Millions Lose Power; Wildfires Torching Colorado; Devastating Fires in Colorado
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. It is 11:00 on the East Coast, 8:00 out West. A violent storm system leaves millions without power as a dangerous heat wave scorches the central and eastern U.S. Parts of Colorado on fire 17,000 acres burned, more than 300 homes destroyed and now two dead. Will firefighters get any help from the weather? Plus, it's high anxiety on board a passenger jet when a frustrated flight attendant starts yelling over the intercom, and it is all caught on video. Three major stories we are watching right now. Record heat, millions without power and a massive wildfire in Colorado. We've got it all covered. Rob Marciano is in Colorado Springs, meteorologist Karen Maginnis is watching the heat and Athena Jones is keeping an eye on the outages on the East Coast, which could be a very dangerous combination with the heat for people hours from now. This all after a violent line of thunderstorms swept across the East Coast. You're looking at the fierce winds and heavy rains that pounded Indiana. And in Virginia, falling trees killed two people and over a million people are without power. There are widespread outages from Indiana to New Jersey. Athena Jones is in Rockville, Maryland this morning, where the power is out and triple-digit temperatures are expected. Athena, what kind of progress are crews making to try and get this power back on?</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Randi. It's happening slowly but surely. The utility companies tell us that their workers are out assessing the damage. They can't yet give estimates on how long it's going to take them to restore power to people around here. In this county in Rockville, Maryland, Montgomery County, about 200,000 people are without power. That's about two-thirds of the customers around here, and it's going to be difficult for these crews to get out and assess this damage and get the power up and running. They say that the first places they're going to hit are going to be critical infrastructure points like hospitals, fire stations, police stations, water filtration plants. Some of the businesses behind me got power back just a short while ago, but some of the folks around here living in the houses around here say they're still without power and they're still concerned. One gentleman I spoke with said that he's going to have to move his sister who just had a serious operation to a location that actually has working air conditioning so that she can survive this day where we expect the numbers to reach really high. I can tell you a few other things anecdotally. People have told us that they weren't able to sleep last night because of the heat with the power out. I can tell you that some jurisdictions around here are having problems with their 911 calling systems like in Fairfax, Virginia which is just outside of Washington, D.C., in northern Virginia on the other side. So a lot going on around here as workers try to get out and quickly restore this power safely and securely -- Poppy.</s>KAYE: And tell me, Athena, it's actually Randi speaking with you, Poppy is coming up on the next hour.</s>JONES: I'm sorry.</s>KAYE: But it's supposed to get over to 100 degrees there today. Are there fears that this heat is just going to be too much? And are people going to make use of these cooling stations there?</s>JONES: Well, that's the key issue here. As you know, this heat wave is continuing, is expecting to continue over the next several days. Temperatures are expected to top 100 degrees in this area. I can tell you that in Washington, D.C., the metropolitan police are opening cooling centers. They're also extending pool hours, public pool hours. They're opening emergency centers for the homeless and for senior citizens. Here in Rockville, I spoke to Montgomery county officials here. They said that, in general, the residents here are usually able to make their way to a shopping center or a library, a place that has a generator that can provide power, and therefore, air conditioning. And so, they're going to continue to make assessments as the day goes forward and gets hotter, frankly, and figure out if they're going to have to open some of these cooling stations. But that's certainly the key issue here. A lot of the -- the people we've talked to, that's their main concern is staying cool today -- Randi.</s>KAYE: All right, Athena Jones, thank you very much. And now to Colorado and the deadly wildfire near Colorado Springs. The Waldo Canyon fire has killed two people and destroyed nearly 350 homes. Thousands more are threatened. Rob Marciano is in Colorado Springs. Rob, any relief today for firefighters, do you think?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, we're hoping for winds that won't be as erratic as they have been in past days. That's certainly what helped them. It's helped them for the past day and a half. Containment lines are about 30 percent now, so that's -- that is a slow improvement. Sunshine will bake down on these mountains you see behind me. It's not very smoky or fiery right now, but throughout the afternoon as temperatures heat up, those fires will become more active and you'll see plumes of smoke. There are neighborhoods they're still protecting. There are still tens of thousands of people that are still evacuated because this is still an active fire zone, even though folks who have been evacuated so badly want to at least go back and look at their homes. The fire-fighting effort continues, as you would imagine now that the sun is up, the air assault will begin once again. We are a stone's throw from the airfield at the Air Force Academy where helicopters are taking off and landing there. And some amazing pictures that we got yesterday, both stills and video of what it's like to look underneath one of those air cranes that has the -- the nozzle and the snorkel to suck up and dump 2,000 or 3,000 of water -- gallons of waters or fire retardant on top of these fires. I did catch up with one of the pilots and specifically asked him, you know, what are some of the challenges and struggles that he's dealing with, with this fire?</s>MARCIANO (voice-over): This thing looks funny. I mean, it looks like an elephant sucking up water.</s>HELICOPTER PILOT: It just does a good job. It -- we can (inaudible) 18 inches of water, so I can lift out of just about any source, and it's been swimming pools to small creeks, streams, and stuff like that. So weather (ph) retardant tanks those are real nice to have on the fire.</s>MARCIANO: And what he also said was when he -- when he has that full tank of over 2,000 gallons of water and he tries to get up and over those -- that 10,000-foot ridge, that is a struggle, that is difficult to manage, especially when the winds get gusty like they were in the very beginning of this fire. This has become a huge story, Randi. As you know, the President was here yesterday encouraging firefighters and talking to evacuees who tomorrow will finally, some of them at least, will be able to at least look at their neighborhoods. They'll get about 3,000 or 4,000 people over the next two days on to buses and let them get a visual tour. They won't be able to get out of the buses because those same neighborhoods are still in the active fire zone. So this is a bit unprecedented, certainly unusual to get a fire to come down out of the mountains and get into the city limits of a city as large as Colorado Springs, Randi and that itself has posed a number of problems here.</s>KAYE: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: Back to you.</s>KAYE: I'm sure, just trying to get a handle on that is a tough one. Rob Marciano, thank you. And to find out more about how you can help those affected by the wildfires, go to CNN.com/impact. You'll find organizations that are working with the victims and ways that you can help. Once again, it's CNN.com/impact. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will not face criminal prosecution in the "Fast and Furious" case. Holder was held in contempt of Congress Thursday for not turning over documents from the failed gun- tracking sting in Mexico. Legal experts say the President's assertion of executive privilege in the case protects Holder from prosecution. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several other world diplomats are meeting in Geneva today to discuss how to end the violence in Syria. Russia and China have yet to agree to a plan for a transitional government, but special U.N. Envoy Kofi Annan says he hopes there will be quote, "an appropriate outcome." Meanwhile, the bloodshed in Syria continues with activists saying at least 33 people were killed today. An historic day for Egypt. Mohamed Morsi, seen here in the middle, was sworn in as Egypt's first democratically-elected president. The ceremony took place amid tight security and was overseen by Egypt's military rulers. Morsi promised to respect the Constitution and look after the interests of the people. Passengers aboard an American Airlines commuter jet couldn't believe their ears when they heard this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have balls (ph) --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have balls? Is that what he said?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your time. Otherwise, you're going to have to fly with Jose.</s>KAYE: Very, very strange. We'll tell you what led to this bizarre rant.