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CNN Saturday Morning News

Tornado Strikes Town, Baby Survives; Bridge Day in West Virginia; Philadelphia Trying to Stop Violence

Aired October 20, 2007 - 09:00   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center in Atlanta. Good morning everybody, I'm Betty Nguyen with CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. So glad you could start your day off right here with us.

We're going to be talking with this deadly force of nature. And also an amazing story of a baby who made it through the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the crib had flipped over and the mattress was the only thing that saved the baby. The mattress was on top of the baby, but there was thousands of pounds worth of stuff wrapped over this baby. I don't know how he made it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: They are calling him a miracle baby. We have his story live this hour.

HOLMES: Also, you won't believe what's happening at one U.S. school. Teachers taking matters into their own hands, camping out on the border, snapping shots of students they say living in Mexico but crossing over to attend their school.

NGUYEN: And want to give you a live look right now. It is bridge day in West Virginia and they are about to jump. Some people celebrating jumping off of that bridge, live pictures here. There goes one of them.

Let me tell you a little bit about bridge day. Look at that. It's the largest extreme sports event. It's held the third Saturday in October. That bridge is quite long; it is 876 feet above the rapids of the New River. And that person did a pretty good job on the jump today. We'll have more on that throughout the morning.

But first, though, this hour, a tornado tears a community apart in the aftermath the remarkable resilience of a baby boy. At least eight tornadoes touched down in eastern and northern Michigan. The damage is everywhere. Houses just destroyed. But amazingly, pinned underneath all of that rubble, a baby survives. And he is being called a miracle baby.

Randy Conan of affiliate WJRT has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE SOYRING, HOMEOWNER: Next thing you know, the house starts shaking. Both of us thought it was an earthquake. The next thing you know, I got sucked down in the basement. I watched the tornado go that way.

RANDY CONAN, WJRT REPORTER: That's what Joe Soyring remembers when the tornado struck his Arvealya (ph) Township home about 1:30 this morning. He and his fiance Nicole found her 3-year-old daughter alive and well right away but they couldn't find 15-month-old Blake. Their screams brought next door neighbor Jeff Hawks running to help.

JEFF HAWKS, NEIGHBOR: We were looking all over for the baby. We scoured the whole three acres over here and the whole three acres on my side and we couldn't find the baby. All of a sudden, I heard this little whimper. I told everybody to be quiet so we could hear it. The baby was under this huge pile of debris.

CONAN: They pulled apart the debris and found the baby was very much alive.

HAWKS: The crib had flipped over and the mattress was the only thing that saved the baby. The mattress was on top of the baby, but there was thousands of pounds worth of stuff wrapped over this baby. I don't know how he made it.

CONAN: They are digging through the rubble trying to salvage what they can. Every item they find is precious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miracle baby.

CONAN: Blake had some scratches and bruises on his head but was otherwise not hurt. He was checked at the Covan Sagana and released a few hours later. In the daylight they could see Soyring's house was destroyed and Hawks was heavily damaged.

SOYRING: We're lucky to be alive. I mean, look at it. That's where the house sat. Just got it built a year ago. So now we've got to start all over again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: They are lucky to be alive and Blake is a miracle baby. In fact we are going to be talking with this family in just a few minutes. So you want to stick around for that.

HOLMES: Put things in perspective. People always upset when you see that damage and destruction, but you know what life was saved.

NGUYEN: You can rebuild it.

HOLMES: You can rebuild and little Blake made it all right.

NGUYEN: Great story.

HOLMES: We're going to toss over to Reynolds Wolf. He's keeping an eye on the weather situation. Is some of that stuff pretty much done? All those remnants of those storms that kind of affected them yesterday, is that stuff done or other people need to watch out?

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, for the most part the frontal boundary that caused all the ruckus in parts of the Midwest including Michigan is now moving deeper into the Atlantic. But man it sure did leave a lot of damage in parts of the nation especially in parts of Michigan and Kentucky. We had some severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Take a look at this video we have compelling video from Owensboro, Kentucky. Cloud to ground lightning strikes, just intense thunderstorms. Some flash flooding, some tornadoes, all kinds of issues for you in parts of Kentucky, although things are much better today. We are still seeing just the tail end of this system. The tail end of this front moving through parts of central Florida.

As we shift back to the weather computer we're going to zoom in right to the Orlando area. Orlando, Florida, parts along I-4 you are seeing those scattered showers this morning. If you happen to be over toward Cape Canaveral, backward to Daytona Beach, the rain will be sticking with you through much of the midday hours.

Now another huge story that we're watching for you very carefully is out west. Not a whole lot of activity now but later on this afternoon, we're expecting those winds to really increase. The Santa Ana winds coming from those high mountain passes compressing as it drops to lower elevations, it tends to heat up. Some of the winds through these mountain passes could exceed 60 to 70 miles an hour. Very warm and dry conditions, the humidity levels will be in single digits. So any threat of fire, well the fire could spread very quickly throughout much of southern Florida.

That's the latest we got for you. Let's send it right back to you at the news desk.

NGUYEN: All right. Reynolds we do appreciate it.

WOLF: You bet.

HOLMES: We want to turn now folks. We've been telling you about this incredible story of a Michigan baby found alive after a tornado, despite being buried beneath a mountain of debris. The family, the whole family, Blake included -- oh, Blake is making some noise there.

Good morning to you all. This is the family from Michigan to tell us about their ordeal. Hey there, we are looking at the whole family. Hey there you all. This is T.J. Holmes at CNN in Atlanta. You all hear me OK?

NICOLE OPPERMAN, MOTHER: Yeah.

HOLMES: I see you have a bit of a ruckus. I guess Blake has earned the right to make a little noise.

OPPERMAN: Yeah. HOLMES: You all tell me the storm hit. It was about 1:00 in the morning, I do believe. Did you all go to bed thinking everything was OK or did you know there was some bad weather coming and a tornado was possible?

JOE SOYRING JR., FATHER: Well, the first warning that we had expired at 12:45. So we thought we were OK. We didn't know there was another storm just south of us, but our TV had gone out. We couldn't watch television anymore to keep an eye on the weather. And this storm hit about 20 after 1:00. We had just actually gone to bed when it hit.

HOLMES: Where were the kids in the house when the storm hit. Were they in their own rooms?

OPPERMAN: Yeah, on the other side of the house.

HOLMES: Other side of the house. All right. Storm hits. I assume it wakes you all up and the first thing you are going to say is where are the kids? What was it like in the house when that storm did hit. Did it immediately just start tearing your house apart?

OPPERMAN: Immediately. The -- I jumped out of bed to go get the kids and I didn't even make it past the bed before the entertainment center and the dresser started moving around. And I saw the roof come off the bathroom. There was no way to get to them.

HOLMES: Of course, the first immediate thought had to be, where are the kids? So when you all, when the storm finally, things stopped destructing around you, how did you go about trying to find the kids and what did you find and not find?

OPPERMAN: I just started screaming and Mikaylah actually came out. I couldn't find Blake. Joe was the one that found him and our neighbor.

SOYRING: My neighbor Jeff and I, we ended up finding him in under a pile of rubble about 45, 50 feet from the house.

HOLMES: How much time was there between the time you couldn't find Blake and when you finally found him?

SOYRING: It was probably about ten minutes. After we had gotten Mikaylah, we went over to our neighbor's house to get out of the weather and then me and my neighbor Jeff had gone outside with the flashlight looking around. It was still raining and windy.

HOLMES: It was pitch black dark. So tell me how scary were those ten minutes between the time ...

SOYRING: It was ...

HOLMES: Blake's putting on a little show for us. We got a nice shot of him. Tell me how scary those ten minutes were as a parent from the time not knowing where the son is until you finally found him.

SOYRING: It was very scary. I mean, you know, to not know where he's at. I didn't know -- trying not to think the worst, but I didn't know if the tornado had taken him, you know, where he could have possibly ended up because, you know, it tore my heart out. When we found him -- when we heard him and we tore all the debris off and found him under his mattress, it was the best feeling I've ever had.

HOLMES: And he was still ...

SOYRING: To be able to actually tell her.

HOLMES: He was still with his crib and in his crib if you will?

OPPERMAN: No.

SOYRING: Well, I think what had happened is somehow the crib and him got sucked out of the house because I think what happened was when he had landed, the crib had landed upside down and debris came on top of it, it crush the crib. So when we took everything off, we found pieces of the crib so we knew this could be the area. When we pulled the mattress off, that's where he was lying underneath.

HOLMES: Was he making a lot of noise? Was he loud and crying? I heard he was just whimpering.

SOYRING: It was just kind of a whimper because he actually had a cord wrapped around his neck, probably about four times. And I think it was kind of just -- where he couldn't really try or scream as loud as he probably wanted to. Once we got the mattress off and seen that, then we unwound the cord from around his neck and pulled him out from there and ran him into our neighbor's house.

HOLMES: And you say it was about 50 feet from the area where he was to the area where he was found. And it doesn't look like, we see he may be scratched up and bruised a little bit but it doesn't look like he's banged up too bad.

SOYRING: No, other than some scrapes and bruises on his stomach and on his back, remarkably, I mean, that's pretty much all we got out of it. We were very blessed to be able to walk out of that with just what we had.

HOLMES: I cannot imagine what that's like. And both -- I'll ask mom here, Nicole. To think of that child that's sitting in your lap right now, that baby was flying through the air at some point. How terrifying, I mean, what do you think about when you think about your child was essentially airborne and just by the grace of God, he's sitting in your lap right now.

OPPERMAN: I am grateful. I am very, very, very grateful. I don't want to let him go. I don't want to let either one of them go. I don't want to let him out of my sight too much. They stayed at my grandma's house for a little bit yesterday while we cleaned up, but it was very terrifying. Probably the worst moment in my entire life just not knowing where he was or where she was at first. And it was very scary.

HOLMES: To wrap up here before I let you all go. Give us an idea of what kind of personality Blake has in the first place. Is he a daredevil anyway and this just adds to the Blake legend?

SOYRING: Most definitely. Most definitely.

HOLMES: All right. Well, we are loving this picture of Blake that we're seeing here, 14-month-old, do we have that right?

SOYRING: Yep.

HOLMES: How badly damaged, here, before I let you go, the home. Not that it's the most important thing. Will you be able to rebuild? Is the house pretty much destroyed?

SOYRONG: The house is actually completely destroyed. It was completely ripped off the basement. It's just a pile of rubble off the side of the basement now. Everything was lost. We got each other. We can rebuild and we'll move on from there.

HOLMES: Well, you all -- Joe, Nicole, Mikaylah, and, of course, Blake. The legend builds for little Blake there. We'll get him a cape and send it to you. Thank you all so much for spending some time with us and talking about this story. A fascinating story. A wonderful story, really, in the midst of so much destruction that we had this good news we can bring. Give Blake there our best. Thank you all so much. You all take care.

OPPERMAN: We will.

SOYRING: Thank you.

NGUYEN: He is so cute. He goes between the yawning and being tired and then just ready to run, it seems.

HOLMES: He didn't like some of my questions, maybe. But Blake is -- there he is, still. He's going through some interviews certainly this morning. Everybody wants to get a shot of Blake. Look at him. He looks great. Beautiful.

NGUYEN: A little bruise on his face. He has definitely been through a lot but, my goodness, he is a miracle baby to have survived that. We'll keep in touch and see how he does. Hopefully he'll stay out of tornadoes.

Want to talk about this. A call to action in Philadelphia to stop the violence. Some community leaders are asking for 10,000 men to patrol the streets. So will it work? Are these volunteers really trained to handle crimes? We'll speak to organizers.

HOLMES: You won't believe what's happening at one U.S. school. Teachers taking matters into their own hands and are camping out on the border taking pictures of students they see living in Mexico but crossing over to attend their school. You've got to hear this story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well magic man David Copperfield is strongly denying accusations of sexual assault made by a Seattle woman. But he can't make this story go away. Although the FBI won't reveal details of their investigation, our affiliate KLAS reports that agents took a computer hard drive, a memory chip from a digital camera and $2 million in cash from a warehouse Copperfield uses in Las Vegas. Agents also searched a theater inside a hotel where Copperfield often performs.

NGUYEN: Well T.J., so much for the city of Brotherly Love thanks to one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. Some are calling it a Kill-Adelphi instead of Philadelphia these days. Now could civilian volunteers change all of that? How about 10,000 of them.

Norm Bond is a spokesman for the Call to Action Group. He joins us from Philadelphia to talk more about this initiative. Thanks for being with us today.

NORM BOND, CALL TO ACTION: Thank you, Betty. It's good to be here.

NGUYEN: Let's talk more about asking 10,000 men to patrol the streets. Is this initiative a way to get men invested in their community, take responsibility for what's happening in their communities?

BOND: Yes, absolutely. We're looking to get men involved and also particularly African-American men to get more involved in volunteerism and mentorship and become a visible presence in the community. Absolutely.

NGUYEN: Ten thousand men. That's what you are hoping will patrol the streets. Do you think you'll get enough people to meet that goal?

BOND: Yes, we are quite confident that we're going to get 10,000 men. The response to this project has been growing, as we've gotten closer to the date. And also because of the senseless violence that continues to happen, right now we're at about 322 murders in the city, 85 percent of those people have been African-American.

And we've got a good organization of leaders, including our chairman Kenny Gamble, the police commissioner Sylvester Johnson, other community leaders and service providing organizations that are all interested in bringing an end to this violence and also creating information about more opportunities for people that are in the community to take part in.

NGUYEN: How many men do you think you have signed up right about now?

BOND: A little over 4,000 that have pre-registered for the event by going to our Web site, www.10000menphilly.com.

NGUYEN: I want to ask you what you say to critics who say, Philly doesn't need more men on the street. What they need is more after-school programs, they need a recreation center, and they need parents who are involved in their children's lives.

BOND: I would say those critics are right. We need all of those things. We understand there's a reason for this senseless violence. We have a 50 percent high school dropout rate. We do have a lot of cuts in terms of resources that are available to people, particularly in the inner city.

This is going to be part of the initiative as it continues to develop. At this point our initial focus is to stop the bleeding and the senseless violence. This is going to be a long-term comprehensive program.

NGUYEN: What happens once those 10,000 men go home? Are the streets going to turn back the way they are right now?

BOND: Well you know it's not going to be an overnight fix. This is going to be a long-term program. What's going to happen is on tomorrow, which is the 21st, we do have a number of service providers. We have information on job opportunities. We'll have information on education. And the men that are registered will then be followed up with and asked to come out for additional education and training and so that they can begin to go back into the community and be that visible presence. We're going to work with other existing community organizations like town watches and other organizations that have a long history. And also offer resources for the men.

NGUYEN: Quickly, let's talk about those resources and that training. I understand the men will not be armed and they also don't have the power to arrest. So are they prepared to handle any kind of violence or confrontation that they face on the street?

BOND: Well, no, because the men are not going to be doing the job of the police. The -- we're working with the police commissioner Johnson. But these men are going to be citizen volunteers. So they will not have that authority and they will be prepared by going and working with our service providers to go into the streets.

NGUYEN: All right, Norm Bond with Call to Action, hoping that 10,000 men will patrol the streets of Philly. We appreciate your time and sharing a little information with us today. Thank you.

BOND: Thank you Betty. We appreciate your information.

HOLMES: What do you do if you are a teacher and you knew some of your students were illegal immigrants?

NGUYEN: One school is taking matters into their own hands to make sure those students stay on the right side of the border. Just wait until you see how.

HOLMES: Well coming up first here, we have a preview of today's "Open House" with Gerri Willis.

GERRI WILLIS, PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Coming up at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, it's "OPEN HOUSE." Going green, is your home leaking energy? If so you are losing money. We'll show you how to save the environment and your bottom line.

Then a few adjustments in the way you drive can save you thousands of dollars each year.

And he's known for his movies, but there's something you don't know about Val Kilmer and it has to do with a tree. To find out more, watch a special edition of "OPEN HOUSE" going green and saving you money, 9:30 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Well one southern California school district is now keeping a closer eye on their students. They are trying to make sure that all the students in their schools actually live in the United States.

Want to get more now from Christine Den of affiliate KSWT in Calexico, California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE DEN, KSWT REPORTER (voice over): The Calexico School District has battled students faking their residency to attend the Calexico schools. So they are stepping up enforcement to stop students who live in Mexico and cross the border to go to school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taxpayers pay for the kids in that community to be attending that high school. And simply if you are not from the community, you must pay tuition.

DEN: The school district is taking extra measures to verify students' addresses, even conducting surveillance at Calexico's port of entry.

DAVID ALVAREZ, CALEXICO SCHOOL, SUPERINTENDENT: We have individuals that work for our school district that goes there periodically and if a student is wearing our school colors, and our school uniforms, if it looks like a student that goes to our school, we follow that student, take pictures and go to that school and verify that student does live here in Calexico.

DEN: The superintendent David Alvarez says people are proving residency just isn't enough.

ALVAREZ: We have periodic visitations. We check on students and we get a name of someone to verify. Then we go and verify their residence. We knock on the door and ask to see if they live here.

DEN: The district also sends out mailers to students whose reported addresses to see which ones are returned as undeliverable.

ALVAREZ: We just want to assure all of our residence the taxpayers of this community and the taxpayers of our state want to make sure that students who come to school here that they live in Calexico. That's as simple as I can explain it to our community, that we are following the law.

(END VIDEOTAPE) NGUYEN: And that was Christine Den reporting, Calexico is about 120 miles from San Diego. Dozens of students were kicked out of Calexico schools earlier this year when officials first ordered residency verifications.

HOLMES: Coming up on the CNN "NEWSROOM" at 10:00 Eastern a new travel trend that has some people seeing red. It's called slumming. Traveler's spending money to tour the world's poorest neighborhoods. We'll tell you about it coming up in the NEWSROOM.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And also coming up, some people are crazy and we put them on national television. You have got to see this. This is considered one of the biggest extreme sports events in the world. The fall from that bridge is longer than the Washington Monument. We're going to tell you exactly what's going on and why these people are doing this coming up right here on CNN the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: OK. If you are scared of heights, which I am, the annual bridge jumps in Vest Virginia definitely not for you.

HOLMES: An event going on right now. Take off the reality hat. Put on the dotcom hat. What's going on?

LEVS: It's Bridge Day, Happy Bridge Day. Do they make Hallmark cards for that? We only have a little bit of time. We're hoping to see a jump right now. This jump 876 feet long, now this is substantially higher than the Washington Monument. You can do the Washington Monument almost 1.5 times. It's over in Fayetteville, West Virginia. This is an annual event. They get about 200,000 spectators. They call it the largest extreme sports event in the world. I looked online there's some other places that say than.

Here's let's watch. You can ...

NGUYEN: Look how many are jumping.

LEV: If they didn't use the parachute the entire way to the water would only be 8.8 seconds. Just so the people understand the danger if you hit water from very high it's almost like hitting ground. So they have to opening those parachutes on time. You can watch some of this online today. And feel the drama over and over.

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