Florida Fires; Miracle Down Under; Police Ambush
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: A state of emergency right now in Florida. Wild fires closing down a major interstate. The National Guard is called in. Three police officers shot in an ambush outside of their own station. A search for answers why.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Dieters everywhere, take note. The FDA is going to court to get the supplement Ephedra banned again. And if your computer is on the fritz, if you're frustrated with tech support, you are not alone. Believe it or not, there's a better way. We'll explain.</s>M. O'BRIEN: And making sure your summer vacation isn't a nightmare. Our summer travel series looks at how you can stay safe away from home. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And I'm Soledad O'Brien. A state of emergency to tell you about. It's happening right now in east central Florida. Fifty wild fires there have destroyed thousands of acres. The National Guard is rushing in to help. Governor Jeb Bush says most of the fires were probably caused by people. The thick smoke is also causing a traffic nightmare this morning. A 12-mile stretch of the heavily traveled Interstate I-95 is closed from Edgewater, Florida, north to Port Orange. A Florida Highway Patrol says the road could reopen in the next hour. Let's get right to Chad Myers. He's in the weather center checking on the conditions. How's it looking for the folks there, Chad?</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, I got really good news and I have some fairly bad news. It really depends on where you are and how much rain you get. The entire area here in this big red box, 820 lightning strikes. Now that means there's some significant rain coming down. But if lightning sparks in a place that didn't get a lot of rain, let's say up here near Ormond Beach or maybe a little bit farther close to New Port Richey or all the way back up here into New Smyrna Beach, now you may have a problem with some of those lightning sparks making some in the way of more fires. But the good news is -- at least we'll get to a couple of good spots here. Around Hillsborough County, right here, not that far from Tampa. Here's some video from Hillsborough County, what was going on yesterday. Now, this is not all that far east of Tampa. If you get just to the east and southeast of Tampa Bay, Hillsborough County is right there. That's the area that picked up some wind gusts yesterday to 15 to 20 miles per hour. That's just enough wind -- you see kind of the smoke going in a direction. When the smoke goes straight up, there's not much wind. But when the wind comes in and fans the flames, there's enough oxygen to keep those flames going. Now, the ground fire there in Hillsborough County, getting up to the tree tops in a couple of spots. We'll get back to the map and we'll zoom in on what's going on in Hillsborough County right now. That's Hillsborough County. And that's a lot of rain. That's some great news there. Firefighters can use an inch and a half of rain that's going to come out of this storm so quickly. They can't put an inch and a half of rain on an entire forest in a couple of days. Mother Nature can do it in 15 minutes. There's rain in Orlando. Very heavy rain across the Beeline, and it does exist almost all the way up to about St. Augustine. Great news for firefighters in Florida -- Miles.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad. Happening in America this morning, evacuations in southern California after a landslide. Appears an irrigation pipe broke, loosening the ground near three homes in Laguna Beach. The city says it's safe for the families to go back home, though. The site is just five miles from those massive landslides we told you about last June. Out with the old. The Boardwalk Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, down in a bunch of ashes now. Cloud of smoke. The implosion, making way for the MGM $7 billion city center project. A new report says Duke University too slow to respond to rape allegations against some LaCrosse players. The internal report lays some of the blame on Durham police, who doubted the accuser's story. A vote of confidence for Congressman Patrick Kennedy. The Rhode Island Democratic Party, endorsing him for reelection, even though he's in rehab for addiction to prescription medication. Kennedy crashed into a Capitol Hill police barricade last week, after he says he mixed a prescription with a sleeping pill. The Food and Drug Administration wants to bring back the ban on Ephedra. That's after a Colorado court said it's OK to sell supplements with low doses of the weight loss aid. Ephedra has been linked to several deaths -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Well, they are calling it the miracle down under. The two trapped miners are alive and they're well and they're back above ground this morning after a quite dramatic end to that dangerous rescue operation. Everybody in the whole world practically was watching.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I wasn't here, I wouldn't believe it.</s>S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): The two Australian miners, buried underground for two weeks, walked out of Tasmania's Beaconsfield's Gold Mine unassisted. 35-year-old Todd Russell and 37-year-old Brent Webb had been trapped in a small, steel cage the size of a dog kennel, more than a half mile beneath the surface. After emerging, they acknowledged the cheering crowds who had been praying for their survival.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After two weeks, it's just fabulous to see them out. And it's just fabulous to have those families all come out together. It was just so exciting. I can't believe how exciting it was.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Their incredible rescue ended a drama that practically everyone in the world was watching. It began on April 25th when a minor earthquake triggered a rockslide inside the mine, and trapped the two men. A huge stone slab landed on their 16-square foot cage and formed a kind of roof that kept them from being crushed. A third miner, who was working outside the cage was killed. It was several days before anyone realized that Russell and Webb were alive. Rescuers carefully drilled through the rock and set up a 52-foot long narrow pipe to get oxygen, food, water and supplies, including iPods, to the miners. But a deeper tunnel had to be drilled to get them out. Fellow miners worked around the clock in an intricate and often frustrating operation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had to be totally honest with them and keep them informed every step of the way. So that -- they're miners, they're experienced guys. If you lie to them, they'll know. So, and they had to have absolute faith that everything that was being said was right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Rescuers hit rock five times harder than concrete while cutting the final sections of the escape tunnel. They used hand tools to avoid triggering another cave-in. When Todd Russell and Brent Webb finally reached the surface, crowds of mine workers and bystanders applauded and thanked the remarkable efforts of those who brought them to safety.</s>BILL SHORTEN, AUSTRALIAN WORKERS UNION: This is a day for the rescuers, the rescuers have been fantastic. We have the best mines rescue people in the world, in my opinion. We have the best in the world and they have demonstrated that.</s>S. O'BRIEN: The trapped miners, finally out and happy to be reunited with their loved ones.</s>SHORTEN: These men are lucky to have families like these and these families are lucky to have men like the ones who have been rescued. It's -- actually feels sort of -- I'm just glad it's over. I'm so glad it's over.</s>S. O'BRIEN (on camera): Both Todd Russell and Brent Webb are said to be doing remarkably well. Webb, in fact, already signed himself out of the hospital; and the third miner, Larry Knight, who died underground, was laid to rest today in Australia -- Miles.</s>M. O'BRIEN: A wild shootout outside a Fairfax County, Virginia police station. Police say a teenage gunman ambushed officers during a shift change yesterday. A veteran officer is now dead. Two others are injured. The gunman, killed at the scene. Carol Costello, live in the newsroom with more. Carol, good morning.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. Good morning to all of you. Fairfax County police say this was the work of one gunman, 18-year-old Michael Kennedy. They say the teenager planned this. He crouched between two cars and simply waited for police to come out.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): A police station in Fairfax, Virginia, the unlikely scene of a deadly shootout between cops and a lone gunman. Police say the suspect pulled into the station's parking lot at about 3:30 Monday afternoon and immediately opened fire on police. Three officers hit, one a female detective, a nine-year veteran of the force was killed in the crossfire.</s>CHIEF DAVID ROHRER, FAIRFAX COUNTY VIRGINIA POLICE: This is the first officer that we have lost to an assailant.</s>COSTELLO: One of the two wounded officers is in critical condition following surgery. The other officer suffered only minor wounds. The gunman, who police have not identified, died at the scene. He was said to be heavily armed, carrying a rifle and two handguns. Officials say the suspect tried unsuccessfully to steal a pickup truck from one civilian before confronting another.</s>MARY ANN JENNINGS, FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: He was able to hijack at gunpoint a van. That van was driven onto the parking lot at the Sully Station, and it's my understanding that he was outside the van at least part of the time when he was shooting.</s>COSTELLO: In a tragic irony, the shooting occurred on the same day the department was honoring officers who died in the line of duty. Now, as Fairfax police begin their investigation, they're mourning the loss of one of their own.</s>ROHRER: The Fairfax County Police Department, I'm very proud of, that we have a family, obviously of ourselves, my 1,320 officers, plus our civilian employees and all of our volunteers are grieving now, as well.</s>COSTELLO (on camera): And they're just trying to figure out why. Apparently they arrested this kid on a carjacking charge. He'd been released on $33,000 bond. Maybe that was what triggered him. Who knows at this point? As for Chantilly, it's a very peaceful community in Fairfax County. In fact, nothing ever happens. It took police hours to calm the neighbors down, trying to convince them that this was a single incident, and not the work of terrorists.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Carol Costello, in the newsroom, thank you very much. The latest approval ratings are in for President Bush. He remains mired in the mid 30s. We'll go live to the White House for a look at what's dragging him down.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Also ahead this morning, our special series on surviving summer travel. Today, we are looking at tips to make sure that the summer trip is a safe trip. Plus, Illusionist David Blaine finally pulled out of his man bowl after a week under water. The question is, did he break the record he was gunning for? Doesn't look so good there. That's for sure. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.