New Step to Identify Tornado Victims; Ivy League without the Cost
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone. Breaking news tonight in the search for victims of the Joplin tornado. First, though, I want to show you some remarkable new video we got today, video showing the initial moments after the tornado struck, video captured by a couple racing to find a family member, a brother looking for his sister through a neighborhood which after the tornado they barely even recognized.</s>BROOKE MCKENZIE WATSON, TORNADO SURVIVOR: Aaron, look at this. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh, Aaron. Oh, my gosh.</s>AARON COX, TORNADO SURVIVOR: It went right through here.</s>WATSON: I don't know where --</s>A. COX: I don't know where we are.</s>WATSON: I don't even know</s>A. COX: We've got to keep going this way. Don't step on any of this. Come on. We got to keep going this way.</s>WATSON: I know, but I feel like I need to help if someone's hurt.</s>A. COX: Well, we will keep asking. Look at this house. It's gone. Come on. You guys ok?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>WATSON: Oh, my gosh.</s>A. COX: Oh, my gosh. Look at these houses, babe.</s>WATSON: You guys ok?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Thank you.</s>A. COX: What street is this?</s>WATSON: This is -- I don't know. Illinois</s>A. COX: Oh, babe, look.</s>WATSON: What? Oh, no. It's the hospital.</s>COOPER: It was the hospital. We'll show you more of that video ahead. Imagine, suddenly, you don't even recognize that community that you're living in because everything is so destroyed. And you can't even tell where you are. Aaron Cox and Brooke McKenzie Watson (ph) racing to find Aaron's sister, Sarah. We're going to play you the rest of the video after the break. And you will really want to see how it ends. Last night on this program the governor of Missouri said there would be changes in the search for the missing. And today we saw the start of those changes. The state took over a large portion of the disaster response, releasing an official roster of people missing or unaccounted for. I have the roster right here. Remember, for days, we have been saying 1,500 unaccounted for; that was based on a local official's statement days ago. Well, today, after working all night, the state whittled down that number down to 232 people unaccounted for, 232. But even officials concede the list contains error -- errors. Lantz Hare, for example, is on it twice, under his first and middle names. Those errors are obviously easy to correct. What's proving more difficult, though, is the situation at the morgue in Joplin and the process for identifying the dead. You will remember we spoke to Lantz Hare's dad, Mike, who -- last night, who has been searching for days to try to find his son, searching and even continually calling his son's cell phone.</s>MIKE HARE, FATHER OF LANTZ HARE: I started calling him and still never got anything. I mean, I called it all last night. I called it today.</s>COOPER: You have still been calling his number?</s>HARE: Well, I can't stop. I don't know why. I do. I stayed up until like 2:00 last night, and that's all I did.</s>COOPER: You called the cell phone. Does it ring? Or --</s>HARE: Yes. It rang for the first day-and-a-half, and now it goes straight to voice-mail, but just in case he gets it, I want him to know that his dad loves him.</s>COOPER: Well today, the family got word, unofficial at first, that Lantz is dead. And it turns out he's been in the morgue all along. His family got word through a friend in law enforcement, who had access to the morgue and as a favor, went there looking for Lantz. Now, if the friend hadn't done that, it's likely his family still would not know where Lantz is. We also learned about -- of 16-month-old Skyular Logsdon today. His family has been searching too. We have told you his story. Well, it turns out he has also been in the morgue all this time. But listen to this. His family only found out late yesterday and only because of a friend of a friend showed them morgue photos of the body of a small child they thought might be Skyular and in fact it was. Now, both families are heartbroken, of course, but at least they know, they know where their child is. What's frustrating, however, to other families is that both found out about their kids unofficially, informally by back channels. Other families have said to us, if those kids were able to be identified, why can't their families have someone visit the morgue and check for their loved ones? Now of course, some identifications can only be made by DNA, by forensics, but some will be recognizable to loved ones. Now we want to make it clear, every official that we met in Joplin has been working incredibly hard and trying to do the right thing under very, very difficult circumstances. But some of the explanations for the delays and the red tape and the rules haven't made much sense to people who are searching for their loved ones. And as we said, some people in Joplin continue to be incredibly frustrated. Tonight, the breaking news is that the local coroner now tells CNN that, starting tomorrow, some people under some circumstances will be allowed into the morgue to view remains. Gary Tuchman is in Joplin tonight with the latest. Gary, what are you hearing now? The state of Missouri took -- took charge of this missing-persons list today. What do we now know about people's access to go to the morgue?</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, as of this moment, they have no access to go to the morgue. That may change tomorrow, more on that in a second. You've said it yourself, Anderson. People are working very hard here. But what we have seen in this disaster -- and we have covered a lot of disasters -- there is an unusual amount of a lack of compassion and common sense among many of the people here. And the case in point is Skyular Logsdon, the 16-month-old boy, his family frantic. He's missing for three days. I interviewed his father just yesterday, his father, Cord, in a hospital bed. His father was seriously injured in the tornado. His son was with him. He was convinced his son was still alive. He was saying, I know he's alive, but I just want to get into the morgue, have someone in my family get into the morgue or get some pictures from the morgue so we know for sure. But they wouldn't let them in the morgue. And then two hours after I interviewed his father, a friend of a friend, as you just said, got them access to two pictures of toddlers in the morgue. And one of the pictures was of their son Skyular. They still haven't found out officially. So, they're 90 percent or 95 percent sure he passed away, but not 100 percent, because they can't get in the morgue as of yet. So the coroner does say, starting tomorrow, people -- some people, he says, will be able to go into the morgue. But it's not clear yet if that will happen, because we're not sure where the governor, who is the boss of the state, stands on the issue.</s>COOPER: Right. And we're going to talk to the governor. And I asked him this a couple times. And this just broke literally as we were interviewing the governor, so we'll show you his reaction and we will try to -- to get the latest information. You know, last night on the show, the governor said that he would do something about the problems we have been seeing with people -- with the slow access, with -- with -- with kind of disorganization. It does seem like he has delivered on that promise. I mean within a few hours of getting new people in there to take over, they suddenly got this list down to 232.</s>TUCHMAN: Right. The governor is working hard. He's doing some good work. The list is at 232. And I can tell you it's actually much lower, the missing list, because we saw a family of five on the list. We wanted to go their house. How could a family of five be missing? The house wasn't that badly damaged. And we talked to neighbors who say the family is fine. They're just in another town right now. So we know that number will go a lot lower. We can tell you about some strange things going on here. The morgue, where these bodies are right now, is a secret morgue, and it literally is secret. You call up officials and say, can you tell us where the morgue is, they say it's a secret, we can't tell you. Families don't know where the morgue is. The families who do know where the morgue is are afraid to tell us because they're afraid they will get in trouble for telling us. So we had to do some investigating, because we wanted to ask questions of the morgue as to what is going on inside the morgue and what happened to this little boy. We wanted to find that out. So we found the morgue after some investigating and I want to show you this very strange and unusual encounter we had on a public road with law enforcement officials. It felt like we were crossing an international border without a passport.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, guys, what are you doing?</s>TUCHMAN: Oh we're with</s>CNN. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.</s>TUCHMAN: We're trying to find out where the morgue is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys got any cameras or anything?</s>TUCHMAN: Yes, we do.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok. They need to be secured in the back of your vehicle.</s>TUCHMAN: Well, why is that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because we have orders from our lieutenant to do that.</s>TUCHMAN: Lieutenant to do what?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To secure your cameras in the back of the vehicle.</s>TUCHMAN: Is there secret activity going on here?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys just can't be around here. That is all.</s>TUCHMAN: Yes, but why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is private property there, private property --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're in the middle of the road, where -- and you're a danger to yourself. As you can see, there's a vehicle behind you.</s>TUCHMAN: I know, but that's why I was off the road for a second while I was making a phone call.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a negotiation. Take your cameras and put them in the back of your vehicle.</s>TUCHMAN: Ok. We just want to find about a baby who may be in the morgue.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Is he shooting back there? Hey, take that camera and put it in the back of your car, all right?</s>TUCHMAN: Go ahead and go.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't come back.</s>TUCHMAN: He told us, "Don't come back." The police officer actually opened our door. And I was afraid he was going to arrest our cameraman. And that's when he turned off the camera. But we usually don't hear that, Anderson, from the good guys in the blue, saying stuff like that.</s>COOPER: Yes. Listen, I understand why they're concerned about -- they don't want people going to this morgue and, you know, creating drama and stuff. I want to play for our viewers what the coroner said on Eliot Spitzer's show earlier tonight. Just to try to get a sense of -- for people who may be listening and may be thinking, well, can I go to the morgue; let's play what the coroner said.</s>MARK BRIDGES, NEWTON COUNTY, MISSOURI CORONER: What -- I just stepped out of meeting at Missouri Southern State University with a group of family members and they expressed their concerns of just the concerns I have listened to tonight. And the decision was made if a person can make a positive ID with the, let's say, for instance piercings or tattoos. A lot of people told us about, they would have a specific tattoo that nobody else would have, we're -- tomorrow going to start the process of allowing those people to view the bodies of the loved ones; if we can make a positive ID, going to go ahead and release those bodies.</s>COOPER: So that's -- that's what the coroner said to Eliot Spitzer. So Gary, I guess they're -- we're just going to have to wait and see tomorrow what exactly the situation is. I -- as you know, Gary, I talked to the governor while that -- that conversation was -- was airing on Eliot's show. I was speaking to the governor in a pre-taped interview. And when we spoke last night with Jay Nixon, Missouri's governor, he promised action. As I said -- and on this program, we point out a lot when politicians don't deliver on their promises, but we also believe in pointing out when they do. The governor has delivered. The State's Department of Public Safety has, as we said, taken over the search for the missing. The governor ordered in some 20 or so officers to help get things organized and sorted out. And as you mentioned earlier, it took them just a couple hours to whittle down the estimated 1,500 unaccounted to a list of about 232 people unaccounted for. So I spoke to the governor a short time ago. I asked him how that effort is going and also about these frustrations about what we've been hearing about the situation at the morgue.</s>COOPER: Governor, last night, you said on this program that your administration was going to take more direct control. It already has. Just this morning, you guys basically have taken over the effort -- the state has taken over the effort to try to locate the missing. The number -- the actual number of missing and unaccounted for has now been drastically reduced from the 1,500 that we have been working off of. So clearly, there's already changes afoot. What's the latest from -- from your vantage point?</s>GOV. JAY NIXON (D), MISSOURI: Well, we did see that challenge. That list of 1,300 was out there from a myriad of sources. We -- we took control of that yesterday morning and brought folks in there. They worked all night, got that down to 232. Then, this evening, I had a meeting with all of those families to go through the processes of the necessary identification. Our goal is obviously to get the zero on that number, move down off 232 to zero. Unfortunately, some of those stories are going to be very, very sad. But the bottom line is that we have made significant progress today towards taking away that uncertainty and we are working all day and all night to finish that task.</s>COOPER: You do know this list of 232, obviously, some of these people are going to be alive. In fact, according to the AP, the first person on the list, a woman by the name of Sally Adams, is actually alive. They have already confirmed this. She was in an article that she survived the storm. So this 232 number, you're -- you're quickly going try to whittle that down even more?</s>NIXON: Absolutely. We had over a dozen folks who were able to get off that list very, very quickly late this morning as we move forward. That's good news, when you can find folks. Where they have been calls in, when they have been reports filed that they're -- that they're unaccounted for, we got these facts out publicly. We want to whittle that down. But unfortunately, there's also some very, very sad stories on that list, as we expect some of those folks to be found in a condition that's no longer living.</s>COOPER: What we're still hearing a lot of anger about and frustration over is the situation in the morgue. And I got to ask you about it. Gary Tuchman, our correspondent, just reported on a family member who has been shown a picture of her 16-month-old nephew, Skyular Logsdon, deceased. Now for days, the family hasn't known whether Skyular was alive or not. It turns out Skyular is in the morgue. She was shown that picture through unofficial channels and yet she and her family have not been allowed in to see the body and receive actual confirmation that little Skyular is in fact dead. How is that possible?</s>NIXON: Well, that's one of the reasons we moved to have all 232 of the folks that were missing, those reporter -- the folks that have made those reports in a private meeting with the folks at the morgue, with the other areas. But it's also important to note, Anderson that this was an incredible storm, and this is not a series of bodies lying in a row that are easily identifiable. There are pieces of folks. There are -- there are very, very difficult scenes. And it's not as easy as walking down a row and being able to instantly identify. The DNA matches -- and, unfortunately, a significant number of these are going to be necessary to confirm that. That takes a little while. But it's a reality of a storm of this magnitude that's done this level of damage.</s>COOPER: But granted, no doubt about it, and obviously one wants to wait for DNA for final confirmation, but in the meantime, they have been saying that might take two weeks. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect a grieving family to just be told to sit on their hands for two weeks. There are plenty of family members who would be willing to take -- take on the onerous task of walking down that row, and even if the sights are horrible, I know plenty of family members who want that -- that opportunity very badly.</s>NIXON: Well, as I said before, when we got a sense yesterday that the information wasn't moving quickly enough, we came in. We took over that operation. We have seen a dramatic shift today, going from kind of an unknown list of 232 to a list of 232 confirmed folks and then moving off that number already today, setting up and having a meeting with the morgue, with all of these families to go through that process.</s>COOPER: But it does seem like families who are lucky enough to have a friend in law enforcement who is able to get into the morgue, they have been able -- like Lantz Hare, for instance. This is a young man, his father has been on TV, been on my program last night weeping. He was -- doesn't have much money. He was spending what money he could to drive to Springfield trying to look into a hospital there. It turns out his son Lantz has been dead in the morgue this whole time. And a family friend who is a law enforcement officer was able to get in and see that it was in fact Lantz because he knows the boy well, and he told the family that their son is in fact dead and in the morgue. And still there's been no official confirmation of that. That just doesn't seem right, that a family that luckily enough has a connection is able to find information and get confirmation, and a family that doesn't has to wait two weeks. I mean, isn't there some way to speed this up and not just have it be relying on DNA to allow families access?</s>NIXON: Well, this has been an unmistakable tragedy, an almost unimaginable tragedy for this community. It's ripped apart families in so many ways. As I said before, when we got the sense that there was challenges yesterday morning, we acted and we moved to accelerate dramatically the process. And it's hard to say we had a good day when you're identifying remains of folks that have been killed. I don't mean in any way, shape or form to show a lack of sensitivity. But as I said to you, Anderson, right here in Joplin yesterday, I think you will see a significant change. And I think, when folks got up this morning, they saw a focused effort towards getting that information out. There's certainly no -- no desire to hide this vital information from these folks in any way, shape or form. And we're pressing with the resources we have and additional resources to make sure that we get that information out as quickly as possible.</s>COOPER: I understand the local coroner now just told CNN tonight that beginning tomorrow people will be able to get into the morgues and identify bodies. Can you confirm that? Would you support that?</s>NIXON: We're going to work to continue, as we did yesterday, to move that number down. We're going to continue to move forward. But there are some very difficult moments ahead for all these families, quite frankly, for this community. And it's a very difficult process. And -- and I just want everybody to know that the folks that we have got in there are working as quickly as they can to be sure and to get that information out to those families that are so in need.</s>COOPER: I'm just not clear, if -- again, I don't want to push you on this, but I'm just not clear. Does that mean you -- if in fact the coroner has said people can go, you would support that, or you're not sure at this time; you need to check with him and get back to us?</s>NIXON: I don't need to check with anybody. I know that there's people that, as this process has moved forward, have had access and they will continue to have access. That being said, I mean as the day has moved on, more people have certainly had access to the process. More people have gotten direct notification. But we believe that those people deserve notification first, not by the governor talking to CNN. We're dealing with families here and the lives of people. And I'm going to continue to move a process that focuses on the personal rights and liberties of those individuals and get that information out as quickly as we possibly can.</s>COOPER: All right. I think I got the answer on that one. Governor Nixon, I appreciate your time. I know it's been a long day for you. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.</s>NIXON: Thank you. Thank you very much.</s>COOPER: Up next, we have video, some of the video we showed you earlier taken moments after the tornado hit. We want to show you the complete piece of video as a brother searches for his sister.</s>A. COX: Sarah. Mike. Sarah. Mike.</s>WATSON: Sarah. Mike. Mike. Sarah.</s>COOPER: Well, we will show you how the video ended, how the story ends. You will not want to miss it. I guarantee that. Later, new allegations against the Gadhafi regime: this is an incredibly disturbing story. It's stunning, not perhaps surprising. But according to some confirmed reports and some video evidence that a reporter has seen in Mesrata, his troops are engaging in systematic -- systematic rape, mass rape. We're going to talk to one of the few correspondents still on the ground in Mesrata who has actually seen the video, video that stunned her. We will be right back.