4.0 Earthquake in California; Ohio Not Seeking Federal Help; 21 Killed in Kentucky Alone; Obama, Super Tuesday Involves 10 states; Candidates Vie for 419 Delegates
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Thanks so much. We are following that breaking news out of San Francisco. San Francisco, California, the U.S. Geological Society confirms a 4.0 magnitude earthquake near Richmond. That's about 15 miles north of Oakland. CNN's Dan Simon is near there. He joins us live by phone. What can you tell us?</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on the phone): Hi, Carol. It was a pretty sharp jolt this morning. Nice wake-up call for us here in the East Bay of California. You know -- excuse me, about a 4.0 magnitude. Again this is a very sharp jolt. It was really short. Only lasted for a few seconds. From what we understand, no damage. But, yes, very unsettling this morning, about 5:30 this morning -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Unsettling but I dare say Californians are pretty used to this, right?</s>SIMON: We've very used to it. But anytime it happens, you know, this early in the morning, people are a little bit more unsettled, you know, as people are going to work, getting ready, you know, for their -- for their day. We know that it's standard operating procedure for them to check, you know, bridges and things like that and the subway system. And from what -- again, from what we understand no damage at all.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Dan Simon. Thanks so much. Like a war zone or an end of the world movie. That's how people are describing devastating tornadoes that tore through the Midwest and the south. Here's the latest for you. The violent storms are now blamed for 39 deaths in five states. More than 650 National Guard troops are now on the ground in two of the hardest hit states, Kentucky and Indiana. FEMA has also dispatched teams to those states to begin damage assessment. But even with all of the damage we've seen, one state is holding off on asking for federal help. The Ohio governor, John Kasich, he says first the state wants to assess the damage for themselves before asking the Obama administration for assistance. CNN's Athena Jones is in tornado-ravaged Henryville, Indiana. Athena, I want to start with the Ohio governor's decision not to ask federal authorities to come into the states to survey the damage and why he did that.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, from what we understand, Carol, the idea -- there's not as much damage in Ohio as there is here in Indiana. As you can see behind me, just this bus through this home. And so Ohio authorities right now are assessing the damage themselves. They believe at the moment that they are going to be able to handle it. But of course, that could change at any moment. So they are holding off. And what we understand, they are holding off on asking for federal help until they know that they need it, until they know they can't handle it themselves. As you know, the president, President Obama, has spoken with the governors of each of the affected states, and said that FEMA stands at the ready. The federal government and his administration is monitoring the situation. And they stand ready to help with anything that they are asked. They want to make sure that any unmet needs are met. They can help meet them. But right now, the Ohio governor hasn't asked for help but that could change at any moment -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: I know. The reason I ask you that is because there are liberal blogs out there attacking the Republican governor of Ohio, who say that, you know, he's not allowing federal authorities to come in because of some political reason.</s>JONES: Well, certainly you can see politics can come into play here when you think about the idea of smaller government, the idea in many states they want to see a smaller federal government. They want to be able to handle things themselves on the state level, whether it's disaster relief or schools or health care or other issues. And so in some way, if that -- we don't know yet if ultimately the Ohio governor isn't going to ask for aid, but that may be something that's coming into play, the whole idea that a governor of a state will say, we want to handle it ourselves. We don't want the federal government to help because we believe in small government. That's certainly one of the political themes we've seen a lot in recent years -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Indiana is a different story, though. The damage is more widespread there. FEMA is already on the ground, right?</s>JONES: That's right. And we also have about 250 National Guard troops who have been deployed here to help out. We just actually saw a Red Cross van go by offering disaster relief and assistance. And we've seen a lot of people coming together, whether it's churches or disaster relief organizations coming together to gather goods and water, food, anything that people need to try to help people out. But you can see around me here this school bus ran into this building here. This was a restaurant. The owners there, they've leased it just for the last month. We spoke -- yesterday with the woman whose parents actually started the restaurant some 20 years ago. It changed location a few times and it moved here. This restaurant had only been open for about a month. Next to me there's also a lot of damage at an auto body shop. You can still see some of the cars underneath the damage. And of course the snow that's fallen overnight doesn't make things any easier when you've got this much debris to go and collect. And so that's what they are going to be dealing with here today. We spoke with the state police a little bit earlier today. They say that about half this town of Henryville now has electricity and gas. But of course you can see that there are a lot of these buildings that no one is going to be in them anyway. And so there's not a lot of activity right now. But we expect more or less more electrical workers and more cleanup to go on today -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones reporting live from Henryville, Indiana. A Kentucky town nearly wiped out -- by some powerful storm -- by a powerful storm system, I should say, is facing a new problem this morning. Meteorologist Rob Marciano is following that part of the story. He's in West Liberty, Kentucky. Good morning, Rob.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. The only vehicles that have been in this area still emergency vehicles and a lot of power vehicles, power company vehicles. Residents still not allowed to come here. There goes another power company truck. They are trying to string some lights. At least get some juice going on here because power and communication, that's -- those have been the two biggest obstacles here in West Liberty. There haven't been many buildings that have gone untouched. At one point, this storm was a mile in width. Only the most sturdy standing buildings like that one down there, that's the courthouse, cement and brick, they have actually just spent a ton of money renovating that. So that's heartbreaking to see the damage there. But the problem with the snow, and it's still snowing now. We got about three inches of snow on the ground. It eased up, but now it's snowing again. When snow covers debris like this, nails, glass, shards, sharp pieces of metal, that's dangerous to begin with. Now it's hidden, it's slick, and it's cold. So dangerous again, residents won't be allowed to back in here today. They've got heavy equipment to come in here. We caught up yesterday with a CNN Hero who leads a response team cleaning up debris with specially designed equipment just for storm debris.</s>TAG AGOGLIA, FIRST RESPONSE TEAM OF AMERICA: Time is of the essence. You know, there's a lot of people that live in this small country town. They want to get back in here. They want to get to their home sites. They are looking for photos, important documents, anything they can salvage. But they can't actually get through the roads and so we're going to have to clear those roads. And we want them to be safe. This truck is specifically designed just to handle storm debris.</s>MARCIANO: No kidding.</s>AGOGLIA: It's got a crane mounted on the back of it. And in the front of the crane, it's got a huge claw that can come out of this large box and actually grab storm debris because storm debris is very tricky to deal with. After a tornado takes a home or a commercial building or like what we have here, a bank, it just twists everything together. And it's very hard to handle. So you need claws to specifically grab the debris.</s>MARCIANO: Yes. It's tricky. Trickier now that we've got snow piled up on top of that. One of the other reasons they're not letting people in, Carol, today is because not only the snow, but they're going to start demolishing some of these buildings. I mean there's just no sense in keeping them around. And on the main street, that's really closely packed and tight, you just have -- it's tough to get around. So West Liberty, Kentucky, one of the hardest hit with this. The state of Kentucky, the hardest hit, 21 of the 39 fatalities in this state, and they are reeling. The worst outbreak here since at least 1974 -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: And snow on top of it. Thank you, Rob. To find out more on how you can help those affected by the tornadoes, go to CNN.com/impact. There you'll find all the organizations and ways you can help those in need. That's CNN.com/impact. Did you know tomorrow was Super Tuesday? I bet you did. There's a lot at stake in tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries. A total of 419 delegates up for grabs. The GOP candidates are making a final push in the 10 states holding contests. The results could clarify the picture for a nominee. Our political editor Paul Steinhauser joins me now. I know you have some new polls, but do you really think this will be the definitive answer as to who the nominee will be?</s>PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Not the definitive answer, but if Mitt Romney has a very good night, Carol, if he does have a very good night, I think it gives him some more daylight, some room between him and the other, other rivals for the GOP nomination. And, yes, I do have new polls and we're going to start with Ohio because of course you know that state very well.</s>COSTELLO: I do.</s>STEINHAUSER: Listen, not all Super Tuesday states are created equal. Ohio seems to be the most crucial. Take a look at this, brand new from Quinnipiac University, it came out this morning. Look at the numbers on the left. For the first time, a brand-new poll has Mitt Romney on top, three points over Santorum. That's within the sampling error basically all knotted up. But look what it was a week ago, Rick Santorum had a seven-point lead. So we're really seeing momentum shift to Mitt Romney. Let's go to Tennessee, a southern state, one without Newt Gingrich, so it's kind of more evenly up for grabs. And Rick Santorum, you know, he used to have a double-digit lead in Tennessee. Now down to just four points, which again basically all knotted up. So I guess the theme here in a a bunch of these states is momentum moving to Mitt Romney.</s>COSTELLO: Why do you think that is?</s>STEINHAUSER: A couple of reasons. A lot of ads. Him and the super PAC that's supporting him has been blanketing these states with ads. Santorum, Gingrich, Paul not really keeping up. But also those wins last week in Michigan and Arizona are helping. Momentum really an important factor in this race for the nomination.</s>COSTELLO: What about endorsements? Because Mitt Romney got a big endorsement from Eric Cantor. And Eric Cantor was on "STARTING POINT" this morning and here's what he had to say.</s>REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, Mitt Romney is really the only man in the race who has a plan, a bold pro growth plan, to create jobs and get this economy back on track. And this is a central issue for this election. It is about how we're going to make the economy better, how we're going to get small businesses back in gear to begin in gear to begin to grow jobs.</s>COSTELLO: OK. You know how I feel about endorsements. I don't think they much matter. But he is a big Tea Party guy, Eric Cantor, and the Tea Party hasn't been exactly supportive of Mitt Romney. So could this help him as well?</s>STEINHAUSER: You just nailed it. I don't need to talk. You just nailed that one. Seriously. Endorsements really don't matter that much this cycle, but, yes, you add the endorsement by Cantor, you add the endorsement by Senator Coburn of Oklahoma, another very conservative, and it could help Romney with a part of the base he has not really done very well with.</s>COSTELLO: Well, is part of the reason that Rick Santorum's surge has sort of ended because of the things he said about a college education, about Barack Obama being a snob for wanting to send your kids to college, or have, you know, extra education at the end of high school? I mean do those things matter in a state of -- in a state like Ohio?</s>STEINHAUSER: Yes. And in a state like Ohio where it's more about the economy, it may, may hurt Rick Santorum. In a state like Tennessee or Oklahoma where social conservatives are so important, even here in Georgia, as well, it may help Rick Santorum. I'll tell you one thing, though, if Santorum does end up winning Ohio, we'll be talking very differently on Wednesday morning, won't we?</s>COSTELLO: Yes, we will. Paul Steinhauser, I know you're going to stick around. Thanks so much. Tomorrow, Super Tuesday, noon Eastern. Join us online. Wolf Blitzer and CNN's political team will host the "CNN Election Roundtable." It's an insider chat on the implications of Tuesday's results on the presidential race. That's at CNN.com/roundtable. Then join us here on CNN tomorrow night when the votes start coming in. We'll start with the special edition of "JOHN KING, USA" at 6:00 Eastern followed at 7:00 with complete live coverage of results. Coming up this morning, the debate over Iran's nuclear program. President Obama urges diplomacy. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning a possible military strikes. In the next hour the men search for common ground.