Tornado Hits New Orleans Suburb; Mitt Romney to Announce Presidential Run
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Storm alert: a tornado cuts a path of damage near New Orleans just a couple of hours ago, and a blizzard threatens to roar to life in the Midwest.</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Terror in the mall. A gunman opens fire on shoppers. Six people are killed. This morning, survivors tell a chilling story.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And a CNN exclusive. A Marine admits to killing an innocent civilian in Iraq. He tells us why he pulled the trigger but shouldn't be convicted of murder. Those stories and much more on this AMERICAN MORNING. Welcome back, everybody. It's Tuesday, February 13. I'm Soledad O'Brien.</s>M. O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for being with us.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Let's begin with breaking news out of Louisiana this morning. Tornado, it appears, touched down in the town of Westwego. That's just west of New Orleans. Getting some reports of damage and three injuries so far. CNN's Susan Roesgen is on the phone for us from Westwego. Hey Susan, good morning. How's it looking?</s>SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Well, it's beginning to be daylight here, which will help the -- any rescue efforts considerably. We have an update on the number of injuries now. Now seven injuries. All minor, except for one, which did send a man to the hospital. Again, that was the one that the mayor told me about earlier. He believes this person is in shock and had a head injury perhaps, or perhaps a back injury. The big problem right now, Soledad, is that the power company crews are preparing to shut off power in areas where they have it right now and preparing to shut off gas in areas where they have it right now, because they said that they have major gas leaks in this area. They're very concerned about that. And I'm still on foot walking around the hotel. I just spoke to a guy who told me that he and three friends from Detroit had come down for Mardi Gras, and they were in the top floor of that hotel. If you've seen the video, there isn't a top floor left, really. He said they heard a terrible noise. One of the buddies opened the door. He says the tornado came right through the door, lifted the ceiling off. Bits of the ceiling fell on them. They huddled on the bed. Everybody, believe it or not, Soledad, is OK, every guy in the room. There were four guys in the room. The entire ceiling and the entire roof was blown off. They're all OK. So again, people have been taken to the Red Cross shelters in the area. Only minor injuries except for one man taken to the hospital. We really don't know much more about his condition except that he was in shock and he may have had some kind of head injury.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Oh, my goodness. You look at these pictures, Susan, and you can really -- it is very surprising that you have those kinds of mostly minor injuries to report. Let me ask you a question. So I see a home, and I also see the hotel damage in this videotape. Is that essentially the extent of the damage, or is there sort of this long tornado-like path that we're used to seeing when these things hit?</s>ROESGEN: Yes, absolutely, there is a long tornado path of destruction. It's only about four blocks wide, which makes sense. Tornadoes are limited in width, but a very long area that stretches from one side of the Mississippi River and apparently jumps over to the other side. There's more damage to New Orleans proper. And behind that motel that you've been looking at, an area that we haven't yet been able to get into with our cameras, there are a lot of homes. The mayor told me some homes are simply slabs. He said that it hit homes, hit houses all right, but three houses around him have lost their roofs, and one house, he said, he was basically split in half. So as far as we know, firefighters are still going door to door back behind that motel that you've been looking at and in other areas, in this four-block wide area and about a mile and a half long through Westwego, looking to see if there is anybody else injured, looking to see the extent of the damage. So we should get, really, an even better picture of worse damage as the morning goes on.</s>S. O'BRIEN: All right. So as the sun comes up, and also if you get a chance to kind of go back into that area that so far you haven't been able to get into. Susan Roesgen by phone for us. Thanks, Susan. Please be careful. I know those downed power lines obviously very, very dangerous -- Miles.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Whether is a big story this morning in all quadrants. Chad Myers is looking at a big winter storm that is moving across the nation's heartland and headed our way. Hello, Chad.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Wow. 35 inches. All right. Thank you, Chad.</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You're welcome.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Happening this morning elsewhere, what could be a big breakthrough in those talks aimed at forcing the North Koreans to lay down their nuclear weapons. The deal coming out of those six- nation talks in Beijing, it would send fuel oil and other aid to the north, so long as Pyongyang begins shutting down its nuclear operation. In Lebanon a pair of bus bombings northeast of Beirut. Details sketchy, at least three, perhaps as many as ten dead. A dozen hurt. It happened in a Christian province. The second bus exploded as it stopped at the scene of the first bomb blast. On Capitol Hill today lawmakers will debate a resolution opposing the Bush buildup of troops in Iraq. The House will take up debate on a two-sentence war resolution in a matter of hours. The resolution simply states Congress will keep funding troops in Iraq, but it opposes accepting more troops in. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales travels to New Orleans today. He is expected to announce more money is coming to the city in the form of federal grants to help fight crime. No word on whether he will visit those areas hit by those tornadoes -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Police this morning are trying to figure out just who it was who walked into a mall and started shooting and why. It happened in the downtown Salt Lake City. Six people are now dead, including the gunman, who witnesses described as wearing a long coat and carrying a shotgun. Witnesses say he was shooting shoppers, and they were desperately diving for cover.</s>DEETTA BARTTA, WITNESS: And we were sitting by the window, and all of a sudden we heard -- you know, it sounded like a car backfiring, and then there was one and two and three, and we looked out the window, and we went, oh, that's a gunshot.</s>RON MASON, WITNESS: I could see he had a gun. He had a long coat on, thick coat on. He was pumping and shooting rounds before he went in the building. Then he went into the building underneath us, and we heard shots inside of the building.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Four other people were shot. An off duty police officer finally returned fire, and it is he, reportedly, who killed the gunman. Another shootout to tell you, as well, last night. This one in Philadelphia. It happened during a business meeting at an office complex in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Three people were killed there. A fourth person is reported in critical condition. The gunman shot himself after a shootout with police. And police believe the fight all started with some kind of altercation over money.</s>M. O'BRIEN: About an hour and a half from now, Mitt Romney is slated to make it official. The former governor of Massachusetts will announce his entry into the presidential race. He is launching his campaign in his home state of Michigan. CNN's Candy Crowley with more on the candidate.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Great to see you. Thanks for coming tonight.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even his detractors give him props for presentation, but Mitt Romney is more than just another pretty face. Harvard Law and Harvard Business, former management consultant, CEO, former head of the Olympics, and former governor of Massachusetts, where he developed his stiffest critics. They slammed him for using the governorship in one of the country's most liberal states to repackage himself as a conservative presidential candidate.</s>SALVATORE DIMASI, MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE SPEAKER: He changed a lot over the four years that he was here. His rhetoric and his positions on, like, abortion, like gay rights, like stem-cell research totally changed when he decided that his focus should be on conservative votes across the country.</s>ROMNEY: On abortion I wasn't always a Ronald Reagan conservative. Either was Ronald Reagan, by the way. But like him, I learned with experience.</s>CROWLEY: Romney's courtship of the conservative wing of his party has been particularly intense in the south, where he's been buffing up his conservative credentials for the better part of two years.</s>ROMNEY: We respect the value of human life and the sanctity of human life. We respect the foundation of the family. All of these elements are part of our society and our culture.</s>CROWLEY: Romney's emphasis on values is not just about moral issues. It's about religion, his.</s>DON WILTON, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA: Mormonism does make me nervous, because I'm a Christian and because the precepts and principles and, more importantly, the practices of Mormonism have cause for great concern.</s>CROWLEY: Romney is a Mormon, the Church of Latter Day Saints, viewed by some, mostly conservative evangelicals, as a non-Christian cult-like organization. All things they have heard before in Salt Lake City, home base for Mormons.</s>DAVID MAGELBY, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY: I think there will be attacks on Romney that will be launched by third party groups about his religion. I think that's almost a certainty.</s>CROWLEY: It's unclear how much his religion will hurt, but it is a particular concern for Romney in conservative South Carolina, the first primary state. He has returned repeatedly there with explanations of his faith and his values to groups both big and small.</s>RICK BELTRAM, GOP CHAIRMAN, SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA: I have discussion also privately with Governor Romney and said to him that clearly the one issue that he's going to have to properly communicate is what the Mormon faith is all about.</s>CROWLEY: Romney aides have long held that he can overcome or at least mitigate the religion issue with a focus on shared values.</s>M. O'BRIEN: That was Candy Crowley. And CNN will cover Mitt Romney's announcement this morning, live, 9 Eastern on CNN and CNN Pipeline. And of course, all the day's political news is available on the CNN Political Ticker any time day or night. You need a fix of politics, just go to CNN.com/ticker -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Stunning turn of events coming up on AMERICAN MORNING. A Marine accused of murder in Iraq will testify that he pulled the trigger and now says, well, he's not guilty. We'll have this exclusive interview straight ahead. And take a look at this. A stash, $6 million worth of cocaine. We'll tell you the details of this sizable that went down bust down in Texas. Plus, excess baggage is going to cost you more, lots more, to fly across the pond and back. We've got new details. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is right here on CNN.