Massive Earthquake Hits New Zealand; Hurricane Earl's Path; NASA Tests Next Generation Rocket
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: As the shuttle program draws to a close, NASA is testing the next generation rocket, but what if it does not make the cut? Here is CNN's John Zarrella.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one, fire.</s>JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The test firing of the 154-foot Ares rocket lasted just about two minutes. Pretty cool. Well, enjoy, because this could be the last time that candle is ever lit. The Ares, built here in Promontory, Utah by ATK Aerospace, was going to be the backbone of the future -- the rocket that propelled astronauts to the Space Station, the moon and some day Mars. The problem is -- and it's sort of a big problem -- no one can agree whether this is the rocket they want. The White House wants something new, much bigger and cutting edge for deep space missions. So does</s>NASA. CHARLIE BOLDEN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We have always had big dreams, but we have all -- we have also always failed to match the -- the -- the budget or the funding to those dreams. I think, for the first time, at least that I can remember, a president has matched the funding to the dreams.</s>ZARRELLA: Meanwhile, commercial companies like SpaceX want to take over the shuttle's role of ferrying astronauts to the Space Station. For its part, Congress is leaning toward continuing the development of Ares, but one more powerful than this one, just in case cutting edge doesn't cut it because it doesn't yet exist.</s>GEORGE MUSSER, "SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN": It's really a matter of money. If Congress is asking NASA with its own resources to divert some resources to keeping the Ares project alive, something else is going to suffer. It could be scientific missions, Mars missions, for example.</s>ZARRELLA: Greg Kotter runs ATK's Ares rocket program. They've built rockets here for more than 30 years including every space shuttle, solid rocket booster. The Ares is an evolution of that booster, bigger and more powerful. One billion dollars has already been spent on its development and until the funding runs out and someone tells them to stop --</s>GREG KOTTER, ATK ARIES ROCKET PROGRAM: We're working as if, you know, this is what we're going to do. I mean, that's our direction and what we're under contract to do and how we're behaving.</s>ZARRELLA: In coming months Ares' future will likely be decided by NASA, Congress and the White House. Aries program supporters say if it's completely abandoned then this test was quite literally your tax dollars going up in smoke. John Zarrella, CNN, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</s>BLITZER: And you are in THE SITUATION ROOM. Happening now, breaking news: a devastating magnitude-7.0 earthquake causing widespread damage in New Zealand's second largest city. We will get a live update this hour from the scene of the disaster. Also, new numbers on the U.S. economy are putting new pressure on President Obama and the Democrats, with midterm elections just two months away. What can they do to turn it around? And a controversial device designed to prevent loitering, we're going to show you how it takes advantage of age to specifically target teenagers. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You are in THE SITUATION ROOM. The Labor Day weekend here in the United States is beginning with a washout along the shores of the Northeastern parts of the United States, as Hurricane Earl moves in. It is a Category 1 storm right now packing some high surf and powerful winds, a force of nature that anyone disregards at their own risk. After some lashing of the North Carolina coast, Earl now poses the greatest threat to eastern Long Island and Cape Cod and then on to Canada. Our national correspondent Susan Candiotti is joining us now from South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. She is standing by. Susan, stand by for a moment. I want to get the latest forecast from our meteorologist and severe weather expert Chad Myers over at the CNN Hurricane Center. What do we know about this hurricane right now, Chad?</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Down to 80 miles per hour in the center. That is good. The problem is still, if you are going to do a vacation this weekend, just don't leave today. Leave tomorrow. This will be long gone. This will be 1,000 miles into Canada by tomorrow night, but from the cape down through Long Island and even into New Jersey, the weather today is not great. Travel is not that good, a lot of rain coming down and there's an awful lot of traffic on the roadways. Give it a day or give it a half a day and it will be great. It missed Cape Hatteras, thank goodness, because it was a big storm then. It was a large Category 2, small Category 3 at that time. And now it's going to skirt what would be Nantucket and also Cape Cod and here Montauk and into all of Long Island. And so the good news, the skirt happened because the storm finally did turn. And, Wolf, we talked about this last night; if this storm waited six more hours before it turned, this would be onshore. All of the winds would be significantly higher, probably double. The biggest wind gust we had was about 80. We could have had wind gusts easy to 120 to 130 miles per hour with this system. There is the eye of the cell right there. You can't see the whole thing because it is too far offshore. And we are happy it is offshore. There will be big waves all the way through the weekend all the way down the East Coast. If you are not a swimmer with a life jacket on, stay out of the water and go swim at the pool, because this is a weekend that will have rip currents all up and down the East Coast, even into Maine, although we don't really have all those sandbars up there, but whole up and down the East Coast, the surf is up for sure. The storm goes away. Look, by Saturday, this is well past Nova Scotia. So, it's just about done. Still hurricane warnings for the cape, for Nantucket and also almost back to Narragansett, but tropical storm watches, tropical storm warnings have been canceled for the rest of the trip up and down the East Coast. Give it a few hours and make a safe trip tomorrow, rather than try to force it today.</s>BLITZER: It could have been a whole, whole lot worse.</s>MYERS: Oh, it would have been.</s>BLITZER: Chad, thanks very much. Let's check in with Susan Candiotti right now. She's out on Cape Cod. What is it like there, Susan? Unfortunately, we are not hearing Susan.</s>BLITZER: Susan, we weren't hearing you. Your microphone was not on for some reason, so start again. Tell us what you are seeing and what you are hearing.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK. Let me know if you are not hearing it yet. And then we will try to switch out microphones for you</s>BLITZER: We are hearing you fine now.</s>CANDIOTTI: But if you -- terrific. If you can see over my shoulder, not too many whitecaps right now. It does not look bad at all. Of course, it's not expected to get bad for another, oh, six eight hours. It's not going to get bad until maybe midnight, 2:00 in the morning. And of course, we will be up for that. In the meantime, people here are as prepared as they can be. That is because the state worked hand in hand with FEMA to preposition some supplies here, water, food, generators, tarps, just in case. But obviously with the news that Earl appears to be staying offshore and here on the cape, itself, we will probably only be feeling hurricane- force gusts, that means people are breathing a slight sigh of relief. But they still have a full night of pounding surf and high winds to live through. Undoubtedly, there are going to be power outage. We are probably going to see downed trees and there is going to be flooding, because it floods here when it rains just a little bit. So, we are expecting all of that. In the meantime, the ports have all been closed since overnight. They have shut down all the ferries, so everyone better be where they are going to be and intend to be for this very long night ahead of them. The biggest area of concern right now frankly is Nantucket, but it is -- because it is closest to the path of the storm. And we have a crew there that will be watching and waiting to see what Earl has in store for Nantucket Island. But the people there, I talked with some of the residents, they are safe and secure. Unfortunately, as you said, this is just a bad weekend for the tourism trade here, a mainstay as you know of Cape Cod here. Some hotels have really taken a hit, only 40 percent occupancy. Here on the beach hotels, where we are in this area of Cape Cod, there are 4,000 available rooms. Only 100 tourists so far are in them. And we are part of that 100 number, Wolf -- back to you.</s>BLITZER: Hopefully it will be normal, back to normal by tomorrow, Sunday and Monday. It is a long holiday weekend here in the United States.</s>CANDIOTTI: They expect it to be.</s>BLITZER: All right, thanks, Susan, very much. Other important news we are following, unemployment ticking up a notch in August. The Labor Department reporting a 0.1 percent increase to 9.6 percent. The economy shed 54,000 jobs overall, many of them U.S. Census-related jobs, but the bigger picture is not quite as grim. The critical private sector did add 67,000 jobs, beating analyst expectations. What is not counted in all of this are the millions and millions of Americans who are way underemployed. They may have a job, but it is not the job they were trained for. CNN's Mary Snow has their story. Talk a little bit. Mary, you have been doing some checking of what we mean by the underemployed.</s>MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and, Wolf, these are people who have become so discouraged they have either stopped looking for work or they take part-time work while looking for a full-time job. Now, the ranks of the underemployed can also include workers no longer able to use their skills or who have gotten big pay cuts , like the man you are about to meet. And counting the underemployed gives a fuller picture of the labor market.</s>RICHARD CRANE, UNDEREMPLOYED: I knew things were going to get tough.</s>SNOW (voice-over): But Richard Crane didn't know it would be this tough. Yes, he has found a full-time job after getting laid off, but he is underemployed. He now earns $16 an hour at Lowe's. He could not find work that used the skills of the job he had at a unit of General Motors operating heavy machines. There he earned as much as $130,000 a year.</s>CRANE: The overtime people used to make, you know, it is not there. It is not there. It is not. I see it every day. You know, I see it every day. I mean, what are we going to do? It is America. Where's our jobs?</s>SNOW: In his new job, Crane has taken a pay cut of almost $100,000. He is struggling to keep his house and provide for his son, now 14, and his wife, who is battling cancer. He has given up second jobs to spend more time at home. His story of taking a job below his skill level is all too familiar, but it is largely untold.</s>HEIDI SHIERHOLZ, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: I can't hazard a guess on what percentage of the labor force is facing that right now, but we do know that it is sizable and it is really impacting families.</s>SNOW: Heidi Shierholz is a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute who says that what is measured are discouraged workers who have given up actively seeking employment and part-time workers looking for full-time jobs. And that amounts to an underemployment rate that stands at 16.7 percent. While she expects the labor force to recover to pre- recession levels, she say has the effects of losing a job have a lasting impact.</s>SHIERHOLZ: So people like Richard are in the situation where they are likely to face that earning hits that can last for decades.</s>SNOW: And for Richard Crane, his goals are forever changed.</s>CRANE: When I was working for GM, I was looking forward to turning 56 and retiring, and, you know, maybe try doing something else or even go until I'm 62. Now, we are just -- there's no real plan. It's -- our plan is to get from month to month.</s>SNOW: And as for Americans living month to month, consider this. According to the Labor Department, one in six Americans are currently either unemployed or underemployed -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. Sad, sad situation indeed for so many millions of Americans. Mary, thank you. Jack Cafferty is off today. Among the stories we are working on right here in THE SITUATION ROOM, President Obama dogged by a stagnant economy, so what should he do right now? I will ask the former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and "The Wall Street Journal" columnist John Fund. Also breaking news, we are getting new details right now of that magnitude-7.0 earthquake that caused extensive damage in New Zealand's second largest city. We are going there for a live update. And the new drill that could -- could potentially cut the rescue time for those trapped miners in Chile, maybe even cut that time in half.