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CNN Saturday Morning News

Parts of Des Moines & Cedar Rapids Under Water; How Common is Tim Russert's Cause of Death?

Aired June 14, 2008 - 09:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: We're watching a breaking story in Des Moines, Iowa. Mandatory evacuation under way. We're hoping that a levee won't be breaking there. There is a breach, though, we have to tell you about. It is threatening a neighborhood. We're live on the scene.
And from the CNN headquarters here in Atlanta, Georgia this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING, June 14th. Hello, I'm T.J. Holmes.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Glad to have you back, T.J.

HOLMES: It is good to be back with you.

NGUYEN: Well, good morning, everybody. And we do want to thank you for joining us. I'm Betty Nguyen.

Let's start with this, breaking news on the catastrophic flooding in the Midwest. There has been a levee breach in Des Moines, Iowa, this morning. And right now crews are sandbagging the area to protect nearby homes.

HOLMES: And this morning more than 400 blocks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, already underwater. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to run for higher ground and the water ways in several other Midwestern states are also threatening to overrun their banks.

But help is on the way. CNN has learned that active duty troops may soon be deployed to the region to help people recover from the floods.

NGUYEN: And help is coming too from federal emergency officials. They're all over the Midwest map helping the victims. And it is not just the floods. The region has also been hit by tornadoes. FEMA workers have spread out in these states that you're looking at right there. They're sandbagging homes, putting up emergency shelters and passing out food and clean water.

HOLMES: Well, in parts of downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the floodwaters are waist high. Our Gary Tuchman has more on the damage that right now is of epic proportions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looks like a city that was built in a river. In recorded weather history, downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has never been under so much water. From the time when the Paris Academy of Beauty Culture was in business to today, when the Dublin City Pub occupies the same site, there has never been this kind of emergency.

(on camera): You're 89 years old, lived here your whole life and you've never seen anything like this.

EVA LACOCK, CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA RESIDENT: Never.

TUCHMAN: Are you stunned by it?

LACOCK. Stunned, saddened, because it is such a beautiful city. And it is sad to just see the businesses that will be probably destroyed.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): We took a walk into what was earlier this week the busy streets of downtown Cedar Rapids. Now it is a ghost town with floodwaters rolling into businesses and powerful riptides from the Cedar River in the middle of the streets.

(on camera): Cedar Rapids is no small town, 124,000 people live here, and as you might expect, the downtown is a major economic engine, stores, restaurants, banks, hotels, the damage is incalculable.

(voice-over): A road work sign put up a few weeks ago is now just an ironic understatement. Railroad bells ring and light up forlornly for trains that won't be coming for a while. Area residents line up to look at something they can't quite believe. Military reservists have been called in to help keep order.

SGT. SHANE POTTS, U.S. AIR FORCE NATIONAL GUARD: It is something we have never seen before. This is our first flood response. It is amazing. There's -- you can't put it into words.

TUCHMAN: We leave the watery downtown after police order us to get out, saying the water's depth and the currents are too dangerous. They too are stunned. This is their town. And it is now a much different place than they have ever known.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: No doubt. And the current that you saw Gary in, you can still see that in some of the neighborhoods as water just flooded streets there. Meteorologist Reynolds Wolf is in the Severe Weather Center, he has been tracking all of this for us.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, Betty, yesterday weren't you saying that there were reports of a semi truck that was actually picked up by the flood waters and pushed downstream...

(CROSSTALK)

NGUYEN: Absolutely. You know, when I was driving in on Thursday trying to get to Cedar Rapids, I was listening to the local reports and they did say, just imagine that, an 18-wheeler being swept by the current and it was floating through downtown.

WOLF: My gosh, what a visual. Unbelievable. Well, what we're seeing today for Iowa, a little bit of a break. Obviously we have the issues on the ground that is going to continue for a good part of the day. But we're not getting additional precipitation right now. And that is certainly great news.

What we do have, obviously, plenty of watches, plenty of warnings in terms of flooding across much of the Corn Belt, including places farther downstream. We have been showing you Cedar Rapids. You've seen all the flooding we've had there and in parts of central Iowa too.

But as we zoom in in a few other locations, when I'm referring to downstream, I'm talking about places like Keokuk where -- in this area. This line you happen to see, this is the Mississippi River. You have this tributary which feeds into the Mississippi River. This is the Des Moines River.

Now when you have all that water that's in parts of Iowa, it's going to make its way downstream, trying to get to the Gulf of Mexico. And it's going to begin to stack up. The question is, how high will it go? Well, this is one of the gauges that we have, a river gauge, one of 8,000 that we have around the country for the USGS. And you'll notice the current level of the river at 22.61 feet.

Now to put that in perspective, flood stage is right around 16 feet. So already we're well above that point. Then we fast-forward in time, taking you through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even into Friday, expecting it to top out, to crest right around 26.2 feet.

OK, folks, that's days away. So we have got a long time for this water to make its way down. What is even more compelling, what's even more scary is that what we may see in terms of more precipitation, not today, but later tomorrow and into Monday.

Latest forecast models indicate that we could see anywhere from, say, well, half inch of rainfall up to three, maybe even four inches of rain in parts of the Midwest, including Iowa, back into Illinois, and even into parts of Missouri. And that is not what is factored into those river gauge forecasts.

So this additional rainfall, yes, that could even compound the problem a bit more. So then we're going to have to watch very carefully for the rest of the weekend and for possibly all of next week. Back to you.

NGUYEN: (INAUDIBLE) the Cedar River has crested and in that area, the problem has only just begun for a lot of folks.

WOLF: Absolutely. I mean, the ground is saturated. You think of a sponge you get in the kitchen, you fill it up with water, you squeeze it, it fills up again. If you have the additional water spilling on it, it just goes over the side. Same rule applies here. When you have additional rainfall, it's going to be immediate runoff and it's going to really cause more flooding in many spots. NGUYEN: Goodness. All right. Well, Reynolds, we do appreciate you staying on top of that for us.

HOLMES: We want to turn back now to our Dan Simon in Des Moines, Iowa, and a suburb there where the levee has been breached.

Dan, we were talking to you earlier about this and folks need to get out. And you're having to do some moving around yourself.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The National Guard troops just told us to move our satellite trucks. Now we're determining where we should go. But they did construct this wall of sand right now. The water is in check. But the concern is that it really could sort of penetrate this barrier that they have and get into some of these homes.

About 250 homes now under a mandatory evacuation, we went through some of the neighborhoods, people are packing up their belongings and trying to determine the next course of action. For the most part, people are staying put because the risk is not imminent.

But it is sort of a precarious situation because we did see the water advance a bit and the hope is that this barrier that they have put up will keep the water in check -- T.J.

HOLMES: In check. You say you're seeing that water advance. Not advance too quickly apparently from what I'm hearing from you. Folks not that concerned, not necessarily cutting and running just yet.

SIMON: That's right. Although this is a significant levee breach, somewhere between 50 and 100 feet, so water is getting through. There is a high school that looks like it has taken in some water. But no homes fortunately. So the question is what is going to happen?

Here, like you were talking about in Cedar Rapids, the Des Moines River has also crested. So at least they're not dealing with that situation. It's just they have this breach and hopefully they can patch it up and keep the water at bay.

HOLMES: All right. Dan Simon for us on the scene there in Des Moines. Dan, we appreciate you, be checking in with you again here later.

SIMON: You bet, thanks.

NGUYEN: Another story that we're following today, a big name in broadcasting with an even bigger heart.

HOLMES: Yes, those who knew Tim Russert share their memories of the newsman and the family man.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, from the newsmakers to his colleagues to viewers, Tim Russert touched a lot of lives.

NGUYEN: Yes, indeed. And his own life now ended too soon at just 58 years old. CNN's Tom Foreman has this look back at a giant of journalism.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is "MEET THE PRESS WITH TIM RUSSERT."

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tim Russert took on political reporting with Irish tenacity and zeal, and along the way, he changed politics itself. Each Sunday morning, newsmakers lined up to join him on the longest-running TV show ever. The program that he took over in 1991, "MEET THE PRESS."

TIM RUSSERT, NBC WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: But first, with us for an exclusive Sunday morning interview...

FOREMAN: Born in Buffalo in 1950, Russert was steeped in old- fashioned Irish Catholic beliefs about hard work, friends and family. He went to law school and then straight to the frontlines of politics, working with legendary politicians Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Mario Cuomo.

That's when Bill Schneider met him.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: He wasn't a grim ideological warrior. He didn't fight for causes. He believed in basic human decency and believed that politics was there to serve people's interests. But he made it his business to know what the interest was of everybody around the table and he was brilliant at it.

FOREMAN: In 1984, he was hired by NBC. In just a few years, becoming the Washington bureau chief. He has been a force in every phase of that network's political coverage ever since.

Wolf Blitzer...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You know, he could come across and ask a very tough question in a very polite, honest, almost amicable way and it would disarm a lot of the politicians who came on the show and they wouldn't realize that, whoa, you know, he's clobbering them.

FOREMAN: His incisive, meticulously researched interviews set the standard for political reporting. Virtually every big newsmaker of the past 20 years at some point sat with Tim Russert. Along the way, Russert opened doors for many other journalists. He gave Joe Johns his first network job ever.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The thing Tim did so well, and a lot of us always tried to emulate, was the sort of prosecutorial interview without a sharp edge. So, here was Tim on "MEET THE PRESS," asking very tough questions, but not making himself the focus of the questions.

FOREMAN: In this town where contacts are everything, Russert seemed to know everyone. And he was an innovator. With a marker and a white board, he reduced the complexities of an election to something everyone could understand.

Red states, blue states, he came up with that ideas as a way of measuring America, according to The Washington Post. And his influence went beyond politics to ground-breaking coverage of the world's religious, economic and social issues.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: He was one of the journalists who managed to have a very popular show that also dug deeply into the issues and really illuminated not only the issues themselves but often pierced the balloons of some of the people who are appearing on his shows who came in with the certain arrogance or a view that they'd just sort of put one over on the American people.

FOREMAN: His awards are too numerous to mention. TIME magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. And yet spending time with his family and helping his community were among his deepest passions. Married for 25 years to Maureen Orth, who writes for Vanity Fair, he talked with endless pride of his son Luke, and his father, Big Russ, immortalized in two books, and, of course, there was sports.

BLITZER: He loved the Buffalo Bills. That was his real passion. And how many times did he end his show with, "Go Bills."

FOREMAN: Tim Russert was a big man, not only in size, he was well over 6 feet tall, but also in his presence, in his passions, his determination to get things right as a journalist, a citizen, a friend, a father, and son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, Tim Russert's autopsy showed cholesterol plaque had ruptured in an artery leading to his heart attack. And now to address concerns that many viewer may be having right now with their own heart health is Dr. Randy Zusman, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Thank you for being here. A lot of people just scared to death, if you will, right now, because they think, wow, this -- 58, fairly young, just comes out of nowhere and drops dead at the office. OK. This cholesterol plaque ruptured in an artery. What exactly does that mean? And how many of us out there are at risk for something like this?

DR. RANDY ZUSMAN, CARDIOLOGIST: Well, T.J., that's a very important point. We all have, starting with -- at birth the deposition of cholesterol into the arteries of our heart. But when one of these plaques becomes unstable, and erupts literally like a volcano inside our heart, it causes the formation of a blood clot.

So what we're trying to do in the treatment of millions of persons in this country and around the world is to reduce their risk factors. And those risk factors, the risk factors that can be corrected, include high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, being overweight, having a sedentary lifestyle, and tobacco abuse.

HOLMES: OK, so we add to this, you say we all have this at birth for the most part. But then we add to it given how we live our lives, given what we eat, given what we do over a course that makes this cholesterol plaque even worse and puts us more at risk for heart attack.

ZUSMAN: That's exactly right. And we divide those risks into those over which you have some control, the ones I've just described, and those who don't have control: family history of heart disease, being a male or a post-menopausal female, or progressive age.

HOLMES: And something like this, or where -- I mean, it just seems like just a heart attack that you can't get treatment for no matter how quickly somebody might get to you. Are there heart attacks like this where no matter how quickly you may get help, medical help, are there some heart attacks that are so massive that you just can't help and likelihood is it's going to be fatal?

ZUSMAN: Well, there are two issues. One is how much heart muscle is damaged and lost. And the other is their electrical instability of the heart. So time is muscle. The quicker you can get blood flow restored, the more likely you are to survive. If you have electrical instability, the availability of a defibrillator, for example, one of the AAD devices that are commonly found in airports and public places, can save lives by restoring a proper heart rhythm.

HOLMES: And is it possible at all that, I mean, given this heart attack that he had, I know you don't have access to his medical records and his history necessarily, but there have to have been some kind of signs, even, I guess, almost immediately before this heart attack, maybe in the hours previous, or even over the past several months or even years. He had to have been some kind of signs that something was happening in his heart.

ZUSMAN: Well, sometimes there are no symptoms at all. But you're right, all too often people will deny or ignore symptoms, discomfort in their chest, their shoulder, their arm, their jaw, their abdomen, provoked by exertion, relieved by rest. You've got take those symptoms seriously and communicate them with your doctor so proper testing can be undertaken.

HOLMES: And a lot of people right now are seeing this. What exactly do they need to walk into their doctor's office and say to that doctor to get checked out to make sure this cholesterol plaque is OK? What does everybody need to be going in and saying to their doctor and getting checked out for?

ZUSMAN: You need to know what your blood pressure is. If it is more than 140/90 it needs to be reduced. You need to know your cholesterol. If it is higher than current guidelines suggest, it needs to be reduced. You need to know your blood sugar. Do you have diabetes? You need to get your weight down to a body mass index of 25 or less.

If you're sedentary, you need to get up and get active. And most importantly, if you're smoking, you need to stop. Those are the six things you can do to help yourself, protect yourself from having a heart attack or a stroke.

HOLMES: All right. We're going to -- we're jotting those notes down and we hope to get those notes up and possibly pass those along. But six simple things and not mincing words there, if you're smoking, you need to stop.

Dr. Zusman -- Dr. Randy Zusman, again, from the Massachusetts General Hospital, sir, we thank you so much for this very, very valuable and timely information right now. Thank you so much, sir.

ZUSMAN: You're welcome, T.J.

NGUYEN: So what's so frightening about that is, as you mentioned, sometimes there just aren't...

HOLMES: No signs?

NGUYEN: ... any signs.

HOLMES: Wow.

NGUYEN: And what do you do then? I mean, you just don't know.

We're following this, the long glide home for Space Shuttle Discovery at Mach 25, have you ever been that fast? That's more than 17,000 miles per hour. We have a live update from CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Well, it is back to the good old U.S. of A. for Space Shuttle Discovery. It is heading home, ending a two-week mission to the International Space Station.

HOLMES: Yes, Discovery and its seven-member crew is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center in just under two hours. And you know, Betty and I, we're capable of doing a lot of stuff.

NGUYEN: Right, but...

HOLMES: But if the shuttle is going to land, we would much prefer to have someone here...

NGUYEN: This guy. The expert.

HOLMES: It is so good, Miles O'Brien, here with us.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: It is good to be here. Good to see you guys, up close.

NGUYEN: In the living flesh.

O'BRIEN: Yes, two-way communication, real time, in person. Let's talk about the shuttle right now. First of all, this is a live picture. Let's go to NASA TV, see what they're doing there. You'll take a look at Mission Control. The controllers there have had a good morning. All the systems are good on the Space Shuttle Discovery. The weather is pristine. That's the word they use.

And when I hear pristine, I think, uh oh, they're going wave off, you know? It is like hexing the whole darn thing. Everything looks good for that 11:15 landing. We'll talk a little bit more about that. But there is one person in the bleachers there at the Kennedy Space Center who happens to be a member of Congress and who happens to have more than the typical interests in this space program.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): It is not unusual to see politicians walking the halls of Congress glued to their BlackBerrys. But Representative Gabrielle Giffords is surely the only lawmaker whose e- mail box is filled with love notes from space.

REP. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS (D), ARIZONA: I got one this morning.

O'BRIEN (on camera): Oh yes? What did it say?

GIFFORDS: Yes, 7:15. He said today is a day off in space. This is rare. Thanks for the wakeup music.

(MARIACHI MUSIC PLAYING)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): He is the shuttle commander Mark Kelly. And the mariachi music came from her home district in Tucson, Arizona.

MARK KELLY, CMDR., SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY: Good morning. It is another good morning in space. I would like to thank my wife -- my wonderful wife Gabrielle and my kids.

O'BRIEN: Gabrielle Giffords, then an Arizona state rep, and Astronaut Mark Kelly, met in China in 2003 on a cultural exchange visit.

(on camera): Was it love at first sight?

GIFFORDS: It wasn't. You know, they always say love at first sight.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But it was a fast friendship that evolved into romance. They got married seven months ago, making her the first ever astronaut spouse in Congress. But the honeymoon would have to wait. An election year loomed and so did this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And liftoff of Shuttle Discovery.

KELLY: She's a little nervous I think, and maybe a little more so than my last flight. There is a certain amount of risk involved in a shuttle flight and she recognizes that.

O'BRIEN: She sure does. But it still isn't easy. GIFFORDS: You're right there, it is very public, and, you know, those first few minutes until they get to the main engine cut off are very frightening. And it's going to be the same with the landing as well.

O'BRIEN: She's literally counting the seconds until landing and has become perhaps the most dedicated viewer of NASA TV on Capitol Hill. Mark has also called her four times, albeit briefly on the space station Internet phone.

GIFFORDS: It is great, but some in some ways it just heightens the anxiety as well, because you know, you reconnect for a second and then you realize the phone call can't last very long.

O'BRIEN: She hasn't slept well either.

GIFFORDS: I wake up every couple of hours, check my e-mail, check the news, make sure everything is going OK. You never really relax until you see the vehicle touch down, the parachute deploy and it fully rolls to a stop.

O'BRIEN: Jittery as her nerves may be, she believes wholeheartedly in the space program and considers the risks her husband is taking worthwhile. She's a member of the House Science Committee and can always be counted on as a NASA booster.

(on camera): I guess there is no doubt you have a special affection for astronauts or at least one.

GIFFORDS: I took my commitment to space and science and NASA to a whole new level when I married Mark.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now you would think given her support of NASA that they always agree on issues. But she's a Democrat, he's a registered independent. And, you know, they're not always in lockstep on that.

One other thing about Mark Kelly that is interesting. His brother Scott, identical twin brother, is also an astronaut. And that's another first ever. So this whole family has got all kinds of firsts.

NGUYEN: Well, you know, what I find really fascinating, he can BlackBerry from space?

O'BRIEN: Isn't that cool? Yes, that's a cool BlackBerry...

(CROSSTALK)

NGUYEN: Imagine getting an e-mail like that, and then the phone call, any idea how much that is costing us?

O'BRIEN: Every April 15th we're paying. She did get one. She was with some friends at a bar in Tucson, put it on the speakerphone for the whole bar. NGUYEN: How cool is that?

O'BRIEN: Talk about impressing your friends.

NGUYEN: Yes, this is a call from space.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a call from -- yes, exactly.

HOLMES: Well, all right. That's cool stuff. We like that story. And we're going to see you here shortly.

O'BRIEN: Yes, the landing, things are going well. We'll bring it down.

HOLMES: All right, Miles, good to have you here. We'll see you shortly.

NGUYEN: See you soon.

And you have seen the pictures of the Midwest flooding, no doubt. And Josh Levs has been looking at some of the pictures. IReports on the extreme weather, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)