360 Colorado Homes Destroyed, Zero Impact on Flames
BANFIELD: So the weather really stinks. The weather gods are not being kind to the golfers this morning. Especially the U.S. Open golfers. Because it's been suspended due to bad weather. Want to head directly out to CNN's Shane O'Donoghue, he's in Ardmore, Pennsylvania for our Bleacher Report today. What do really rich golf athletes do when they have to wait it out? Do they go to the clubhouse and have like an Arnold Palmer or how do they bide their time?</s>SHANE O'DONOGHUE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That would be very nice. I'd like one of those myself. But the players, they're based not far from here. The rain just down here on the west course. The clubhouse is at the east course, and this is a bit of a logistical nightmare, but the USGA and all the officials and all the club officials are doing a wonderful job, but it's in trying circumstances. But the weather is the real issue at the moment today. The players obviously would have been cooped up in their players lounge and all of those millionaires would have been on their smartphones and I'm sure just shooting the breeze, and on their laptops, but really anxious just to get back out on the course. Obviously they started at 7:00AM this morning. Phil Mickelson was in one of the marquee groups at 7:11, but they suspended play at 8:36AM here. And then we saw a deluge for about an hour from 9:30 to 10:30 or thereabouts. And then it stopped. You can still feel quite a bit of warmth here, but the conditions under foot are very soggy indeed. The good news is that the players are out on the practice range at the moment behind me. The likes of Brandt Snedeker, Phil Mickelson just over my right shoulder. A number of other players working on their pitching games and they're up on the driving range just working on getting loose and getting ready to get back out there because play will resume at 12:10PM local time. So that's good news, but no guarantee that there won't be another rainstorm at some stage today. It will be a long day. Those who are playing in the afternoon are delayed by at least 3 1/2 hours and that includes the real marquee group of the day which features Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott, the top three players in the world. So they will have a long wait.</s>BANFIELD: All right, well, and once they finish their Arnold Palmers, hopefully they didn't put a shot of vodka in it because play is supposed to resume later today and we want to see -- well, you know what, that would make for good TV. Won't lie. Thanks. Keep us posted on what those fellas are up to. I want to move out west now. We have breaking news from Colorado. Listen, wet weather is a Godsend for Colorado, but they do not have this kind of luck right now. Instead this is what they're facing. Look at those pictures. That is a cameraman that is awfully close to a very dangerous circumstance. Walls of flames racing through what is only to be called bone dry forests. And also 360 bone dry burned homes, as well. And that's only so far. Thousands of people have just literally taken off and run for their lives. They don't get a lot of time to collect their photos and hard drives and get out. Lifetimes of their hard work and their memories just go up in smoke, and they're lucky if they just get out with their lives frankly. Colorado officials just issued an update on this moments ago and it's been one hell of a fire. Dan Simon is in Colorado Springs right now. What do they say, Dan?</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, this has become quite the catastrophe for this community. The number of homes destroyed more than tripled overnight. As you said, 360 homes destroyed. That exceeds what we saw last year in this community with the Waldo (ph) Canyon fire. This is absolutely horrible for the folks living here and the conditions are not improving whatsoever. More red flag warnings today, could see wind gusts up to 40 miles an hour. That despite the fact that you have all of these resources on the ground. You have 500 firefighters trying to battle this wildfire, numerous aircraft dumping water, dumping retardant, none of it seemed to be making a difference whatsoever. At this point the fire is still zero percent contained if you can believe that after several days of trying to fight the fire. They're making really zero progress in terms of containing this blaze. And now we're just getting this late breaking word 360 homes destroyed.</s>BANFIELD: Oh, Dan, that's just heartbreaking to hear that. Our thoughts are with all those people having to make a new start. Dan will keep watching it for us out there in Colorado Springs. In the meantime, will she or won't she run for president in 2016? You'll hear that a lot. Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative Conference, we're live in Chicago. And the Clintons are all there. It's a whole family affair. Her husband right now speaking live on the stage. But is he or his wife or their daughter, Chelsea, going to drop any hints? And just what is this all about anyway? We'll take you live to Chicago next.