Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Deadly Fire in California, Thousands Told to Evacuate; World Leaders Meet in D.C. to Fix Ailing Economy; Deadly Tornadoes in North Carolina; How to Make Yourself Invaluable at Your Job

Aired November 15, 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: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, good morning to you all on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm T.J. Holmes.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, hello, everybody and good morning. I'm Betty Nguyen.

We do want to thank you for starting your day with us. Boy, take a look at this, though. An incredible but tragic scene from Sylmar, California. These are live pictures. Mobile homes in flames. In the middle of the night, thousands of people were told to evacuate.

HOLMES: And here they come to save the day, we hope. World leaders in D.C. this morning on a mission to fix the ailing economy and heading off possibly another meltdown. We got a live report coming to you from D.C. this morning.

But we want to talk about that dangerous fire. And just these pictures -- we should just go back to these live pictures. It exploded over night north of Los Angeles, just an amazing scene out there. These flames have been spreading -- and spreading because of winds that have been gusting 60 and 70 miles an hour, described as even hurricane force winds, up to 70-plus miles an hour. Thousands are warned to get out of there, get out of the way.

Kara Finnstrom is on the phone for us,. Kara, tell us where you are, what you're seeing and what do we know about people heeding the warning to get out of there.

VOICE OF KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, T.J. right now we're driving towards the fire line and as we've been coming in, we can see these huge billows of smoke all across the horizon, an orange glow illuminating the sky -- just giving you a feel for how large this wildfire is.

The fire is burning out of control right now. Firefighters tell us it is burning in two different direction and faster than anyone can run or walk, which is why they say people really need to heed the evacuation warnings. As you mentioned, some of the winds here gusts up to 60 or 70 miles an hour. So that's really feeling the fire.

At this point, about 5,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes. We do know that one person has been hurt. Also, a hospital here in the Sylmar area was sheltering about 200 of its patients in place. So they just (INAUDIBLE) what the safest thing to do. It's evacuated its intensive care unit. Last report, firefighters were telling us they felt the flames which had gotten close were moving in another direction so that's why they made that decision.

Also, you know, we're really going to see a transportation nightmare here in the L.A. area this morning. The fire has jumped the five interstates, that's a major north-south corridor connector. Also sections of other freeways shut down.

So folks are going to have a lot of trouble getting around here. The good news is that about 500 firefighters were in place, ready to go because we knew these conditions were coming. There have been fires in other parts of southern California and, fortunately, they were ready to go and are out there battling this right now, T.J.

HOLMES: And the battle is under way. Kara Finnstrom on her way to the scene and about to get in the thick of things. Kara, thank you. We'll be checking in with you as well. And you all stay safe also.

NGUYEN: We are also following another major story and that is finding a solution to the financial crisis. It is a huge deal. But President Bush says don't expect a quick fix. Still, though, everybody is watching the G-20 summit pretty closely, and that includes our Elaine Quijano. She joins us from the White House.

Elaine, what are you hearing about this meeting between the 20 leaders of the industrialized and developing countries, they're hoping to find some kind of solution to this problem.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well that's right. We heard from President Bush, in fact, as you know, Betty, earlier this morning really essentially setting the parameters for the discussions that are set to take place starting now.

President Bush says that there is progress. They had their working dinner last night and then he greeted these world leaders this morning at the National Building Museum here in Washington where the discussions are taking place this morning. The president, before the leaders got there, talks under way, the President said that there was some agreement on some basic principles having to do with the financial markets.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am pleased that we're discussing a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again, and I am pleased that the leaders re-affirm the principles behind open markets and free trade. One of the dangers during a crisis such as this is that people will start implementing protectionist policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP) QUIJANO: Now, President Bush has been making his own position on this very clear. You heard him there, talking about protectionist policies and being concerned about that. He also, leading up to this, delivered a speech in New York City, traveling to the heart of Wall Street to talk about how he feels it's vitally important for world leaders to uphold free market principles and western-style capitalism, if you will. That's likely what we're going to hear from the president again today.

The meeting is just getting under way, Betty, this morning. They did again have that working dinner last night. But President Bush, the bottom line with this emergency meeting, is trying to send the message that this is just a first step in this process. There will be other meetings, not with this president necessarily, but, of course, leaders looking beyond this president as well to President-elect Obama. But President Bush trying to lay the groundwork here, some underlying agreement on principles so that world leaders can move forward in the future -- Betty.

NGUYEN: All right. I just want to be clear on that, what they're trying to hash out here is a plan, maybe a blueprint for future global financial crisis like what we're experiencing or they're trying to deal with what we're facing right now?

QUIJANO: Well, it's more of a dissection, if you will, of what the response to the current financial crisis has been, the agreement on root causes and what went wrong, what might be working now. But really this is about looking to the future as well. And just getting all these world leaders, Betty, to agree on some basic ideas.

There are some in Europe who are pushing for some sort of greater global financial regulation, if you will. President Bush is saying, look, that could be harmful for the global economy, that free markets really need to be allowed to reign here. So, President Bush is very much trying to push back against that. It will be interesting to see, Betty, what exactly the public statements will be coming out of this.

NGUYEN: Yes. There has been talk of an early warning system. That's interesting, if we hear any more details on that. Elaine Quijano joining us live. Thank you, Elaine.

HOLMES: All right. This is not just a U.S. crisis, this is a global crisis but getting all those world leaders to agree on how to deal with the financial issue could be quite a challenge. Our Richard Quest in Washington for us.

Richard, what is the attitude, and do some world leaders have a bit of an attitude towards the U.S., if you will, because a lot of people think the U.S. started this whole mess, and you know what, we're not just going to follow your lead and have you tell us how we can fix this thing now.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There is no doubt T.J. that, yes, some of the world leaders who are arriving at the White House or at the National Museum this morning firmly believe the blame for this crisis rests at the laissez faire, the lack of regulation in U.S. markets. That is why, of course, they are now coming to Washington to try and sort out the mess.

However, what is the big point of difference between all the leaders is not necessarily how to handle the crisis now. They'll be discussing that. But what to do next. And you do have deep philosophical differences of opinion. But the crucial difference between this meeting and any other that you or I have seen in recent years is the size and scale of it.

Twenty leaders representing developed and developing, those in recession and those that are still engines of growth, all around the table at the same time. And, T.J., how they are going to manage to manufacture or communicate but basically pulls those strings together will be the big question.

HOLMES: And is this the person, quite frankly, they want to be dealing with right now? There's a new administration coming in. We have a lame duck president who's only has a short time left in office. Would they like to be talking to Obama? And Obama has a couple of representatives available. But still, is Obama the person they're looking to now?

QUEST: Well, they're realists. They're politicians. And one thing they certainly know, there's a survey out this morning that's in this morning's "Financial Times" that says something like 2/3 of those surveyed believe that the world leaders have done a terrible job in handling this crisis. So, they're looking over their shoulders at the next president. They saw what happened in this election, the presidential election, what happened to the Republicans.

Gordon Brown in Britain knows he's got to face the electorate in a couple of years. They all know that they've got to do something. Their populations are angry. Look, to point this out, this is not an American summit. It's a world summit with lots of people from around -- leaders from around the globe. The Indonesian leaders said we must look for immediate results.

Our people are looking for that. And that is why the next meeting of this -- of this group will be held in April of next year when they will review that which they've done. So they don't really mind that it's George Bush at the helm at the moment, because they know this is a much longer process that will go well into next year.

HOLMES: Well into next year and probably beyond that. Richard Quest for us in Washington. Richard, good to see you.

NGUYEN: There are some big names on the short list, President- elect Barack Obama discussing one of the more important posts in this new administration and that being Secretary of State. CNN's Ed Henry joins us now live from Chicago this morning.

All right. Ed, who have we seen paying visits to those transition headquarters there? Because there's been talk of Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson. What else do you have for us?

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Betty. We got the binoculars out, literally, trying to figure out who is coming in and out there. As you mentioned, Hillary Clinton was in two days ago meeting with Barack Obama. That's the one that's getting all the buzz. Democratic sources telling CNN that, in fact, Hillary Clinton left this meeting thinking that the Secretary of State job would be hers if she wanted it.

But as you noted, need to caution that yesterday Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, was also in talking to Barack Obama about the Secretary of State job. His name has been out there already. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts has been mentioned. Some Republicans like Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel have also been mentioned.

But why Hillary Clinton? There's so much focus on here. What would be the upside for Barack Obama? People in his inner circle say he's very serious about thinking about pulling together so-called team of rivals like Abraham Lincoln did in his cabinet and have a healthy, robust debate, not just "yes" people who are agreeing to everything he says.

The upside for Senator Clinton of course would be that rather than just being 1 of 100 in the Senate, now after losing the presidential race she would be in the cabinet and in a very prominent cabinet position, one with an international portfolio.

Obviously, there could be downsides for Barack Obama, not only pluses that Hillary Clinton brings to the table, questions about her husband and then his international dealings and whatnot will come up. Meanwhile, while they're kind of laying the groundwork for a cabinet, Barack Obama this morning, his transition team announcing some new names for some important White House staff positions, names that have been out there but now they're making it official.

Valerie Jarrett, for example, very close to Barack Obama during the campaign, from Chicago here. In fact, Barack Obama last night went to a birthday party for her. They're extremely close. She is going to be in charge of White House governmental affairs and a public liaison for the president, very important, sort of behind the scenes job.

Secondly, they're making it official that we've been hearing for days that Ron Klain will be chief of staff to vice president-elect Joe Biden. He was a top aide to then vice president Gore in the Clinton administration. So he's somebody well-known in the Democratic circles. And finally, Phil Shaliro (ph) is going to be the president's liaison to Congress. Shaliro is somebody very well-known in Washington, behind the scenes player, worked for the former senate majority leader Tom Daschle as well as Congressman Henry Waxman of California.

So, what we're seeing is sort of the building blocks of this administration being put together here in Chicago, but a lot of big, big jobs we're still waiting for. And in the coming days, we're expecting Barack Obama to finally make those announcements on the cabinet.

And on Monday, another big name coming here to Chicago, Senator John McCain for his first post-election meeting with Barack Obama. They're expected to talk about issues they might work together on next year, such as global warming, Betty.

NGUYEN: Very busy time there in Chicago. All right. Keep us posted, especially on that Secretary of State position. Thank you, Ed Henry.

HENRY: Thank you.

HOLMES: What do you think, Betty? Am I too valuable to CNN? So valuable that they cannot lay me off?

NGUYEN: Oh. Absolutely, T.J. of course you are.

HOLMES: I don't like how you hesitated. A lot of people really worried about the job but there is a way to make yourself so valuable, too valuable that you are lay-off proof. I'm working on it.

NGUYEN: I'm taking notes.

HOLMES: Yes.

NGUYEN: Stay with us for that.

HOLMES: Also we'll keep an eye, of course, on those wildfires burning out in California. Another live look. Starting to get a little light out there. Maybe you put some light on the situation. But right now they are trying to put some water on it. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, keep an eye on this breaking situation out in Sylmar, California. This is just about 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, and we see fire. We have been seeing fire the past couple of days. The Sylmar fire burned some 2,600 acres. You can see kind of spots now that are on fire. Firefighters, several hundred of them, have been working to put out this fire that is still moving, that they still say they do not have complete containment on or any variation really of containment at this point.

Very few injuries, just a couple that we know of, and not too serious. But still a situation that is threatening several hundred -- excuse me, 1,000-plus structures right now being threatened by this fire. Winds not helping, hurricane-force winds actually out there whipping these flames around.

Also another situation clear across the country on the other coast in North Carolina, some live pictures coming to us from Kenly, North Carolina, where a massive thunderstorm, a big system really hit that area, believed to have spawned a couple of tornadoes. And we're looking now at some daylight here, some of these daylight pictures of just how massive some of this damage was. We do know that at least two deaths, at least according to some of our affiliates out there, are saying attributed to these storms. Again, according to our affiliates out there. Our Karen Maginnis watching the situation for us in our weather center here. And Karen, we have all seen and certainly in reporting over the years, we've all been in this business, we know what tornado damage looks like and this is certainly something you would say is tornado damage.

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, we did see some thunderstorms roar across the eastern seaboard during the early morning hours. They were under a severe weather watch throughout the morning hours and we did locate some cells. Though potentially could produce some tornadic activity. That across the east central zones of North Carolina.

But the storms have now rapidly moved off toward the east, but in its wake, we did see some heavy amounts of rainfall associated with these storms as well, and we're watching these move off toward the east and northeast. Things seem to be clearing out rather nicely now, but a couple of the areas like just to the east of Raleigh, that's in Wilson county, and in Elm City, we had reports of possible tornadic damage there.

There you can see the roof, a portion of a roof that looks like to a sunroom possibly, a bedroom on the back of that house and the leaves torn off these trees as well. They've got the area, it looks like, roped off. These are live pictures from our affiliate WRAL. It looks like from Kenly, North Carolina. As I mentioned, it's probably a good hour's drive to the east out of Raleigh, North Carolina.

There you can just see, it's a little bit overcast now, but I think by this afternoon they will be clearing out, temperatures are going to be dropping, and the wind is really going to be kicking up there as well behind the frontal system that did produce this severe weather. There you can see some folks in having lived through a hurricane damage myself in coastal south Carolina, when you come out and inspect the damage, it is such a demoralizing event to do that and to see your neighbors, where they have damage such as this as well.

There were two reports of fatalities out in Wilson County to the east of Raleigh. And that was reported in Elm City. Look at that bin that was overturned. It looks like it has aluminum cans from what I can tell. And if you can imagine, that thing just packed how heavy that would be and just blown over as if it were something that was empty. We don't have any official rainfall totals from this area just now, but it's not really the rainfall that, obviously, that we're concerned about here. It is the damage. Possibly tornadic damage.

Just from what we saw where the roof was blown off, the trees were stripped of their leaves, and incidences like this where it looks like farm equipment is just tossed around, very capriciously, this does, at least from my estimation and years of experience looking at tornado damage, this does look like tornadic damage.

Back to you, T.J.

HOLMES: Absolutely. You hit it on the head there. It's demoralizing. A lot of people these things happen at night, and you walk out, the daylight hits these things, you see a tree uprooted there but the daylight hilts and you see quite literally your life scattered out, just all over the place like we're seeing in these pictures. Karen, we appreciate you keeping an eye on all these weather situations we're watching today.

And folks, we're keeping an eye on what's happening there in North Carolina. Again, local affiliates reporting at least two dead associated with it, but also on the right side of your screen there, Sylmar, California, pictures there of just a massive fire that is not anywhere close to being contained. Live pictures out there right now of what's happening. The Sylmar fire, it's called, thousands of acres burned, thousands of homes now being threatened. We are on top of both of these breaking stories.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We all remember those days in school where you had to get together for the class photo. Well, here is the one from just a couple of minutes ago. This class is the G-20, though. And they have a pretty big subject they're studying today, the world economy in crisis right now. The summit happening in Washington, D.C.

You see the president there hosting it in D.C., but leaders from the most developed and some of the developing countries around the world getting together to talk about the global economic crisis. We are following several of our reporters following what's coming out of that meeting -- Betty.

NGUYEN: You know T.J., it seems like almost every headline has reports of more and more layoffs. Just in the past two weeks alone, almost 30,000 people have lost their jobs, but what if you were so valuable that your company could not afford to lose you? Here to help you make that happen is April Fawcett Nagel, she runs an executive search firm here in Atlanta.

All right. There is a lot riding on you today. How do you make us so valuable that no company will want to let us go? Some of the tips here that you have are quite interesting. One is shine where you are. How do you do that?

APRIL FAWCETT NAGEL, JOB RECRUITER: Well, you become indispensable. You work harder. You kick it up a notch. Give 120 percent. Most people don't --

NGUYEN: I mean, do you find extra things to do? I mean, how do you kick it up a notch?

NAGEL: You truly evaluate yourself and your work ethic and just do more. Be more proactive, be better at what you do.

NGUYEN: You also say you want to think like an employer. That's going to help you out.

NAGEL: Yes.

NGUYEN: How so? NAGEL: Well, you need to -- if you were in charge and you had to pick 20 percent of your workforce and lay them off, who would you pick and why? And you want to be the other percentage.

NGUYEN: Got you. And you need to adapt to change, as always. But each company is downsizing, maybe you're getting more responsibility. How do you adapt to that change?

NAGEL: You can always take on new skills, whether it's learning new software, study sales skills more, customer service skills. Just bring more to the job.

NGUYEN: And besides -- you're seeing friends and family lose their jobs. You're finding that you're having to work harder. You say stay positive. Don't whine.

NAGEL: Don't whine.

NGUYEN: That will get you fired quicker than anything, right?

NAGEL: Somebody fun to be around, you know that your co-workers want to be around, your manager wants to be around. No matter what's happening, you need to be the positive force in your environment. And you know, upgrade your image.

NGUYEN: It seems very materialistic but it matters in the workplace, doesn't it?

NAGEL: Yes, it matters. You need to look the part. You need to be more professional.

NGUYEN: So put on those suits, dust them off, get them out of the closet, start wearing them again?

NAGEL: Put a little more time and care into what you wear every day.

NGUYEN: All right. But keep your ethics and your character throughout all of this.

NAGEL: I believe you need to. You don't want to become the person in the office that is vying to not get laid off at the expense of your co-workers. You don't want to start pointing fingers. You know you want to be an ethical person who does what they're --

NGUYEN: All right. Say for some odd reason that this doesn't work, April, and for some reason you're not the most valuable person and you're not the last man standing. In fact, you're the first one out the door. What do you do then if you've lost your job?

NAGEL: You know you're a victim of statistics in these times. And it's not something to be taken personally today. You need to leave gracefully. I think that's a big recommendation.

NGUYEN: You don't want to burn any of those bridges? NAGEL: Right. You want to say good-bye. You want to say thank you. You want to leave with a letter of recommendation if you can. Get it when you go. If you can get them to list your strengths in the letter of recommendation, that's a good thing. You want to start your new job as soon as you get home. Don't panic, but you need to spend at least 40 percent of your time on your new job, which is getting a job.

NGUYEN: Which is looking, searching for a job. Just 40 percent of your time?

NAGEL: Well, I think 40 to 50 -

NGUYEN: I would think like 99 percent of your time.

NAGEL: You don't want to burn out. You know it's a process. It takes time to get the second interview, and get called back. And networking a big part of it. Volunteer. Anything that you do outside and you're communicating to people that you are looking for work and you're looking for leads --

NGUYEN: So that you're on their mind when something pops up. All right. Good information. April Fawcett Nagel, thanks for your time today.

NAGEL: Thank you.

NGUYEN: We appreciate it.

All right. You hear it T.J.? That's what we need to do to be so valuable that no one will ever let us go.

HOLMES: If it comes down to me and you, my ethics and character, out the door.

NGUYEN: Oh, no. That's not good.

HOLMES: Just kidding. All right, Betty.

Well, something else we're keeping an eye on, you keeping your job one thing, but also the fire out in California. The fires, I should say. We got a couple we're keeping an eye on. This is the latest. This is in Sylmar, California. We'll give you the latest on this. Still fast-moving and not contained fire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)