Sugar Refinery Fire in Georgia
ROBERTS: Just in to CNN. Pictures there of President Bush coming off of Marine One at Andrews Air Force Base, making the walk over to Air Force One. He'll be heading for Tennessee this morning. He is going actually to Lafayette, Tennessee about 35, 40 miles northeast of Nashville which is where we were yesterday. An incredible amount of destruction there, and in Macon county, which is where Lafayette is, 13 people, at least 13 people dead from the series of tornado that swept through there on Tuesday night. So, we'll be following the president's trip today and bring you more on that. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING, Friday, February 8th. I'm John Roberts.</s>CHO: Good morning, everybody. So glad you're with us. I'm Alina Cho. Kiran has the morning off.</s>ROBERTS: In addition to President Bush's trip to Tennessee, we continue to follow two breaking stories right now. First in Kirkwood, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis, we're learning that the man who shot five people dead at the city council meeting was apparently out for revenge. After shooting one police officer witnesses say the gunman screamed "shoot the mayor" and opened fire on the meeting. Four others were killed. The mayor now in critical condition. The shooter, Charles Lee Thornton, also known at Cookie, had a history of interrupting council meetings. Minutes ago, we spoke with Alan Hopefl who was there as shots rang out.</s>HOPEFL: For a while I was on the floor, I heard three, four, maybe five more shots, and then within a minute or so he was having an altercation with the city attorney John Hessel, and while Mr. Hessel was trying to protect himself and throwing chairs at Cookie, I saw my chance to leave the premises and I bolted for the door.</s>ROBERTS: Last month, a judge threw out a lawsuit that Thornton had filed against the town. His brother says Thornton "went to war with the people who tormented him." And we're also watching breaking news this morning near Savannah, Georgia, where six workers are still missing after an explosion and fire last night at a sugar refinery plant in Fort Wentworth. That's just northwest of Savannah. Dozens of people are critically hurt. In the last hour of AMERICAN MORNING, we spoke with a Port Wentworth police officer and his wife, who were nearby at the time of the blast. Joyce Baker described the scene.</s>JOYCE BAKER, WITNESSED SUGAR PLANT EXPLOSION: It was like walking in hell. We had approximately 13 men that were coming out and they were burned, third-degree burns on their upper bodies, and they were trying to sit down and the only thing that they wanted was to know where their friends were.</s>ROBERTS: There was no official word yet on what caused the explosion, but officials suspect that volatile sugar dust may have triggered it. Water, waist deep in some parts of Ohio this morning. The flooding is especially heavy in the northwestern part of the state after three days of heavy rain and melting snow. The Monty River in Defiance County doubled its level, and reached nearly 7.5 feet over flood stage. Rob Marciano is in Defiance, this morning, southwest of Toledo, by the way, if you're looking for a location there. What's is like there this morning, Rob?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's cold, and on top of that, it's wet. For the folks who actually live in these homes it's a nightmare. 69 percent, or 69 homes here in Defiance have been evacuated. Their gas cut off. Their electricity cut off and the people are in either shelters or with their families. I'm about knee- deep in water but I could easily get chest deep -- I just can't get too far away from the camera. You start to lose my microphone. We are on Glaze Street here in downtown Defiance. Right now, the Glaze River. Today though, your Glaze Street is the old Glaze River and really it should be a couple hundred yards beyond, back of this house. In a normal day, but that's not the case. It meets up with the Maumee River which today in this area will be pretty much -- hoping for it to crest now. Looks like it just started to do that and the folks here are breathing a bit of a sigh of relief, saying it's the worst they've seen since January of 2005, and in some cases, even worse than that. All this from the same system that brought the tornadoes down in the south. That brought the snow to Chicago. Brought tremendous amount of rain here in parts of northwestern Ohio. 17 rivers just in this state alone are in some sort of flood stage. Check out the flood warnings, not only here in Ohio but across parts of the other pats the Midwest. Indiana, the map painted entirely in green. Flood warnings out for some rivers there. Southern Michigan, parts of Illinois as well. Everybody getting a little piece of this. Take a look at the cold air that's coming down the pipe, though. We have got some of the coldest air of the season that will drive south. That's problem when you have this much water lying around, because you may remember from your schooling, below 32 degrees, this stuff starts to freeze, and we expect temperatures to get well below 30, well below 20 in some cases well below zero here by Saturday night. We're trying to get this water out of here. You know there's going to be some ponding. You know there's going to be still standing water around, John. So, that's going to be an issue. You kind of have surreal sight, don't you think, to see snow on top of the roofs and then a home flooded. That's just -- it's not just very pleasant, and I feel really bad for these folks who are going to have to deal with this over the next several days -- John.</s>ROBERTS: And as we all know, snow, of course, just more water coming down there. Could add to the flooding as well. And Rob, don't go any deeper there. We get the point. Lots of water. All right, thanks.</s>MARCIANO: All right.</s>CHO: You can really see it on that wide shot there. Moving on now, desperate times for some cities. The subprime mortgage meltdown sinking housing prices, kicking families out of their homes. In Cleveland, they even started to bulldoze foreclosed homes rather than try to re-sell them and so sad and at the same time there were ads on TV now that say, now's the time to make money in real estate. Are they for real? CNN's personal financial editor Gerri Willis joins us now. So that's a big question. I was talking to my friends about this a lot. Is now a good time to buy?</s>GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Well, Alina, you know, it is a fascinating question right now. You probably heard real estate agents say it before, hey now is a great time to buy, but some are questioning this ad campaign saying, you know what the market's in turmoil.</s>WILLIS (voice-over): A new ad campaign from a real estate trade group encouraging Americans to buy homes. Making the claim, a home is the key to building long-term wealth. But is now a good time to tell consumers to buy? Housing analysts Nic Retsinas say it's OK, if you're buying for the long term. But beware of buying just for profits.</s>NIC RETSINAS, HOUSING ANALYST: If they're buying a home because they think it's a way to maximize their wealth and make some kind of real estate play on the investment, this is probably not a good time.</s>WILLIS: One thing is for sure, home prices have dropped over the last year according to industry groups. Countless homeowners are upside down in their homes owing more than their houses are worth.</s>BRUCE MARKS, NEIGHBORHOOD ASSN. CORP. OF AMERICA: Put this ad now out there implying that you can generate wealth in a reasonable time frame is a lie. Because there's no economist out there that says, prices are going up.</s>WILLIS: A spokesman for the National Association of Realtors told us in a voicemail, we do stand by our ads. The existing data clearly shows that over the long-term, owning a home is one of the best ways to build wealth.</s>RETSINAS: Over the long run, it is an important source of wealth creation. However, we're not in the middle of the long run right now. We're in a period where most people as we look through 2008 see a continued decline in prices.</s>WILLIS: All right. So if you're in the market right now and you want to know whether you can make money or not, you need to evaluate your local market. Prices are going up and down differently in different parts of the country. In some places prices are actually going up and in some places they're going down. A key thing for buyers, you need to understand what's going on with loans. It's very difficult to get the money that you might want to buy the house. Bankers are very stingy with their money. So, it takes a lot of planning and a lot of thinking about whether this is the right time to get in the cycle in your area or whether prices are going to fall further.</s>CHO: A lot of my friends were saying, you know, they're trying to get a loan for a house and they are requiring them so much more paperwork now. It's just a mess. Takes a lot longer.</s>WILLIS: More money down, a better credit score.</s>CHO: All right. Thank you very much, Gerri Willis. Watching it all for us. Gerri works around the clock. Join her tomorrow for "OPEN HOUSE," Saturday mornings, every Saturday, 9:30 Eastern right here on CNN. Gerri, we'll be watching. Thanks.</s>ROBERTS: It's an altruism here at CNN. A half day is 12 hours. Right?</s>CHO: You know that well.</s>ROBERTS: Very strange scene in New York's Grand Central terminal. What in the world is going on here? It's part of our Friday viral video. We'll have the answer for you coming up.</s>CHO: You know her hitch, you don't know her story. Chaka Khan opens up.</s>CHAKA KHAN, SINGER: In my 20s, I'm a runaway carriage. No rein. Now, I got both of it.</s>CHO: Her Grammy nod, her Broadway debut, her struggles revealed. Lola, one on one with a music legend, today on AMERICAN MORNING.