it s important to say they are not saying there is a specific threat, but what they are saying is there is a continued threat. certainly from al qaeda and affiliate organizations, and it notes that briefly al qaeda and the terrorists groups have linked their attacks to significant dates, and of course 9/11, there couldn t be anymore specific or significant dates than that. you know, i was just talking with a friend that said is this something that we should really, really be worried about. the state department issues these, randy, on a regular basis. in fact, this supplements another caution that was issued. it s the responsibility of the state department to warn americans who are abroad about this. that said, it is, of course, 9/11, very significant and the state department is saying there s a continuing threat out there. but it s not a travel alert for those here at home, it s for those who are traveling abroad or residing abroad? yes, that s what the state department d
a week after irene hit the east coast, the central gulf coast is getting ready for storm with flooding rains. louisiana governor bobby jindal already declared a state of emergency. oil companies are pulling workers off the rigs in the gulf. some places including new orleans could get as much as 20 inches of rain. texas could really use some of that rain from the tropical system. it doesn t look promising. 14 big wildfires are burning in that state. just one of them west of dallas. firefighters are finally making some progress. they ve got about the fire half contained or so. we can do all the work by air we want, but as my instructors told me a long time ago, it s boots on the ground that gets it taken care of. employers added no jobs during august. the unemployment rate is unchanged at 9.1%. a couple things we should point out. the report was distorted because it counted thousands of verizon workers who went on strike but that were now back on the job. the numbers also i
8,000 structures damaged or destroyed. people have converged to try to sought out this debris. but it s going to be months before this town begins to clear out of all this debris. the mayor told me just a moment ago that they re having to find land outside of town to make into a landfill to haul all this stuff off. in fact, the city of tuscaloosa, which was hit by a tornado a month ago, the engineers said there there was enough debris picked up by the storm to fill a football field one mile high. that was tuscaloosa. this is much greater damage here in joplin. so a big clean-up effort still ahead for these people here in missouri. damage a mile high. just imagine envisioning that. and then this is ten-fold worse. all right, charles hadlock. thank you so much for the
cost of the disaster could be $2 billion, 38 of alabama s 67 counties declared disaster areas. what do the people of alabama need most? what folks need most right now is sustained commitment from this country to ensure that all people are made whole down there. if you take the map and you lay on top a map of the areas of poverty, even in the city of tuscaloosa, but for the state as a whole, what you ll see is these tornadoes seem to zero in on the poorest areas. it is the strangest thing. when you re in tuscaloosa, only one poor neighborhood wasn t hit. and so there is a real crisis when it comes to housing, just basic affordable housing. one thing we saw in the state of mississippi after katrina was that the resources for the poorest people, people who don t own home, people who rent their homes, were diverted, were not used to actually help those people come home and
neighboring alabama, tornado victims are living day to day overwhelmed by the devastation around them. cnn s reynolds wolf joins us live from the hard-hit city of tuscaloosa. reynolds, it wasn t just state officials touring the disaster zone this weekend. but apparently a few entertainers have come out including the likes of bill cosby. why and what s the message? reporter: absolutely. we ve all been really been focusing in on tuscaloosa and with very good reason. but there are many places around the alabama that have been devastated by this tornado. pratt city, a smaller community just to the northwest of downtown birmingham, as we go to the video, i want to show you this video. you can see a couple of people, one of the people you mentioned, very familiar to just about everyone tuning in. we have mayor william bell of birmingham but bill cosby touring pratt city. i think both of them really taken aback by the damage, specifically in that area. what i ve seen of trucks and