should he sell the card? it has to be worth a billion dollars. absolutely, totally rich. i was thinking the story the victoria secret models get cards for free lingerie for a lifetime. i think. this is not unprecedented. none of us can understand the word unprecedented. it is not new. lori, you always bring a little business angle to everything which is why we have you here. i will start that over because apparently she was talking about something. are you on the tape delay show? i think it is a percocet show. remember the show i was falling asleep on a couple months ago? you solved that problem. i thought they were caffeine pills. opposite. you should try a five-hour energy which was a great idea. there you go rchlts there
that. that is very bold. very bold. can t wait to share the ending with you. good morning. welcome to early start. i m zoraida sambolin. i m john berman. this morning mitt romney is in ohio. so is bobby jindal and jeb bush. parade? coincidence? it is sort of a parade. all about the veepstakes. also the key state of ohio. more coming up. also nelson mandela s 94th birthday. we ll hear from former president clinton who just visited with the icon in a cnn exclusive. that s coming up. first, zoraidzoraida, the b story affecting so much of the country, the weather and the devastating drought conditions that have turned half of the u.s. into a disaster zone. the department of agriculture is declaring natural disasters in 1,000 counties across 26 states. blistering temperatures are making conditions even worse. across the midwest temperatures have topped more than 100 degrees. and heat advisories are reaching up into the mid-atlantic regions. the bone dry conditions
just yesterday the weather service started a pilot program where they re going to start using more frank language to combat the crying wolf effect of our weather lately and so many tornado warnings and watches. remember the difference, a warning is either a tornado has been spotted or is imminent, according to radar, and that s the bad one you don t want. above the trucking yard, that s schneider, the recognizable orange trucks, and while it s not a fair fight, the wind versus an empty haul of a truck trailer, and we saw that, they re reporting massive damage on the ground. another business angle here, and you touched on this in your conversation with gabe, out at dfw where they are sheltering all the passengers in the airport in place and advising them to stay away from the glass, everything has been canceled in and out. american airlines now has to inspect 68 exposed aircraft for hail damage. very rare to get tornadoes of this size without accompanying
by the mississippi river, water levels are expected to kref at more than 4 meters above flood stage on tuesday, and that will be the highest level in more than 70 years. tennessee is not the only state either. six cities along the river banks are also under water. cnn s ivan cabrera joins us. as this flood crest goes down, you ve got a long way to go, don t you, before it actually gets out to the gulf. absolutely. the damage already in the millions. and millions of homes being impacted as well. it s wbt. we ll focus in on the business angle and wa s going to be happening. as far as the square kilometer that s going be impacted, if you watch from italy, it the same size as italy. a lot of regions are being impacted indeed, and we re going to continue to see that flood
20 of last year. authorities say more than 200 million gallons of oil gushed into the gulf. it took 87ing a nitzing days to completely stop the flow of oil. the disaster is still impacting the people, the water, the wild life in that area one year later. we re focussing on current conditions on the gulf oil disaster anniversary. last hour, we looked at cleanup efforts in the ongoing fight to save wild life. this hour, we re looking at tourism and business. i want to begin with the business angle. the seafood industry many of us still question whether or not you should eat seafood from the gulf. david mattingly is here with us live from grand aisle, louisiana. tell us, a lot of people have questions, is the seafood really safe? that s right, and just yesterday, the last of the closed federal waters in the