, especially from the people in Atlanta as well. Just to update us on some of the conditions and exactly what's happening here at the hospital, I've got Dr. Jeffrey Salomone here with me. Dr. Jeffrey Salomone is a physician here at Grady Memorial Hospital, one of the best trauma centers in the country. We understand you had 19 people yesterday, but then 15 of those people were released. Give us the conditions on the other folks here.

DR. JEFFREY SALOMONE, TRAUMA SURGEON: Two of them remain critical. They both have abdominal injuries and brain injuries. One of them is in serious condition, still in the ICU. He's been very stable overnight. He has an abdominal injury. And the one remaining young man has an injury to his leg. He's in stable condition.

LEMON: Now, we understand one person who's in critical condition had to go back into surgery last night. Why is that?

SALOMONE: That's correct. He had had a procedure to stop bleeding from an injured abdominal organ yesterday, and the surgeons caring for him were not satisfied with his condition last night and took him back to the operating room. He ended up having his spleen removed at that time.

LEMON: Now, we often hear critical and these conditions, but what does that mean to laypeople? Does that mean you can be critical and still out of the woods? Are these people out of the woods?

SALOMONE: Neither of them are out of the woods at this point in time. Their primary injuries at this point in time that are most serious are their brain injuries. They're both on breathing machines to support their respirations. They're both heavily sedated.

LEMON: Dr. Jeffrey Salomone, thank you so much. That's the latest here from the players and from the doctor at the hospital. Back to you, Betty and T.J.

NGUYEN: Don, thank you so much for that.

Well it is a kind of town, the kind of college town where most people know each other. The mayor of Bluffton grew up there and went to Bluffton University himself. Fred Rodabaugh joins me live; he is the mayor of Bluffton. The first thing I want to talk to you about is how is this town coping from the loss? I see you there with your glasses on. I imagine this has been so emotional for you and for many of the people who live there.

MAYOR FRED RODABAUGH, BLUFFTON, OHIO: Yeah. This is a very emotional situation for all of us. It's a close-knit community, college community. And the community, larger community is very closely knit. That includes the whole northwestern part of Ohio because most of these students came from those areas, we go to church together, and we've gone to school events together. Some is of us have been in college together. We know the teachers, we know their family members, their grandparents. So this is very sobering situation for all of us.

NGUYEN: No doubt. Did you know any of the players yourself?

RODABAUGH: You know them by face. You say hi to them every day on campus or in the community. As far as intermixing with them on a social basis, on a regular basis, no, but I've known some of the family members. Go to church with some of them. So it touches all of us.

NGUYEN: None of the players was from Bluffton, in particular, but from areas nearby, all from Ohio, correct? The players that were killed.

RODABAUGH: I believe all the players are from Ohio, yes.

NGUYEN: Do these players, I know a lot of colleges will have their teams go out in the community, do service projects, things like that. Were these players active within your community?

RODABAUGH: Yes, they're out in the community every day because the university is located within two blocks of the downtown. So when they go out to the coffee shops or the other establishments in town, we see them around, they intermingle with our high school students. They intermingle in church. We're very closely knit.

NGUYEN: And how did you get word of this? And when you did, what did you do to help your town cope?

RODABAUGH: I got word of it at 7:00 in the morning that there had been an accident involving a bus in Atlanta. Knowing that the bus was headed that way, we didn't know the name, but we were very concerned at that point. Within a half an hour or so, we became aware it was a Bluffton College team and it was our bus. So the people in the community will deal with this through the churches, through individual communication with members they know and the families, the extended families, and we'll all pray and depend on each other to get through it.

NGUYEN: Mayor, this seems so heavy on your heart, as well it should be. It was a loss of four students there. What's been the most difficult part for you?

RODABAUGH: Not being able to see the kids on campus. We know there's going to be a lot of soul searching going on. We've got to find and understand why things like this happen and deal with them. It takes time to heal. We'll manage that, but it's going to take some time.

NGUYEN: And quickly, let me ask you this. What do you know about the bus driver and the charter bus company that was used during this trip? And unfortunately, the bus that plunged off of that bridge and killed those students.

RODABAUGH: The driver and his wife live within just a few miles of the community. Therefore, they're known by a number of the people in the community. As far as I know, they've got a good record. The university has used them before. This is a sad situation for everybody.

NGUYEN: Mayor Fred Rodabaugh of Bluffton, Ohio. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us. Best of luck to you as you cope.

RODABAUGH: I ask everybody, we thank all those people in Atlanta and around the country that have had us in their prayers. They've helped people, the family gets down to visit and meet with their loved ones and keep us in our prayers. We'll get through this with the help of the lord.

NGUYEN: Thank you, mayor. We so appreciate it.

RODABAUGH: Thank you.

HOLMES: We're going to be talking a whole lot more about this bus tragedy here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Veronica De La Cruz is with us this morning to talk about what you're finding online. Good morning to you Veronica.

VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you T.J. and Betty. We're finding out much more about these four young men who lost their lives in this horrific accident. Some of them had personal Web sites. I'll show you what I found next from the dot.com desk.

HOLMES: All right. Thank you Veronica.

President Bush expected on the ground in Enterprise, Alabama, this morning. Going to get a tour of the storm ravaged Alabama and Georgia. Our live extended coverage just ahead this Saturday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Even after the debris is cleaned up, they will always remember the devastation in Enterprise, Alabama. Eight students at the high school killed, several others are still hospitalized this morning. Injured when a tornado cut a tragic trail through the town, four miles long actually, and that is more than a football field wide as well.

Meanwhile, in southern Georgia, tornado spawned by that same line of severe storms cut a seven-mile path of destruction. In all, ten people killed in Georgia by the violent storms. President Bush will be there later today, specifically in Americus, Georgia. Two people were killed there, and the city's hospital badly damaged.

NGUYEN: Right now though we want to turn back to Alabama. National Guard troops on the scene of the devastation at Enterprise High School. They're going to be there in just minutes. They're there to enforce a curfew and really just look out for the things that are left. More on what's going on in Enterprise, we turn to CNN's "American Morning" anchor Miles O'Brien, who has been there since yesterday touring the damage and getting a good look at what's need there on the ground. Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Betty, good morning to you. The president will be here very shortly. We're seeing some added security. The cordon has been kind of increased. That's the high school right there. We expect he's going to land in the field over there where the helicopters have been landing and then tour. Local officials'll brief him; I think we can sum up the briefing into a word -- help. We need help. Because that's what they need here. This project, just to rebuild this facility, if they even decide to rebuild on this site, they figure approximately $60 million. A high school of 2,000 in a town of 20,000, a city of 20,000.

Obviously, this is a big chunk of their budget. They're not going to be able to do this on their own. I want to give you a sense; we've been talking all along about the damage that caused the death of the eight students, the 16 and 17-year-old students. This is a building, separate property, an old textile facility. Take a look at this wall, this is a cinder block wall, and this is precisely the kind of interior wall that fell on those kids. You've lifted a cinder block, you know what we're talking here, and this is a lot of weight. And these walls, obviously, can collapse given the amount of intensity of this storm. This was an enhanced Fujita, Fujita being the index for measuring tornados, which puts it in 136 mile an hour to 165 mile an hour category. These students were huddled beside a cinder block wall, just like this one, an interior wall, just like they were supposed to do, supposedly the safest area of the school. When the wall collapsed, the ceiling was preserved because they had steel beams here.

But in this case, the ceiling came down upon them, causing eight deaths there. A lot of questions this morning. People persist to ask questions on why those kids weren't sent home sooner. There were no less than three tornado warnings that day. Each time they made a decision, should we send these kids home, there was another warning, and the determination was it would be safer to keep them in the school, keep them in the interior hallway, and that's what happened on that last warning. Little before 1:00, they had about 18 minutes; the kids were on their way home. They said, get back in the school; get back in the interior hallway. And sadly, this tornado with all its strength, almost like a pinprick, came down on this high school. Today they'll be asking for help. There will be people there grieving, talking to the president. I'm sure he'll have words of consolation. In the end, though, they're going to need long-term support here, Betty.

NGUYEN: Yes, they are, and they'll need it for quite some time, as you mentioned, Miles. Thank you for that.

HOLMES: We turn from that tragedy back to the other one, the tragic bus crash in Atlanta that killed four college athletes, the driver of the bus, and also the driver's wife. CNN's Veronica De La Cruz has been using the Internet to find out more about the Bluffton University ball players who were killed. Veronica.

DE LA CRUZ: Thanks T.J. I've spent the morning scouring the Web for information on these four young men who died in this crash. They were sophomore Tyler Williams, sophomore David Betts, who was 20 years old, freshman Scott Harmon, and freshman Cody Holp, who was 19. Cody Holp had his own page on Myspace.com. I looked over his site of the he was clearly an enormously popular young man. He was prom king, as you see by his picture posted on that site. Some of his friends describe him as a class clown, and many condolences have been posted on that site. So far this morning, all day yesterday as well.

We'd also like to tell you a little about David Betts. His family is quite prominent in Bluffton, Ohio. His two older sisters are both alumni of Bluffton University. In fact, David's great grandfather had once been president of the university. Other information I've been able to glean this morning.

Scott Harmon's former high school coach remembers Scott getting hit hard on the nose once during a play, and despite the bloody injury, he came back to hit a home run that helped win the game. I would have also gathered from reading his page on Facebook.com, that it seems he not only played baseball but he was a football player as well.

Tyler Williams' high school coach remembers him as a funny, outgoing individual, a first rate athlete who lettered in varsity three years while in high school. He was an outfielder, and his friends described him as an outgoing student who was always smiling, always laughing. And I found this on Cleveland.com, who also profiled him. It said that he wanted to be one of the few in his family to get a college degree. Now, if you knew any of these young men or you would like to share your thoughts about this tragedy, you can e-mail us at WEEKENDS@CNN.com.

T.J., Betty.

HOLMES: All right. Veronica, thank you for helping us get to know these young men a little bit better. Some encouraging and some fun stories there. Just a sad story now that this has all happened. Veronica, thank you so much. We'll see you.

Meanwhile, we've been going back and forth really and unfortunately between tragedies if you will. This is the other we've been following. After the storm, we've seen these cars tossed about, buildings destroyed. Of course, we've been talking about the school, which is pretty much wiped out in one part of it. We got special coverage all morning of this week's devastating southern storms that continues. We're also keeping an eye on the region because the president, as we're seeing here in these live pictures, scheduled to arrive there at 9:30. Appears he's right on schedule, arriving in Enterprise, Alabama, the site of that devastation at the high school where eight students were killed. The president will tour there, also tour in Americus, Georgia, another hard hit area. We will be following the president and covering him as he gets a tour of the storm damage. Stay here with CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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