New Orleans Prepares for Gustav
LEMON: Hi, everyone. 2:46 here in the East. Time to tell you about a couple of stories we're working on for you in the CNN NEWSROOM. A senior military official tells CNN that coalition troops are ready to hand over control of Iraq Anbar Province. Iraqi security forces are scheduled to take over on Monday. Once the hub of Sunni insurgency, Anbar will be the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be transferred. One day after a SunAir jet liner was hijacked from Sudan to Libya, Libya says the hijackers have surrendered. It says the passengers and crew members have all been released. And Democrats are getting ready for a very big night at their national convention in Denver, Colorado. The roll call vote will make Barack Obama the party's official presidential nominee. You'll want to join us tonight for all of that. We want to tell you what is brewing in the weather department and inches its way along parts of the Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Gustav swirls in the Caribbean. The storm crossed was a hurricane yesterday when it crossed Haiti's southern peninsula. As it moves to the west, it is expected to get more intense. In New Orleans and southern Mississippi, that is of course, a huge concern. Hurricane Katrina came ashore three years ago this week. As a matter of fact, it was on Friday. Friday will be the third anniversary. Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is tracking this wearisome storm. She joins us now from the CNN severe weather center. And Jacqui, we're not exactly sure but the forecast is tracking towards New Orleans.</s>JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it is. But you don't want to focus on that. We always tell you, don't focus on that skinny little line in the middle. In fact, when I show you the track map you'll notice we didn't even put intensity or exact line farther out. Because you know, we're talking 400 to 500 miles of error when you're talking five days away. I'll tell you though, if I lived in New Orleans, I'd be getting pretty nervous about it and I'd start thinking right this minute, you know, what I'm going to do when and if that evacuation order does happen, or, how I'm going to prepare myself for this storm, which you know, you really should do in the beginning of hurricane season anyway. Everybody in the Gulf Coast needs to be prepared for a major hurricane. We'll wait and see. If there's anything that we learned with Fay though, by the way, is that sometimes you have to expect the unexpected. So, we'll just have to wait and watch this one. But what we do know is that it's starting to pull away from Hispaniola now. It's going to start to move towards Jamaica and Cuba. And if it does that, we think it's going to start to intensify just a little bit. It will have a little less shear and a little less interaction with land as it does so. And you know, the more it stays over open water, the stronger it will get. And we think it could be a strong hurricane already as it heads towards Cuba, or the Yucatan Peninsula. And there's that big cone I was talking about, Don. You know, really, from Texas all the way over to the Florida panhandle, these are the folks that need to be prepared. And yes, you know, New Orleans is kind of in the middle of that cone and they should be worried at this point. But it's certainly not imminent just yet.</s>LEMON: Yes. And you're exactly right. I guess it's on everyone's mind but we really shouldn't focus on New Orleans and scare people prematurely. But I do have to tell you, thank you Jacqui, I just got back from New Orleans, where the scars from Hurricane Katrina are still around. On Friday, the third anniversary of Katrina's Gulf Coast landfall. We'll look at how the schools and how the businesses there are faring and we'll tell you how some of the survivors are taking things into their own hands in inventive ways. Forecasters are forever telling us, don't drive on a road that is covered in water. Well, you don't know how deep that water is, right? Well, this driver can vouch for that. Yesterday, she tried to maneuver through what she thought was a few inches of water on the Apache Trail, that was in Arizona. My goodness. Look at that. Before she knew it, her car was floating and it didn't take long for the water to push it into a bridge. Lucky for her and her little girl, a stranger -- look at that -- stopped to help. He pulled that child to safety -- this is really amazing video -- then helped the mother regain her footing on solid ground. Wow. Well she is one of the stars of the summer games -- and inspiring history, a -- rewriting world class athlete. Dara Torres, we're talking about, swam through the pain of a shoulder injury to bring three silvers home from Beijing. Boy, were we proud of her. Today, she gets her shoulder fixed. CNN medical correspondent, our chief medical correspondent as a matter of fact, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is very much looking the part today, is in Torres' operating room in Florida. And look at that, this is exclusive. Sanjay, what are we looking at?</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, she just had her shoulder operation, just finishing up here, Don. You are looking at Dara Torres' right shoulder. We know a lot of things about her. We know she's an Olympic medalist. We know she's and 41 years old, the mother of two. She's an inspiration to millions. But this you may not have known about her, all that swimming, at that age, wear and tear from the swimming and from weight lifting as well, which is part of her routine, that leads to the sort of problems that she was having even during the Olympics. Dr. Chalal just finishing the operation now. You may not have known as well, Don, that she had similar shoulder surgery back in November. She had knee surgery in January. Dr. Chalal calls this another sort of tuning-up, maybe for another four years from now, who knows if that will happen or not? But a successful operation, Don. Let me just show you real quick. I'm just going to pull my shirt down a little bit here. The collar bone, which is this area right in here, sometimes it impinges on your shoulder. That can happen with a lot of repetitive movement, it's a typical sports injury. Just from moving part of that collarbone can take care of part of the problem. That's what was done. She is awake, but she is sedated. She was talking about this, anxious to have this done. Looks like it was successful, Don.</s>LEMON: Yes, and three silvers. And I said, she swam through the pain and she brought home three silvers. But do you think this affected her performance in Beijing, Doctor?</s>GUPTA: I asked her the same thing. Obviously a lot of people curious about this. She clearly was in some pain. She told me that the doctors were even thinking about giving her novocaine in her shoulder prior to the competition to sort of freeze up her shoulder ahead of time. So she had to have been in pain. She, of course, is not using it as any excuse. Let me just show you really quickly, Don, if I can -- this is the drill the Dr. Chalal was just using to actually remove some of that clavicle, some of that collarbone. And that's what was done. About five millimeters of bone was removed. That should do the trick, according to Dr. Chalal, in terms of giving her some pain relief again from that movement of swimming and lifting weights as well.</s>LEMON: Sanjay, very interesting stuff. We look forward to you talking her. And of course, when she wakes up, will you give her everyone's regards? America and the world will be cheering for her.</s>GUPTA: I certainly will. Although my sense is that she's going to jump into a pool as fast as she possibly can. She already swam two miles this morning, if you can believe that, before surgery. And Dr. Chalal says as soon as those wounds heal up, she'll probably be back in the pool again. So we'll try to catch up with her. But she's a woman on the move, as you know.</s>LEMON: That's love and passion for what she does. All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much, sir. A green energy policy could put more green in your pocket. That's where you want it. And that's according to a big supporter of Barack Obama's energy policy. CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow has our "Energy Fix" from New York. Hey, Poppy. I was off a couple of days, but I missed you. What do you have today for us?</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: I missed you, but I like your hair cut.</s>LEMON: Oh, thank you very much. It's growing out. I need another one.</s>HARLOW: No, it looking good. Listen, of course, we're talking politics and energy policy. Today in an op-ed written for CNN, Robert Kennedy Jr. says Barack Obama's energy policy could create a green gold rush. His endorsement is not surprising, right? He's a Kennedy, he's an environmentalist and, of course, he's a Democrat. But what is a bit surprising are some of the reasons why he thinks this energy policy is a winner. He is not just looking at the environment, but instead he maintains that it could be good for the economy and for national security. Kennedy points out a country like Sweden has said it's going to wean itself off of oil. And the Swedish economy has really boomed since it began taxing carbon emissions in the early '90s. And Kennedy says, other countries like Brazil and Iceland are also really benefiting from their green energy policies. Iceland, believe it or not, is energy independent. What it does is it uses large amounts of geothermal and hydro-power, and its economy has grown in the meantime. So what Kennedy is saying is Obama's policy is also good for foreign policy because it decentralizes the nation's power sources and makes it more difficult for a terrorist to knock out our electricity grid. Critics, on the other hand, though, say taxing carbon emissions -- that will cripple our economy. They say off shore drilling is the best bet at this point. Of course, during the RNC next week, Don, we'll take a look at McCain's energy policies. But you can bet that Obama just may address energy when he speaks, of course, tomorrow night. Don, back to you.</s>LEMON: All right. Very interesting of course. Thank you very much for that, Poppy Harlow.</s>HARLOW: You're welcome.</s>LEMON: Of course more convention coverage in just a moment. But first, potential home buyers may be looking for a pedestrian friendly neighborhood as a way to save gas and to protect the environment. Now a Web site has been developed to help them in their search. CNN's Rob Marciano has a look in today's "Solutions."</s>ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How easy is it for you to walk to where you need to go?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We live in a small town here in Dupont. And everywhere you have to go, you have to drive.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have all that central stuff that you needy in everyday life, and it's close to your house -- why not walk?</s>MARCIANO: Walkscore.com helps pinpoint areas in the U.S. that offer a walking lifestyle. Type in an address, and up pops a zero to 100 rating. For example, Jerry Seinfeld's Manhattan apartment scores 100. A walker's paradise. President Bush's Texas ranch rates's a zero. Not that there's anything wrong with that.</s>MIKE MATHIEU, FRONT SEAT: Anything below a 50, we consider car dependent. Which means that probably the only place you're walking to is your car.</s>MARCIANO: Mike Mathieu founded the company that developed walkscore.com.</s>MATHIEU: It gives a rating based on how close you are to the kind of things you want to walk to. So -- bookstore, grocery store, coffee shop, things like that.</s>MARCIANO: Walkscore doesn't factor in sidewalks, highways or hills, which is probably why San Francisco edged out New York as the most walkable U.S. city, followed by Chicago and Boston. Mathieu says walking not only limits traffic and burning fuel, but it also helps you stay in shape.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it just makes it easier to get some exercise in during the day.</s>MARCIANO: Rob Marciano, CNN, Atlanta.